Asmodeus

Asmodeus was the Faerûnian deity of indulgence and ruler of all devils.

Description
Asmodeus's true form was that of a wingless scaled serpent hundreds of miles long. His form's sheer size made it impossible for him to meet and enter into conversations with others. Therefore, he created humanoid-looking avatars. The location of his body was kept secret from everyone, including other devils and everyone who learnt of the truth about his body was killed within a day.

Asmodeus never showed himself except through avatars or project image, both in humanoid forms. Asmodeus's avatars looked like a slim, charismatic, red-skinned humanoid over tall, with horns on his head and glowing red eyes. Overall, he had charismatic and beautiful looks that captivated people. He always had a perfectly trimmed beard and wore very expensive red and black clothing, which were valuable enough to cover the annual national spending of any nation. However, underneath these expensive garments, the body was wracked with bleeding injuries. While he was in pain, he managed to give the impression of someone unconcerned with the pain the injuries caused him. Each of his ten avatars held a Ruby Rod of Asmodeus.

Personality
Asmodeus was a lawful evil creature with the goal of becoming the supreme being in the multiverse even if it required destroying the current multiverse and creating a new one. While the method he wanted to use to achieve this goal was not publicly known, and the only one who had the necessary knowledge to piece the method together hoped that it was not the one Asmodeus wanted to use, that Asmodeus wanted to take over the multiverse for himself was a known fact. He genuinely believed that a bright future awaited the multiverse, if he was to rule it. As arrogant as this claim sounded, Asmodeus had the competence to back it up.

When faced directly, he presented himself as a confident and eloquent man who was quite reasonable to talk with. In fact, it was quite difficult to see past his manners and realise that he was an evil person best left in Hell. His confidence was real and rooted in his knowledge to be one of the most powerful creatures in existence. However, he was not above pretending to know more than he did. Thus, he pretended to not just know but also foresee the actions of people who genuinely surprised him.

His threshold for rewarding someone was fairly low, provided that someone was willing to sign away his or her soul. Once the mortal worshiper was dead, what awaited him or her was eternal servitude.

Abilities
Asmodeus was a greater deity. However, he was older than the concept of faith and the power of deities like him neither waxed nor waned with the number of worshipers and beyond himself, he had no ability to grant spells to his followers. However, there was one way for mortals to gain spells from him, by becoming a disciple of darkness. On the mortal side, this agreement meant that the archdevil could take the life of the mortal at any time he wanted, if he was not appeased with sacrifices. The mortal generally did not need to meet any strictures like a dogma or the like and could cast divine magic with impunity. The method through which Asmodeus granted spells was not through his own powers but through using himself as a channel for the divine magic of Baator itself to the mortal cleric. After eating Azuth, he could grant spells by himself to his followers and sentient sacrifices stopped being a necessary part of his worship.

However, like any other greater deity, he could create up to ten avatars. He deployed one on each layer of Baator to keep tabs on the layers while keeping one spare avatar. His ability to send avatars to the Prime Material plane was stunted. He could send only one avatar at a time to the Prime and doing this made it impossible for him to maintain all other avatars. This was the reason why Asmodeus's avatar was rarely seen on the Prime and he preferred to work through other people.

Everyone within of Asmodeus's avatar was under the effect of an awe effect that made it impossible for people to attack him when they were not attacked first by the avatar.

He could cast animate dead, blasphemy, charm monster, create greater undead, desecrate, detect magic, devil's ego, discern location, dominate monster, fiendish quickening, geas, greater dispelling, hellfire, hellfire storm, magic circle against good, major image, mass charm, project image, restoration, resurrection, suggestion, symbol of hopelessness, symbol of pain, symbol of persuasion, teleport without error, true seeing, unholy aura, unholy blight, unhallow, wall of ice, and wretched blight as often as he wanted and any power word, any symbol spell, meteor swarm, true resurrection, and wish once per day. He had also the spellcasting ability of a master cleric with the Diabolic and Evil domains. Limited to when he was in Baator, he could cast practically any spell he wanted as an exercise of will. He had absolute control over the Nine Hells and with his mind he could change the landscape of any layer in any way he wanted when he wanted. This control over form extended to the archdevils too, being able to change their forms any way he wanted. For example, he changed Baalzebul's formerly beautiful form into that of a giant slug. People were not sure whether he could kill an archdevil with a mere thought. Some suspected that he could do so and was responsible for Hag Countess's sudden and weird death this way. Those people were correct, Asmodeus could, and did, kill the Hag Countess.

His protective abilities were impressive. It was impossible to harm him with spells below a certain level of complexity as well as poison, paralysis, petrification, magic dealing with death, illusions, and attempts to influence his mind. Physically, it was impossible to hurt him with even enchanted weapons that were not at least +4. However, even when hurt by such a weapon, if the weapon was not holy or otherwise blessed, the wounds immediately healed.

He mostly fought, which happened rarely, by using the powers of the Ruby Rod instead of his own. He had magical abilities that allowed him to slow people while decreasing their physical combat capability or to instill fear while sapping physical strength by merely looking at somebody. His voice carried an irresistible suggestion that made people subservient to him for ten to hundred days. He had a preference for using these abilities to make people flee from him or turn subservient rather than outright killing them. In case these abilities did not work, Asmodeus had a strong tendency to retreat and let his minions deal with his enemies. He could summon a pit fiend or two specimens of any kind of devil every hour.

Like any other devil of authority, Asmodeus had the ability to demote any officially subservient devil—that is, any devil in his case—at his whim. He was the only devil with the ability to promote a devil to archdevil status.

Asmodeus was the underlying power of infernal contracts. This was the reason why breaking a contract with the weakest devil still had the power to consign the oathbreaker's soul into the Nine Hells.

Asmodeus' rhetoric and strategic skills were considered a class onto itself.

Possessions
Each of Asmodeus's avatars held a Ruby Rod of Asmodeus as a badge of office. It also served as the avatar's main weapon and allowed attacks with elemental forces, forced enemies to cower in fear, or provided the holder with a field of healing and protection. In fact, when facing combat, an avatar of Asmodeus primarily fought using the powers of his Ruby Rod instead of its innate powers.

Asmodeus had a private army called the Nessian Guard, which kept ready for a great battle. This army consisted of devils that were created from Asmodeus's blood and were truly loyal to him. Over the years, their numbers grew and if Asmodeus managed to heal his wounds and get out of Baator, this army of pit fiends and cornugons would follow.

He owned one of the original copies of the Pact Primeval. Asmodeus's duty was to prevent anyone from taking it away from Baator, no matter the cost, as it was the basis on which he and the devils were allowed to damn mortals. To make transportation difficult, Asmodeus actually enclosed the document in a giant ruby weighing over.

Divine Realm
Asmodeus ruled the entire plane of the Nine Hells of Baator. His seat of power was Nessus, the ninth layer. His serpentine body lay at the bottom of a rift called the Serpent's Coil. However, the denizens of this plane did not know about it. The blood that his wounded body gave off turned into new cornugons and pit fiends, usually the latter. Through this means, he built a great army, which was stationed in Malsheem, a giant fortress so large that it was considered unmappable.

