• Fiendish Codex: Tyrants of the Nine Hells
• http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Nine_Hells

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Originally posted by Shadowlord

I was wondering if some of the scribes could provide me with some information not given in the Book of Vile Darkness about the rulers of the Nine Hells, preferably the Archdevil Mephistopheles. Player's Guide to Faerūn briefly touches on the fact that different Archdevils rule the different layers. I'd like to know more about the coup that Mephistopheles incited to cull betrayers, as well as more about Cania, the layer he rules. It interests me that a layer of intense cold exists in the Nine Hells...

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Originally posted by Sachiel

Does anyone have any detailed information on Nessus itself, preferrably Malsheem?

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Originally posted by The Sage

Actually, can you fall further than the ninth layer...?

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Originally posted by DDH_101

PART of your theory was in the Book of Vile Darkness. It was said taht when Asmodeus fell to the Nine Hells, he suffered severe injuries, injuries that still aren't healed even today. The cause of this fall is unknown but it was probably a major battle with some celestia or deity.

However, the part about his fall creating the Nine Hells, I am not so sure about.

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Originally posted by DDH_101

Speaking of Nessus, I read that the gate that leads to Nessus from Cania is guarded by 9999 devils. Is this the only way to get into Asmodeus's domain?

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Originally posted by D-brane

I'll probably cover Pearza next. He's the Minister of Research for the arch-devils of the Nine Hells.

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To: Malfeaz, Lord of Seven Darks, Master of Mungoth.

From: Herab Serap, Master of Ravens, Disperser of the Young.

Being an updated and expanded treatise on the secrets and weaknesses of Baator's DARK EIGHT, revised from the original document written by the Togarini in ages past.


BAALZEPHON, the Minister of Supply, is one of the two most ancient surviving members of the Eight, and the one who remains most free of entanglements with Baator's nobility. Baalzephon believes she most purely serves the purpose for which the Dark Eight were created, reducing the power of the Lords of the Nine.

Weaknesses: Baalzephon's arrogance has no equal in the rest of the Eight. She treats her ministry as if it were a feudal state and she its unquestioned lord. At the bottom of the Ministry of upply's ranks this is literally true, with spinagon peasants grimly tending herds of stench kine and petitioners, their situation as desperate as that of their mortal counterparts. In higher ranks are the ambassadors, knights, and merchant-princes who visit the courts of powerful entities throughout the planes to garner trade deals and contracts. Baalzephon herself wears the regalia of a mighty emperor, the solar orb and crown of Aerdy (a nation of the material plane that worships Baalzephon as Baalzi, god of wealth) her frequent symbol. Baalzephon is the only member of the Dark Eight that can afford to treat the Lords of the Nine (save the Deepest) with contempt. She does have an alliance with Hextor, a power of Acheron, who helped her create her army of undead animuses. In exchange, she razed a rakshasa city, something that does not endear her to that race (although they must trade with her representatives nonetheless). This, too, can be exploited.

If Baalzephon fuels the Blood War's physical needs, then ZIMIMAR fuels its will. Her ministry weaves epic stories of victories won and traitors suppressed, of conspiracies unraveled and foes outwitted. If you belive Zimimar's propaganda machine (and you will, one way or another), Baator is on the very brink of victory, always and continually. History is flux, perpetuatally rewritten to create an image across the planes of a Baator slowl, steadily progressing toward inevitable multiversal domination.

The present Minister of Morale is not the original Zimimar. The original was a duke in the service of Count Minauros. This original Zimimar, a male pit fiend, won fame in Minauros' court as head of the Count's osylut secret police, eclipsing even the terrible Duke Bael in esteem. As a result, he was easily able to win the right to command Minauros' armies during the Siege of Dis. What no one at the time knew was that Zimimar had been drawn into the fold of Cantrum of Nessus, as all the great generals were.

Exactly when Zimimar was assassinated and replaced, and indeed how many times, is unclear, for the present Zimimar has rewritten all records. She is now the original - she has made herself so by controlling Baator's belief. She has been Zimimar since the dawn of time. In the names of the Lords of the Nine, the Dark Eight have always ruled, Zimimar among them.

Zimimar's appearance changes continually, but official press releases assure us that it has always been the same. To better inspire the troops, she is usually a pit fiend of perfect symmetry, a paragon of strength and scaly beauty, but the details vary radically. Her human guises are always neatly attired and attractive, but still strong and forminable in their way. In any shape, she is always seen with a fixed, manic smile that she sees as reassuring, but which inspires terror in all who witness it.

