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Dimension Lord

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He's got the whole cosmos in his hands. In fact, he is the cosmos.

"Time for a new start. Clean slate. A re-made universe. My universe. Who knows? Maybe one world... one universe— won't be enough."
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A step above Galactic Conqueror but below Guardian of the Multiverse and Multiversal Conqueror, this villain rules an entire universe with an iron fist. Sometimes several universes. He's ready to add ours to the list, just as soon as those pesky heroes from Earth are out of the way...

Dimension Lords are often demons or cosmically powerful mages, or have access to such a high level of Applied Phlebotinum that their technology might as well be magic. They may also be minor gods or Eldritch Abominations. The domains they rule can vary widely in scope, from vast universes to pocket dimensions not much larger than Earth. Most often, their power will be very impressive either way. Despite their nigh-infinite real estate, minions, and personal power, though, Dimension Lords seldom have any more success with their evil plans than do lesser villains...

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Note that unlike the Evil Overlord, the Dimension Lord is often the legitimate ruler of his dimension.

If Dimension Lord gets too ambitious, he often becomes Multiversal Conqueror.

Trope name by Dean Shomshak, author of the Champions super-hero RPG sourcebook "The Ultimate Supermage."

Councils Of Angels / Celestial Paragons and Archangels, Demon Lords and Archdevils and physical gods are fairly common Dimensional Lords.


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Examples

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    Anime & Manga 
  • The Soul King rules the Soul Society afterlife from a sub-dimension in Bleach. He mainly controls the flow of souls entering and leaving while leaving the actual governing to a council of wisemen and judges called Central 46.
  • Lune, prince of the Cat Kingdom in The Cat Returns.
  • Emperor Muge Zorbados from Dancougar.
  • The King of Death rules the Shinigami Realm in the Death Note franchise.
  • Enma Daioh/King Yemma in Dragon Ball controls its version of the afterlife: the Other World. And while his actual fighting-power level is very low by the standards of the series, his Domain Holder-style control over the place still allows him to subdue the souls of even Physical God-style villains like Perfect Cell and Kid Buu (even reincarnating the latter into a good-guy human). However, in the Fusion Reborn movie, his control is temporarily usurped by Reality Warper Janemba, and since Enma/Yemma's is trapped inside his own office, Goku and co. have to step in and help.
  • Sailor Moon
    • Queen Metaria (working through Queen Beryl) and behind Metaria is an even higher up entity named Chaos.
    • If her name is anything to go by, the manga's Sailor Cosmos might be a benign version of this trope. In the Bad Future whence she hails, all of her allies, every Sailor Scout, and every life, is long dead, and she is the only one still left fighting Chaos, in its purest form. The name "Cosmos" refers to her role to defend the universe.
  • The Anti-Spiral from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, who did so to prevent the destruction of the universe.