Being a man to whom his privacy and safety were important, he usually remained within his fortress of Malsheem, primarily using other people to make his will clear to others. The other archdevils were annually called to Malsheem. Asmodeus had a huge store of souls in the citadel, and these could be bought from him at an extremely high cost, rumored to be entire kingdoms for one soul.

By devil law, only Asmodeus could issue letters of safe passage that did not just cover one layer but for travel between layers. However, he never issued such things for Nessus.

Activities
As mentioned above, Asmodeus was a greater deity for whom mortal worship was not required to maintain his powers, who predated the concept of faith, and who could not grant spells, while few extant races remembered his godhood. Thus he posed as a non-divine entity in order to conduct his various plans in a covert and manipulative manner. He was willing to pay attention to the fate of individual mortals and not just the grand scheme of things. That said, Asmodeus was effectively freed from the infernal duty of meeting a quota of damned souls, because every damned soul was damned under Asmodeus' name and therefore every soul was also beholden to him. His efforts to corrupt others were concentrated on important people like angels and demigods with the goal of turning them into unique devils, such as Zariel.

All his plans were done with the goal to destroy the entire construct of the Outer Planes. Asmodeus's fall into the Nine Hells and the ancient struggle with Jazirian caused him severe wounds and basically created the underlying laws of the Great Wheel cosmology, which drained his powers. Restoring his powers required the healing of his wounds. However, the nourishment needed to heal his wounds was the souls of disbelievers, not agnostics but true atheists. These souls were special. Normally, when a person died, that person's soul became a petitioner on one of the Outer Planes. For example, in Toril's case, the souls became petitioners on the Fugue Plane. However, to become a petitioner, a person needed to have faith, which atheists lacked, and their souls arrived at Nessus regardless of their moral and ethical outlook. This was practically unknown to mortals, as the common assumption was that souls of true atheists would not become petitioners, an exception to the rule that souls went where their deities awaited them. Asmodeus ate these souls to heal his wounds. Once healed, he could take back his power from the planes, dissolving the underlying law of the multiverse, causing the, for him, preferable result of reverting everything to the initial state of chaos. He was sure that he alone would survive such an event and remain as the only force that could create a new order according to his will.

Asmodeus was also the inventor of the Infernal language.

When it came to torturing souls, Asmodeus mostly outsourced it to the city of Jangling Hiter in Minauros.

When demons tried to invade Baator, they first had to go through the first layer, Avernus. A substantial part of Asmodeus's military efforts were dedicated to driving these demons away from the layer.

Phlegethos was where the infernal justice system was situated. Asmodeus made sure that this justice system was not independent, but beholden to Asmodeus.

The Blood War
The Blood War was often described as a kind of philosophical war to determine whether law or chaos should have the ultimate say over evil. But Asmodeus knew the truth, for he was present at its beginning. The war was simply the result of a violent first contact between devils and demons that after various acts of retribution grew into a wasteful war. However, what made demons react in such hostile ways towards devils were Asmodeus' own actions: during the Dawn War, he stole a shard of evil from the Abyss to craft the Ruby Rod of Asmodeus from it, and the Abyss wanted the shard back. Asmodeus understood how senseless the Blood War was. However, because others commonly ascribed deeper meaning to it, he exploited it as a cloak to shroud his intentions. The Lord of Lies annually summoned the Dark Eight to Nessus to issue orders on how to conduct the Blood War in the coming year. The pit fiends honestly believed their lord saw value in the Blood War, which kept Asmodeus's armies motivated and sharp, his underlings busy, and his enemies looking for meaning in a war without one.

But, all said, for Asmodeus, the Blood War was not a trivial matter. He was well aware of the danger the demons represented for the continued existence of the multiverse. If they were not kept busy with the Blood War, they would eventually take over the multiverse, kill everybody living in it, and finally kill each other into extinction. One of Asmodeus's goals regarding the demons was to get them under his control. He'd already stolen one shard of evil; his goal was to steal the entire thing from the bottom of the Abyss. Such an act would give him control over the entire demonic race. Asmodeus hated the gods of the upper planes for essentially leaving the devils alone to do the dirty work of keeping them and the multiverse safe from the demons. He intended to take them down after taking down the demons and conquering the planes of law. However, Asmodeus exempted himself from the duty of providing soldiers and other aid to fight the Blood War.

One way he intended to deal with the Blood War was to change its supposed objective from a struggle of law versus chaos struggle to one of good versus evil. Towards that goal, Asmodeus intended to strike a bargain, more precisely, a temporary cease-fire, with the demons. This cease-fire only had to last long enough for him to organize matters that would eventually turn the Blood War into a good versus evil struggle that would serve his ends in causing destruction on the upper planes. His devils continually damned souls to Baator in order to turn them into new devils and with it expand the infernal army.

Infernal Politics
Asmodeus had many underlings, starting with the archdevils. These creatures politicked against each other in a lawful evil manner and this once spilled over to affect Asmodeus in the Reckoning of Hell, reinforcing his choice of not being a god. However, it was all a charade concocted by the Lord of Lies. By acting in a lawful evil manner on a lawful evil plane, the devils under Asmodeus followed the rules by which denizens of every other Outer Plane acted. Asmodeus did not intend to further belief but the lack thereof. His underlings' actions served as a smokescreen to hide his true intentions from others.

That said, to Asmodeus, infernal politics were important. One of his focuses was maintaining the status quo, meaning keeping himself at the top of Hell's pecking order. Towards that end, he infiltrated the courts of every archdevil to levels that made them paranoid for no devil could be sure whether an associate was a spy working for Asmodeus or not.

As a general rule, Asmodeus was not forthcoming about his plans. However, he was by far the most accomplished devil when it came to intrigue and devils pointed to the result of the Reckoning when they wanted proof of their overlord's superiority.

Usually, he outsourced his work to devils below him in the full knowledge that they desired his position.

Spreading Disbelief
Asmodeus wanted to turn people away from belief. He maintained working relationships with evil deities, giving infernal aid in return for supplying his followers with spells in his stead, so said followers could increase their numbers through the display of magical aid. These cults were dedicated to either infernal entities or completely made-up ones in order to gain a following in a specific group or people. When Asmodeus wanted souls to heal his wounds, he directed his allies to stop granting magic to his own followers when the cult's numbers were at their peak to deliberately cause the decline of the cult. While the majority turned to other religions, some lost faith in religion altogether, becoming disbelievers and therefore food for Asmodeus. Asmodeus considered it a particular success when such despairing cults turned to suicide.

A second tactic to increase the number of disbelievers was to supply the Athar with aid. This was a school of thought (one that came into being without Asmodeus' doing) that posited that gods were not gods but just another form of powerful creature. Asmodeus aided this faction in a covert manner, and the Athar had no clue that the Lord of Lies was on their side.

A third tactic was to make mortals disillusioned with the gods. Contrary to common belief, gods were not omnipotent and were as capable of pettiness as mortals were and Asmodeus fanned such feelings through his manipulations among the gods. Such manipulations were very subtle and took centuries to bear fruit. The Lord of Lies's goal was not to make the gods kill each other directly, but to make the gods pit their followers against each other, thus showing mortals that the gods were petty and turning them away from worship.

