Zariel, Lord of the First

Zariel is the lord of Avernus, an archduchess dedicated to winning the unending Blood War between devils and demons. She was originally an angel of Heaven before transforming into an archdevil and falling to the Nine Hells.

Description

Zariel's original form was that of a beautiful solar with precious skin, gold-feathered wings, and a blindfold covering her eyes.
After her descent, she took on a more diabolical appearance; a halo of fire burned atop her head, her once fine skin seemed scorched, and her angelic wings, ruined by flame, took a leathery appearance. Her blindfold was abandoned, fully revealing eyes that glowed with white-hot rage, and she had lost one of her hands and replaced it with a flail.

Personality

Zariel is a warmonger obsessed with battle, someone who lives to fight and judges others on their combat skills and willingness to use them. She prizes zealous fury as much as discipline and training, and leads her troops into battle herself with iron resolve, leaving many a structure in ruin as she carves her war path. However, neither her own battle prowess nor that of her forces could disguise the fact that Zariel is reckless and rash, relying on her troops' berserker rage and her own determination to win her fights.
Her behavior had warped to match that of her peers, for she also became a cruel being that inflicts psychological torment on her enemies and subjects those that displease her to horrible fates. She has also grown distrusting to the point of being taken aback by a heroic act of self-sacrifice, having become the kind of plotting person to set numerous schemes in motion at once and deal in contracts to bind people into servitude. While once a purveyor of blind justice, Zariel has allowed her emotions to color her decisions, twisting it into rage-fueled vengeance, and she refuses to forgive even decades after being wronged.

Flaws

Zariel is notorious for her foul temper, her poor emotional control impedes her ability to act rationally and pragmatically, as exemplified by her refusal to play politics. Her approach of charging headfirst into dangerous situations led by her righteous wrath is the opposite of the carefully calculating Bel. He is, at heart, a realist, aware that the infinite nature of demonkind left him only capable of a stalemate against their innumerable horde. Zariel, despite her cynicism, is an idealist; she genuinely believes that a mere host of mortals would fare well in Avernus, only for a great number of them to flee from the fear-radiating fiends.
The nature of Hell is to corrupt, and Avernus in particular specializes in the abuse of a flaw that frequently affects angels: hubris. Angels have a sense of infallibility about their actions, and Zariel's anger is only further inflamed by the righteousness with which she perceives it. Asmodeus praises her for the strength of her convictions, but it is her unswerving rage that cemented her fall from Heaven. She had become so zealously hell-bent on fighting that she was willing to abandon her principles and sacrifice the very innocent lives she had once sworn to protect in order to destroy the demonic menace.

Hope

Zariel's pride and wrath has limits, and the burden of her duties weighs on her. Confronting the memories of what she had lost to achieve her desire to fight fills her with sorrow, and she hesitates to destroy reminders of her past. Even as she prides herself as a cosmic martyr, she can still be made to feel pangs of shame for the atrocities she committed to reach where she is. Despite her flaws, her conviction in the overall righteousness of her actions is not invincible, and if properly confronted it is possible for the small sparks of good within her to emerge once more.

Abilities

Together with Geryon, Zariel is among the archdevils best known for their unmitigated martial prowess. Such is her power that she could best a balor in one-on-one combat and only need a few seconds afterwards to collect herself.
Following her fall, Zariel was enhanced with fiendish powers, such as the typical archdevil ability to alter her form. In addition, many of her powers have gained a distinct fire motif: she can create fireballs and walls of fire at will, her weapons sear with hellish flame, and her magical stare can cause spontaneous combustion. Whereas typical solars have the ability to cast resurrection three times a day and can remove ailments such as disease, poison, blindness, or deafness with only a touch, Zariel has instead the power to cast finger of death three times per day and is endowed with a horrid, poisoning touch that inflict the same conditions that an angelic healing touch would reverse.
Zariel's fall has also come with undeniable drawbacks. She lacks the divine awareness that allows all solars to detect lies, as well as their truesight, instead possesses the devil power to see through magical darkness.

