Devil

Beings of absolute, merciless order and obedience, devils know nothing of morality, compassion, or free will. Their foul existences—from the most revolting lemure to the deadliest infernal duke—serve but a single unified purpose: the execution of Hell’s law across all the planes. Where they succeed, whole worlds become blasted slave empires, prison slaughterhouses where mortal souls fuel the infernal war machine and praise the grim majesty of the God Fiend. Where they fail, subtle corruptions and blasphemous subversions wrap the tendrils of temptation about weak mortal minds, paving a path of damnation for the restless armies of Hell.
Within the Pit, all is the way the eldest truths of the multiverse dictate and the way the will of Asmodeus demands. Wheels within wheels and castes within hierarchies assure that all the servants of the Prince of Darkness know their place and the duties their dread lords command. Although vast expanses of Hell appear to be little more than horrifying chaos, realms where foul beasts teem and the damned wail their sorrows to the deaf heavens, all follows an order. Chaos breeds suffering, change spawns fear, upheaval breaks the soul; all are tools of Hell’s tortures. Thus, all follows the great plans of Hell’s rulers, for while they gauntlet their fists in cold tyranny, they deny themselves no weapons, even the scourges of The Abyss, the spears of Heaven, or the fires of the Maelstrom.
While the lords of the Pit do as they will, such is not the fate of their servants. The hellspawn mind knows precision and expertise, having been birthed to excel within the duties their masters require. Hamatula sentinels, osyluth inquisitors, and gelugon strategists—all have been sculpted for their roles by the hands of Hell, and in these tasks devils know few peers. Yet infernal minds do not create weapons for but a single goal, and the spawn of the Pit are far from automatons. Even the basest fiends exhibit cruel cleverness and the ability to learn and refine skills outside the edicts of their creation. A barbazu legionnaire might come to excel at infiltration, while an erinyes might become a deadly seductress, each fiend’s skills growing and becoming more refined as their experiences and the needs of their masters shape them. And when their time comes to walk upon Eldarr, all devils that, through their individual skills, they have but one goal: to damn the souls of mortals however they see fit.

The Hierarchy of Hell

The devils of Hell are legion, their ranks endlessly bolstered by damned souls, other natives of the infernal plane, and horrors forged in the multiverse’s darkest pits. Yet, among their own, devils form one of the largest and most stringent social orders in all the planes, rivaled only by the choirs of Heaven and the castes of axiomites in their racial law.
All devils are created to fill a gap or expand the ranks of Hell’s rigid hierarchy, a pyramidal organization typified by grim echelons of control similar to the rankings of an impossibly vast and complex military. At the height of this order Asmodeus sits enthroned, unquestioned and invincible lord over all beneath him, while at the base roil repulsive oceans of lemures and all the potential evils and terrifying shapes they embody. Between these extremes march untold varieties of diabolical life, from deadly foot soldiers to elite warriors to beings of living warfare. Such fiends hold rankings based foremost on infernal breed, but also on accomplishment and the recognition of their masters. Hell is strict and ordered, but not blind to exceptions that offer advantages. The racial ranks of Hell select first and foremost for prowess, though the definition of such skill varies. Typically, this implies physical strength in battle, barbazus being inferior to more powerful levalochs who are, in turn, lessers to stronger osyluths. Yet exceptions exist in terms of cunning.
One of the rare phistophiluses, for example, bears greater rank than a hamatula, while insidious gelugons preside over legions of cornugons. While a gelugon might pose far less of a threat to a mortal warrior in hand-to-hand combat, the pitiless minds of these villians prove such that whole nations might fall victim to their subtle temptations before one even recognizes its threat.
Although diabolical race means much within the castes of Hell, physical form alone does not correspond to a specific rank or authority. The lords of the Pit are ever watchful for exceptional skill and capable servants. Whether a warrior that slaughters hundreds more enemies than his brethren or a strategist whose machinations cause the fall of an entire empire, Hell seeks such prodigies. As devils are born from that which was once mortal, many believe certain former souls prove predisposed to certain exceptional talents and might carry those skills through millennia of torments to create prodigious fiends. The soul of a peerless mortal warrior might eventually make a skilled erinyes, while a murderous inquisitor might reprise his merciless passion as an osyluth. Yet, while the lords of Hell seek out such souls, the process of creating lemures from the damned rests largely in the unknowable workings of the infernal plane itself, making direct transformations impossible—not that this stops many diabolical lords from seeking methods to more effectively utilize such souls.
When such skilled devils do rise above their brethren, though, they are rewarded with authority. Thus, a particularly deadly barbazu might excel in skill to a point where he can best and be promoted to lead a host of erinyes, while a keen osyluth might join the ranks of watchful hamatulas. These subjective ranks within Hell’s hierarchies are not obvious to most non-devils—beyond the scars of veteran warriors or occasional trappings of the favored—yet all devils recognize the place of their kindred immediately, and obey or command as their station allows. But for those who seek them, or have them forced upon them by their masters, there do exist methods of physical advancement for those willing to endure the suffering.

