Dispater

Dispater is the Lord of Dis and an archdevil whose extreme vigilance almost personifies caution. The urbane Iron Duke rules the Iron City from within his Iron Tower, and is legendary for his impregnable layers of defense.

Description

Dispater appeared as a 7 ft (2.1 m) tall, dark-haired humanoid with sable skin as cold and hard as iron. His infernal heritage was revealed in several aspects of figure: his glowing, red eyes, small horns, pointed tail, and cloven left hoof. The devilishly handsome archduke dressed in only the finest attire, such as his red robes or velvet gloves, and always wielded his mace-like rod.

Rumored to have been empowered at the same time as the Iron Tower, Dispater's rod was both a potent magical artifact and his symbol of ultimate authority. It was 3 ft (0.91 m) long, made either of iron and lead, adamantine or tantulhor and shaped like two intertwined serpents. It acted as both a rod of rulership and a powerful staff of striking, allowed the wielder to smite the forces of good, and could spew stinging acid.

Being focused on defense, Dispater also often equipped a magical iron shield and had been developing a suit of adamantine armor. The suit had a plethora of enchantments applied using methods only known to Dispater himself that could thwart magic, allow for survival in even the most hostile environments and achieve a host of other unknown effects.

Avatars and Aspects

Dispater's avatar had been described as a 10 ft (3 m), yellow-skinned figure with the horns of a pit fiend and his aspects, which looked similar to himself, wielded weaker versions of his rod and wore clothing as exorbitant and resplendent as their master's.

If possible, Dispater always sent aspects to deal with situations outside of Dis that required a certain amount of personal attention, such as tempting intriguing mortals or societies and entreating with the other archdevils in Nessus. Despite often being made to fight, they were hesitant to fulfill their purpose since they shared Dispater's paranoia, in regards to both his safety and their own. Because of this they avoided risky fights, rarely ever committed to battle, had at least one escape planned and when pressed tried to kill the most dangerous opponent as fast as possible to secure their survival. They bewildered their enemies from afar and created iron barriers to keep them from getting close, always looking for potential advantages in combat and surrounding themselves with minions.

Aspects were most comfortable when surrounded with devils under their control but saw commanding mortals as a disgusting task for lesser devils. While one might think that, having lived in the paranoia-fueled Iron City, that the aspects would be able to relax on the Material Plane, the lack of distrust amidst its denizens only further agitated their sense of suspicion. Those around them felt more fearful than what was typical of their race and the aspects went out of their way to foster an environment with the correct amount of paranoia. Notably, the aspects were still more adept at handling society than Dispater himself. Though sometimes summoned or created by cults, many times Dispater's aspects in Faerun were looking for souls that would, or could be made to, experience regret for their misdeeds before death, allowing them to be turned into spectres and used to collect divine energy.

Personality

A master strategist and expert in intrigue, Dispater has a well-earned reputation for being the most carefully calculating of the archdevils. His personal safety is always his top priority, and to catch him off-guard is to outwit one of the most clever and resourceful beings in reality. During every step of his dominion he acts with patient cunning and unshakable discretion. Although he, like the other archdevils, schemes to take over the Nine Hells, he avoids taking big risks, not out of cowardice or insecurity but because of his unique view of the system.

Dispater views reality from the perspective of a contestant in an enigmatic game governed by unclear rules, and he analyzes the worth of everything by how it might help him glean its true nature. By solving all the mysteries of the multiverse, he gains the best chances of winning, allowing him to control the Nine Hells and then the rest of reality. He holds numerous secret techniques in regards to mining and forging for example, making him the greatest weapons supplier in Hell and possibly the multiverse, thus making him an important figure to the devils of war-torn Avernus. The chance to learn a new secret is one of the few things that could compel him to act against the other archdevils.