Possessions

While Zariel was still an angel, she wielded a longsword which she later lost along with her hand during her original descent into Avernus. The Sword of Zariel, as it came to be known, was hidden by her most loyal general Yael and her hollyphant companion Lulu. The sword not only contains an angelic spark but has every ounce of a hollyphant's celestial energies poured into it, enough so that a fortress against the evils of Avernus have sprung up around the blade. The sentient artifact is capable of destroying the nigh-indestructible, although only the sword could decide who was worthy of wielding it, and attuning to its power causes an irrevocable physical and magical transformation into an idealized, angelic version of one's former self.
Some time after her fall, Zariel managed to take the hammer Matalotok, an ancient weapon forged in the Abyss, from the demon lord Kostchtchie, and started wielding it herself.[
Among Zariel's dangerous weapons are her flying fortresses, massive basalt citadels that were usually repaired and serviced at the rusting Stygian Docks and fueled by souls extracted directly from the River Styx. One such vehicle is a colossal structure shaped like a blade, a 450‑foot tall fortress that is crewed by hundreds of devils and is controlled telepathically only by Zariel herself.

Realm

Originally, the layer of Avernus was a beautiful domain, a bustling paradise filled with lush gardens, rural countryside, trade outposts, cities, and other grand locales. It had been so crafted by Asmodeus with the goal of tempting mortals. As a result of the constant demonic invasions coming through the Styx and the continuous carnage of the Blood War however, the pristine land was ruined, leaving behind only remnants of its former beauty such as ruins, mirages, pleasant sensory illusions without source, and ancient relics that caused fleeting moments of pure joy.
Avernus is now a domain of ruin, a war-torn wasteland covered in layers of bones, collapsed structures, and enormous, broken war machines as far as the eye can see. The rocky terrain is marked by rivers of blood, piles of corpses, and groaning nupperibo hordes that trawl the landscape like living lakes in search of food. Other natural hazards include bubbling tar pits, quicksand, lava lakes, and salt flats made from the mass tears of the damned. Food and drink from Avernus is tainted if not inedible, and even if brought from another source it tastes ashy or spoiled. The rarity of good food encourages mortal inhabitants to hoard it, and the plane itself supernaturally rewards selfish behavior.
Avernus' sky is filled by an ambient, blood-red light that seems to come from nine suns just below the horizon, with no visible celestial bodies in the sky. The light filters through the nightmarish clouds that obscure the sky, and the constant twilight makes it difficult to track the passage of time. A particularly dangerous phenomenon is the seemingly random, motion-tracking fireballs that rain from the sky and leave smoking craters in their wake.
The air smells of brimstone and burning tar and is often blasted by shrieking gusts of hot wind that occasionally stir dark sandstorms capable of tearing flesh from bone. The air is populated by biting flies, hellwasps, and stirges, which are known to flock on Coward's Way, feasting on the blood of Zariel's Hellrider betrayers as they hang crucified in metal trees.

Lair

The seat of Zariel's power is a massive basalt citadel that spans an area of 5 square miles. Its walls are festooned with the partially burned bodies of those that disappointed the Lord of the First, many still screaming and moaning in dying agony audible from up to 1 mile away.
The citadel is manned by hundreds of various devils, both inside and out, and protected by high turrets that reinforce the walls. The region surrounding the citadel is also altered by Zariel's magic. Ten‑foot-high gouts of flame burst from the ground 60 feet apart from each other within 1 mile of the fortress, as well as sight-obscuring smoke that clouds it between 500 feet and 2 miles away, and the smell of charred meat and screaming voices that can be perceived from up to 9 miles away. Within the bounds of this lair, Zariel can create more fireballs, as well as major images to frighten her enemies; she has a preference for images of loved ones being burned alive.

Activities

Prosecuting the Blood War took up much of Zariel's time and attention, and she had little room to deal with anything else. Her offensive military campaign often had her at the forefront of invasions when she wasn't within a flying fortress overseeing Avernus' defense. She apparently had a penchant for spawning cambions to serve as leaders for her followers.
It was also her responsibility to ensure the defense of the plane against outside attack, the River Styx being a particularly important area for demonic entry and infernal strikes against the Abyss. Styx devils guarded the citadels and outposts overlooking the river, but it fell to Zariel to manage travel to and from Avernus, and she had the final say over who could pass through.

