Mammon (Mam-mon)
Archdevil Mammon (a.k.a. Archduke of Minauros, Lord of the Third, King of Greed)
(https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Mammon)
Mammon, sometimes referred to as Minauros, was the lord of the identically named Minauros, and potentially the richest being in existence. Both literally and figuratively two-faced, the archdevil viscount was a feckless miser whose only loyalty was to coin. Personality:
Mammon was an utterly selfish entity that practically personified greed with his insatiable desire. He was a ruthless hunter who would unrelentingly pursue his prey, whether it be an actual quarry or future possessions, but was indifferent to his prize once it was actually obtained, and would swiftly move on to new targets. While his cupidity wasn't limited to currency, Mammon was wholly materialistic and measured worth in regards to monetary value. He made deals solely for the purpose of making profit and otherwise didn't care about the results of the exchange. Alongside being avaricious, Mammon was also megalomaniacal, lusting after power and always scheming to acquire more of it. The methods required to achieve his goals were irrelevant to Mammon, and he would perform whatever act he believed necessary to accomplish them. The duplicitous viscount would seduce his victims with silver-tongued promises before wantonly and gleefully watching their expressions when he betrayed them. The Serpent's speech could be compared to his schemes in its convoluted nature, for it was riddled with winding messages and unclear requests, meandering even when he was supposed to be delivering orders. Mammon was not only sinister but shameless, keeping his position primarily by acts of bootlicking sycophantism most charitably described as embarrassing. His pathetic grovelling before his master was as renown as his arrogant condescension towards his own inferiors. Mammon's host of other flaws included his overactive paranoia that drove him in his craven and often foolish pursuit of loyal servants. His typical response to frustration, such as if he felt his time was wasted, was to alleviate the feeling by destroying the offender or otherwise tormenting unrelated parties. This was combined with his petty, oversensitive demeanour and overindulgent hedonism to make a being that was practically impossible to work with. No matter how competent the tyrant, it was impossible to stay on Mammon's good side for he had no such thing. Activities:
Mammon rarely left the Sinking City as he preferred ruling his domain from a singular location, although normally he wasn't actually supervising the realm. Instead, a majority of his time was spent was spent under the corrupted depths where he devised new, nefarious schemes. Like his peers, he coveted the crown of Asmodeus and plotted to overthrow him, but where he differed from them was that he didn't bother with treacherous baatezu politics and instead conspired to enrich himself. He wasted no time sleeping, devoting every second to his money-making machinations so as to increase his unwieldly income rate. Mammon's primary method of influence was through the use of his overwhelming wealth. In exchange for items and services that he wanted, he offered financial loans and sometimes hired mercenaries to fend off particularly dangerous demonic hordes with the expectation of receiving the invader's loot. Where the River Styx sluggishly slogged through Minauros, there were soul collectors of Mammon on the banks to drag off the lemures within, recording and redistributing them based on contracts and current laws. The King of Avarice was one of the few archdevils willing to barter in gold as opposed to souls and any surplus petitioners were appropriated and sold for money. When Mammon was angry or needed to relax, he'd revert to his pit fiend form, mount his massive nightmare, release a pack of larger than average hell hounds and go on a trophy-taking hunt. Devilish deserters were the most frequent quarry but wandering mortals were also fair game. Relationships:
Despite being one of the Lords of the Nine, Mammon was considered a lesser archdevil in Hell's political sphere. He was hopelessly lacking in allies among the other Lords of the Nine, and even Tiamat despised him for stealing her dragon worshipers by appealing to their greed. Though he was once in an alliance with Dispater, and by extension Mephistopheles, he likely never trusted the Iron Duke in the first place. He almost instantly began grovelling before Asmodeus the moment the Overlord proved victorious, betraying both his partners without a second thought, thus earning him the suspicion and scorn of every other archdevil. Mammon had a particularly complex relationship with the relatively new archdevil and his former consort, Glasya. It was said that her position as Mammon's concubine wasn't something she had set out to claim, but a form of punishment placed upon her by Asmodeus. The spoilt Princess of Hell, accustomed to the comforts of Nessus, was forced to endure the disgusting advances