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Asmodeus, Lord of the Nine, Secrets and True Back Story

This is my version of Asmodeus, inspired by all of the existing version and designed in part to make him less obnoxiously perfect. D&D has an unfortunate tendency to make Asmodeus out to be the supreme force of evil, rather than just out of three, and presenting him as the supreme force of evil and magnificent bastardy, his inability to make mistakes makes him boring. So my goal here is to mix preserve the awesomeness of Asmodeus while not making him out to be completely perfect.

No conversation about the Outer Planes can go on for long before Asmodeus comes up, normally in such a way that is intrusive and unpleasant for all involved, for the Lord of the Nine Hells is a singular figure among Planar Lords. Obviously all Planar Lords are beings of great power and prestige, but Asmodeus is unique in how much his personality shapes his plane, after all the Abyss is only slightly changed without Orcus or Demigorgon, but The Nine Hells without its Lord is unrecognizable, the entire domain is shaped by his whims and eccentricities, as the other 8 lords serve only at his pleasure. Beyond Hell itself, his influence can be felt on numerous other planes. The almost all of the Rulers of the Grey Wastes are vassal kings for the Nine Hells and Perdition, serving as a buffer states in the Blood Wars, while Archeron is ruled by four great Exiles of Hell. So much of the Planar world traces back to his influence, and the story of Hell in particular seems to be an endless catalogue of “Asmodeus won”.

The origin of Asmodeus is subjected to much speculation, and there are multiple conflicting versions, all of which are difficult to find and bring great risk. This hasn’t stopped scholars from looking, employed by the other Lords of the Nine, the Demon Lords, to the rulers of the Upper Planes, for too truly understand Asmodeus, one must understand his past. Problem is, that’s almost impossible. Asmodeus is above all, an enigma, a being whose goals and motivations remain mysterious to all, finding out his history has proven to be extremely frustrating to scholars of the Outer Planes. Generally speaking, most of the Cosmic Beings have fairly consistent backstories buried away in long forgotten libraries, even if the details vary, the broad themes tend to be rather consistent. But Asmodeus has proven to be utterly frustrating in this regard, because their simply isn’t very much material to be found on his history, and what is found is flat out contradictory. His various back stories can be broken down as.

1) He was one of the three great lords of the Courtals dwelling with his brothers in Arcadia, all aspects of the now deceased World Serpent, he, Jazirian and Ihys however he slew his brother Ihys, and fled to rule hell because he wished to create an empire on the Material Plane that would force mortals to worship the Upper Planes. However saavy observers have noted that this very much resembles the back story of the god Ahriman, and Jaziran and Ihys are both gods, not Planar lords, so it would be weird that Asmodeus wasn’t a deity.

2) That he was once a servant of a powerful good deity known as “He Who Was” and defected to become his own entity by slaying his former master. But upon close examination this resembles the entity known as “The Princes of Darkness” who is not an Alignment being what so ever, in fact he isn’t even Lawful, and scholars are fairly certain it was this ex Servitor who slew “He who was”

3) That he was a powerful elemental lord of Fire named Kador who was the favored of a supreme God, but proved to be arrogant and now lives in opposition to mortal races in the hopes of returning to his former place of power. Of course, Kador is again, a living deity of fire who is seemingly independent of Asmodeus (in fact he dwells on the Elemental Plane of fire. So his being the same as this Kador is…strange. Others have noticed this resembles the creator of Neutral Evil, Iblis, which can’t possibly true as Iblis is a Primal Force, not a Planar lord and is you know…Neutral Evil.

4) That he is nothing more than an Avatar of a powerful being of Pure Lawful Evil known as “The Overlord” and that he is in fact a sock puppet just like Malkira, and possibly Sataniel. This is a very popular theory except…the Overlord dwells in Perdition, not the Nine Hells, so such a placement would be…strange to say the least. Also Asmodeus and Sataniel despise each other even as they are allied together. This might indicate that the Overlord is so powerful and cunning that it is secretly controlling multiple planes but if so than the Overlord is more powerful than any other singular Alignment entity. This is the most agreed upon theory by scholar (albeit it is not widely known) but many dismiss it as propaganda, after all it would serve Asmodeus interest to seem like he is secretly controlling all of the Outer Planes.