    Comic Books  
  • Astro City has Krigari Ironhand, an interdimensional tyrant and emperor who's already conquered several realities before the heroes have even heard of him.
  • Doctor Strange:
    • Dormammu, the immortal and unstoppable god-tyrant of the mystical "Dark Dimension", worshiped as a deity in thousands of other universes, something worse than a demon, older and far more powerful than any elder god, possessor of sufficient might to have defeated cosmic entities such as the Phoenix Force or Eternity in personal combat, able to rewrite entire universes, and creator of kings of hell of the highest order, with the ultimate goal of slaughtering any rival higher powers, assume control of all life and afterlife, and turn both into an inescapable never-ending torture camp from birth to death and anything beyond. Arch-enemy and most dangerous foe of Doctor Strange, and the first classic Dimension Lord. Arguably the most genuinely terrifying absolutely evil recurring villain in the Marvel roster. Think Darkseid taken to a much higher scaled ultimate extreme. Some of his plots stretch billions of years before coming to fruition, but luckily he's usually extremely arrogant and not a particularly inventive schemer. Then again he doesn't need to be, as he is one of the most powerful known Eldritch Abominations in existence. His twin sister Umar also fills this role. She is the more dangerous of the two, despite being less powerful, because she is intelligent and very patient — fortunately she doesn't care about destroying our world as much as her brother does.
    • Shuma-Gorath is another one of these, as well as a Multiversal Conqueror. He's even more powerful than Dormammu! The Thanos Imperative reveals that Shuma Gorath is just one member of an entire pantheon of dimension conquering abominations called the Many-Angled Ones.
    • Dr. Strange also regularly encounters various other dimension lords who are slightly lower-tiered than Dormammu: Lord Tazza, Aggamon of the Purple Dimension, Tiboro... the list goes on.
    • Eternity is the Dimension Lord for our dimension (well, the mainstream Marvel universe dimension), overlapping heavily with Anthropomorphic Personification and Cosmic Entity. Dormammu once tried to fight him directly and got curb-stomped.
  • Fantastic Four gives us Annihilus, ruler of the Negative Zone. Despite having godlike power, his attempts at conquering our world are routinely thwarted by four super-powered scientists in spandex suits. Until Annihilation, where several galactic superpowers have to team up to take him down.
  • Mephisto, lord of one of several Hells in the Marvel Universe.
    • An interesting case is Illyana Rasputin/Magik, who is a Dimensional Overlord and (usually) one of the good guys.
    • While Meffy is the most commonly used one, we also have other demonic overlords: Satannish, Nightmare, Belasco, etc. etc. Occasionally they claim to be the same guy.
    • Daimon Hellstrom is also lord of a Hell Dimension and is all powerful when there. He spends more time on Earth, though, and is also usually one of the good guys.
    • Also Hela, Queen of the realms of Hel and Niffleheim and the Asgardian Goddess of Death. She is a member of the Hell Lords along with Mephisto and Dormammu.
  • Trigon the Terrible, demonic overlord of The DCU and father of Teen Titans member Raven.
  • The Anti-Monitor, ruler of the Antimatter Universe prior to and during DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths.
  • The Time Trapper from Legion of Super-Heroes offers a somewhat different spin on this in that the dimension he rules over is the DCU itself, during its dying years.
  • Fantastic Four villain Hyperstorm is Mister Fantastic's future grandson from an alternate universe, a psychic mutant with a level of power so absurdly off the scale that he was able to conquer his entire universe without much serious effort.
  • Judge Dredd: Judge Death, leader of the Dark Judges, is the ruler of an alternate dimension called Deadworld. He and his brethren (and the Sisters of Death) culled their world of all life long ago before crossing over into Dredd's dimension to spread the gospel.
  • The titular Villain Protagonist of Teknophage, by Neil Gaiman, from the mostly forgotten mid-90s publisher Tekno Comix. He was a corporate dimensional conqueror purely for the purpose of satisfying his own gluttonous urgings to eat the most predatory (and thus savory) souls by making worlds so horrible that they produced assassination attempts against him. He was also a powerful telepath and especially immortal. He was also a dinosaur.
  • The titular protagonist of The Sandman is, as Lord of the Dreaming, a rare non-villain example. Each of his siblings has a Domain of their own, although his seems to be the only one with a significant number of other inhabitants.
    • Interestingly Satan is technically not one due to then-recent events in the DCU mandating a triumvirate. Neil Gaiman plays this as an indulgence on Lucifer's part, and later subverts it: When Lucifer quits and actually shuts Hell down throwing everyone out and leaving Dream the key. He goes on to lord over a nice bar. And then he makes his own universe in Lucifer. But he's not very big on the 'ruling' part, basically telling anyone who lives there that his only commandment is that he is not to be worshipped.
  • The Star Wars Expanded Universe gives us Emperor Palpatine, once he gets better. When not enough power is enough, he wanted to become a god, so that he could live off the Force of his followers, and then he would conquer the universe! With Luke as his high priest, of course.
  • Mojo from X-Men rules a dimension where whoever who has the highest television ratings becomes the leader. This also applies to Mojo II, Mojo V, a babified version of Apocalypse, and in at least one alternate future the heroic Shatterstar. Since television in that dimension takes the form of deadly war games, it tends to have a high turnover in leadership.
  • Minor Spider-Man villain the Spot is basically a Dimension Lord whose "dimension" doubles as a Void Between Worlds. His powers allow him to both generate portals at will and to control how they function — whether they link two spots in the same dimension together or if they simply open into the void. This makes him a surprisingly dangerous foe, especially if opponents make the mistake of following him into the void itself, but it's undermined by his own ineffectualness.