Deities
Asmodeus had working relationships with evil deities who supplied his followers with spells, for he could not do it himself, in return for his aid in their endeavors. Baatorian deities were quite respectful around him.

The lawful deities and Asmodeus had an ancient agreement called the Pact Primeval that, among other things, allowed his devils to corrupt mortals and wring divine magic from their souls. From time to time, rumors about various lawful deities allying to take over Baator from Asmodeus popped up, but never amounted to anything. Lawful deities were not really capable of changing the status quo and, even if they were, the ability to agree on who was to take control of the Nine Hells was beyond them. Like the gods, Asmodeus did not want an open war either.

Asmodeus kept Tiamat's influence small. Among other things, he took away control of Avernus from her. In fact, she was contractually imprisoned by Asmodeus.

Among the duergar deities, Asmodeus had a special contract with Laduguer: the Archfiend would provide aid for duergar so they could free themselves from the mind flayers, while the Taskmaster promised that the freed slaves would be a force antagonistic to Lolth and other forces of the Abyss. According to a duergar legend, when the two made this deal, Asmodeus tried to make Laduguer show emotion with jokes and the like, but the Taskmaster never laughed, even when he got the deal he wanted. The duergar were also victims of impersonation by Asmodeus. He pretended to be one of their gods in order to stir up their desire for vengeance and tyranny.

Devils
Asmodeus was baatezu and the creator of the baatezu. It was from his blood the first of them arose. He was an entity that outranked both common and noble baatezu and fell in a category onto himself, but was still a devil like the others. Among the devils, Asmodeus ruled supreme and made his superiority publicly clear in an event called the Reckoning and every single devil served Asmodeus either directly or was capable of tracing a line of authority back to Asmodeus from its own position in the infernal hierarchy. One exception to this rule were the abishai. In their case, the one at the top of the hierarchy was Tiamat. Asmodeus was only their commander when he personally assigned them tasks. Abishai knew that while disobeying Tiamat's orders could potentially spell their end, disobeying Asmodeus' orders did so for sure.

Among greater devils, Asmodeus was the default authority to report to. Every time, a devil managed to get an opportunity for promotion to greater devilhood, they needed the approval of a superior, an archdevil. In the case that a devil could not be sure of itself to whom it was supposed to report to, Asmodeus was the one they had to choose. Asmodeus was also the source of priestly magic the devils used alongside the archdevils.


 * Archdevils:As mentioned above, Asmodeus ruled supreme among the devils. This included the archdevils too. He annually called the archdevils (including Levistus) to his court. When the position of an archdevil needed to be filled for some reason, it was Asmodeus' right to choose the new one. His choice always fell on one of the unique devils who stood above the greater devils but below the archdevils.


 * The archdevils themselves wanted to bring down Asmodeus from his throne and take over the position as the ruler of hell. However, since the Reckoning, they had to admit that Asmodeus was superior to them and caved in. Practically all of them did not have the courage to move openly against him. The archdevils of note who directly served Asmodeus were:


 * Baalzebul:According to one myth of dubious veracity, Baalzebul, formerly known as an archon called Triel, was seduced by Asmodeus into entering Baator and became a powerful devil. Before the Reckoning, Baalzebul held the position of Asmodeus' favorite archdevil. He was the leading figure of the Reckoning. After he lost, he was allowed to hold his position, but was turned into a slug-like creature. This form was actually a curse that forced Baalzebul in this form for one year for every lie he told to a devil with the lies he told before his trasformation being counted in. The lord of Maladomini and the lord of Nessus had a strange working relationship regarding their cults. Baalzebul was the choice for the downtrodden like rebels and Asmodeus was the choice for those who were in a position where grasping for power was possible. So, it happened from time to time that after Baalzebul's cultists destroyed a given community's power structure, Baalzebul and Asmodeus would exchange temples for Baalzebul's cultists were good at destroying power structures but bad at maintaining or creating ones whereas, Asmodeus' cultists were good at it. This arrangement gave Asmodeus a place to expand his influence and Baalzebul a place with a power structure to destroy. From time to time, Asmodeus provided Baalzebul with unexplained favors. One of the explanations was that Asmodeus somehow saw value in this known traitor. That said, Asmodeus also issued a decree that made contract-partners of Baalzebul end up in a bad way due to the contract, which was why he was avoided as a bargain partner by other devils.


 * In Baator, Baalzebul tried to prove his usefulness to Asmodeus and to hurt his rivals, Dispater and Mephistopheles, by using his spy network in an attempt to dredge up some evidence of them having rebellious intentions.


 * Bel:Bel successfully betrayed his master Zariel. Asmodeus struck bargain with him. The Pit Fiend had to dedicate himself to the Blood War and he was spared the punishment. Bel accepted and Asmodeus gained a lord over a layer who simply did not have the time to plot ay treachery for it was consumed by his duties in the Blood War. Asmodeus also decreed that the other archdevils had the duty to help Bel with various resources in the Blood War. Bel's reputation as a traitor made it also impossible for him to find allies. However, regarding loyalty, Bel was a curiosity who put Asmodeus and the good of Baator in general above the good of himself.


 * So Bel tried to curry favors with Asmodeus by supplying information about the other archdevils provided by his spies in the archdevils' courts. Information he supplied was rarely news for Asmodeus.


 * Belial:After the Reckoning, Belial was forced by Asmodeus to hand over his position to his daughter Fierna. He had once plans to start a civil war within Baator by invading Sygia and Malbolge, but had to abandon these plans when Asmodeus chose his daughter as Malbolge's archdevil for invading her turf would bring about Asmodeus' anger.


 * Dispater:In the Pact Primeval-version of Asmodeus' origin myth, Dispater was Asmodeus' companion since the beginning before they went to Baator. He was cowed by Asmodeus after the Reckoning and going against his master again was an idea he was difficult to win him for. At latest after the Second Sundering, Dispater garnered himself a reputation of loyalty towards Asmodeus.


 * Glasya:Glasya was Asmodeus' daughter and he was a caring father towards her&mdash;at least for a devil. So much so that moving against her was something to be done in a covert fashion lest it could be made to look like moving against Asmodeus. That said, Glasya was quite an impudent daughter. She tried to evade working for him, but came to terms with him after the Reckoning and got a reward in the form of an archdevil with Malbolge as her personal layer. Asmodeus allowed her to hire whomever she wanted for her personal staff, even going as far as headhunting from other archdevils. She made aggressive use of this privilege and became disliked by other archdevils.


 * Asmodeus constrained his daughter through a decree of his. Glasya was only allowed to obtain souls by legal means, meaning she had to find loopholes and the likes in contracts, laws, and other legalities.


 * Graz'zt:Graz'zt was an archdevil under the employment of Asmodeus as an advisor. However, after conquering three layers of the Abyss, he broke away and turned into a demon lord. Whether he severed all ties with Asmodeus' and if he did, whether it would remain such was not known.


 * Levistus:Levistus was the culpable of killing Bensozia, Asmodeus' consort, for which was imprisoned in ice. After the Reckoning, Asmodeus reinstituted him as the lord of Stygia.