Weaknesses: Perhaps Zimimar is mad. Perhaps the stress of manipulating the beliefs of the entire baatezu race has unhinged her brain, making it as twisted and contrary as her propaganda. Alone of the baatezu, she must remember all past narratives, keeping them straight in her mind in case they are needed again, or in case previous stories reemerge to become a threat. Perhaps the zealotry with which she urges the baatezu to battle and hunts down thought-criminals is fueled by the terror within her that someday she will forget, and become a prisoner of her own lies, created rather than creatrix. Such a fate, slave to her fictions like everyone else, is perhaps too much for her to bear.

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ZARIEL

True Lord of the First Hell (imprisoned)
The Destroyer, Angel of the Pit, Mother of Spiders
Alliases: Zuriel, Zavebe
AoC: Punishment, Imprisonment, Holy Crusades
Superior: none
Allies: Tiamat, Heironeous, Lilith, Baalphegor
Rivals: Hextor, Bel, Dispater, Mephistopheles, Mammon, Geryon, Lolth

After the great defections of Belial, Triel, and Iblis, there were some on Mount Glory who were not willing to let the traitors get away with mere exile. One of these was Zariel, an astral deva in the service of Heironeous, god of Justice. With the blessings of her patron, she followed the cross-traders to the Pit with the intention of destroying them.

Quickly, she discovered that this would be harder than she had thought. The Fallen Ones had dispersed and, as far as Zariel could tell, been consigned to lemure status by the Lords of the Hells. Convinced that a frontal assault would not work, Zariel decided to try subtlety, and so sealed her doom. She volunteered her services to the baatezu, saying she wished to join her fellows in Evil's embrace. They took her at her word, melted her down into a lemure-thing, and allowed her to prove herself in their hierarchy.

By the time she advanced to gelugon status, the good in her was long since burned away. Still she burned to punish her fellows, and this hate stood her in good stead. The Lord of Nessus noticed it and made her chief punisher of the first circle, telling her to hunt down and torment the exiled nobles who wandered the Avernian desolation. This she did with cold efficiency, making herself a parody of a court, with prisoners as courtiers. She expanded her wrath, organizing armies to make bolder assaults on the Blood War front. She also drove away the strongholds that Hextor and the goblin gods had made in her domain. Hextor, the so-called Herald of Hell, swore vengence. The only allies that Zariel made in that time was with Tiamat, whose abishai troops she made good use of, and with Baalphegor, who helped her create the elite keres, spider-legged baatezu that earned her the hatred of Lolth during their multiple raids on the Demonweb Pits.

Eventually, the Angel of the Pit got the opportunity she had been waiting patiently for over the millennia. The other Lords began to trust her enough to let her in on their schemes. The layers of Baator were split between those who had once been celestials and those who were united in their hatred of them. Baalzebul (formally Triel) and Belial offered their allegience in exchange for her help in conspiring against their rivals. She accepted, inwardly chuckling with sinister delight, and began plans to turn her colleagues schemes into open war, a war all the lords would lose.

Inflaming the others with progressively more fiery rhetoric, it was not too long as immortals reckon time before Zariel believed she was ready. With brazen hubris, she invaded the Iron City of Dis. Mephistopheles, Geryon, and Mammon swept down to stop her, and soon all of Baator was consumed in war. Though they were eventually all chastised, most - even Zariel - were given back their original positions, with some concessions. Fuming with anger, she began to plan an even bigger disaster. Before her plans could come to fruition, however, she was betrayed by her own generals.

Bel, the pit fiend who had previously betrayed Dispater to serve the Mother of Spiders, led the other warlords of Zariel in an unexpected coup. With his subordinates orchestrating a siege, Bel broke in and battled the weakened Angel of the Pit, ultimately binding her in her own webs. With dark sorcery he warped her body, creating from it the first of his scarecrowlike hellwardens. Bel then locked her away until he could fully drain her of her power and gain full control of the layer.

The Destroyer is imprisoned in a subterranean chamber deep beneath Bel's throne in his Bronze Citadel. Zariel has a long, serpentine body, eight spider legs, and a humanoid upper torso. Her fanged face has dozens of eyes. From her back grows dragon wings. Her hair is bound tightly back with hooks and chains. She has been horribly crucified, her limbs broken, twisted around her bonds, and allowed to heal, sealing her in a prison of her own flesh. Kocrachons attend her, increasing her agony and "milking" her power. Her blood leaks into a vessel from which Bel periodically drinks. One of the Pit Angel's tormentors has dared to drink some of the blood for herself, and is becoming increasingly changed. The once-kocrachon fears she may soon have to flee the Hells.

Lilith, the so-called Hag Countess of Malbolge, has expressed sympathy for the Destroyer. She remembers her own period of bondage to Malbolge's previous ruler Lord Moloch. Still, she realizes that it might be more to her advantage to form a firm alliance with Bel, who like herself and Levistus is mistrusted by most of the other lords.

Heironeous believes Zariel's punishment was unjust and that she can still be redeemed. He hopes to break her out and bring her to the Hospital of the Plane-Scarred in Celestia for rehabilitation.

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