Glasya

Glasya was a Princess of the Nine Hells and ruler of Malbolge, the sixth layer of Hell. She was the daughter of Asmodeus and was noted as being one of the most powerful and influential of the female devils, known for her unpredictability and subversiveness.

"Of course I love my father. Without him, whom would I have to strive against?"

- Glasya

Description
Glasya appeared as a tall, black-haired figure similar in form to a succubus. She was well-built and of unearthly beauty that remained undiminished by the small horns, large, leathery wings, and forked tail that gave away her diabolical origins. Notably, her skin was of a copper hue, itself not an extremely unusual trait for humanoids, but made prominent by its more metallic appearance. She was adorned with jewels, clothes, and various finery of incredible expense.

Personality
Glasya was perhaps the least predictable of the archdevils, with a reputation for capriciousness and a history of whimsy and mischief. She took pride in her nonconformity and openly flouted the norms of Hell at her leisure, breaking tradition while bending the rules. Surprising others with unexpected gambits was a source of delight for her, and even before she became an archdevil she was somewhat rebellious and defiant, moving between courts as the mood struck her.

Despite her often contrarian moves, Glasya was no less cruel than any other diabolical denizen of Hell. Her style of torment often had a verbal element; she delightfully informed those she lured into Hell of their impending doomed and vividly described the horrors awaiting those who crossed her. She was also articulate, combining subtle mockery, verbal games, cruel teasing, and noble snobbishness to toy with those at her mercy before she grew bored and sent them off to be tortured. Her sadism extended to the physical, as she extracted much joy from watching her victims suffer cancerous disease, and the only thing her lordship changed was the increased openness with which she expressed her twisted desires.

Glasya's sense of aesthetics belied her inner corruption, as the Princess of Hell was equal parts lovely and loathsome. She had a disturbing love of beauty, sparing those she found appealing and refraining from killing captured servants of good those that seemed open to her attempts at seduction. Conversely, she couldn't tolerate the hideous appearance or mewling whimpers of the lemures. She used the corpse of the Hag Countess to create a domain of achingly pleasant palaces and gardens from a contrasting foundation of ugliness and decay, and made some of her victims enthrallingly beautiful while turning others into suffering mockeries of life. Like the realm that reflected her, Glasya's enchanting surface level disguised a truly rotten core.

Much like her cruelty, Glasya's propensity for concocting sinister schemes was inherited from her father. Her ambition wasn't stemmed by her relation to Asmodeus, and Hell's own criminal mastermind had demonstrated a willingness to cross any line for power. She was an intelligent manipulator, possessing in abundance the conniving guile needed to exist in Hell, and owed her continued survival to her ability to deflect suspicion and insulate herself from blame, typically by having her allies serve as scapegoats.

Despite her uncaring demeanor, her sycophants often willingly sacrificed themselves for her, for Glasya knew how to evoke sympathy even in those fighting her and use seduction, deception, and even honesty to win allies for her cause. She preferred to talk rather than directly confront, make allies rather than more enemies, and was quick to show her attackers the "error of their ways".

Powers
Simply drawing close to Glasya was a dangerous since she gave off an intoxicating aura that left those anywhere near her weakened and confused. While in this state, a simple glare of displeasure from Glasya could send the victim into unconsciousness and possibly even cause death. Even disregarding her presence, Glasya could cause fear through her words alone, sending enemies running in fear with detailed descriptions of their future torment. She had various powers of manipulation, including charm, dominate and hold monster spells, the ability to polymorph, and illusion-creating capabilities.

Glasya rarely engaged in direct combat against her foes, teleporting away from dangerous situations and refusing to toy with larger groups. When she deigned to do battle, she used her mental abilities to control a particular dangerous enemy while maneuvering herself. If not simply flying, she could easily teleport herself and her thralls throughout the battlefield, and one of her first moves was typically summoning aid. Though she had a fairly high chance of calling a pit fiend or a few cornugons to her aid,  she could summon a small colony of kalabons or a quartet of erinyes without fail.

After luring in her foes with promises of pleasure, Glasya embraced her foes with a touch that drained the body, mind, and soul. Her caress stole the victim's willpower and better judgement away and converted it into life force for Glasya, while also infecting them with a wasting disease that caused the flesh to slough from their bones. Glasya could also fire a finger of death once per day,  cast contagion as a spell-like ability and bite her victims to infect them with a poison that had to be neutralized, healed or delayed before they could recover.

Like all archdevils, Glasya had the ability to regenerate over time, but unlike with her peers, regeneration would continue to happen even after she was killed. This was possibly due to her relationship with Asmodeus, potentially indicating that she had an innate closeness to godhood deeper than that of the other archdevils. Her prowess in both combat and magic were said to have been significantly enhanced following her rise to power as Lord of the Sixth, and it was rumored she stole some of her power from the Hag Countess.

Possessions
Glasya was generally known to fight with either a sword, whose effects were akin to a dagger of venom, or a scourge.