 * According to a theory Levistus believed in, this was a ploy of Asmodeus. As a background, Levistus did a lot of scheming against other archdevils and Asmodeus let him be a distracting element in infernal politics. When he elevated Glasya to archdevil-status, Levistus's scheming worked like a smokescreen to hide this political move, combined with the fact that Levistus's predecessor's, Geryon's, power was handed over to the archduchess, the aforementioned theory came to be. Believing in it, Levistus felt himself on the prospect of punishment should he not reign his scheming in, but increased his scheming nonetheless. One of his goals was win Asmodeus' trustees over.


 * He was still subject to Asmodeus and had the ironic duty to offer desperate people, especially those whose life was in danger, an escape route out of dangerous situations.


 * Malagarde:Malagarde was put into the position of the lord of Malbolge by Asmodeus after the Reckoning. She knew that Asmodeus' powers were too much for her to overcome and did nothing against him. She tried to become a deity instead. Installing a night hag into the position of an archdevil was always found perplexing if not infuriating by other devils. It turned out that Malagarde was merely a place-holder for Glasya with the time limit being father and daughter coming to terms. When this happened, the Hag Countess's body bloated and remodeled the layer.


 * Mammon:Mammon was the first of the archdevils to surrender to Asmodeus, once it became clear that the Reckoning was a failure. Apart from begging for leniency in an reportedly embarrassing manner, he changed his shape to, at least believed to, signify to Asmodeus that he was a newborn self. He had a relationship with Glasya. After the Reckoning, Asmodeus forbade Mammon to continue it.


 * Mephistopheles:In the Pact Primeval-version of Asmodeus' origin myth, Mephistopheles was Asmodeus' companion since the beginning before they went to Baator. He also used to be a subcontractor of Asmodeus as an object of worship, but handed this job over to others to create his own cult dedicated to him as the patron of hellfire. He wished to take over Asmodeus' position, in fact he believed that he was fated to do so. This confidence was so large that he actually told Asmodeus about it. Scholars wondered why no punishment followed and gave the possible explanation that Asmodeus considered Mephistopheles's claims nothing short of delusions. On one hand, Mephistopheles actually wasted most of his energy on combating Baalzebul whom he hated. It was believed that as long as the Lord of the Eighth was plotting against the Lord of the Seventh, Asmodeus was safe from Mephistopheles. On the other hand, he was an adept user of hellfire, a tool so powerful that it may play a role in ousting Asmodeus. However, while he was worshiped as the god of hellfire by mortals, truth was that many people could not tell the difference between Asmodeus and Mephistopheles and confused the latter with the former, something that was a source of frustration for Mephistopheles. That said, Asmodeus and Mephistopheles were first and second in maintain bloodlines and pacts of warlocks with mortals.


 * In his job as an advisor to Asmodeus, Mephistopheles was trusted by Asmodeus and his advises were given weight by the Lord of the Ninth, despite the Lord of the Eighth being the closest to an enemy to Asmodeus. As said, he was merely Asmodeus' closest thing to a serious contender and he knew it, which was why he spent his time waiting until Asmodeus did some catastrophic mistake for him to exploit. Despite this, one job Mephistopheles was assigned to by Asmodeus was to guard Nessus from intruders.

Mortals
Asmodeus did not need mortal worship to maintain his strength as a greater deity, but neither did he obtain more power from mortal worship. As mentioned above, he wanted to lure mortals to atheism to receive souls with which to heal his wounds. However, Asmodeus had a large following, which was much larger than any other infernal cult, in fact larger than all the others combined, to the point that the cult of Asmodeus was viewed as the first choice for prospective devil-worshipers. Furthermore, every diabolic cult was viewed as a subdivision of Asmodeus' cult and ultimately swore allegiance to the Lord of Ninth and not to the entity it was named after. In fact, what boons the cults of the other archdevils could provide was not determined by the cult's object of worship but by Asmodeus.

While Asmodeus maintained cults that were dedicated to fictional entities, his cults in which he was worshiped as an archdevil fell into a category called a revealed cult. This meant that devil-worshipers who were Asmodeus-worshipers did so while knowing that their object of worship was a devil.

To members of these cults, signing up with one meant to join a secret mutual-aid society. Members helped each other into position of influence and material affluence. The majority of its members were dwarves, elves, gnomes, halflings, and humans. He also tried to make inroads into hobgoblins and other people with a lawful evil outlook. Leaders who proved their worth were given the ability to drain vitality from an ally.

The motivation of people to pick up his worship was essentially greed and the worship started with entering a pact with Asmodeus that consigned the worshiper's soul to the Nine Hells on death.

Tieflings who descended from Asmodeus were the ones that were considered the standard of the race. While the term used here was "descended", it did not mean that practically all tieflings could trace back their ancestry to Asmodeus. Around the time of the Spellplague, a ritual was conducted that gave all tieflings of Toril what was called the mark of Asmodeus, which turned them into effective descendants of his.

Asmodeus also worked as a supplier of pacts of warlocks and a tiefling's or half-fiend's warlock-pact was most likely one made with him.

Vassals
The following beings were among the most notable subjects of Asmodeus on Nessus. The forces at their disposal are listed, where appropriate:


 * Adramalech — Chancellor of Hell, Keeper of Records
 * Alastor the Grim, pit fiend — Executioner of Nessus.
 * Baalberith, pit fiend — Major domo of Asmodeus' palace.
 * Bensozia — Consort of Asmodeus, Queen of Hell (Deceased)
 * Buer — 15 companies of pit fiends
 * Bune — 30 companies of cornugons
 * Glasya - Daughter of Asmodeus and Bensozia, former Mistress of the Erinyes, now Lady of the Sixth
 * Martinet, pit fiend — Constable of Nessus.
 * Morax — 9 companies of pit fiends
 * Phongor — Inquisitor of Hell
 * Rimmon— 5 companies of gelugons
 * The Spark Hunters - Lord Asmodeus' personal guard of 13 hamatula rangers/mortal hunters who capture and/or slay mortals who draw their master's ire
 * Zagum — 30 companies of hamatula

History
The origins of Asmodeus were not very clear. Various stories existed that even disagreed on what kind of lifeform Asmodeus actually was.

Origin Story-Serpent of Law
This story positioned Asmodeus' origins right at the literal dawn of time. He, at that time called Ahriman, arose from the primordial chaos as the mightiest of the lawful gods with Jazirian being the only one who could rival him. These two were both serpent-formed gods and they set their minds on ordering the multiverse in a lawful way.

Towards that end, the two serpent gods bit each others' tails and the resulting circle created the borders of new plane, a plane born from the soup of chaos through the interaction of the two most powerful entities of law, one of whom was evil and the other good, the Outlands, the plane of neutrality. The other Outer Planes arrayed themselves around the circular borders of the neutral plane and with it the Great Wheel and the concept of the Unity of Rings was created. The next law the two created was the Rule-of-Three in honor of their three aspects, evil, good, and law. Disagreement between the two came when they had to decide a center for the multiverse whose rules they were creating. The Outlands were the ideal place but lawful good Jazirian wanted Celestia to be the center, while lawful evil Ahriman wanted Baator to be it. They tugged each other and bit each others' tail tips off. Unlike Jazirian, Ahriman was a scaled serpent without wings and therefore fell into the Nine Hells and his blood created the baatezu. Not having chosen a center for the multiverse caused the two lawful entities to effectively honor chaos by making every plane infinitely big and therefore every place being the center.

