Eight Greed Kings
Eight players who descended 500 years ago, warred with the Dragon Lords with overwhelming power and ruled the continent, warping the world's laws of magic, and finally destroyed one another out of greed for each other's possessions.
- Legend says they were "taller than the sky" and "like dragons," and that they seized the power of the gods; they are unpopular as fairy-tale material, but anyone with some learning knows of them
- They waged all-out war on the dragons and killed off the mighty Dragon Lords, growing gradually weaker themselves through repeated death and resurrection (Web novel: the dragons paid ten times the sacrifice for each king they killed)
- They warped the world: the original Wild Magic declined, the tier magic the Eight Greed Kings spread became mainstream, and some monsters are born able to use tier magic
- They killed Surshana, God of Death, the last of the Six Great Gods
- They built the floating city of Eryuentiu in the southern desert as their capital, but their empire soon collapsed, leaving only the capital
- They left eight guild weapons (the "Eight Weapons"), one of which is kept by the Platinum Dragon Lord; the most powerful item is said to be the "Nameless Book of Spells," which automatically records every new spell
- Revealed in Vol. 16: one of the Eight Greed Kings was an elf light warrior whose son is Elf King Decem Hougan — the first "child of a player" to appear in the light novel; in the Web novel setting the Eight Greed Kings are seven men and one woman (the woman being a gender-swapped character)
- Ainz lists the floating city of Eryuentiu as the city requiring the most caution, saying they should be greeted with a smile until their strength is confirmed
- Reader analysis: one of the Twenty, "Five Elements Overcoming," can request a change to the magic system, so the Eight Greed Kings may have used it to spread tier magic through the world (unverified)
- Fairy-tale version: 500 years ago the Eight Greed Kings, said to be taller than the sky or like dragons, appeared, destroyed nations in the blink of an eye and ruled the world, but all died fighting each other out of greed — extremely unpopular, but known to the learned (Vol. 5)
- Some adventurers believe the Eight Greed Kings really existed, citing the southern city said to have been built as their capital (Vol. 5)
- Their weakening through resurrection was not a death penalty but due to a cash item — they had inferior versions of a resurrection ring like Ainz's (Arcadia reply to comments); also per the Arcadia replies, they ended up building harems, which led to their annihilation
- The Eight Greed Kings tended to favor the human species in some way, and their hunting of demi-humans and heteromorphs is also why those races declined (manga Vol. 2); the Theocracy calls them "those who committed a great sin"
- The surviving Dragon Lords are those who did not take part in the war (Vol. 7); the Platinum Dragon Lord thinks the dragons could have won had they organized and challenged them from the start (Web novel)
Notes
Reader analysis: the Web novel's gender ratio of the Eight Greed Kings (seven men, one woman) matches that of the World Champions other than the retired Touch Me; Eryuentiu is often thought to be "Asgard's sky castle."
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