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.

Manipulation
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.

Glasya 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.

Ascension
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 known to wield a short sword that combined the properties of speed and virulency. The blade, similar in effect to a dagger of venom, was coated in strength-sapping devil's blood. Later on, Glasya wielded a scourge that shared her sword's speed but was keen rather than being poisoned. She typically resorted to using it when her touch failed, either by using magic to keep her foes still before whipping them or by flying through the air while flaying them alive.

Glasya wore jewelry and finery worth several thousand gold pieces and mostly carried defensive magic items like a cloak of resistance, ring of protection, and ring of invisibility.

Realm
Glasya's realm of Malbolge, the smallest and least populated of the Hells, had gone through many rulers over several millennia, and had changed form several times with each change of office. In its original incarnation, Malbolge was a beautiful garden cherished by its ruler, and by repurposing the remains of the murdered Hag Countess, Glasya remade the realm into a dying parody of a verdant wilderness.

At a glance, Glasya's realm was a fair place of alien beauty, but despair, the faint stench of rot, and venomous threats could be found upon closer inspection. The water was poison, the oozing plants were bloated, trees were twisted or brown if not dead, the smell of flowers induced nightmares and the fruit bore by flowers sometimes exploded into caustic juice. The entire realm was trapped in a near-death state, teetering on the brink of relief but stuck in cancerous agony, and anyone that died on its putrid surface had their bodies and souls absorbed into the landscape to experience similar unspeakable torment.

Various devils could be found roaming Malbolge, including barbazus, osyluths, kytons, cambions and twisted castoffs transformed by a displeased Glasya. Massive, fiendish vermin such as wasps, scorpions, centipedes and spiders were also common on Malbolge. For example, giant lice were usually seen in the Forest of Sighs, a densely packed series greasy, black-gray trees thought to be the Countess's hair where Glasya abandoned those she was bored with to have their bodies pumped with nutrients while the trees drained their souls. Other "natural" features included ivory deposits made from her teeth, stony half-arches that loomed over most of Malbolge made from her ribs, lakes of various bilious poisons that formed when her organs burst and acid-spewing, labyrinthine tunnels formed from her intestines.

Society
Some white cities existed within Malbolge, but the seat of Glasya's power was Osseia, a dome-like palace fortress of lustrous white walls formed from the ballooned skull of the Hag Countess. The hollowed, 5-story cranium was partially constructed from the varnished bones of the Hag Countess and those of other victims that displeased Glasya. It was lavishly furnished with baroque decoration, filled with ominous music throughout its long passages and adorned inside and out with unnerving, provocative statues. Where the hag's eye sockets would be were oval, red glass windows capable of blasting lines of flame, and from which Glasya could be seen entertaining party guests.

Near Osseia's center was the Garden of Delights, an expansive, breath-taking refuge filled with plants from across the multiverse. Unlike the facsimile of beauty found in the rest of Malbolge, the pristine garden was a refuge from horror and pain. No monsters lurked within, succubi soothed broken prisoners and the vivid flowers dispelled fears. After guests were brought here and put to ease they were returned to their regimens of torture, the entire place existing only to cruelly mock the prisoners and tease them with hope.

In a circle around Osseia were ten towers of ivory, the former fingers of the Hag Countess divided into three bone segment stories. The first was hollowed out and called the Tower of Pain, where her most dangerous enemies would be tormented for eons. The higher one went, the more excruciating the torture became, the lower levels being kept for minor foes such as adventurers and the top levels for survivors of Malagard's inner circle. The other towers became guard posts and roosts for erinyes devils.

Return
Though Glasya's dying domain covered most of Malbolge, that was what it was; a cover. Along the edges of the realm, Malbolge's former surface peered through, seemingly stable but nonetheless shifting monoliths of jagged obsidian. Boulders and crags still laid below the rotten soil of the Sixth Hell, slicing and dissecting those that fell into such areas. Even the rock of Glasya's terminal realm was crumbling, and it seemed Malbolge's decaying state didn't last forever. In more recent times, Malbolge had returned to the state it was in under the Hag Countess, an infinite slope plagued by rocky, deafening avalanches.

Residents of Malbolge not dwelling in crumbling forts had to live in caves carved into the mountainside and travel through tunnels and roofed trenches to avoid being crushed by boulders. Devils found guilty at trial were condemned to Malbolge for years, sometimes trapped in cages lowered down to the level of the adamantine pillars the swaying structures were built on. When the rockslides hit, those above would be left unharmed while the prisoners were grievously battered but never killed. Glasya's citadel in this rocky realm was a stronghold supported by cracked pillars and buttresses that seemed ready to falter but remained sturdy, underneath which was a labyrinth of holding and torture cells for those who displeased her.

Activities
Unlike most other archdevils, Glasya had little interest in matters outside the Nine Hells, although her endless machinations to expand her power still extended beyond her own plane. She focused her efforts as a scheming manipulators, one of the best among the archdevils, on the political developments within Hell. She served as the warden of Malbolge, the prison system of the Nine Hells, and so part of the sadistic princess's duties was overseeing the punishments of law-breaking devils.

Glasya spent a great amount of her time roaming the more beautiful parts of her plane or indulging in luxury, but given her new responsibilities as archduchess, she could no longer partake in her prior favorite pastime of personally seducing mortals into Hell. Instead, she had to relive such experiences vicariously, instructing her favored erinyes to tempt targets of her choice, with self-righteous paladins and corruptible elder priests being her particular favorites. Captives that weren't powerful enough to be a threat to her were tortured in her palace where she could watch or participate at her whim.

Family
Glasya was believed to be Asmodeus's only child, and the circumstances of her birth were shrouded in mystery. Beings of god-like status rarely shared their power with offspring, divine children and his plans for her daughter were unclear. Glasya wasn't above using her familial-relation to Asmodeus as a shield to protect herself from retaliation.

The two had a long, volatile history; Glasya often consorted with his enemies and openly resisted his efforts to control her, and Asmodeus's move to make her serve in his court only made her bored and dissatisfied. He gave his blessing when she took over Malbolge (the role he played in the process debatable), but it was possible that he reasoned that with responsibility over a Hell, her ambitions would be kept in check.

Glasya's mother, Bensozia, viewed her daughter as a tool to carry her resentment and spite. Asmodeus had essentially taken his consort as a trophy, and the mastermind of the Hells failed to anticipate the depths of this loathing. Believing that Glasya could do what she couldn't―kill Asmodeus―she nursed her daughter on poisonous hate, taught her seduction and intrigue, and filled her empty heart with murderous intent. The seed of hate Bensozia planted eventually grew until replacing her father became Glasya's dominating desire.

The archduke Mephistopheles, despite loudly announcing his intent to replace Asmodeus, could be said to be a family member of Glasya since he was somewhat of a godfather for her.

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.

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
At one point Glasya was dubbed the "Queen of Erinyes" by Asmodeus. She would spy on the activities of her erinyes under the guise of polymorph.

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