The two serpents invested so much power in creating rules for the multiverse, and in their struggle, that they lost too much to prevent other newer gods from taking over positions of importance.

Ahriman took the name Asmodeus for himself.

Origin Story-Pact Primeval
This origin story posited Asmodeus as the one who fooled the gods into signing the Pact Primeval, a real existing contract between Asmodeus and gods, one of the original copies of it was found on Nessus, that practically allowed devils to legally draw mortal souls to Baator by corrupting them and draw energy from them. This story was the version accepted by sages in the multiverse, but the existence of other stories was acknowledged as was the nature of the Pact Primeval-version as a myth and not as a report of hard facts.

In this version too, the multiverse started as a soup of chaos. There demons fought each other. As some form of counter reaction to all the chaos, the concept of law arose and with it deities of law who started to fight the demons. However, at some point, the deities lost interest in fighting and wanted to do something else. So they created angels to fight the demons for them. The best specimen of this new species in every regard was Asmodeus.

As far as killing demons was concerned, Asmodeus was the most successful of the angels. He and his fellows took on some fiendish aspects to increase their effectiveness at fighting their enemies and were put on trial for that. Asmodeus' argument against it essentially was that war was dirty and that they were basically the substitute for the deities to become dirty for their creators were not willing to enter the fray themselves and that therefore, Asmodeus and his people did nothing wrong. The gods realized that Asmodeus had a better grasp around law than they did and could find no counter to his arguments.

In the following years, gods tried to bar Asmodeus and his people from accessing various privileges and rights, but Asmodeus managed to secure them for him and his people through his legal knowledge by suing the gods and pulling forth arguments they could not counter.

Once the Prime was populated and made more or less safe from demons, gods noticed that mortals had a tendency to disregard divine law and overstep boundaries. The gods had a problem with this for it invited chaos and also allowed demons access to mortals. To counter this, Asmodeus invented the concept of punishment. The gods accepted it and Asmodeus' and his fellows duties included punishing those who transgressed divine law, meaning tortured the souls of transgressors.

While the gods understood the necessity of punishment, they had a problem with souls being punished within their lands. So Asmodeus was again put before trial. This time, his argument against the gods was that he simply followed divine law and did his duties. Again, the gods could not counter this argument, but they were not capable of abiding souls getting punished in a place where they could see the cruelty of the deeds. Therefore, Asmodeus proposed to replace the site of torture to Baator, so the gods did not need to look at it anymore. However, if Asmodeus and his angels changed their workplace to Baator, they would render themselves unable to draw power from the gods to conduct their duties. Therefore, Asmodeus proposed that he and his fellows were given the right to wring out of the souls they tortured of divine energy to substitute the cut connection. The gods agreed to this and the Pact Primeval was signed.

Asmodeus and his fellows started to work in the Nine Hells as torturers and actively started to seduce mortals towards evil so that they would end up in Baator instead of the gods' divine realms on dying. Once the gods found this out, they confronted Asmodeus who merely pointed them to the contract's fine print.

This version made it appear as though Asmodeus' and the lawful gods went different ways by relatively peaceful means, scholars pointed out that the parting could not have been peaceful for Asmodeus carried heavy wounds from his departure to Baator.

Origin Story-He Who Was
In this version, Asmodeus was an exarch under the employment of a god and after retrieving a shard of evil, he killed that one. Asmodeus put a lot of effort in extinguishing this god's name and therefore he was merely known as He Who Was. According to one legend, this god was a control freak. He supervised every single aspect of every single person living on his realm. This all-encompassing supervision and control Asmodeus suffered was the start of Asmodeus' need to rise up against his god.

He used to be the greatest warrior and general of that god's army in the Dawn War. He applied brutal methods that at one point caused innocent casualties. The lawful good god condemned his general for Asmodeus did not want to see errors in his ways. Asmodeus was fired for it but not killed.

After this, Asmodeus worked as a watchman over Tharizdun's prison. During these days, Pazuzu, a demon lord of the obyrith, came to him. They had a conversation and the demon's flattery caused him to develop a sense of pride that crossed over to arrogance and the desire to rise up against He Who Was. A constant of Asmodeus' relationship was a stable but secret alliance with Pazuzu. For example, Pazuzu worked as a general for Asmodeus and was vital at eventually killing He Who Was. A side effect of Asmodeus' corruption was that he literally started to hear the location of the shard of evil. He retrieved one shard of evil by going down to the bottom of the Abyss through the Blood Rift, created his Ruby Rod with the shard, and killed his god with it when it looked bad for the deities during the Dawn War. It was the corrupting influence of the shard that turned Asmodeus and the members of his army into the first devils. He Who Was cursed Asmodeus and since then Asmodeus could not leave Baator. He Who Was's curse affected Asmodeus' angelic army, which was stationed in Phlegethos The site was what was later known as the Lake of Fire. After killing his master, Asmodeus managed to lay the groundwork for him coming out stronger out of the Dawn War, while all other participants were weakened.

Publicly, the gods condemned Asmodeus' actions. Privately, some started to make deals with the future lord of devils. The reason for this was He Who Was. The lawful good god was infamous for his incompetence, the degree of which was such that it would have caused the gods' defeat in the Dawn War and with it their end. Asmodeus made deals with gods and covertly with primordials, but in the end decided to take the divine side. One of these bargains gave him forever the right to use souls to maintain Baator.

With this right, Baator became a divine realm of material affluence, while all other realms had a poverty problem. This was due to Asmodeus' great management skills, but this had a very dark touch. Among others, this was done by turning Baator into a giant torture chamber where magical energy was tortured out of souls. He modified the Nine Hells so that as many souls as possible could enter the astral dominion. For example, due to the damage caused by the Dawn War, the system of souls beig transferred to the proper realms of their deities did not properly work. Souls that appeared outside of the proper divine realm could not enter any realm except of the Nine Hells and a lot of souls made use of this unique aspect of the Nine Hells.

After the Fall
As mentioned above, one reason why the Pact Primeval-version of Asmodeus' origin story was not taken at face value was that it did not give an explanation for Asmodeus' violent fall into Baator, instead it made into a peaceful, albeit not friendly, parting with gods. However, the truth was Asmodeus literally fell into Baator and carried heavy wounds from the fall, which possibly caused Baator to break into nine layers. When he crushed into Nessus, his fall stopped, not before he involuntarily drilled through Nessus, creating the deepest fissure called the Serpent's Coil. There his serpentine and bleeding body lay around. From the blood from these bleedings arose the first baatezu.

Asmodeus was acknowledged to be the oldest devil in existence, but him being the first ruler of Baator was not a claim that was believed by everyone. The one who did not believe it were correct. Contrary to how the Pact Primeval-origin story presented Baator, Baator was not an empty wasteland. It was inhabited by something. The nupperibo, the result of leaving a soul in Baator alone to evolve without the torturous process of the baatezu to turn it into a lemure, were assumed to be members of this race. While it was not clear what exactly these original denizens of Baator were, their ruler was known by the name of Zargon. When Asmodeus came to Hell, he took a personal hand in killing the aristocracy of the local denizens. When fighting Zargon, Asmodeus had problems killing him, because the creature constantly regenerated around his literally indestructible horn. Asmodeus solved this problem by ripping off said horn and throwing into the Prime Material plane, to be precise on Toril on the spot where eventually the Imaskari city of Cynidicea arose.

