Archfiends of the Nine Infernal Kingdoms

The Nine Infernal Kingdoms are regions of the plane of Maledicium where powerful archdevils have established their domains, pockets of stability and order surrounded by demon-infested chaos. Brief descriptions of these "kings of Hell" and their dominions are listed below (in order of relative power, weakest to strongest).

Note: Each archdevil is listed with aliases as it is ill-advised to say their names aloud, outside the context of a ritual or invocation. To do so is said to invite misfortune upon oneself.


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Ilsidris, King of Avernus

The Hawk, the Whisperer

Ilsidris is the ruler of Avernus, and is the third ruler of this kingdom in recent history. He has the form of a human male with a hawk's head, bird wings, and taloned feet. Ilsidris speaks in a sinister whisper, causing feelings of dread and uneasiness to those who hear his voice. The avian archdevil is the weakest of the infernal kings, but he is able to ally and manipulate the others in such a way as to keep his kingdom safe from their depredations.

Avernus

Avernus looks like a typical temperate region suffering under terrible disasters. River banks are void of water, fields are filled with cracked soil and stunted vegetation, and trees are dying due to a lack of water. Dust devils and tornadoes are common.

Previously known as Malbolge, Ilsidris took this kingdom over from Uglararutu, an amorphous creature that had in turn seized control from the archfiend Zamriel. Uglararutu was slain by mortal associates of Zamriel's daughter Alzena, the heir to the kingdom. Alzena abdicated her role to remain on the material plane with her mortal husband after looting the Malbolge treasury. Ilsidris seized control of the kingdom in Alzena's absence, renaming it Avernus and shaping it to his whim.

Ilsidris dwells in a palace built of black stone. The palace is unfurnished, but numerous mirrors adorn the walls. The mirrors show scenes from various places around the cosmos, from other areas of Maledicium to places on the mortal plane.


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The Red Queen, Queen of Naraka

No aliases

The Red Queen is a female archfiend who holds a humanoid form. She is clad in a crimson, hooded robe with nothing visible but her pure white, red-nailed hands. On the rare occasion when light falls across the lower half of her face, it reveals the Queen's alabaster skin as well as blood-red lips and smooth, perfect cheekbones and chin. Nothing more of the Red Queen has ever been seen.

The Red Queen's name is an alias, and what her actual name is is unknown. She has no other aliases. She will not serve as a patron to male warlocks; the Queen favors female warlocks who aspire to great power.

Naraka

Broken, jagged mountains cover Naraka's blasted landscape, while red skies loom overhead. Centrally located among the infernal kingdoms, it is often a battleground for the armies of rival archfiends. The Red Queen rules from the Scarlet Spire, a large citadel carved from one of the mountains.


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Tzephariel, Lord of Stygia

The Fallen One, Angel of Storms

Tzephariel is a powerful fallen angel who was cast out of the Godsrealm for attempting to usurp one of the major deities. He has the appearance of a solar, though his wings are not white but the color of soot.  Tzephariel has a vendetta against the gods; as such, many of his actions are focused on hurting or disrupting the various churches (good or evil is immaterial to him).

Stygia

The kingdom of Stygia is a huge, churning sea, constantly buffeted by storms and illuminated by lightning. Islands are scattered throughout the sea, and are the places where most of the devils and other denizens of Stygia live. Given its nature, Stygia is subject to being attacked the least of the Nine Kingdoms (with the exception of Golgoth).

Tzephariel rules from a large fortress on one of the islands; the fortress is constructed from the stones of fallen temples from the mortal plane and is built as a mockery of those structures.


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Malaphas, Ruler of Minauros

The Bronze, the Infernal Lion

Malaphas looks like a statue of a large, bronze, lion-headed human. When he speaks, his voice booms out of the lion's unmoving mouth as if it were a great metal puppet. Malaphas lives in a huge palace constructed of black ice. He is attended by ice devils, fiendish frost giants, and similar cold-dwelling creatures.

Minauros

The realm of Minauros is a frozen wasteland, covered by huge glaciers and great, avalanche-prone mountain ranges. Blizzards continuously rage across Minauros and the temperature is never above freezing. It is said that this kingdom of ice and snow contains portals to the Polar North region of the material world.