5) That he was a fallen Archon who fought against the Demons for so long that he and his troop slowly but steadily took on the physical properties of those same beings, all necessary in order to defeat the Demonic Hoards, and now believes that the ends justifies the means in destroying the forces of Chaos and Evil. However again, this version strongly resembles the backstory of an existing entity, specifically Satanial, current Lord of Perdition and the heir of Lucifer, though this possibly refers to the fabled Queen of the Ancient Baatorians (records are unclear this far in the past). Also this legend often attributes the Pact Primeval as being Asmodeus’ plan, which has been definitively proven to be absolute bull.

6) That he was in fact an Ancient Baatorian, a being of Law and Evil who betrayed his own kind to establish rule among the devils. . Later he forged the Pact Primeval as a way to overthrow Satanial and establish himself in his new domain as the lord of the Nine Hells. This is a particularly popular one, but again is simply wrong, because that is the back story of Dios Morgenstern, the lost Prince of Baator who betrayed his own kind to take power, only to be overthrown by Asmodeus himself, and now is hiding in the Infernio. Considering how Asmodeus relates to the Ancient Baatorians, this is unlikely, there are a few records to indicate that where ever he came from, it wasn’t from Baator.

7) That he was always the ruler of hell, in fact he was the first devil, from whose blood all of the others are descended, and he has ruled Hell for all time. This legend normally has Asmodeus be a being of Pure Law, corrupted by the Baernaloths to represent the ideal of Lawful Evil, and the Blood War is his way of trying to prove that his evil is the superior form. This is almost certainly propaganda however, as numerous accounts indicate of a time before Asmodeus ruled hell, in fact of a time before Hell even existed, to say nothing of the Ancient Baatorians.

8) Another tale is that he started as an ancient deity who failed his pantheon in some profound way, and was banished to Hell to serve as the bringer of punishment to others for all eternity, so that he might serve as an example to others of that long forgotten pantheon. While this backstory isn’t a blatant rip off of somebody else story, it is also suspicious generic, and highly unlikely, I mean the Hells predate most Gods, a mere god is the ruler of Hell? That is kind of unlikely.

9) That Asmodeus was originally a lord of the Div, created when Kador cursed one of the fruits of Divinity, and hopes to eventually wipe out the gods themselves and violate everything that mortals love. However this seems to easily refer to the current Lord of the Div, Druaga, who seems to have ruled over the Div since the beginning of time, so this doesn’t really add up. And again, Asmodeus focuses his attention far more on the Blood War than the workings of deities.

These nine (and of course it is nine) backstories seem to be largely contradictory and of course are all likely lies, after all they all seem to refer to other entities who are still alive and well, unless they are all nothing more than aspects of Asmodeus, which is a bit too horrible too contemplate. Some of the most ancient scholars believe, that while all of these stories are lies, the truth lies between the lines, in the common themes of all the stories. NOTE: this is like super high level scholarship, even knowing one backstory of Asmodeus often requires extremely dangerous searching of secrets, so discussions like these tend to only happen between immortals. Average PCs will not know any of these backstories and if they are aware of Asmodeus, he will simply be the Lord of Nine who has always been there. If any truth can be found in these stories, it can only be found in finding the commonalities between these stories. Namely A) Asmodeus was not always the ruler of the Nine Hells B) He wasn’t always a devil, but was instead some other being who fell to evil C) He was a trickster being who deceived some great power while in the form of a serpent. But considering how much misinformation Asmodeus himself deliberately puts out, it is unlikely that anybody knows the truth beyond Asmodeus himself. In truth, none of those stories are true, Asmodeus deliberately inserts himself into other historical events/legends in order to make discovering his true identity more difficult, for the truth is even more horrifying (see below, the True Nature of Asmodeus)

