Cult of Asmodeus

Mythology & Lore

The origins of Asmodeus were not very clear. Various stories existed that even disagreed on what kind of lifeform Asmodeus actually was. Asmodeus took advantage of his aforementioned lack of true divinity to obscure his true nature, powers and agenda. While evidently operating under different rules than other powers, his status as a "lord of evil" was all that was clear to others. The location of Asmodeus's body was kept secret from everyone, including other devils and everyone who learnt of the truth about his body was killed within a day.

Divine Origins

Origin Story: Serpent of Law

Jazirian and Ahriman forming the Outer Planes. This story positioned Asmodeus's origins at the very dawn of time. Called Ahriman at the time, he arose from the primordial chaos as the mightiest of the lawful gods, with Jazirian the only one who could rival him. These two were both serpent-form gods and they set their minds on ordering the multiverse in a lawful way. Towards that end, the two serpent gods bit each others' tails, forming a circle that defined the borders of a new plane. Born from the soup of chaos through the interaction of the two most powerful entities of law, one evil and the other good, formed the neutral plane of the Outlands. The other Outer Planes arrayed themselves around its circular border, forming the Great Wheel cosmology, and the concept of the Unity of Rings was created. The next law the two created was the Rule of Three in honor of their three aspects: evil, good, and law. However, when they had to decide a center for the multiverse, they disagreed. The Outlands were the ideal place but lawful good Jazirian wanted Celestia to be the center, while lawful evil Ahriman wanted Baator to be it. They tugged each other and bit each others' tail tips off. Unlike Jazirian, Ahriman was a scaled serpent without wings and therefore fell into the Nine Hells. He crashed into Nessus and created the deep fissure called the Serpent's Coil before his fall halted. There, his serpentine body lay bleeding, and from the blood arose the first baatezu. Having failed to choose a center for the multiverse, the two lawful entities had effectively honored chaos by making every plane infinitely big and therefore every place being the center. The two serpents had spent so much power in creating rules for the multiverse and in their struggle that they were unable to prevent other, newer gods from taking over positions of importance. Ahriman later took the name Asmodeus for himself.

Origin Story: Pact Primeval

“Read the fine print.” — Asmodeus, per the tale of the Pact Primeval This origin story had Asmodeus fool the gods into signing the Pact Primeval, a contract between Asmodeus and gods that effectively allowed devils to legally take mortal souls to Baator by corrupting them and draw energy from them. This story was accepted by sages across the multiverse, but was held to be myth rather than an exact account, while the existence of other stories was acknowledged. This story was mostly told by devils, of course. In this version too, the multiverse started as a soup of chaos, where demons fought each other. As a reaction to chaos, the concept of law arose to counter it, and with it deities of law who fought the demons. But eventually the deities wearied of fighting infinite demons and wanted to do something else. So they created angels to fight the demons for them. The best specimen of this new species in every regard was Asmodeus. As far as killing demons was concerned, Asmodeus was the most successful of the angels. But he and his fellows took on some fiendish aspects to increase their effectiveness at fighting demons, and for this they were put on trial. Asmodeus's argument was that war was a dirty business and that they had done the deity's dirty work for them, yet upheld their laws, and that he and his people had done nothing wrong. The gods realized Asmodeus had a better grasp of law than they did and could find no counter to his arguments. Over time, the gods tried to bar Asmodeus and his people from accessing various privileges and rights, but Asmodeus managed to secure them through his legal knowledge by suing the gods and pulling forth arguments they could not counter. Once the Prime Material Plane was populated and made more-or-less safe from demons, the gods noticed that mortals had a tendency to disregard divine law and overstep boundaries. The gods had a problem with this for it invited chaos and allowed demons access to mortals. They had free will, and could chose not to follow law. To counter this, Asmodeus invented the concept of punishment. The gods accepted it and Asmodeus's and his fellows' (including Mephistopheles and Dispater) duties now included punishing those who transgressed divine law, meaning torturing the souls of transgressors. While the gods understood the necessity of punishment, they had a problem with souls being punished within their lands. So Asmodeus was again put on trial. He argued again that he simply followed divine law and did his duties, and again, the gods could not counter him, but they couldn't abide souls being punished in a place where they could see the cruelty. Therefore, Asmodeus proposed to shift the site of torture to what would be Baator, so the gods did not need to look at it anymore. However, if Asmodeus and his angels moved their workplace to Baator, they would be unable to draw power from the gods to conduct their duties. Therefore, Asmodeus proposed that he and his fellows be given the right to wring divine energy out of the souls they tortured as a substitute. The gods agreed and the Pact Primeval was signed. Asmodeus and his fellows started work in the Nine Hells as torturers and actively started seducing mortals towards evil so that they would end up in Baator instead of the gods' divine realms on dying. Once the gods found this out, they confronted Asmodeus, who merely pointed them to the contract's fine print. This version made it appear as though Asmodeus's and the lawful gods went different ways by relatively peaceful means. However, the parting was not peaceful—the deities threw Asmodeus out of the Upper Planes and he fell and fell through Baator, either through the nine layers or breaking it into the nine layers. Thereafter, Asmodeus carried serious wounds from his fall.