Relationships

Zariel's rule over Avernus was in some ways, at least before Bel's betrayal, less fierce and brutal than his more defensive reign. It was a tight ship held together by fear, and when met with treachery, Zariel brought swift and terrible vengeance. Many Avernian denizens were power-hungry warlords roaming the wastes in infernal machines looking to create and improve their fiefs. Zariel opted to let the pests destroy each other rather than personally exterminate them, given her busy schedule of Blood War prosecution. She had a particular arrangement with Mad Maggie, a night hag obsessed with the tragic saga of Zariel's fall, that deal being that if Maggie kept the other warlords in check then Zariel would leave her alone.
Zariel's disdain for governmental machinations and refusal to make alliances had made her a political pariah among her peers, and her origin was just one more justification for the devils scheming to overthrow her. Each archdevil would happily depose her if given the chance, and many had made moves to do so in the past. Her return to prominence had set off the paranoia of Dispater, compelling him to retreat deeper within his Iron Tower, and Mephistopheles was wary of her wrath and sought to gain leverage over her. Asmodeus admired Zariel's passion for warfare and had welcomed her into the fold of the archdevils, the angel-turned-fiend being something of a jewel in his crown. Despite this, it was said she actually desired vengeance against the Raging Fiend, and planned to drive him from the Hells.
Zariel's most direct opponent was likely Bel. Despite instructions by Asmodeus to cooperate, the two utterly detested each other and invented distractions to avoid having to deal with one another. Zariel placed her assigned advisor in charge of weapons production to keep him busy although that did nothing to stop his treasonous schemes. The possibility that Asmodeus supported Zariel meant that Bel couldn't directly challenge her, though he would take steps to make her seem incompetent, and allowed her to continue her reckless maneuvers in the hopes she'd overextend her forces and be removed due to a defeat. He'd even go so far as to help her be redeemed, even despite the low odds of success, since it would lead to him becoming archduke.

Others

Zariel relished slaying demons and is known to do so personally when the opportunity presents itself, though she has specific relations with a few of them. She defeated the misogynistic Kostchtchie, stole his hammer, and chained him to the bottom of a chasm in Avernus since killing him would simply cause him to reform, and she wouldn't necessarily be so rash as to directly confront him if he showed up demanding his hammer back. She and Yeenoghu, Demon Prince of Gnolls, had some history before her transformation into an archduke, for it was his slaughter of a village under her protection before she knocked him back into the Abyss that was potentially the final straw that led to her descent. Yeenoghu, for his part, hates Zariel with a passion and would love to destroy her.
Zariel was friends with the hollyphant Lulu before her descent, a friendship that dated back centuries. Lulu also served as Zariel's war mount and traveling companion, and the two inspired sorrow in each other, Lulu for what Zariel had become and Zariel for the friendship she had lost. Other reminders of Zariel's past were more morbid, such as the horrific fates of some of her knights. There was the mortal knight Haruman, a heartless crusader even before his descent that transformed into a hell knight of undyingly loyalty to her. There was also the death knight Olanthius, who had taken his life due to Zariel's corruption and was brought back to serve her while supernaturally bound. Though he hated her, he partially blamed himself for not seeing the warning signs to her fall, and Zariel felt guilt for having left her loyal friend to a horrible fate.

Worshipers

Zariel's worshipers are those that wish to fight but lack the necessary experience, training, skill, talent, and bravery in martial affairs to do so, all of which her agents could offer. Ordinary cultists show greater ferocity, and cult leaders have a keen tactical eye. Her cults are often headed by her own cambions.
Those that wish to prove themselves on the battlefield, those who sought fame and fortune through military achievement, refugees lacking the ability to fight, and simply those who desired the skills needed to survive are all attracted to the cults of Zariel. On the more experienced side, militant conquerors, already established warriors desiring a combat edge, and hobgoblins are also typical members. Entire orders of knights, fighter's guilds, and mercenary companies could fall under the sway of Avernus' Archduchess.
Zariel desires the souls of the greatest warriors and expects only the best from those under her. She allows them relatively fuller lives, if only so they could hone their skills in life and join her ranks of universally disciplined and capable servants after death. Those mortals that who please her while alive are sometimes allowed to keep their memories and be promoted into higher forms of devils rather than become pathetic lemures. She also demands loyalty from her servants, her hard bargains being eternal and indissoluble things akin to ultimatums.