of the Serpent and the backwater slum that was his layer. Still, others posited that she came to Minauros willingly, possibly out of some form of genuine affection or merely as a way to annoy the other archdevils, particularly her father, before the Lord of Nessus broke off their relationship. Mammon put up little to no resistance against Asmodeus's demands, possibly earning Glasya's scorn, and his attitude towards his former consort were similarly enigmatic. On one hand, he was potentially embittered towards her for her supposed manipulation and frightened of her rise to archduchess, but on the other hand he was thought to want her at his feet when he conquered the Nine Hells. Whether or not the two had rekindled their old spark outside of Asmodeus's eye or still passionately resented each other was truly unknown, although given the twisted nature of infernal, romantic intrigue and the backwards, baatezu approach to relationships, both could be true. Dukes:
While Mammon was the master of Minauros in name, he often neglected it, leaving such matters to his seneschal Focalor. Respectful but silent, Focalar handled the administration, diplomacy, and security of Minauros in his master's absence, as well as the protection of Glasya during her time as his consort. Despite appearing completely loyal, having resisted the constant temptations by rival archdevils to win him over to their side, Focalar hated his master for his incompetence and irresponsibility. He willingly worked with Glasya when he was her bodyguard, using his actual awareness of the political sphere to undermine Mammon with intent to destroy him. Mammon was also reliant on his powerful vassal dukes, who dwelt far from the Sinking City amidst dead woods and volcanoes, to protect the realm. His chief vassal was the Bronze General Bael, a tactical mastermind whose unending triumph over Abyssal legions with his 66 barbazu companies earned him great acclaim. Although he struggled with baatezu politics, Bael still plotted to takeover Minauros by overthrowing both Focalor and Mammon. Other important servants included Caarcrinolaas, a duke aware but seemingly indifferent to Bael's motives; Melchon, an outwardly loyal duke that had earned Focalor's suspicion; and Glwa, a new, obscure consort. It was believed that, without the wisdom of Focalor, the military genius of Bael, and the strength of his other dukes, Mammon would be an easily supplanted adversary. Ironically, despite his dependency on his dukes and the political minefield his court became as a result of his paranoia, the unworthy archdevil's servitors all seemingly schemed to dethrone him. While the lesser leaders, Caarcrinolaas and Melchon, both independently conspired to murder Bael to seize his forces with the hope of using them to defeat Mammon, Focalor, along with Glwa, planned to use the Bronze General to their advantage by forcing him into a situation where he would have to overthrow their master. Afterwards, Focalor would be the power behind the throne, puppeteering the new archdevil from the shadows. Mammon also had a daughter, Baelzra, born of neither Glasya nor Glwa but an affair had with the bloated archdevil Sagirsa, queen of Jangling Hiter. The Chain Princess lacked the unsightliness one would expect from the child of Mammon and a former paeliryon, but only because her inner grotesquery surpassed even that of her father. Her illegal soul-harvesting operation on Avernus secretly netted the King of Greed some soul-profit, and he still doted on her despite her exile. Servants:
Desiring absolute loyalty from his servants, Mammon surrounded himself with devils known for their obedience. Brutish barbazus were common, used to haul carts and sometimes to trade between other circles of the Nine Hells in search of souls worthy of becoming narzugons. Despite their hatred for Minauros's humidity, his armies were led by gelugons and mostly comprised of osyluths and hamatulas. Hamatulas in particular were prevalent throughout Minauros, partly as a result of the large distance that petitioners had to travel in order to harvest stone from the volcanoes making them liable to escape. When prisoners escaped, sometimes being intentionally released by a hamatula to hunt them for sport, Focalor or Mammon would have to go after them personally if their minions were incapable of recapturing or killing them. Mammon's minions were experts in transactions involving the soul, but even such experienced harvesters often found themselves shocked at the low prices for which immortal souls were offered. Using a guidebook known as The Accounting and Valuation of All Things, they could assess a soul's value in relation to various other goods, allowing for a minimal drain on Mammon's treasury. They generally attempted to imitate his behaviour in the hopes of winning his good will and their shared traits included greed. Normally devils only viewed treasure as a useful tool to be discarded as needed, but Mammon's agents might take moderate and even extreme risks just to protect their gold.