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Zaharaas, Master of Xilbalba

The Watcher, the All-Seeing

Zaharaas is probably the most unusual-looking of the infernal kings. It has the form of a giant, floating eyeball, with eight large tentacles and a number of small tendrils trailing beneath it. When it communicates, it does so telepathically in the native language of whomever it is conversing with. 

Zaharaas craves knowledge, particularly secrets and forbidden lore. It lives in a large, fortified monastery which houses a collection of scrolls, tomes, and stone tablets containing various bits of secret or hidden knowledge gleaned from across the cosmos. The monastery is tended by a dark order of mortal and fiendish cultists who worship Zaharaas.

Xilbalba

Xilbalba is a barren desert, akin to the Deep Varghani. Zaharaas's monastery is found in the center of the kingdom, surrounded by a lush oasis. The pool of the oasis is actually acid, while the vegetation is demonic and carnivorous.


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Jhezaria, Queen of Acheron

Mistress of Serpents, the Fang Queen

Jhezaria's common form is that of a being half-human and half-snake. From the waist up, she is a beautiful nude woman (though with fangs and a forked tongue), and from the waist down Jhezaria has a crimson-scaled serpent's body. She is rumored to be the daughter of Asmodeus and the Red Queen, though anyone mentioning that within earshot or telepathic range of the "Fang Queen" will be torn apart by her or a member of her court. Jhezaria is generally not a patron for warlocks except for those among the Sith'aal.

Acheron

The domain of the Mistress of Serpents is a sprawling tropical jungle -  fetid, wet, hot, and odiferous. It is also home to multitudes of animal life - snakes, giant spiders, huge insects, and reptiles of all sizes.

Jhezaria reigns from a Xucatl-style temple that sits in the middle of a large swamp.


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Baaloch, Warlord of Tartarus

Warlord of Hell, the Destroyer

Baaloch is a large, corpulent, four-armed pit fiend. He is the most warlike of the archfiends and is constantly waging war on the other infernal kingdoms. Since his is one of the weaker kingdoms, Baaloch's forces are never victorious. However, regardless of his losses, the Destroyer seems to have an unending supply of Devils to repopulate his armies.

Tartarus

Baaloch's kingdom is an archetypical hellscape, with lakes of fire, rivers of lava, erupting volcanoes, and constant intense heat. He rules Tartarus from a citadel built in a hollowed-out, dormant volcano.


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Ammadon

The Dragon, the Riddlemaster

The archdevil Ammadon has the form of a three-headed red dragon. He communicates only in riddles and quizzical verse, and favors quoting famous historical figures.

Othrys

Othrys, Ammadon's infernal kingdom, is covered by a sprawling, mostly ruined city. Buildings, towers, palaces, warehouses, shops, homes, and any other kind of structure cover the entire realm from one border to another. Most of the ruins are uninhabited (with the exception of the occasional monster lair), but there are numerous regions where concentrations of devils and other fell creatures dwell - essentially cities within the city. Othrys is also home to enclaves of exiles or individuals from other planes, who take advantage of the kingdom's size and emptiness to hide themselves.

In the center of Othrys there is a circular clear area a half-mile in diameter. In the center of this large courtyard is Ammadon's palace, constructed from the buildings that had previously occupied the space. The buildings are fused together into one labyrinthine, twenty-story, confusing mass.


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Asmodeus

Overking of Hell, Dark Lord of Golgoth

Asmodeus appears as a very tall male human, with a reddish cast to skin. Very handsome and charismatic, he is known to be the most powerful of the archdevils. The other infernal sovereigns don't acknowledge his power, but their schemes and machinations against one another usually exclude him or Golgoth; this is due in part to their fear of his power, and due to Asmodeus's own plotting and manipulation of the other archdevils' courts (this is also one of the reasons he is favored by warlocks who involve themselves in political intrigue).

A small number of scholars believe there is a connection between Asmodeus and the god Azakhar. Theories include that they're brothers, father and son, or even the same being.

Golgoth

Golgoth is the smallest of the infernal kingdoms. It is a large, pit-like chasm, of an unknown depth. The sloping of the chasm's sides vary considerably; some areas are sheer cliffsides while others have a gradual enough slope that they are able to support settlements and strongholds. Asmodeus is said to dwell at the very bottom of Golgoth.

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