    Fan Works 
  • In Hottie 3: The Best Fan Fic in the World, Emperor Vakudos is the ruler of a dimension called the Midnight Cage.
  • In the Pony POV Series, all of the Elders are this to their own realms: Fauna Luster has the realm that her Alicorn children live in, the Father of Alicorns has Pony Heaven, Havoc has Pony Hell, and Entropy has Oblivion (in fact it seems that they are their realms). Meanwhile, all of their children have their own separate private realms within the ones controlled by Their Parents that they control themselves, but the Elders seem to be able to override that control. It should be noted that the Draconequi Elders are more neutral entities while the Alicorn Elders are fully benevolent. As shown with the Fallen Alicorn, Morning Star, an Alicorn's realm can become twisted and grotesque as they become increasingly evil; while this doesn't affect the Alicorn's physical appearance, a twisted realm does show their true character.
  • Queen of All Oni: If one counts Jade's mindscape as a dimension, then The Queen, as dominant Aspect since Jade's Face–Heel Turn, qualifies, especially since she crushed Hero's rebellion. That said, Father still controls Home (Jade's soul), so she doesn't fit the criteria 100 percent.
  • In Split Second, Sparkle hijacks the magic holding together the pocket dimension inside the Power Ponies comic book. She temporarily becomes a Reality Warper, with command and authority over the entire dimension and its laws of physics, but is ejected a few seconds later.
  • In Super Milestone Wars 2, The Biggest Bad is ruler of the dimension, Voidspace. And there's Multiversal Conqueror, King Dyce, who rules over his home Alternate Universe as well as multiple dimensions.
    • Liberalis, one of the Minor Arcana Alicorns, is a bit different from the others in that her realm isn't in the spirit realm with the others. Rather, as Concept of the Mortal World, mortal reality is her domain.

    Films-Animated 
  • In The Book of Life, La Muerte is queen of The Land of the Remembered and her husband Xibalba rules The Land of the Forgotten.
    • Word of God says that Xibalba has a brother who rules The Land of The Cursed, an even worse Hell for more wicked people. Also that La Muerte's sister, La Noche rules The Land Of The Unknown with her husband, El Chamuco.
  • The Other Mother in Coraline rules her own small world, similar to the original book.
  • Felix the Cat: The Movie: "You think you can stop me? The Duke of Zill? The new King of Oriana? The ruler of our dimension?!"
  • President Business rules the universe in The LEGO Movie. It turns out the whole movie is a child playing with Lego in a basement, with President Business being based on his workaholic father. The lego Emmett is able to think and move to some degree in the real world implying that his Lego world may be real.
  • The Mayor of Halloweentown from The Nightmare Before Christmas and Santa Claus would be one for Christmas Town. The Easter Bunny presumably rules the Easter themed Holiday World.
  • If you count the arcade games in Wreck-It Ralph as dimensions, King Candy rules Sugar Rush. He's actually a refugee from a broken game who crossed over and hacked the game to make the denizens forget that Vanellope Von Scweetz was the rightful ruler.