The Trial of Asmodeus
According to the The Trial of Asmodeus, a play that was based on real events according to the author, angels were so disgusted with Asmodeus' action, namely the tempting of mortals to evil and harvesting their souls. They condemned Asmodeus and the Archfiend protested. Angels agreed to having a hearing with Asmodeus after accepting the latter's proposal of asking Primus of the modrons as an impartial judge.

Asmodeus' argument was that he never did anything wrong for he consistently acted as a lawful creature in accordance with infernal tradition in service to the cause of law and the continued existence of the multiverse. According to him, mortals always had the choice whether to accept an infernal bargain, devils always held up their end of the bargain, and the mortal turning a contract inert by finding a loophole was respected. Furthermore, souls condemned to Baator were conscripted into the infernal army against the abyssal one of chaos, thereby protecting the cause of law and good from the forces of chaos ad evil, which meant the souls were used to further and protect the cause of law.

The angels presented their cases one by one. They did this so often and for so long that Primus's patience ran out. The judge made at some point clear that he was only willing to listen to a limited number of angels and not all of them. After this pronouncement, Zariel, at that time still an angel, started a brawl to get to the front row to get her case heard. This initial brawl degenerated into a massive punch up among the angels. Primus scolded the angles for their lack of restraint and denied a final verdict for the case and Asmodeus came out without suffering any punishment. However, two matters were decided. First, Asmodeus was effectively given the right to sway mortals to evil and harvest the souls. Second, a decree fell that Asmodeus had to be always equipped with his Ruby Rod of Asmodeus both as a symbol for the aforementioned right that the devils had and that was since then used as a punishment device against devils who did not uphold their end of a bargain they made with mortals.

In Hell
His position secured, Asmodeus lived his life as the overlord of Baator. His tentative goal was to heal his wounds from his fall by receiving atheists' souls from cults cultivated by him. He created a bureaucratic system that had its center in Grenpoli on Maladomini.

It was believed that Asmodeus, at some point, financed a project to create the yugoloths. He payed night hags with the goal to create them, so he had an army that was not tied to Baator. This plan, if it was true, ultimately failed, because the tool with which the yugoloths were to be controlled, the four Books of Keeping, got lost over the time.

His intra-Baator politics revolved around keeping his position. He was successful at it and over the years, observed the come and go of many archdevils.

He also recruited new ones. For example, he allegedly steered Baalzebul to the path of corruption by appearing to him as a beautiful venomous flower while he was still an archon called Triel. However he became a devil, Baalzebul became a powerful one and also one of Asmodeus' favorites.

At some point, Asmodeus took Bensozia as his consort and had a daughter with her called Glasya. Levistus tried to rape the consort and get her help at deposing Asmodeus, she did not want it and so he killed her. After Levistus succeeded at taking over Stygia from Geryon, an angry Asmodeus encased Levistus in an ice block where he lay unconsciously. Geryon overtook the position of archdevil of Stygia. Asmodeus' relationship with his daughter was a weird one. On one hand, Asmodeus was acknowledged as a caring father&mdash;at least as far as devil standards were concerned. On the other hand, Glasya was most easily described as a ne'er do well and troublemaker towards her father and other archdevils.

Another archdevil who either fled or left Baator was Gargauth. The exact circumstances were not known, but Asmodeus played a crucial role in what was known. Gargauth left either because he tried and failed to oust Asmodeus and had to flee because of it or Asmodeus killed Beherit, Gargauth's closest ally, which prompted the Outcast to leave.

Graz'zt was an archdevil under the employment of Asmodeus. He was charged with fighting the Blood War and invading the Abyss and getting the shard of evil for him. However, after conquering three layers of the Abyss, he could not advance further due to the resistance he faced by Demogorgon and Orcus. He broke away and turned into a demon lord. Whether he severed all ties with Asmodeus' and if he did, whether it would remain such was not known.

Another one was Malkizid. This one was an exiled former solar under the employment of Corellon. He was cast out for siding with Lolth and fell into Baator where he gained influence. At some point in history, he angered Asmodeus and was banished.

Zariel started off as an observer of the Blood War under celestial orders. She wanted to fight in it too and at some point simply ran off doing that. Her beaten up body was found by Asmodeus' people, she was brought Nessus, nursed back to health, and got installed as the archdevil of Avernus.

The Reckoning of Hell
The Reckoning was an event that consisted of the archdevils revolting against Asmodeus and the latter surviving it without harm. The key catalyst for this were Baalzebul's ambitions that increasingly clashed with Asmodeus'. He tried to smear Asmodeus' reputation as a competent leader and tried to circumvent the infernal bureaucracy. In an attempt to save his amassed military strength, he went as far as withholding his armies in the face of an abyssal invasion until he had to admit that not entering the fray would cause Baator to end up as a ruin.

At that time, the archdevils acted in a fairly obvious manner to achieve their goals and at the culmination of their scheming, two factions crystallized, that of Baalzebul with Belial, Moloch, and Zariel under him and that of Mephistopheles with Dispater, Geryon, and Mammon under him. These factions' armies eventually clashed in Maladomini with the intention to determine who should inherit Asmodeus' crown after Baalzebul's machinations were uncovered as part of an investigation. All of their planning and ambitions was for naught, Asmodeus secured the loyalty of Geryon and honeycombed the eight armies up to the highest level. On Geryon's signal, the pit fiend commanders turned on their archdevils and their troops were no more while Asmodeus was literally unscathed. According to another recounting of the events, the battle was an everyone-against-Baalzebul-battle, which he lost.

Various archdevils acted in various manners and Asmodeus generally left them with their realms. He installed the institution of the Dark Eight. Thus giving an effective promotion to the pit fiends who were loyal to him. Regarding the archdevils, in the order of the layers they ruled, Zariel was allowed to keep her layer; Dispater was allowed to keep his layer; Mammon made an embarrassing show of begging Asmodeus' for forgiveness, who did forgive him by allowing him to have his layer, but forbade him to keep his relationship with his daughter; Belial went to the background to evade responsibility and managed hold on power by accepting Asmodeus' condition to hold power together with his daughter Fierna; Geryon was disposed&mdash;despite of his loyalty&mdash;and Levistus was put back to consciousness and elevated to the rank of archdevil of Stygia; Moloch was convinced&mdash;by Malagarde who worked for Geryon and therefore for Asmdeus&mdash;that if he made a convincing show of defiance, Asmodeus would respect him and absolute him from all crimes, none of the sort happened. He was deposed and Malagarde, who convinced him to join the fray to begin with, became the archdevil of Malbolge; Baalzebul was allowed to keep his position at the cost of his body being transformed into that of a giant slug; Mephistopheles was allowed to keep his position. All in all, all archdevils were forced to accept Asmodeus as their superior and Asmodeus could be sure that he knew of the potential usurpers capabilities while also reminding them of their position in a dramatic way.

