Asmodeus the Lord of Lies

The devil god of the Hells is the master of lies and domination. His words are honeyed and carefully crafted, each syllable a poison pill wrapped in velvet, each phrase a subtle hook for the unwary soul. He is the eternal and absolute monarch of the Nine Hells, the fire at the heart of corruption, and his name—Asmodeus—slithers across the multiverse as a byword for dread. Mortal hearts, no matter how strong, find themselves soothed and secretly subjugated by his rhetoric; celestial tongues grow wary and falter before his infernal logic. To parley with Asmodeus is to become entangled in a contract that binds more tightly than any chain, and to cross him is to enter a legend of endless suffering. The punishments he devises for oathbreakers and rivals are not merely physical, but metaphysical, designed to quash hope while sustaining the victim in exquisite awareness of their own subservience, so that even the rumors of these torments spread like a blight across the upper and lower planes.   Among the denizens of evil—demon princes, elder liches, cultic idols—none are so universally feared and admired as the Lord of Nessus. Even those who serve other masters pay him unwilling tribute: lesser devils strive to mirror his cunning, demon princes plot against him in secret, and archmages and warlocks draw ever closer to his orbit, compelled by the inexorable gravity of his charisma. The most audacious and desperate among mortals, sensing his infernal star shining brightest among all the Hells, willingly offer up their freedom and future in exchange for a taste of his forbidden wisdom or a measure of his power. These warlocks, branded with the invisible sigils of his favor, become his cat's-paws and instruments in the mortal world, spreading his creed of ruthless ambition and civil order wherever they pass—though few ever understand the full price until it is far too late.   It is said that Asmodeus, even when silent, exerts his will upon the planes with the finesse of a master puppeteer. His infernal bureaucracy infiltrates every hierarchy, his agents seeded like sleeper cells among the ranks of gods, mortals, demons, and angels alike. He is rumored to know the true names of every king, every high priest, every paladin who might one day pose a threat to his order. The Law of Nine, his most inviolable doctrine, ensures that his dominion is absolute not just in Hell, but in every system of government and every cultist circle that dreams of stability through strength. The wise fear him, the ambitious envy him, and only the most foolish dare underestimate him.   Asmodeus lords over his fiendish hordes from within his fortress of Nalsheem, nestled in the depths of Nessus, the ninth and deepest of the Nine Hells.