    Films-Live Action 
  • Ming The Merciless is said to rule the entire universe in Flash Gordon. In actual practice he rules one planet and its moons; he just claims the rest.
    • He tests all the other planets in the universe every thousand years and wipes them out if they show signs of recognizing alien interference.
    • After Ming dies, Prince Barin takes over and it's implied he'll rule more fairly if he doesn't give the other planets and moons home rule.
  • King Fausto rules the Sixth Dimension in Forbidden Zone.
  • Leviathan, the Eldritch Abomination that rules Hell in the Hellraiser franchise.
  • Jareth, the Goblin King of the Labyrinth. Though the sequel manga says there are other kingdoms in the same world.
  • Ofelia's parents shown ruling the Underworld at the end of Pan's Labyrinth.
  • The Master Control Program that rules The Grid in TRON.
  • President Koopa of Dinohattan in Super Mario Bros.. Not hard because that's the only city on the planet.

    Literature 

    Live Action TV 
  • Angel: The monks of Pylea are hinted to be acolytes of the Senior Partners.
  • Dark Specter from Power Rangers in Space is the overlord of the Universal Alliance of Evil, which has already conquered most of the universe (excluding Earth).
  • Glorificus from Buffy the Vampire Slayer used to be one, until she got banished to earth and forced to timeshare Ben's body. Her entire arc is about her attempt to get back to her own dimension, without regard for the destruction the portal would cause on Earth.
  • Omega, from Doctor Who, is the absolute, godlike ruler of an entire universe made of anti-matter. Subverted by the fact that he's the only guy there. And he wants out.
    • The Celestial Toymaker occupies a separate universe which he controls absolutely.
    • Time, being a dimension, makes every Time Lord one of these. Or, as of 2010, the Doctor himself, since he's the only Time Lord left.
      • It's probably best that he doesn't start thinking about this too much, or show what he could really do with this status, as "The Waters of Mars" showed. It almost made the Doctor finally go off the deep end and he started referring to himself as "Time Lord Victorious". The one thing what caused him to return to normal is Adelaide (the famous person he saved, who wasn't meant to be alive) killing herself to save the world, and specifically herself, from the Doctor's hubris.
    • House is the only truly living thing in a "bubble universe" somewhere beyond our own. He's the size of a planet, but can transfer consciousnesses into other bodies, including his own into the TARDIS. Because he's the only thing in his universe, he has to obtain nutrition from ours.
  • In Flash Gordon (2007) series, Emperor Ming rules Mongo, which is a parallel version of Earth instead of a planet in our universe.
  • His Divine Shadow from Lexx rules the entire Light Universe.
  • In Sliders, the Kromaggs rule multiple dimensions.
  • The Prophets in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are the masters of their own dimension, though it is unclear how large the inside of the wormhole actually is. However, they seem to display almost absolute power inside it and in the past occasionally helped the natives of the nearby planet Bajor, who in return worship them as gods.
  • Ultra Series:
    • Yapool is the absolute ruler of a dimension that he uses as his base of operations. He creates his "Choju" in it and can freely leave it to enter our world, and so can his creations. Likewise, when beaten he can always retreat back to it to recover.

    Religion and Mythology 
  • In Christianity, Satan is this for hell, although it depends on the writer. In the Book of Revelation, Death is mentioned as owning some sort of netherworld which will be thrown into the lake of fire.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Skarn the Shaper and Tyrannon the Conqueror from the Champions Universe, created by Dean Shomshak as examples of this trope. Not to mention Istvatha V'han, who doesn't call herself "Empress of a Billion Dimensions" for nothing.
  • The Demon Lords and Archdevils of the Great Wheel cosmology in Dungeons & Dragons (used in most campaign settings of the 2nd Edition and the setting of Planescape) each rule over an entire layer of the Abyss and the Nine Hells. Except for Asmodeus, who has granted the other eight hells as fiefs to the other archdevils, and Graz'zt, whose realm of Azzagrat consists not only of one, but three layers, which elevates him to the same level of power as the much more stronger Demogorgon and Orcus.
  • In the original editions of Mage: The Ascension, some of those who ascend actually BECAME their own extradimensional realms, where they were absolute, being both Dimension Lord and Dimension at the same time.
  • In Magic: The Gathering, this is you. And Yawgmoth was this to Phyrexia.
  • As is Omega, Lord of the Terminus from the Mutants & Masterminds default setting of Freedom City.
  • A splatbook for the Palladium Game Nightbane included detailed rules on how to create your own Astral Realm (on the Astral Plane, natch) as a player character, and thus begin play as a (small-scale) Dimension Lord. The Nightlords could also count, ruling over a Dark World and seeking to conquer its counterpart: Earth.