The reasons why Asmodeus deposed Geryon were a mystery. However, there were at least three possible explanations that were accepted by scholars. The first one was that this spurred an increased sense of loyalty in Geryon and he started to work even harder for Asmodeus in the hopes of being reinstalled into his old position; the second one was that it was meant as some kind of reward by Asmodeus, if it was the recipient did not think it that way; the third one had to do with Asmodeus' desire for faithless people, Geryon at some point came&mdash;at least for a moment&mdash;to the conclusion that life was pointless and became food for Asmodeus who hungered for the faithless.

Actions on Toril
As mentioned above, Asmodeus became Baator's ruler by getting rid of the former ruler Zargon by tossing his horn onto Toril, there, after a long time, Zargon regenerated again around his horn at some point after the city of Cynidicea arose. It was not exactly clear when Zargon arose, but the city was part fo the Imaskari empire. This meant that the timeframe could be narrowed down to, when the first emperor was crowned, and , the fall of the western part and crowning of a new dynasty.

Whenever it was, Zargon terrorized the people of Cynidicea, who started to worship him in hope of appeasement by conducting sentient sacrifices. These Zargon-worshipers started to take their sacrifices from other places and bought with it the ire of these people who attacked them, their hero was killed by Zargon as were a few of these people's gods. Asmodeus stepped in and defeated Zargon. Asmodeus did not step in, because he cared in any way for the dead gods, but because he did not want the original ruler of Baator to be free. To ensure that Zargon stayed sealed away, for Asmodeus could not kill him, he encased the elder evil in stone and buried Zargon's worshipers alive.

In 1358 DR, a warlock coven known as the Toril thirteen performed a ritual that cursed most tiefling lineages—those of demons, devils, hags, and rakshasas, among others—with the "blood of Asmodeus", changing their original lineage with that of the archdevil himself. This was done in an attempt to make Asmodeus a "racial god", ensuring him enough followers to attain godly powers.

After the Reckoning in Hell
Even after the Reckoning, some turnovers happened among the archdevils. Bel managed to gain the trust of Zariel and abused it to depose her, rising to the rank of archdevil. Asmodeus approved of this under the condition that Bel would concentrate on the Blood War with the Dark Eight. Bel agreed. It caused so much time of his to be consumed by the Blood War that he did not have sufficient time left to plot against his superiors.

The second turnover was caused by the sudden bloating and death of Malagarde around 1372 DR. Malbolge was reformed and Glasya became an archdevil. Asmodeus did three things. First, he managed to reign in his unruly daughter. He did this by scolding her made it clear that she had to take on some responsibility, if she had a contiued interest in her privileges, something Glasya agreed after throwing a fit. She was a given a job to organize the erinyes' work. Second, he gave her Geryon's powers as an archdevil to make her sufficiently strong that she could fill the position, making clear that Malagarde was nothing short of a placeholder for his daughter. Third, to provide her with a good staff, he allowed her to recruit competent devils even if it was at the detriment of her fellow archdevils, a privilege Glasya made full use of, much to the chagrin of her fellows.

However, there was also a different aspect to Glasya's ascension. Glasya ran a criminal organization that created false money but managed to escape punishment through a legal trick. She turned lead to gold that turned back after a time, minted the gold into coins while it was still gold and used them before they turned back. The legal trick lay in no law being in existence that regulated the state of coins after leaving the mint, there were only those that regulated the composition of the raw material out of which the coins were minted. One reason for Asmodeus to elevate Glasya was to tie her to one layer while having a lot of responsibility, thereby preventing her ambitions to go too far.

Post-Spellplague Era
When Dweomerheart collapsed in the wake of the Spellplague, Azuth fell into the Hells where Asmodeus, sensing his opportunity, devoured the lesser deity and became a god himself. He then ended the Blood War by forcing the Abyss underneath the Elemental Chaos. He knew that this war could restart at any time and would immediately do so with a united demonic front, if he did something like invading the Abyss. Therefore, he started to organize his strength so that when the war restarted, it would do so under circumstances that were favorable to him.

Regarding his divinity, it turned out that Asmodeus had at some point divine influence on Toril that waned away. The aforementioned act gave it back to him and his cult was on the rise in the 15 century DR.

Although many people believed the archdevil killed Azuth when he consumed his divine essence, in fact Asmodeus had fused with Azuth, and both gods coexisted since then in the same body. Most of the time Asmodeus overpowered Azuth, using his divine powers while the God of Wizards was in a dormant state. But in a rare few occasions Azuth was able to gain dominion of their shared body, and many denizens of the Nine Hells believed Asmodeus had become mad due to his strange behavior.

At some point after the Spellplague, Asmodeus re-instituted Belial as an archdevil, which meant that he demoted Fierna from that position.

On Toril, Asmodeus' worship started to be practiced in overt fashion after the Spellplague struck. At that time, mortals thought of the Blue Fire as some form of divine punishment. Overt worship of Asmodeus started with Asmodeus' worshipers presenting their god as someone from whom absolution from all kinds of sins could be gained from.

When Asmodeus became a god, the magic of the ritual performed by the Toril thirteen took effect across all of Toril and afterwards most tieflings living in the 15 century DR were of the Asmodean lineage, all having a similar devilish appearance.

Post-Second Sundering
In 1486 DR, Azuth had regained most of his strength and was able to choose Ilstan Nyaril as his Chosen. Asmodeus and Azuth began to struggle for dominion over their shared body and the hierarchy of the Nine Hells was jeopardized because of that. Ilstan and Farideh, one of the Chosen of Asmodeus, devised a plan to separate both gods and avoid a potential devil invasion to all the multiverse. They contacted the god Enlil through his Chosen, Kepeshkmolik Dumuzi, and Asmodeus agreed to release Azuth from his body and to resurrect the Untherite god Nanna-Sin as a non-god immortal and in exchange Enlil allowed Asmodeus to consume Nanna-Sin's divine spark to become a god unto himself. In a ritual performed in Djerad Thymar amid the First Tymanther-Unther War, on Hammer 10 of 1487 DR, Ilstan sacrificed his life to allow Azuth become an individual god once more.

At some point after the Second Sundering, Asmodeus demoted Bel and re-elevated Zariel to the position of archdevil of Avernus. Another archdevil whom he restored to the position was Fierna. This was a unique ruling that made Belial and Fierna equals in a system that otherwise mandated that every layer-ruling-posr had to be filled with only one person.

On Toril, Asmodeus' worship had two groups of people. The first one was that of people who wanted to keep some form of independence from gods. On dying in Toril, a mortal's soul was shunted to the Fugue Plane where it could be approached by devils with the offer to start a career as a devil. The hope behind this group's Asmodeus-worship was that they would be specifically approached by a devil on dying. Asmodeus also worked as a supplier of pacts of warlocks. The second group were not people who had any intention to deal with devils. They wanted fun and/or clemency from Asmodeus. Again, on death, a mortal's souls was shunted to the Fugue Plane, there it had to wait until whatever god they worshiped in life cared to take the soul to itself. The waiting time depended on how well the soul adhered to the deity's tenets. People without any desire to start anew as a devil, asked Asmodeus for enjoyment for the waiting time to pass the time with something else than waiting.