Despite his analytical approach, Dispater still holds diabolical charisma and carries himself with appreciable self-control. He is calm and composed at all times and is undeniably persuasive, delivering reasonable arguments with the courtesy of a true gentleman. His ability to withhold his anger even when it passionately burns within him makes him a dangerously suave being and is a source of personal pride for him.

However, behind Dispater's sophisticated posturing and soft finery is nonetheless a tyrant's iron fist, much to the chagrin of predatory members of his court. He is a malicious manipulator whose gentle words are laced with deceit and his acts of supposed charity are always political in nature. Among the archdevils, he is notable for rarely trying to force others to do his bidding, preferring to twist them into unwittingly carrying out his will. Even when committing acts of unspeakable evil his chivalrous façade never wavers, and if someone does manage to break his iron-clad stoicism he'd sooner destroy them than leave them alive to potentially expose his folly.

More recently however, a flaw has appeared in Dispater's seemingly invincible defense; his never-ending vigilance has been slowly transitioning into anxiety and paranoia. Unless otherwise forced to, he never leaves his city or even his tower, fearing a fate like Geryon or Moloch before him. No one is trusted, surprises are, at best, unpleasant, and he goes out of his way to make clear who is in charge. The gloomy archdevil's paranoia affects his every action and the ever-cautious Lord of the Nine has at least nine escape routes and back-up plans at any given time.

Divine Realm

Dispater rules over the narcissistically named layer of Dis, the outskirts of which are interspersed with rolling hills plagued by hellcats, wild erinyes, and, supposedly, moving pillars of stone. The majority of Dis, however, is a flat, blasted plain with only occasional rises in the ground, or precipitous mountains filled with iron ore that creates a maze of canyons between them. Iron bastions on rocky pinnacles filled with garrisons watch over the canyons and the iron roads paved within them. The cloudless skies are a thick gray-green, sometimes illuminated by flickers of lightning and the faint echoes of thunder, and are plagued by unending winds that fiercely and unpredictably hurl earthbound travelers through the air and make flying an ordeal for those that haven't spent years learning its patterns.

Dis shares its name both with its master and the city that comprises most of it, the largest and most well-known domain in Hell otherwise known as the Iron City or the City of Pain. It is speculated that the layer and city are actually one and the same since the Iron City seems infinite in size from the inside.
The Iron City

The labyrinthine nature of the Iron City is partially a result of the endless construction work forced upon the petitioners. Work crews of shades that have been returned their memories in order to properly appreciate their agony, lemures, and other forms of petitioners are watched over by perched abishai and guided by spinagon foremen in the extension, contraction, remodeling, reconstruction, and repair of the city, much of which is considered to be meaningless busy work.

It is said that the reason the City of Pain changes so quickly, both supernaturally and in the form of work crew orders, is that it reflects the inner workings of Dispater's mind. Despite being theoretically infinite, those inside always feel cramped and trapped, and the more paranoid Dispater is, the tighter and more warren-like the city's streets become. With the overwhelming presence of recently added scrying devices, the walls have ears and the red eyes of statues move. Dispater rules the city from his Iron Tower, a massive structure with even faster-acting peculiarities than the rest of the city. It always seems to be a block away yet moving towards it gets one nowhere. The Tower itself can be seen from every point in Dis and from it Dispater can see the tiniest details of his domain, but it always changes form from moment to moment.

While thoroughly unpleasant, the focus of Dis is industry rather than military, and it is one of the most accommodating places in the Nine Hells towards outsiders. Most outside dealings are conducted in an area known as the Fetters, so called because the outsiders that find themselves there can no longer seem to leave. Rare information is granted to the highest bidder, decent food and taverns mimicking those of the Prime Material Plane form a 'tourist' economy, and the bazaars and foundries buy and sell arms, armor, artistry, magical items, and infernal mercenaries. While thief gangs and crime lords fight over control of the sprawling slums, Dispater still ultimately controls it through his spies and informants. Through special provisions added to contracts made in Dis, he appropriates a portion of every shady deal and contraband trade, whether it is made with devils, night hags, rakshasas, succubi, or other fiends.