Origin Story: He Who Was

In this version, Asmodeus was an exarch in the service of an unknown god, but after retrieving a shard of evil, he killed that god. Asmodeus put much effort in wiping out this god's name, so he was known only as He Who Was. According to one legend, this god was a control freak who supervised every single aspect of every single person living in his realm. The all-encompassing supervision and control force on Asmodeus suffered was the start of his need to rise up against his god. He was again the greatest warrior and general of that god's army in the Dawn War, but applied brutal methods that at one point caused innocent casualties. As Asmodeus did not want to see the errors of his ways, the lawful good god condemned and fired Asmodeus. Afterward, Asmodeus worked as a watchman over Tharizdun's prison. During this time, Pazuzu, a demon lord of the obyrith, came to him and they had a conversation. The demon's flattery caused Asmodeus to develop a sense of pride that became arrogance and the desire to rise up against He Who Was. Asmodeus maintained a stable secret alliance with Pazuzu, who served as his general and was vital in eventually killing He Who Was. A side effect of Asmodeus's corruption was that he began to hear the location of the shards of evil. He retrieved one by going down to the bottom of the Abyss through the Blood Rift, created his Ruby Rod with the shard, and killed his god with it when it looked bad for the deities during the Dawn War. The corrupting influence of the shard turned Asmodeus and the members of his army into the first devils. He Who Was had cursed Asmodeus and since then Asmodeus could not leave Baator. He Who Was's curse also affected Asmodeus's angelic army, which was stationed in Phlegethos, the site of which later became known as the Lake of Fire. Afterward, Asmodeus managed to lay the groundwork for emerging stronger from the Dawn War, while all other participants were weakened. Publicly, the other gods condemned Asmodeus's actions, but privately some started making deals with the future lord of devils, because He Who Was had been infamous for his incompetence, which would have caused the gods' defeat in the Dawn War and with it their end. Asmodeus made deals with both the gods and covertly the primordials, but in the end decided to take the divine side. One of these bargains gave him the eternal right to use souls to maintain Baator. With this right, Baator became a divine realm of material affluence, while all other realms had a poverty problem. This was due to Asmodeus's great management skills, and a very dark touch. Among others, this was done by turning Baator into a giant torture chamber where magical energy was tortured out of souls. He modified the Nine Hells so that as many souls as possible could enter the astral dominion. For example, because of the damage done by the Dawn War, the system of souls being transferred to the realms of their deities did not properly function. Souls that appeared outside of the proper divine realm could not enter any realm except the Nine Hells and a lot of souls made use of this unique aspect of the Nine Hells.

Type

Religious, Cult

Leader

Asmodeus

Deities