Mezzofiends Princes
Ervenian Era, 1051 AB
Mezzofiend Princes, also known as Daemon Princes, are apocalypse-paragons who rule Gehenna's great demesnes and pursue a single thesis: All stories should end, perfectly and forever. They do not bargain to rule (like Arch Devils) or riot to unmake (like the Demon Lords they audit existence and pay it out in famine, pestilence, war, and death until the ledger shows zero.
They are fewer in number than the Mortal Realms would expect, and some may not even have been born as Mezzofiends at all; many were once fallen solars, exiled archfiends, or other immortal powers who pledged themselves to the cause of annihilation. In doing so, they became part of the Mezzofiend web without surrendering their individuality.
Structure
The Four Seats of Ruin
Scholars identify four enduring archetypes among the Mezzofiends Princes. Titles change with the eon, but their portfolios are constant, for example:- The Ash Scribe - Stagnation
- The Verdant Rot - Disbandment
Midwife of Spoilage. Crafts plagues like art pieces, perfecting vectors for beauty and efficiency. - The Red Czar - War Quartermaster of Slaughter. Measures campaigns by body counts, sells perfect sieges.
- The Pale Accountant - Death
Lord of the Closed Book. Balances infinity to nothing, deletes names from cosmic record.
Warden of the Empty Bowl. Dries rivers, hollows soil, taxes hunger.
Relationship to the Caste System
While Greater and Lesser Mezzofiends measure themselves against each other in the constant cycle of distinction and homogenization, the Daemon Princes operate outside this ladder entirely. They do not promote followers through ordinary channels; instead, a Mezzofiend seeking their favor must create an ending so exquisite that it cannot be ignored. For example, a candidate might orchestrate a war that simultaneously causes famine, plague, and permanent depopulation of a province, all without divine notice. Such feats are called Oblivion Works, and the few who achieve them may be elevated into unique harbinger roles beneath a Mezzofiend Lord’s patronage.Culture
Mezzofiend Princes have refined the Mezzofiend’s preference for undead-derived negative energy into an economy. They buy and sell necromantic catastrophes the way mortal empires trade grain:
- Large-scale undead uprisings are commissioned in provinces where divine anti-undead presence is weak.
- Mortal necromancers are quietly subsidized to fuel “negative-energy harvest years”.
- Liches of sufficient notoriety may find that their ascension subtly shifted the balance of Abbadon’s courts, as their creation provided the soul-fragments to coalesce a new Greater Mezzofiend.
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