Activities

Ever since the catastrophe that is the Reckoning, Dispater rarely leaves the safety of his Iron Tower, much less his city, only exiting if forced to by Asmodeus and always returning as fast as possible. He governs his realm through intermediaries and aspects and relies on minions to do his bidding, his servants scattered throughout the Nine Hells all working to some elaborate end. Erinyes serve as his messengers and heralds but he also makes use of imp envoys with messages sown into vests designed to destroy both the messenger and message if removed by the wrong person.

With every archdevil to fall, Dispater's already healthy paranoia grows and his methods become more extreme. For example, the unpredictable and sudden fall of the Hag Countess to Glasya, seemingly with the support of her father, drives Dispater deeper into the depths of his tower. After that he double-checks his exits, quadruples his guards and increases the layers of intermediaries he communicates through, only directly seeing his most trusted servitors and instructing half of his servants to spy on the other half for treachery. Zariel's triumph over Bel only makes matters worse and sees him take up residence deep within his libraries. He leaves daily governance and negotiation with mortal summoners to his herald Titivilus, and a spy network to monitor potential threats to his person.

Dispater's primary focus is always on consolidating his current power and his plans can take generations to achieve results. After Glasya's ascension he tries to slowly drive out the voluntary planar residents from his city through harassment, taxation and surveillance, convinced they are all sources of potential treachery. As for offensive objectives, his main mission is the elimination of Baalzebul. The two constantly fight in wars of intrigue and expertly play politics, preventing the Iron Duke from further expansion, or at the very least that is how it appears.

Worshippers

Dispater supported soul harvesting territories able to reliably produce with little effort, rewarded those that managed to improve their yields and was willing to trade territories and minions with other archdevils. He was not above trying new plots and, compared to other devils, seemed focused on engaging in the soul trade, sending his envoys to pursue endless schemes throughout the Material Plane. His interest and skill in the trading of souls was rooted in his obsession with obtaining secrets; he desired the souls of secret-seekers and bargained with those who already had important secrets of their own.

Both Dispater and his soul harvesters recognized the subjective nature of value and the imps under his command diligently explored the Material Plane searching for pieces of, sometimes seemingly random, information to use as bargaining chips, such as the identity of a mysterious figure in a potential mark's life. A peasant that stumbled across powerful arcane magic could be convinced to enter an infernal pact in exchange for information about the future economy, while a powerful archmage could be cajoled into entering their own deal in exchange for the spell. “ Locked in an iron fortress within an iron city in the festering iron pit of Dis, Lord Dispater is master of all he surveys! ” — Ustyhrin-ja the erinyes

Dispater was the archdevil, if not most known then most understood, by mortals and the patron of war and intrigue. His followers upheld the principles of planning and strategy, thinking like generals and having the prowess of warriors. Despite being defensive to the point of sequestering themselves they were never truly trapped, as part of Dispater's doctrine was the idea of making contingencies. When combat was necessary, they made sure it was on their chosen battlefield and under their terms.

Dispater's followers showed an extreme attention to detail, particularly devils that lived in Dis and so had to be unerringly wary just to survive. They also had exceptional martial prowess with almost all weapons and armors, especially those of iron. More supernatural abilities included the power to summon erinyes, turn their bodies to iron, cause items to rust, detect the presence of metal, and teleport away in order to escape harm.

Cults devoted to Dispater did exist, but they weren't actually encouraged by the Father of Strife, who instead tempted influential individuals with promises of power. Dispater's agents weren't technically rulers, but rather those who ruled behind the throne by blackmailing the actual authorities with scandalous secrets and hidden weaknesses, such as villainous viziers, ministers and councilors. His true disciples were suspicious to the point of being paranoid, and despite preferring to have others fight for them they typically had few real allies and so had to employ mercenaries and other minions to enact their will.