Asmodeus, whoever he was, overthrew the previous lord of the Nine Hells (whose identity might be Malkira, Dios, Sataniel, Lucifer, or Satan, though most agree it was Dios) then established himself as the Lord of the Nine Hells. The rest of his time has seemingly been messing with his minions, and messing with the leadership of the Lords of the Nine. Sammael was replaced by Baalzebul as lord of the Seventh, replacing lord of the 4thAdrammelek with Belial with Adremalech becoming lord of the 9th, as Belial later had to share power with his own daughter Fernia. He has had particular fun with the 6th layer, after destroying Beherit and Batna, he replaced them with Lillith who in turn was replaced with Moloch, who in turn was replaced by the Hag Countess, who in turn was replaced by his own daughter Glasya. Stranger still is his rule of 5th layer, the treacherous Levistus was replaced by an even more Treacherous Leviathan, who was in turn replaced by the loyal Geryon, who as punishment for his loyalty during the Reckoning of Hell was overthrown and replaced by Levistus. All the while Asmodeus remained secured on his throne, above the petty politics of his minions, and even when there was a cohesive effort to overthrow him such as the Reckoning of Hell, he was able to emerge stronger than ever. The history of Hell is just an endless series of plots, overthrows, and deceptions that all seem to change remarkably little with Asmodeus always still on top, and Mephistopheles always right below him as Lord of the Eight.

A close examination of his methods however, reveals a certain method to his madness. Asmodeus is always working hard to ensure that none of his minions ever get fully comfortable in the system, that every time one or another of his lords starts to build up a powerbase and start to feel comfortable with the rules of Hell, Asmodeus trips them up by introducing some new element into Infernal politics that they must respond too. Every time a Lord is replaced, the other lords must spend some time, often centuries, learning how to respond to the new comer and adjusting their plans to accommodate for their presence, only for some other disruption to emerge and waste their time again. As his minions hate each other too much to synchronize information, Asmodeus is thus able to stay in power forever. With such a brilliant mind controlling Hell, surely his plans outside of Baator must be equally brilliant…well yeah, about that. (See the first secret below.)

Goals: Asmodeus current goal, beyond keeping his minions in check, is to win the Blood War, something he believes will happen any day now. Should the Demons finally be cowed, he can finally get to work on uniting evil under a single banner and of course wipe out Good. In the short term, he focuses most of his energy in keeping his position secured and maintaining Hell’s position in Planar politics. Well apart from studying law books and keeping his minions infighting, most of his goals are dedicated to trying to establish greater influence over the Material Plane. He doesn’t wish to be worshiped as a god, instead he wants to increase the amount of souls going to Hell at any moment, so that he might manage to finally win the Blood War once and for all, and bringing more and more Material Planes under his control will help keep good from taking advantage of the Blood War. Honestly though, with so many powerful and active forces in the multiverse, Asmodeus spends the vast majority of his considerable resources, power, and intellect trying to keep everybody else out of the picture so he might win the Blood War (the current conflict between the Daemons and Yugoloths has proven to be very beneficial to this vision.).