    Video Games 
  • Arkanoid: Whoever is in charge of Dimension-Controlling fort Doh rules the dimension in which the escape craft "Vaus" is trapped.
  • Asura's Wrath: The Golden Spider/Chakravartin rules the dimension between life and death, Naraka.
  • Chzo, from the games of the Chzo Mythos, is a pain elemental that rules the World of Magick as it's King.
  • City of Heroes
    • Rularuu the Ravager, a Galactus clone turned into a Dormammu clone when he was exiled to the Shadow Shard.
    • DJ Zero, is a rare non-evil Dimension Lord who has turned his own private pocket dimension (possibly a sealed-off section of the Shadow Shard) into a dance club for superhumans.
    • Tyrant has to qualify as well, what with ruling the entire Mirror Universe with an iron fist and having already conquered several other dimensions, and setting his eyes on ours...
    • Nemesis counts as well.
    • By the same token, Lord of War Hro'Dohtz of the Rikti a good chunk of the plot in the RWZ is trying to destabilize his control of the Rikti Homeworld.
  • Devil Survivor 2 allows the protagonist to become one in one of the endings of the Triangulum Arc, by ascending the Heavenly Throne and becoming the new Administrator.
  • The various Overlords of the various Netherworlds from Nippon Ichi's strategy games. In particular, Laharl from Disgaea and Zetta from Makai Kingdom, who're main characters of their respective games. Interestingly, the title of Overlord is inheritable — you only get to keep it until someone stronger beats the crap out of you for it.
  • In The Elder Scrolls series, the Daedric Princes each rule over their own plane(s) of Oblivion, the infinite void surrounding Mundus, the mortal plane. Within their plane, the Daedric Princes possess almost absolute power. According to some interpretations, these planes may be closer to a Genius Loci, with the plane itself being the Daedric Prince, and the (mostly) humanoid avatars they take when dealing with mortals being A Form You Are Comfortable With.
  • This is Ultimecia's goal in Final Fantasy VIII, to absorb all time and space into herself and create a new universe in her image.
  • In Final Fantasy XI, Diabolos is the overlord of the Dynamis Dimension.
  • This was Illua's goal in Final Fantasy Tactics A2she made a pact with the Neukhia in order to gain more power, and planned to harness the Zellea Rift to achieve total domination over time and space.
  • The Emperor's goal in Dissidia Final Fantasy is to arrange for Cosmos and Chaos to die while he uses a Dark Crystal to seize a portion of power from one of them (it's unclear which the Crystal takes power from), leaving him to rule over World B. Note that in Dissidia, "World B" isn't an actual planet, closer to being an alternate dimension that rests atop the Void Between the Worlds that acts as the hub of the Final Fantasy multiverse.
  • Freedom Force:
    • Lord Dominion, a loose pastiche of Galactus and Darkseid. A tad unusual in that the dimension he's lord over is the "normal" universe — Earth is the only planet he hasn't conquered yet (he peppered the world with the superpower-causing agent to watch the humans destroy themselves for his amusement).
    • The Greater-Scope Villain, Timemaster, is even more so — being a Galactus Expy who rules a Place Beyond Time. In fact, he and Dominion are revealed to be in an Evil vs. Evil stalemate for ownership of this universe.
  • If you choose the Infinity Ball as your first invention in the Asura Storyline of Guild Wars 2, the final boss of the story chain is one of these who has set their eye on your version of Tyria. They also happen to be you.
  • The Legend of Zelda