Dispater's actual cults were similarly secretive and militant, representing evil in its most stable, and thus stagnant, form. They were conspiratorial in nature, often attempting to overtake existing religious and government organizations. Warlike humanoid races like goblins or hobgoblins revered the Iron Duke as the image of indestructibility, and rogue mind flayers occasionally appealed to him seeking knowledge that would allow them permanent freedom from the elder brain.

Dogma

Initiation into a cult of Dispater involved the ritualistic sacrifice of an intelligent being on an iron altar in the presence of an erinyes supervisor that would report it to Dispater afterwards. Fighters and combat-oriented rogues and rangers were known to submit to him, being powerful soldiers that wielded iron axes and swords. Dispatian clerics donned gray attire and were often covered in iron, from their to their maces to the masks that hid their facial features.

Dispater's were often hidden and remote and always easily defensible with various escape routes, secret passages and traps to create options for its occupants. Even if not temples, all disciples mustered the most well-defended bases possible, the greatest owning literal fortresses with armies at their command. Commonly, cultists simply hunkered down in their outposts reviewing protocols and backup plans.

Relationships

Dispater's favored servitors were erinyes, natives to Dis appreciated not only for their beauty but for their unfaltering fealty and competence, traits looked for through traps, tests and demonstrably excellent service. They earned increased influence throughout Dis and were rewarded for displaying such characteristics.

Patrolling Dis from the skies, Dispater's erinyes would head towards the city and alert other erinyes or important individuals when spotting intruders, presuming they weren't already in a group, in which case only one would leave while the rest attacked. They carefully observed enemy numbers and appearance before leaving and might seek to capture rather than kill them since, as with his peers, entities and items able to better his standing were something Dispater always desired, and destroying something he might potentially want was a quick way to anger him. His chief erinyes was the horribly scarred disciple Ustyhrin-ja, a paranoid devil that was loyal to and only trusted Dispater.

Besides the erinyes, Dispater employed constructs such as iron golems to do his bidding, the most famous and recent of which was Talos. Procured by Dispater through unknown means, the ancient golem was wrongly thought to be created by the Iron Duke, but it nonetheless obeyed his commands.

Dukes

Labored in by stench kows and spinagons and home to mephits, achaierai and rakshasas were the great estates of Dispater's dukes, set between the Iron City and the distant hills of Dis. The rakshasas occasionally earned leadership positions in such households but were too independent and ambitious to be left unwatched. The duke known as Bitru was the strongest of Dispater's vassals and commanded 70 companies of erinyes, each raised within his fief. Similarly, the war-like general Alocer commanded 36 such companies. Perhaps the most bizarre of his generals was the patchwork quadruped known as Merodach, the leader of 21 barbazus companies.

Dispater's consort was the old and relatively weak consort known as Lilis, a cautious diplomat that cemented her position through strategy, political wariness, and by providing Dispater access to a spy network to rival Asmodeus's. Meanwhile, Dispater's provost, Biffant, managed the Iron Tower itself. The two portly devils showed an uncanny level of mutual understanding, teamwork and trust that exceeded typical expectations for devils to the point that they seemed closer to each other than to Dispater, although they had nonetheless shown their lord unswerving loyalty, granting him control over his domain that brought envy to other archdevils.

The most notable of Dispater's dukes however was his nuncio, the satyr-like, silver-tongued devil known as Titivilus. Dispater had Titivilus serve several roles, acting as his ambassador, advisor, messenger and harbinger, his trust in the duke being so great that he left governance of Dis to him and allowed him to speak and act on his behalf. It was unknown if any message sent to Dispater was ever actually received by the archdevil himself.

In truth, Dispater's biggest mistake was likely putting Titivilus in charge, for while he was justified in being paranoid towards outside threats he had neglected to protect himself from his own fear. Titivilus was not in his position for his strength but because he always knew exactly what to say and exactly when to say it to get his way and confuse others into seeing him as a friend. After gaining his position as Dispater's right hand, he had been preying on Dispater's paranoia, convincing him that even Asmodeus himself was part of innumerable conspiracies designed to dethrone him.