Enemies and Allies: Asmodeus has never been particularly popular and the sheer amount of people who want to kill him demonstrates how clever he truly is in because he is still alive. Simply within his own domain, most of the Lords would gladly tear out his throat is they could, Triel, Mephistopheles, Belial, the Hidden Lord, Levistus, and Fernia are all gunning for his throat at any moment, to say nothing of Gargoth and Gargauth. All four of the Exiles of Archeron hate him personally, as do the Triumvirate of the Grey Wastes are only united in their hatred of him (with the remaining 36 lesser lords of the Wasteswould all be more than happy to kick him if he were down), and Dioss still hopes to reclaim Hell from his base in the Inferno. Beyond Dios, Lillith and Leviathan both despise him and would gladly see him toppled from the Serpent Throne, many individual fiends view him as continuing the Blood War and hope to assassinate him, Lucifurge and his servants of the Naraka see him as a threat to their interests, Beherit wants revenge for his wife and child, and among Perdition Satanial, Malkira, Mantanbuchus, Beelzebub, Semyaza, Merorem, Naamah, and the Adversary all bear a grudge against. To make things worse, Asmodeus is the only thing that might unite the Demon Princes against him, and all of them, in particular Pazuzzu and Graz’zt see his destruction as a personal vendetta. Of course, Orcus also despises Asmodeus, but considering how overwhelmed the Goat is, he rarely can do anything about it, and Asmodeus likes to occasionally show up and screw with him for kicks. The only demon lord who doesn’t seem to make much effort to fight the Lord of the Nine is Pale Night, who regards him with amused contempt but otherwise ignores him, something which frustrates the Lord of the Nine. Of course, Asmodeus is hated by all of the Lords Above, who all view him collectively as one of the single greatest threat to the world in the Lower Planes, alongside the General. Asmodeus also hates the Div and their lord Druaga, who he views as a threat equal to the multiverse as the Demons, and whenever he can he makes an effort to wipe this creature out.

Asmodeus deliberately keeps himself out of sight of Gods, as interfering in Divine politics is needlessly complicated and rarely worth the effort. That being said, some gods are his sworn enemies, simply by virtue of his being the lord of Hell. Ahriman, The Prince of Darkness, and Kador all hate him for his deliberate obscuration of their backstories with his own, which has undermined their own churches on the Material Plane. The Goblinoid pantheon still hasn’t forgiven him for driving them from their domains in Hell, and the Orcish Pantheon view him as a an annoying twit who they would prefer to kill than tolerate. And while he had nothing to do with their death, the servants of both Ihys, He Who Was, and even the living Jazirian all place a great effort on slaughter his servants, which might be Asmodeus fault for deliberately obscuring his own back story. While they don’t prioritize it very strongly, the church of Moradin, St. Cuthbert, and Avandra view dislike him strongly and will gladly jump at any opportunity to undermine him. Azuth still hates Asmodeus for destroying his Avatar, and by extension Mystra wish to pay him back in full for such sacrilege. Oh and there is a vestige of Geryon dedicated to wiping him out, yeah whatever.

Still Asmodeus does have at least a few allies, in addition to the Thousands of Trillions of Devils who are his servants. Tiamat and the Kobold Pantheon have a very healthy working relationship with him, and gets along with Hexter and Erathis, as well as having a working relationship with Bane. He also has helped in the past with keeping Tharizdun imprisoned, and can alleviate many god’s dislike of him via those methods. Asmodeus has no established relationship with the Primordials or Titans, who he tries to avoid.

First Secret: The True Position of Asmodeus

NOTE: The Following is a secret only known to some of the most powerful beings in the multiverse, specifically only 11 entities not counting Asmodeus himself are away of this and they aren’t sharing. The Players discovering should only be the culminating of a major campaign.

There is a reason why Asmodeus is able to so effortlessly play his minions off each other, and forever avoid external forces from interfering, he doesn’t actually have a job, and therefore has plenty of free time. The position “Lord of the Nine Hells” is not absolute dictator, hell is after all Feudal not Autocratic and it comes with some hefty limitations. Once Asmodeus was able to claw his way to the top of the Infernal Food Chain, he discovered the horrific truth of the Nine Hells, namely that it doesn’t really need him for anything. Hell is a vast machine, and like the Abyss has a primitive sort of sentience of its own, and so largely continues pursuing its aims regardless of who is technically in change. Asmodeus does believe that the Blood War is a stupid waste of time that needs to end or at least reduced but as previous mentioned, Asmodeus true command over hell is…over stated. Hell has its own machinery, rules, and systems that are fully automated, which continue moving alone regardless of its leaders whims. Asmodeus could openly violate its commandments, but doing so would break the laws which would make him vulnerable to his subordinates, and so spends his time trying the impossible task of learning and mastering all of Hells needlessly complicated laws in the hopes of achieving true mastery, as his descent into Law from Chaos can indicate. This does allow him plenty of free time to keep his subordinates from rising up against him