Mammon, sometimes referred to as Minauros, was the lord of the identically named Minauros, and potentially the richest being in existence. Both literally and figuratively two-faced, the archdevil viscount was a feckless miser whose only loyalty was to coin. Personality:
Mammon was an utterly selfish entity that practically personified greed with his insatiable desire. He was a ruthless hunter who would unrelentingly pursue his prey, whether it be an actual quarry or future possessions, but was indifferent to his prize once it was actually obtained, and would swiftly move on to new targets. While his cupidity wasn't limited to currency, Mammon was wholly materialistic and measured worth in regards to monetary value. He made deals solely for the purpose of making profit and otherwise didn't care about the results of the exchange. Alongside being avaricious, Mammon was also megalomaniacal, lusting after power and always scheming to acquire more of it. The methods required to achieve his goals were irrelevant to Mammon, and he would perform whatever act he believed necessary to accomplish them. The duplicitous viscount would seduce his victims with silver-tongued promises before wantonly and gleefully watching their expressions when he betrayed them. The Serpent's speech could be compared to his schemes in its convoluted nature, for it was riddled with winding messages and unclear requests, meandering even when he was supposed to be delivering orders. Mammon was not only sinister but shameless, keeping his position primarily by acts of bootlicking sycophantism most charitably described as embarrassing. His pathetic grovelling before his master was as renown as his arrogant condescension towards his own inferiors. Mammon's host of other flaws included his overactive paranoia that drove him in his craven and often foolish pursuit of loyal servants. His typical response to frustration, such as if he felt his time was wasted, was to alleviate the feeling by destroying the offender or otherwise tormenting unrelated parties. This was combined with his petty, oversensitive demeanour and overindulgent hedonism to make a being that was practically impossible to work with. No matter how competent the tyrant, it was impossible to stay on Mammon's good side for he had no such thing. Activities:
Mammon rarely left the Sinking City as he preferred ruling his domain from a singular location, although normally he wasn't actually supervising the realm. Instead, a majority of his time was spent was spent under the corrupted depths where he devised new, nefarious schemes. Like his peers, he coveted the crown of Asmodeus and plotted to overthrow him, but where he differed from them was that he didn't bother with treacherous baatezu politics and instead conspired to enrich himself. He wasted no time sleeping, devoting every second to his money-making machinations so as to increase his unwieldly income rate. Mammon's primary method of influence was through the use of his overwhelming wealth. In exchange for items and services that he wanted, he offered financial loans and sometimes hired mercenaries to fend off particularly dangerous demonic hordes with the expectation of receiving the invader's loot. Where the River Styx sluggishly slogged through Minauros, there were soul collectors of Mammon on the banks to drag off the lemures within, recording and redistributing them based on contracts and current laws. The King of Avarice was one of the few archdevils willing to barter in gold as opposed to souls and any surplus petitioners were appropriated and sold for money. When Mammon was angry or needed to relax, he'd revert to his pit fiend form, mount his massive nightmare, release a pack of larger than average hell hounds and go on a trophy-taking hunt. Devilish deserters were the most frequent quarry but wandering mortals were also fair game. Relationships:
Despite being one of the Lords of the Nine, Mammon was considered a lesser archdevil in Hell's political sphere. He was hopelessly lacking in allies among the other Lords of the Nine, and even Tiamat despised him for stealing her dragon worshipers by appealing to their greed. Though he was once in an alliance with Dispater, and by extension Mephistopheles, he likely never trusted the Iron Duke in the first place. He almost instantly began grovelling before Asmodeus the moment the Overlord proved victorious, betraying both his partners without a second thought, thus earning him the suspicion and scorn of every other archdevil. Mammon had a particularly complex relationship with the relatively new archdevil and his former consort, Glasya. It was said that her position as Mammon's concubine wasn't something she had set out to claim, but a form of punishment placed upon her by Asmodeus. The spoilt Princess of Hell, accustomed to the comforts of Nessus, was forced to endure the disgusting advances of the Serpent and the backwater slum that was his layer. Still, others posited