  • You in Minecraft, albeit to different degrees based on game mode. Even a lowly survival player can reshape the world at will, conjure items into existence by reshaping matter and is effectively immortal due to infinitely respawning on death (although some unfortunate lava placement can make them wish they wouldn't). A creative player is immune to everything and can destroy even unbreakable objects at a touch, create unlimited amounts of anything, fly at high speeds, teleport at will, rewrite the very rules of reality and kill every other living entity on the entire plane with a single utterance. Can cross into Multiversal Conqueror if your actions in the main menu are factored in, allowing you to create and destroy entire realities in seconds.
  • Mortal Kombat: Shao Kahn rules as Emperor of the evil, mutant-infested dimension known as Outworld. He is constantly scheming to conquer Earth. Kahn goes up to Multiversal Conqueror, but he hates Earth for defeating him.
  • The Forgotten God rules over the abyss. Later the protagonist, the titular Overlord, can take over the god's role, ascending from an Evil Overlord to this position.
  • Pokémon has Giratina, a Pokémon who rules over the Distortion World (a universe parallel to the normal one) and is, in fact, the only native inhabitant. It's unclear, however, if Giratina is meant to rule it to keep things in balance, or if the Distortion World also acts as its prison (Giratina having been banished from the normal world for its violence).
  • The main villain of Soul Nomad & the World Eaters is a literal Dimension Lord as well. And the Big Good Haephnes is a token good guy example of this, since she rules the Crapsack World where the game takes place (it's not crapsack through her fault, mind, but manipulations of the Big Bad).
  • Algon in the Soul Series claims the Astral Chaos, the extra-dimensional plane where the Soul Edge and Soul Calibur swords were created, as his personal kingdom. He serves as the series Greater-Scope Villain for being the first wielder of the Soul Edge.
  • Dimentio in Super Paper Mario tries to take this position by destroying all the dimensions and rebuilding them in his own image.
    • Also in Super Paper Mario, Count Bleck rules from a castle floating in its own empty void-like dimension, possibly earning him the title. Even if there isn't much there.
    • Also Smithy in Super Mario RPG.
  • Tabuu in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, rules over Subspace. In the Smash Bros. Dojo, Master Hand is described as the Lord of the Smash Bros. world. At least, until Tabuu makes it a puppet...
  • The Guardian from the later Ultima games. Arguably Lord British from Ultima IV on.
  • While not necessarily villainous, The Elemental Lords from World of Warcraft are an example of this. Each of them banished to their own Pocket Dimension of a Pocket Dimension that they're free to rule over to prevent their in-fighting from causing chaos on Azeroth. In Cataclysm the two that were villains were actually subservient to the expansion's Big Bad Deathwing and Greater-Scope Villain N'Zoth, most actually follow Blue-and-Orange Morality based on their element.
    • Dimensius the All-Devouring is presented this way in The Burning Crusade. He rules over a Pocket Dimension known as the Void (where all the Voidwalker demons come from) and emerges to devour worlds - most recently, Ka'Resh, where the Ethereals come from.

    Visual Novels 
  • As of Episode 6 of Umineko: When They Cry, the new Territory Lord of Beatrice's Fragment, the Endless Sorcerer BATTLER.

    Webcomics 

    Western Animation 
  • Futurama: Yivo from "The Beast With a Billion Backs" is an Eldritch Abomination who is the sole inhabitant of shkler own universe and wants to enter into a romantic relationship with everyone in ours.
  • It's implied that Discord from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is this. His home is a Pocket Dimension World of Chaos. One episode shows that if it becomes too orderly, he ceases to exist, though making it more chaotic can restore him. One issue of the tie-in comics reveals that the chaos in his home dimension is the source of his powers. If he is cut off from it he becomes powerless.
  • Ninjago: The Cursed Realm is revealed to be a living creature called the Preeminent, who wants to curse all sixteen realms.

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