Activities
Prior to her rise in status, Glasya often spent her time seducing mortals into corruption. Following her rise to power, Glasya often instructed her erinye servants to conduct investigations on paladins and priests who would make worthy candidates of corruption. She would spy on the activities of her erinyes under the guise of polymorph.

Archdevils
Since becoming Lord of the Sixth, Glasya developed a strong friendship with her fellow archduke Fierna and encouraged her to develop a network of devils and cultists separate from that of her father Belial's forces. He in turn begun plotting a way to remove Glasya's influence over her daughter, though did so with the utmost caution as to avoid incurring Asmodeus' wrath. His consort Naome, back when she was alive, also held distaste for her.

The archdukes Dispater and Mammon were likewise paranoid and cautious regarding her. Glasya was once the latter's consort, but after the Reckoning her father forced them to put an end to the torrid relationship. In the years following her rise to power the state of their association was of much speculation among devils, with some claiming that they had rekindled their affair and others saying that she had grown to resent Mammon for not putting up any fight to maintain their awful union.

The archduke Mephistopheles, though an enemy of Asmodeus, is sort of considered to be her godfather.

Glasya harbored a special hatred for the archduke Levistus for murdering her mother. Once arising to power as an archduke, Glasya began using her intelligence network of paeliryons and fledgling cults to gather information on her nemesis, hoping to obtain enough due evidence that her father will grant her his approval to destroy the Lord of the Fifth for good.

The Court and Servants
The nobility of Glasya's court was primarily made up of erinyes, paeliryons, and succubi. She was also known to have many elite servitors that were poached from other archdukes, especially those that had been sidelined for being overly ambitious, and they eagerly helped her in conspiring against their former lords. One of these servitors was the duke Tartach, a former servant of Baalzebul. He was put in charge of her palace's elite guards and war devils.

Some of her servitors had tried to avenge the death of their former master, the Hag Countess. For their insubordination, they were confined to the upper reaches of the Tower of Pain and subjected to a wide variety of tortures. One such servant was Bloodcurdle, one of the Hag's favorite nightmares, who one day tossed Glasya into a lake of bile.

Out of all her servants, the most belligerent and reluctant were the devils known as kalabons. Believed to have arisen from the carcass of the Hag Countess, every one of these putrid devils harbored an innate hatred towards Glasya and bided their time for the day they could one day resurrect the hag.

Worshipers
The cults of Glasya typically operated brothels as a cover for their temples. They were most often found congregating in areas with political unrest or strict traditional gender roles. In such areas, they would focus on converting the mothers, daughters, and consorts of powerful men. They then would instruct the women on how to go about usurping their power.

The clerics who worshiped her often did so through the domains of Evil, Trickery, and Diabolic. She was also known to be a patron of Corruption, Growth, Agony, thieves and criminals in general. When faced with combat, her clerics typically wielded a scourge and eluded their foes by stepping into the shadows. They were also known to carry various poisons and acids derived from the bile lakes of her realm.

Criminal gangs of kenku and goblins seeking to rise up against subjugation were both been known to turn towards worship of Glasya.

Due to this inherent defiance, mortals who went up against overwhelming odds with bold plans often drew her attention, in some cases even her respect and patronage.

Souls
After being given dominion over Malbolge, Glasya's father decided to punish her further by decreeing that she would only be able to draw souls to the Nine Hells by means of contracts, bargains, and legalities. As a result, the mortals who called upon her assistance were those who preferred to acquire power, money, or love through means that are technically legal.

A significant portion of the mortals that Glasya dealt with tended to be those who wanted out of a contract they had made with another archduke. In payment for their soul, her minions would meticulously overlook the relevant document for any possible loophole through which the mortal could be freed of reimbursing the associated archduke.

History
Glasya had a long history of being rebellious towards her father, but one of her most defining acts of rebellion was the establishment and operation of the "coin legion." This was the first known thieves' guild in the Nine Hells and she used her extensive knowledge of its laws to circumvent them.

Her business involved having followers purchase souls in Minauros on her behalf and then quickly sell them at a marked-up price. These souls would be purchased with counterfeit coins, made by Glasya herself through transmuting lead into gold and then having them minted in Minauros, and they would eventually revert to their base metal. Having no legal recourse through which to punish his daughter's behavior, Asmodeus decided to stifle her ambitions by burdening her with the responsibility of ruling Malbolge, though this was not public knowledge in the Hells.

When this occurred in relation to Malagard's death in 1375 DR is uncertain, but Glasya would arrive to the sixth layer sometime following it, carried by various winged devils and imps on a luxurious canopy with silken pillows. Upon her arrival, the hag's paeliryon chanchellor, Axacrusis, immediately tried to defy her rule. Glasya quickly ordered them to be eviscerated for their insolence and ever since that day the inhabitants of Malbolge have feasted upon their undying flesh. The hag's other servitors then groveled before Glasya and were assimilated into her forces.

Appearances

 * Novels
 * Brimstone Angels
 * Brimstone Angels: Lesser Evils