Difference between revisions of "Fiends"

Latest revision as of 15:53, 5 January 2025

It is easy to look at the various fiends and lump them all together as a blob of confusion and violence but this would be a mistake. There is value in understanding what they are, what they are trying to accomplish, and how they intend to do that. Their motivations are their own and they can be used to predict how they might respond (or in the case of the chaotics, expectations that cannot be relied upon). Knowledge is power and the knowledge of one's enemy offers the power to avoid an early demise.

Devils

Not everything that exists in the Nine Hells is a devil, but their reluctance to share power on any level ensures that for the most part devils are the only thing LEFT in the Hells. Hellwasps and Nightmares are permitted because they are useful in some way or another. Who knows what other beasts were native to the burning gyre but were exterminated for not showing a similar value to the Ba'atezu?

The structure of civilization in the gyre has three tiers, like a pyramid of power with the Ba'at at the top, the Reforged beneath them, and the innumerable Damned beneath. The Damned are farmed and mined for particularly useful individuals to reforge and they are tantalized by the promised elevation of the Reforged and the limitless power that can be attained if only the will to succeed is harnessed and the weakness purged. All of this is of course a lie, as the path to success does not go to the top. Reforged are rewarded for their drive and cunning but they are set up to fail and that failure throws them back down the path. The Reforged will never stand as equals of the Ba'at. The Nine claim a pure meritocracy but the fact is that the only Reforged to have been elevated to Ba'at are Ba'at who have been demoted previously. The long lifespans of the Ba'at and the short lifespans of the Reforged ensure that this situation will remain unchallenged.

Wicked and cunning souls are drawn to the Hells by whatever unknowable currents pull at all mortals. Most never make it to the shores of the Styx, tested and purged on their way and relegated to oblivion, a momentary snack for those that shepherd them. Those with the will to survive are expelled from the Styx as Lemures, their physical forms only as solid as their fragile will can manage. Those who resist the pain of their existence by walling themselves off become Nupperibo, desensitized and unforgeable by the Ba'atezu and so doomed to wither away to nothing unless they embrace their pain and return to Lemure state. Those with a will to harden but unable or unwilling to conform and submit precipitate out into Infernal metal to be forged into useful objects for the Blood War. Those with both will and cunning can be reforged as lowly Imps, the first step toward power in the Hells.

The greatest of the Ba'atezu are the Ba'at, immortal celestials cast down into the fires or willing volunteers to stand against the consuming chaos (depending on who you ask). Unlike the Damned and the Reforged, they cannot truly die even in the heart of the gyre but their destruction surely comes with a performance review and commensurate loss of station. Many Imps will tell you that they are the legendary Eternal Imp, a Ba'at who offended Asmodeus so greatly that he was reforged to the lowest order as a warning to others who would dare challenge the First Among Equals. Surely most of them are lying, but one of them might not be.

The Nine

At different times called the Lords of Hell, the Nine Princes, the Arch-devils, or in certain Goblin texts the 'Shivati' (Betrayers, but their telling uses the term as a title of respect,) the Nine are vested with dominion over one of the layers of Ba'ator. Asmodeus is known to carry the legendary Ruby Rod as his badge of office but the remaining lords do not carry a similar token. Some believe that they rule by the will of Asmodeus but there is also a theory that there is a token for each of the nine layers but that Asmodeus keeps the other tokens after investing them and that this is how he is able to revoke the titles of the others.

The names of the current lords are listed below:

Inanna, The General

Dispater, the Warlord

Mammon, the Banker

Fierna, the Temptress

Levistus, the Prisoner

Glasya, the Warden

Baalzebub, the Gimp

Mephistopheles, the Wizard

Asmodeus, the Father

Subservient to the Princes are the Dukes. Some are sworn to a single Prince or layer while others are beholden only to the Father. They can move freely without attendants as they possess the 'Word of Father' which can banish any fiend to the furnaces for reforging or annihilation. Several Dukes have served as Princes in the past, such as Bel, Moloch, and Geyron but the former princes Belial and the Hag Mother have not been reforged as Dukes and some Dukes such as Bel, Hitujin, and Baal appear to be nothing more than particularly powerful Pit Fiends. As with all things in Ba'ator, there is surely a consistent architecture and methodology but the secret to the full structure is not public knowledge.

Demons

The fiends of the Infinite Abyss are largely impossible to categorize or even study. It appears that the very act of observing them causes them to change, both figuratively and literally. The only pure truth of Demons is that they are driven to corrupt and destroy existence. The only saving grace is their lack of organization and focus, as they seem to have a massive numerical advantage. Without infighting and cannibalizing themselves, the cause of preserving reality would be doomed.

Origins

The general consensus is that demons as we understand them are the product of some other reality that they destroyed. These original refugees are the Obyriths, powerful wills that manifest with all of the madness of the Far Realm. There are believed to be 12 Obyrith Lords, but it is unlikely that such an unequivocal statement of fact would be true or remain true. Obox-Ob, Pazuzzu, and Dagon are suspected of being among their number but the only creature sure to be one of them is the dreaded Pale Night, Mother of Demons.

Tanari

Pale Night attempted to create new champions of Chaos in the image of the Obyrith. The result of this first attempt was Demogorgon, Prince of Demons. Demogorgon may have proved uncontrollable, or unsuitable, or possibly Pale Night just didn't like her Prince. Whatever the reason, she caused many lesser beings to take shape in the shattered mirror that is the Abyss but never one the equal of the Mad God. Her children are the Tanar'ri, caricatures of base instincts. Hunger, obsession, lies, lust, undeath, all are made manifest in the Abyss. Where the Obyrith defy understanding, the Tanar'ri reject any real attempts at consistent categorization. The best attempt at a codex of demonology used a six point system of power levels, as power is the only currency for the Tanar'ri but even this system is little more than an effort to squint at the scatter plot of known demons and try to see a pattern.

Daemons

The middle ground of the cosmic struggle is the Yugoloth, mercenaries of the Blood War. These are the lost souls of the in-between, soldiers who have given up on any semblance of moral certainty and have resorted to transactional servitude.