 * Stygia:According to one theory, Stygia was not one of the original layers of Baator but a world whose denizens handed over their souls to Asmodeus to save themselves. The alleged method by which Asmodeus saved them was to transport the doomed world to Baator as its newest layer.

Chosen

 * Farideh
 * Havilar
 * Bryseis Kakistos
 * Valraun, a Blue Dragon

Creative origins
Asmodeus is named for the Judeo-Christian demon, Asmodai from the deuterocanonical Book of Tobit and for a fallen angel of the same name who appears in John Milton's Paradise Lost.

Notes & Revisions to Asmodeus
Early issues of Dragon magazine such as the article, "The Politics of Hell," in issue #28 mention rumored older kings such as Lucifer or Satan that Asmodeus deposed. This idea was never considered canonical, but an allusion to it resurfaced in a vague reference decades later in the Book of Vile Darkness. It was revised completely in Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells, when Asmodeus was confirmed as the original founder of the current, Baatezu dominated, Nine Hells during the signing of the Pact Primeval. Manual of the Planes mentions a supposed legend that the form of Asmodeus seen by the other archdukes and visitors was merely a specter or aspect, and that his true form, that of a titanic, serpent-like devil, resided at the bottom of the canyon known as "Serpent's Coil," so named for the outline he made when he hit the surface of Nessus, still wounded from his fall out of the upper planes. Fiendish Codex II does not directly contradict the story, but does seem to retcon it, mentioning in its description of Nessus that Serpent's Coil is shaped for the spiraling path Asmodeus fell, and that Malsheem sits at the bottom of that canyon. The assertion seems to contradict the idea that Asmodeus' "true form" was serpentine, and brings it into line with the Pact Primeval account. Most angels, after all, are humanoid in form. The idea of his wounds, however, remains. In 2nd Edition's Guide To Hell it was stated that Asmodeus was a Lawful Evil or corrupted Lawful Neutral serpentine entity, who along with his Lawful Good counterpart serpent Jazirian, was responsible for the current ring-shaped structure of the Outer Planes. Asmodeus fell once their embrace ended as they struggled over the proper role of Law, eventually plummeting all the way to the serpents coil in Baator. Guide to Hell claimed that his wish was to destroy all creation by making all sentient beings atheists, and thus negating the belief energy holding the Outer Planes together, so that he may fill the void and create it entirely in his own image, without the help of any other deity.' Few of these theories have appeared in subsequent books, or possessed a foundation in prior material, though the theme of Asmodeus as a fallen being of Law has remained. Second Edition's Hellbound: The Blood War and Faces of Evil: The Fiends present another version of Baator and Asmodeus' history and origins. These sources state that the Baatezu only supplanted the original natives of the plane, the Ancient Baatorians, and were themselves first created as the lawful spawn of the General of Gehenna's purification of the early yugoloths. The chronology of the Blood War in Hellbound also states that Baator's Lords of the Nine only appeared in their positions around or slightly after the Blood War began, but also before the existence of deities. Asmodeus himself is left intentionally dark and largely undefined, though his power is made clear, with more detail devoted to the history of his race and their conquered plane.

Publication History
In The Dragon #28, the article The Politics of Hell by Alexander von Thorn details the history and politics of Hell. This gives a different history to that detailed below. Satan was more powerful than any other Devil, but lacked support, having been exiled from hell by Beelzebub following a revolution. Beelzebub (meaning "Lord of the Archdevils") was later himself overthrown by Asmodeus and was known forever after as Baalzebul (Lord of the Flies).

In the Book of Vile Darkness, it is stated that while Asmodeus is the oldest devil in the Nine Hells, he may not be the original ruler. However, the origin myth which appears in Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells contradicts this. According to the Codex, Asmodeus began as a servant of the lawful gods. Asmodeus is described in some versions of the myth as an "angel" (though this is self-contradictory given the time period during which this would have occurred). He was "the bravest, toughest, fiercest and most beautiful of angels." He and the other angels were created to fight the demons of the Abyss, so that the gods could concern themselves with creating worlds and sentient beings.

After eons of fighting the creatures from the Abyss, Asmodeus and some of his fellows began to change. They grew similar in appearance and methods to the demons which they fought. Afraid of his power and of the changes he had undergone, the gods put Asmodeus on trial and demanded that he be cast out of the Upper Planes. However, he argued effectively (and correctly) that he and his fellows had not violated the law. Asmodeus and his followers successfully sued for access to the Upper Planes and the honors to which they were entitled.

Once the gods created worlds and sentient beings, the demons attacked these, too. The gods created mountains, oceans, and wastelands to seal up the gates to the Abyss, but their creations defied their orders and explored their worlds, accidentally unsealing the gates. The gods could not understand why their creations did not follow their instructions, until Asmodeus explained to them that their system did not work because it relied solely upon voluntary compliance. Asmodeus explained that the only way to ensure obedience was to threaten mortals with a disincentive; hence, Asmodeus invented the concept of punishment.

Asmodeus convinced the gods to sign a contract called the Pact Primeval. This contract allowed Asmodeus and his fellow devils to take up residence in the abandoned realm of Baator, to punish the souls of wicked mortals, and to extract magical energy from the souls under their care in order to fuel their powers. Otherwise, Asmodeus reasoned, they would have to be granted the powers of godhood in order to do their job, which the current gods would surely find unacceptable.

At first, the gods found the arrangement agreeable. However, they eventually realized that fewer and fewer mortal souls were ascending to the Upper Planes, and Asmodeus was deliberately tempting mortals to damnation. When they arrived in Baator, the gods found that Asmodeus had turned it into a nightmarish world of endless suffering, filled with countless new devils. When called to account for his actions, Asmodeus uttered the famous words, "Read the fine print."

This story is presented as mythology, and the Codex itself admits that it does not tell the whole truth. For example, it is known that Asmodeus did not depart from the Upper Planes under amicable circumstances: He was cast out, and literally fell into the Lower Planes, sustaining serious wounds which have never healed. Part of Asmodeus' long-term plans includes using the magical energy harvested from souls in order to heal his wounds, and ultimately, the complete destruction of the Upper Planes.

The names of the "gods" involved seem to change depending on what world and source the myth is told on, and some aspects and versions of the origin myth contradict others. For example, the version told in the Fiendish Codex II states that St. Cuthbert became a distinct deity when he agreed with Asmodeus that "Retribution is the basis of all law," while the Deities and Demigods sourcebook states that Cuthbert is a mortal who ascended to godhood.

The Manual of the Planes suggests a similar but different story. According to the section about the Nine Hells, Asmodeus' true form is that of a giant serpent, hundreds of miles long. He was cast out of the Upper Planes before the creation of the current gods, and his fall created the 8th and 9th planes of Hell. He is currently still recovering from his wounds in the pits of the 9th level, and his devil form is just an avatar of the real Asmodeus. No one who tells the story of the true form of Asmodeus survives more than 24 hours after the telling.

In the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide, Asmodeus is established as an ancient deity who was relegated to the position of archdevil and toiled for untold millenia to regain his divinity.