Diabolical Advancement

The breeds of devilkind are not stagnant. In the same way the greatest of infernal kind might recreate lemures into useful, sentient shapes, so too might other devils be lifted from the rank-caste implied by their form. In a process little understood outside of Hell but known to be one of the most excruciating tortures exacted upon the multiverse’s beings, a devil might be reshaped into a greater form. Such promotion can only be meted out by one of the lords of Hell, a fiend with the standing of an infernal duke or greater. Recognized as a minion of worth, the devil is subjected to a lengthy and terrifying torment befitting its would-be new incarnation.
Should the creature survive this torture—a fate that is never assured—it emerges transformed into a new being, a member of a greater diabolical breed with all the rights and standing of that form. Procession through Hell’s infernal castes is not a direct path, as devils of any type might be promoted into a variety of forms. Typically, though, a fiend advances by small degrees, joining a slightly more powerful rank, and never is a lesser devil promoted to a greater devil without the careful consideration of its lord. These diabolical transformations typically take place on a case-by-case basis, though the archdevils occasionally remake whole legions as suit their needs. Such advancement can also be reversed, and failed fiends might be cast into torments that strip away their forms, reducing them in station. Such a fate is perhaps the worst insult a devil can suffer, one all of these prideful fiends dread.
Although numerous methods of diabolical advancement are well documented, no devil can engage in this process without the allowance of the infernal nobility. Even those brazen enough to try it without permission gain no benefit, just years of torment endured to no advantageous outcome. What infernal processes or right the lords of Hell bring to these tortures—what spark finally imbues their minions with greater blasphemous forms—is unknown, though diabolists throughout the multiverse have long sought the secrets of these diabolical powers. These torturous advancements are also not the only way devils of great standing are formed, as the creations of Asmodeus and those beings that spring whole-formed from the depths of Hell are many and obey infernal laws few can comprehend.
Noted here are several of the agonies the most common diabolical breeds are known to suffer in their advancement through Hell’s profane hierarchy. While others with the same or similar results are doubtlessly known, the lords of the Pit rarely share their secrets.
Imps: Typically sculpted by a powerful devil from a single lemure, imps are usually created for a specific purpose. An infernal lord can create an imp in moments, often treating these fiends as disposable couriers, accounting for the great numbers of them throughout most layers of Hell.
Barbazu: Raised en masse from mobs of lemures, these fiends are impaled upon the glaives of the devils they would become for 50 years or more, their transformations being complete when they develop the will and control to extract their weapons from their bodies.
Erinyes: Most erinyes are specially chosen by the archfiends, warped from the forms of fallen or corrupted celestial beings. Lesser devils are rarely promoted to become erinyes unless an infernal lord gleans some spark of corrupted divinity or past piousness within their essences. Those that would be transformed into erinyes are impaled upon the loftiest tower spikes of Dis and left to be flensed by the vicious winds and fed upon by the city’s revolting avian hosts for 150 years.
Osyluth: Although rising fully formed from the depths of Stygia itself, osyluths may also be promoted from the ranks of the most manipulative erinyes. Buried, drowned, and picked over by the swarms of fetid Stygia for 200 years, what emerges has lost all hint of beauty, a horrifying new osyluth.
Hamatula: Infernal lords in need of sentinels typically create hamatulas from brooding erinyes and subtle osyluths. These devils are cast into the loneliest, darkest vaults of Erebus for 333 years. Those who neither go insane nor try to escape find, upon their release, that the darkness has granted them new powers and forms.
Gelugon: Typically raised from the ranks of the most cunning hamatulas and osyluths, would-be gelugons are cast into the icy wastes of Cocytus. Those with the wisdom to survive a realm deadly even to devils for 500 years grow the hoary carapaces of gelugons.
Cornugon: The most skilled martial devils endure the wars of Malebolge. Through untold millennia these fiends endure mock warfare and torturous training, the ever-increasing mercilessness and prowess of the deadliest fiends gradually taking physical form, warping them into cornugons.
Pit Fiend: Ingenious and merciless devils, typically gelugons and cornugons, are caged within the hellfire volcanoes of Nessus. Here they suffer and burn for 666 years. Should the devil survive, it emerges as one of the most powerful forms of devilkind.

Genetic Descendants

• Nephalem

Related Myths

• Story of Artur - An Alternative Creation Myth