that she came to Minauros willingly, possibly out of some form of genuine affection or merely as a way to annoy the other archdevils, particularly her father, before the Lord of Nessus broke off their relationship. Mammon put up little to no resistance against Asmodeus's demands, possibly earning Glasya's scorn, and his attitude towards his former consort were similarly enigmatic. On one hand, he was potentially embittered towards her for her supposed manipulation and frightened of her rise to archduchess, but on the other hand he was thought to want her at his feet when he conquered the Nine Hells. Whether or not the two had rekindled their old spark outside of Asmodeus's eye or still passionately resented each other was truly unknown, although given the twisted nature of infernal, romantic intrigue and the backwards, baatezu approach to relationships, both could be true. Dukes:
While Mammon was the master of Minauros in name, he often neglected it, leaving such matters to his seneschal Focalor. Respectful but silent, Focalar handled the administration, diplomacy, and security of Minauros in his master's absence, as well as the protection of Glasya during her time as his consort. Despite appearing completely loyal, having resisted the constant temptations by rival archdevils to win him over to their side, Focalar hated his master for his incompetence and irresponsibility. He willingly worked with Glasya when he was her bodyguard, using his actual awareness of the political sphere to undermine Mammon with intent to destroy him. Mammon was also reliant on his powerful vassal dukes, who dwelt far from the Sinking City amidst dead woods and volcanoes, to protect the realm. His chief vassal was the Bronze General Bael, a tactical mastermind whose unending triumph over Abyssal legions with his 66 barbazu companies earned him great acclaim. Although he struggled with baatezu politics, Bael still plotted to takeover Minauros by overthrowing both Focalor and Mammon. Other important servants included Caarcrinolaas, a duke aware but seemingly indifferent to Bael's motives; Melchon, an outwardly loyal duke that had earned Focalor's suspicion; and Glwa, a new, obscure consort. It was believed that, without the wisdom of Focalor, the military genius of Bael, and the strength of his other dukes, Mammon would be an easily supplanted adversary. Ironically, despite his dependency on his dukes and the political minefield his court became as a result of his paranoia, the unworthy archdevil's servitors all seemingly schemed to dethrone him. While the lesser leaders, Caarcrinolaas and Melchon, both independently conspired to murder Bael to seize his forces with the hope of using them to defeat Mammon, Focalor, along with Glwa, planned to use the Bronze General to their advantage by forcing him into a situation where he would have to overthrow their master. Afterwards, Focalor would be the power behind the throne, puppeteering the new archdevil from the shadows. Mammon also had a daughter, Baelzra, born of neither Glasya nor Glwa but an affair had with the bloated archdevil Sagirsa, queen of Jangling Hiter. The Chain Princess lacked the unsightliness one would expect from the child of Mammon and a former paeliryon, but only because her inner grotesquery surpassed even that of her father. Her illegal soul-harvesting operation on Avernus secretly netted the King of Greed some soul-profit, and he still doted on her despite her exile. Servants:
Desiring absolute loyalty from his servants, Mammon surrounded himself with devils known for their obedience. Brutish barbazus were common, used to haul carts and sometimes to trade between other circles of the Nine Hells in search of souls worthy of becoming narzugons. Despite their hatred for Minauros's humidity, his armies were led by gelugons and mostly comprised of osyluths and hamatulas. Hamatulas in particular were prevalent throughout Minauros, partly as a result of the large distance that petitioners had to travel in order to harvest stone from the volcanoes making them liable to escape. When prisoners escaped, sometimes being intentionally released by a hamatula to hunt them for sport, Focalor or Mammon would have to go after them personally if their minions were incapable of recapturing or killing them. Mammon's minions were experts in transactions involving the soul, but even such experienced harvesters often found themselves shocked at the low prices for which immortal souls were offered. Using a guidebook known as The Accounting and Valuation of All Things, they could assess a soul's value in relation to various other goods, allowing for a minimal drain on Mammon's treasury. They generally attempted to imitate his behaviour in the hopes of winning his good will and their shared traits included greed. Normally devils only viewed treasure as a useful tool to be discarded as needed, but Mammon's agents might take moderate and even extreme risks just to protect their gold.