Titivilus insulated his perilous position by killing critics or those that would expose him and creating problems for his master for him to solve, thus making himself seem more valuable to Dispater. Those whose disdain manifested as hatred were terrified of the consequences that trying to take him down could incur and most were simply afraid of him with the exception of one; Arioch the Iron Avenger. As Dispater's enforcer, the avenger protected the city, searching for those that defied, displeased, obstructed or crossed him, and as his bodyguard he accompanied him everywhere that he could be in potential danger, typically outside the city, and warded him from the pestering of devils from other circles of Hell.

Dispater also had a daughter, the outcast duchess Malachlabra.

Archdevils

For a long time, at least in name, Dispater was an ally of Mephistopheles, although he envied the Cold Lord and was greatly perturbed by the possibility that his arcane studies had uncovered a secret he hadn't yet learned. The two shared a deep hatred for Baalzebul, with Dispater's loathing stemming from the fact that the Slug Archduke was, in his eyes, just a fallen archon and not a 'true' baatezu like Mephistopheles, although only someone as ancient as Dispater would be aware or care about such semantics.

Dispater was once an ally of Mammon as well, but the sniveling serpent's display of craven pleading towards Asmodeus and the speed with which he sold him out broke their partnership. However, Dispater himself was nonetheless cowed after the disastrous ending of the Reckoning, considering himself lucky to still be in his position. He was the most loyal of the archdevils, the beckoning of the King of Hell being one of the few things that would prompt him to leave the Iron Tower, and would need extraordinary persuasion to attempt to betray him twice.

Asmodeus wasn't the only devil that Dispater had changed attitudes towards, him having gained a new political perspective after Glasya's rise. He tried to civilly distance himself from his allies and make peace with his rivals in order to establish himself as a neutral party, a futile goal for a being such as himself in the Nine Hells. The other archdevils nonetheless coveted his secrets, such as the occult trick that allowed him to siphon vast amounts of divine energy from woeful spectres that repented just too late to obtain a second chance.

History

Dispater was an archduke of unimaginable age, ancient even by the standards of his peers. Untold eons had passed since he first rose to power to the point where his origin could no longer be remembered by most, and unlike figures such as Bel he defied classification as a "type" of devil. If the tale of the Pact Primeval was to be believed, he was formerly an angel that worked with Asmodeus, Mephistopheles, and other dark angels that would become the first erinyes, to transform the barren wasteland of Hell into an industrious plane of torture and punishment.

Dispater was thought to have mediated the deal between Tiamat and the githyanki, his initial offer where he would receive the souls of the entire githyanki race for direct aid having been rejected. Dispater received Gith's soul as insurance for Tiamat, who would be granting the githyanki red dragon mounts. Unfortunately for the Lady of Avarice she unknowingly violated the terms of the agreement by demanding the githyanki assist her in one of her battles, not in itself a violation and indeed a part of the pact. Unbeknownst to her, one of Gith's last requirements was that the githyanki always carried on the Eternal Crusade against the mind flayers, and by ordering them to temporarily put it aside she had broke the deal and released Gith's soul from Dispater's coffers.

Dispater

Lord of the Nine

Basic Information

Titles

Lord of the Second
Lord of Dis
Archduke of Dis
The Iron Duke
Father of Strife

Pantheons

Archfiend

Serves

Asmodeus

Attributes

Alignment

Lawful Evil

Symbol

A black iron tower on a red field A fortress embossed on a reinforced miniature shield.

Realm

Nine Hells of Baator/Dis/Iron Tower

Portfolio

-

Following

Worshippers

Hobgoblins
Goblins

Domains

Evil (Devil)
Protection (Fortifications)