Zariel

Lord of the First

Zariel is the lord of Avernus, the first layer of the nine hells. An archdevil dedicated to winning the unending Blood War between devils and demons. She was originally an angel of the Seven Heavens before transforming into an archdevil and falling to the Nine Hells. Zariel is also the youngest out of all the Archdevils.

Appearance

Zariel's original form was that of 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 burning atop her head, her once fine skin seeming scorched, and her angelic wings, ruined by flame, took a leathery appearance. Her blindfold was abandoned, fully revealing eyes glowing with white-hot rage, and she later 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 warpath. However, neither her own battle prowess nor that of her forces can 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 has warped to match that of her peers, for she has also become 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 impeading 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 was the opposite of the carefully calculating Asmodeus.
The nature of Hell is to corrupt; 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 has praised her for the strength of her convictions, but it is her unswerving rage that had cemented her downfall. 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 have limits, and the burden of her duties weighs on her. Confronting the memories of what she has 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 shame for the atrocities she has committed to reach her position. 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, she was enhanced with fiendish powers, such as the typical archdevil ability to alter their forms. In addition, many of her powers have gained a distinct fire motif: she could create fireballs and walls of fire at will, her weapons searing with hellish flame, and her magical stare could cause spontaneous combustion. Zariel's fall had also come with undeniable drawbacks. She lacks the divine awareness that allow all solar angels to detect lies, as well as their truesight, instead possessing the devil power to see through magical darkness.

Possesions

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 couatl companion Lulu. The sword not only contains an angelic spark but has every ounce of a couatl's celestial energies poured into it, enough so that a fortress against the evils of Avernus 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 from the demon lord Kostchtchie, and started wielding it herself.
Among Zariel's dangerous weapons are her flying fortresses, massive basalt citadels that are 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 (140‑meter) tall fortress that is crewed by hundreds of devils and can be controlled telepathically only by Zariel herself.

History

Originally, Zariel was a solar angel under the command of the Cardinal Martyr Vildeis, her name meaning "Companion of Light". From the Seven Heavens of Mount Celestia, 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, 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 Celestia 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 complaints 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 the Demon lord Kostchtchie slaughtered a village under her protection.
With a host of personally trained mortal allies, she defied her superiors and descended into Avernus, only for her to be outnumbered by the devils and her mortal allies to flee in terror and shame. Asmodeus sent a delegation of erinyes 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.

Worshipers

Zariel's worshipers are those that wished to fight but lacked the necessary experience, training, skill, talent, and bravery in martial affairs to do so, all of which her agents could offer. Ordinary cultists showgre ater ferocity than before, and cult leaders gain a keen tactical eye. Her cults are often headed by her own cambions.
Those that wish to prove themselves on the battlefield, those who seek fame and fortune through military achievement, refugees lacking the ability to fight, and simply those who desire the skills needed to survive were all attracted to the cults of Zariel. On the more experienced side, militant conquerors, already established warriors desiring a combat edge, and hobgoblins that escape the goblinoid pantheon are also typical members. Entire orders of knights, fighter's guilds, and mercenary companies can fall under the sway of Avernus' Archduchess.

Divine Classification

Archdevil

Alignment

Lawful Evil

Current Location

The Nine Hells

Species

Devil

Honorary & Occupational Titles

• Lord of the First
• Archduchess of Avernus
• The Fallen Angel

Gender

Female

Eyes

White Hot

Hair

None

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

White Scorched

Height

6'11

Weight

210 lbs

Holy Symbol

Pathfinder Statistics

Divine Domains

• Destruction
• Fire
• Glory
• Strength
• War

Favored Weapon: Longsword

D&D 5e Statistics

Suggested Domains

• War Domain