Until he learns all the laws, Asmodeus is only the puppet to a mindless system, but those laws are so convoluted and byzantine that even an immortal genius such as himself cannot fully comprehend them, but only with complete command of those laws can Hell’s directives be changed. For most of the major tasks of Baator are done automatically, the armies are maintained and led by the system itself, not the leader, and so the Blood War continues with or without Asmodeus involvement, Hell’s borders are secured, and the soul hunt continues. All Asmodeus really has any true control of is propaganda and his own position in Infernal Politics, and it is too that he dedicates all of his time. That is why he is so impossible to defeat, for unlike the other Lords, he doesn’t have to actually run anything, and can dedicate his full time to keeping his inferiors in line. Asmodeus’s rise to power came in part due to his desire to ramp down the Blood War and focus on Consolidating Infernal forces rather than throwing them away to the Demons, he figured without the Devils to unite them, the Demons would fall in upon themselves. Heady with his visions of reform, he rose to the position as the Lord of the Nine only to discover the horrible truth. The Machine of Hell had long ago Determined that the Blood War was to be the directive of hell and regardless of Asmodeus’ wishs, the machine will simply continue with hits infernal path. For in truth, Hell is not any individual, but the system itself, a machine, and all individuals, even one as exceptional as Asmodeus, will be subsumed by the will of the law itself, cold, uncaring, and collective. If you are detecting themes of the Wire, you are totally correct.

The Origin of Asmodeus

Asmodeus is in many ways, the perfect Devil. Starting from the bottom as nothing more than a Lemure, through hard work, wits, and treachery was able to rise through the ranks on top a pile of stabbed backs. Eventually he was able to rise through the Infernal Bureaucracy, finally becoming the Chancellor of Hell itself, and personal assistant to the Lord of the 9th. Then in the Infernal Usurpation, he was able to overthrow Dios and become the new Lord of the 9th, and has ruled Hell since then. Asmodeus is well known for his brilliance, his cunning, and his charm, but above all is the fact that he is a massive troll who has spent the last few millennia screwing with his minions for shits and giggles. Here is a list of Asmodeus actions writ large

· Organizing a coup against yourself in order to test your minion’s loyalties, and then punishing the only loyal person.

· Regularly rewarding and promoting the lord of the 8th who has openly declared he wants to kill you and depose you

· Appointing a non-devil in charge of a layer for a period of time, and while your minions are confused secretly make up with and then promote your daughter

· Appointing the killer of your wife as the lord of a layer of the plane

· Making Lillith in charge of something for a time.

· Overthrowing a Benherit for creating a child, and then doing that exact action yourself.

Doesn’t that……doesn’t that….seem kinda….chaotic?

The Even Greater Secret of Asmodeus.

Not counting the man himself, only 9 creatures in the entire multiverse are aware of this information, and some of them don’t even know that they are, and the full story would only make sense if you spoke to all of them. None are major figures in Planar events, and none are aware of how valuable their knowledge is, the reveal of this knowledge would forever change the nature of the Outer Planes, the Blood War, and the Multiverse. DM only.

So what is the true Origin of the Lord of the Nine? The Truth is, Asmodeus himself doesn’t know…but some creatures do. Ancient evils dwelling in secretive black libraries remember a time before Asmodeus rose to power, and should some clever man combine the knowledge between those ancient tombs, they could find the truth that even Asmodeus himself has forgotten. The trick to learning the truth is to find the records of his actions in hell, and in that one can discover what he was before he started his rise up the Infernal ladder.

Asmodeus is indeed a Fallen Being, but those old tales never make any mention of kindness, of empathy, of love before he fell from grace, only war and destruction. For the true Origin of Asmodeus isn’t found in Heaven, but instead in the Abyss.