Physical Description
Body Features
Mammon's original form was traditionally infernal, a 12 ft (3.7 m) tall creature that resembled a flabby pit fiend with scaly, red-gold skin and wings that were as lustrous as rubies.
Special abilities
Both before and after his transformation, Mammon had various spell-like abilities such as fool's gold or teleport, and other powers that allowed him to bewitch and confound. He was a cautious fighter, yet enjoyed toying with his prey by magically deceiving them into considering him an ally before suddenly killing them. If he desired, the touch of Mammon's hands could sever bonds between people, whether formal, friendly or familial, driving them to randomly attack and steal from their allies in an outburst of greed, possibly including Mammon himself.
He could produce a symbol of hopelessness and utter an unholy word once per day, surround himself with an aura of fear and inspire terror in others with his gaze. Alongside more powerful baatezu like pit fiends, gelugons and cornugons, he was also known to summon barbazus, hamatulas, osyluths, and green abishai.
Mammon could easily and indefinitely adopt his previous pit fiend form, allowing him to strike down his foes with greater speed at the cost of the abilities exclusive to his serpentine form. Despite his wily behaviour, he could also be somewhat brutish, crushing and constricting his enemies through sheer, overwhelming power. Once restrained, he could easily use his fangs to inject his adversaries with a disease-laden venom. The wasting poison was similar to mummy rot but acted much faster and couldn't be stopped with anything short of a heal spell.
Apparel & Accessories
Although still able to assume his old form, Mammon's natural appearance was eventually changed into one resembling certain yuan-ti halfbloods, albeit 30 ft (9.1 m) long. His lower half was that of an enormous, spotted serpent with yellow-brown skin comparable to swirled vomit, while his upper half sported a muscular humanoid torso with bony spines protruding across his shoulders and along his large arms.
His horned, hairless head was similarly humanoid but seemed oversized. Some said his eyes were yellow and slitted like a snake, while others reported that his eyes were pale and pupilless, although his vision seemed nonetheless sharp. Below his white eyes were hideous black lips, behind which laid his pointed teeth, two serpentine fangs, and a forked tongue that gave him his hissing, whispering voice.
Specialized Equipment
Mammon was known to wield various types of enchanted spears.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
As the first to retreat before and submit beneath Asmodeus after the disaster that was the Reckoning, Mammon was left disgraced and, despite his kowtowing, punished. His relationship with Glasya was ended, but his real punishment began once he changed his name to Minauros. Asmodeus changed Mammon's natural form, possibly for his own reasons and possibly because Mammon asked him to as a sign that he was a "new devil" that wouldn't betray him, into one resembling Geryon, the only archdevil that had stayed loyal to Asmodeus during the Reckoning.
Divine Classification
Archdevil
Current Location
Realm
Church/Cult
Children
Pronouns
He/Him
Sex
Male
Gender
Man
Presentation
Masculine
Eyes
Pale and pupilless
Hair
Horned, hairless
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Spotted, yellow-brown
Height
30 ft
Ruled Locations
Comments