Manipulation

However, just because service to the former angel has some advantages doesn't mean she isn't willing to use underhanded means to get her way. Prosecuting the Blood War constantly taxes Zariel's armies; her legions always being depleted by the ceaseless fighting. To keep Hell in the war, she aggressively recruits mortal souls and looks for evildoers on the Material Plane who could bring her more, thus ensuring her more infernal soldiers.
Though violence is a crucial tool in the scheme, the methodology of Zariel's lead soul harvesters is nonetheless diabolical. Zariel's cults flourish in regions wracked by war, and her agents effectively act as war-profiteers, sowing corruption by destroying harmony and stability, thus setting up the right circumstances for mortals to perform heinous deeds. They give mortals the means to harm each other by funding evil organizations and distributing weapons, and incite hatred between them by coercing them into acts of sectarian violence justified by the need to defeat some arbitrary enemy.
Aside from that, another deceptive method of Zariel is the exploitation of the mortal desire for spiritual leadership. A key example of both these strategies can be seen in Gideon Lightward, one of Zariel's most loyal servitors. Zariel took advantage of his fervor by sending devils disguised as angels to offer him power if he would help fight off the demonic menace, slowly eroding his sanity until he was a tyrannical leader obsessed with the destruction of demons on a level reaching madness. Some cultists of Zariel are known to heap praise on her for her tireless efforts to win the Blood War and defeat the demons that threaten to destroy the cosmos.

History

Originally, Zariel was a solar, her name meaning "Companion of Light". From Heaven, Zariel was tasked with tracking the progress of the Blood War in Avernus, but from continued exposure to the conflict, grew an obsession with the War and a taste for battle. Zariel was impetuous in nature, and couldn't ignore the desire to fight within her, but her requests were consistently blocked by her angelic peers.
Zariel believed that it was the responsibility of the angelic host to defeat evil, and was of the opinion that an assault from the hosts of Heaven could wipe out both sides of the Blood War in one stroke, freeing the multiverse from the fiends who destroyed each other and vast chunks of it in the process. Despite her chastisement for their spectating stance, Zariel was repeatedly forbidden from entering the conflict. Zariel was frustrated by her superiors' refusal to engage in the war, and drew the line when Yeenoghu slaughtered a village under her protection.
Eventually, Zariel defied her superiors and led the Hellriders, a host of personally trained mortal allies, into Avernus, in the battle that became known as the Ride. Outnumbered by the devils, the army was defeated and the survivors fled in terror and shame. Asmodeus sent a delegation of osyluths to retrieve her unconscious body from underneath a mountain of the dead, whereupon the Lord of the Nine allowed her to recover and congratulated her. Zariel succumbed to the corrupting nature of Hell and Asmodeus made her an archdevil and dubbed her his champion.
The exact timeline of Zariel's actions was contested. Some reports claim that Bel was the previous Lord of the First, but others had Zariel as his predecessor who he later overthrew. Sometimes Zariel is purported to have become an archdevil as far back as the founding of Hell, supposedly being tasked by Asmodeus to protect Avernus from those seeking vengeance against the angels that rebelled and became the original devils. Regardless, Bel, at one point, managed to defeat Zariel and take her place as Archduke.
Bel was a high ranking general in the armies of Avernus. Through Bel's tactical genius, he had become Zariel's right hand and had served her faithfully for many centuries, but Zariel had made a crucial mistake—she came to trust him.
Bel defeated Zariel and, using an unknown means possibly learnt from the demons of the Abyss, imprisoned the forlorn lord in his Bronze Citadel while siphoning her power to increase his own infernal abilities. Zariel was constantly tortured by abishai servants of Bel, who continuously carved off bits of her flesh to feed their master for several centuries, the new Lord of the First hoping to eventually reduce her into a mere soul shell.
Asmodeus had allowed Bel to rule so long as he kept fighting the Blood War, but had done so partially out of the knowledge that he'd be too busy with the Blood War to scheme against his peers. In fact, it was possible that Asmodeus was the one truly behind Zariel's defeat, and that rather than publicly demote her, he put the Dark Eight in charge. The pit fiend generals hunted down and imprisoned Zariel, and established Bel as a puppet Lord of the First in their stead.

Return

Eventually, Bel fell out of favor with Asmodeus due to his inability to successfully repel a demonic invasion of Avernus, his overly cautious methods having proved inadequate to deal with the encroaching Abyssal offenses. Following Bel's demotion, Zariel was reinstated and reclaimed her title as Lord of Avernus before nearly driving all the demons out of Hell with her unrelenting offense.

Divine Classification

Devil

Alignment

Lawful evil

Current Location

Avernus

Species

Devil

Realm

Avernus

Aligned Organization

The Hordes of Hell

Ruled Locations

• Avernus