The truth of Asmodeus, lost so long ago that even he doesn’t remember it, is that the Lord of the Nine Hells is not a devil at all, but instead is…a demon. A fallen demon to be precise, from a time when such a thing could still be possible, a single demon among trillions on one of the layers, a Serpent of Chaos in the remains of a long dead garden, Asmodeus (he was known by a different name back then of course) was a savant among his kind in the ways of chaotic magnificence. Asmodeus fought a stint in the blood war, served various Demon Princes, even fought off a Daemonic incursion. The Serpent was noted for his brilliance, charm, and unabashed creativity and many felt he could have become a powerful prince in his own right if he wished it. However, he found himself longing for a higher purpose, a greater calling, to understand himself, and so he journey to the Inferno to speak among the Fiends, the learned scholars of evil itself. He proved an able student and in the great universities of evil his name was spoken with a mix of awe and concern, for while Asmodeus was a great student, he showed little interest in rejecting his chaotic nature, and still scoffed at law. He did delve into the soul forging magics of the Fiends, creating himself his infamous humanoid form still seen today, but still he did not shape his fundamental being, in fact he regularly spoke out that the Fiends should make an effort to wipe out the Devils, who only interfered with evil’s nature. In his thesis presented to the Fiendish deans, Asmodeus argued

· As most evil fights among themselves, infighting is inherent to the nature of evil.

· As Demons outnumber other evil exemplars combined by a wide margin, Demons should be seen as the standard bearers of evil.

· The Blood War is a foolish waste of time that distracts the Lower Planes from taking over the rest of the world, in particular destroying good.

· Thus the Blood War must be put aside, as the Heavens must fall before evil turns on themselves.

· As the Devils are the lesser party in terms of numbers, it is their influence which is keeping the war continuing. Thus, the Nine Hells must be destroyed.

· But this destruction cannot be a devastating one, that would only be continuing the Blood War, instead it must end in a swift and decisive manner, with minimal causalities. Some intrepid Demon who hopes to do what is best for evil should take over the leadership of Hell in a coup, turning the machines of hell to his own purposes.

· After that, it would be ideal to turn Hell against the Heavens, abandoning the Blood War entirely, and let the Nine Hells destroy themselves weakening the Upper Planes enough to the point that the Abyss could finish them off.

He concluded that in for this coup to work, a Fiend must infiltrate the devils, rise through the ranks, and assassinate Dios to become the new lord of the Nine Hells, and rely on the Devils blind loyalty in order to shift the course of the war. The Fiends rejected this idea as stupid and full of the dumb, and so, in a move that surprised nobody, Asmodeus volunteered to do it himself. With a small band of loyalists (mostly younger idealistic fiends) he remade himself that he was almost entirely a devil, except for a tiny spark at his center, his core, which would still remain part of the Abyss. This core resembled a horrid blood clot, pulsating with hate, brilliance, creativity and above all mass murder. His fiendish allies infiltrated other ranks of the hells and would help him rise to the top. Using the Fiendish soul magic, they were all altered so that they could pass as devils, and that they could never reveal another of their own number no matter how agonizing the torture, and they joined the Infernal ranks. At first his natural talents were able to get him through most of the Infernal ranks, after which he had to rely on his greater ability with treachery and his networks skills to eliminate rivals, ensure promotions, and gather for himself his own information network and resources. Once he reached the rank of Pit Fiend, he started to rely more and more on his creativity, and Asmodeus was quickly known as one of the most unpredictable entities in the Hells, slippery as a serpent and with a silver tongue to match. When it came to Asmodeus, expect the unexpected. His loyal spies also defied expectations by prioritizing somebody’ else ambition over their own, so great was their belief in the cause, and Asmodues was able to rise ever higher and secure even more power. But at long last his advance stalled, and he needed to be more creative, and thus his first great act of treachery came, he turned over his own spy network, reporting to Dios that he had found a band of Fiendish spies hoping to assassinate him. They were diligently rounded up, tortured, and destroyed but they were never able to reveal Asmodeus’ involvement, and he was able to continue rising until finally he was able to organize a coup to take over the Hell itself. At long last, Asmodeus had secured himself the position as the Lord of the Nine Hells. The Demon’s victory was seemingly secure.

But it was not to be. In the millennia it took him to rise through the ranks, he had to become more and more like those who he infiltrated, adopt more and more lawful methods, and adopt a more and more Lawful Mindset. His ambition took a higher prority than his vision, and the youthful idealism of winning the Blood War was replaced by cynical self-interest. After realizing that he couldn’t simply command Hell’s machinery as he once thought, he focused his attention on learning the Laws of Hell and keeping his own position, and as time went past, he was subsumed more and more by his role, until the Demon was gone and only Asmodeus was left. The moment of final change occurred when he wrote up the new contract of hell, and through grammer nazi legal speak, subtly changed his title, making himself not the Lord of the 9th as Dios had been, but the Lord of the Nine, establishing his position as the overlord of all Baator, which is why his spy network is so good by the way/ This fine print bullshit was the last act of lawful evil his core could take, and the Blood Clot that made up his Abbysal core simply vanished, and only Asmodeus remained. It is rumored that the Blood Clot dwells in the brain of a sheep, but that is a story for another day.

He has gone so far into character that he has lost not only his ideals, but his own identity, Asmodeus himself doesn’t remember being a Demon, he has no memory of the Inferno institutions, he doesn’t even remember his old name, for he has always Asmodeus he has always been the Lord of the Nine Hells. The only remnant of the Abbys is a small spark that provide him with a degree of chaotic creativity and love of trolling that has served him sell in keeping the other Lords at bay, but Asmodeus is indoctrinated, and nobody has been home for a long, long time.

however, a task all the more important as it helps keep his growing dementia in check. In his quest to keep power, he can display far more creativity and well…chaotic behavior than he normally does, which keeps himself from being completely subsumed by Hell itself, and allows him a glimpse at what he once was. So now he just fucks with his minions, because that is the largest actual threat to his position, and his massive free time can keep them at bay. More importantly messing with his minions holds the existential horror of his existence at bay, because hey I turned Baalzebul into a slug, how cool is that?

This indoctrination style memory loss is part of why Asmodeus has seen fit to insert himself into the stories of others, subsuming the tales of four gods and three cosmic beings thus far; Asmodeus himself honestly doesn’t know his own past, depending on the day he believes himself to have once been a part of the World Serpent, other times he distinctly remembers being an Archon fighting against the Demons, and other days he remembers being a being of Law. All he knows is that he is associated with being a Serpent, he wasn’t always the Lord of the Nine, and that he was once a different type of being than he is today, for Asmodeus knows in his heart of hearts that he is changed in some fundamental way, and even by the standards of Devils he is now empty inside.

The rare few who can gain access to this information would do well not to underestimate Asmodeus, while his memories might be fading and he isn’t the true ruler of hell, he is still extraordinarily dangerous, after all he was able to work his way up to the Lord of the Nine Hells largely by himself, relying on his own abilities. As fabricated and exaggerated his false biographies might be, the core of those stories are largely true. Asmodeus is, even by planar standards, a savant at almost every he tries his hands at, and be it politics, war, manipulation, knowledge, experimentation, magic, or espionage. In addition, his own combat abilities are devastating, while being the most powerful spell casting devil, he also is a skilled swordsmen and has numerous unique powers in his own right, to say nothing of those granted him by his position. He hopes to eventually end the Blood War, but in the meantime he has proven himself a horrifying proponent of it, even on a few occasions taking the field himself. And among the Lower Beings, he is one of the very few who can say that he has never been solidly defeated, which is more than the Overlord, Lucifer and even Satan himself can claim. Don’t underestimate him.

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