Zariel

The Forsaken One

Archfiend

Zariel was the lord of Avernus, the First Layer of the Nine Hells. Once a Solar in the service of the gods, she eventually rose to become an Archangel and the main general of the forces of the Celestial Plane. She would fall from her position of grace some time during the early Pthumerian Age, becoming an Archfiend in service of Asmodeus.

## Description

Prior to her fall from grace, Zariel took the form of a beautiful angel, with elven features and glowing bronzed skin. Her blue hair shone with a glimmering radiance that matched her wings, of which she had four following her ascension to the status of an Archangel. She wore a silken blindfold over her eyes, and gleaming white plate armor that bled into a dress, befitting that of a Celestial general. Her sword, *Dawnbreaker*, was formed from pure crystalline adamantite. Atop her flowing hair was a glowing, blue, crownlike halo.

Following her fall from divinity, Zariel took the form of a dark and scorched angle. She wore the dark black scorched plate armor of a fiend, with flaming wings and dark skin. She had long since cast aside her blindfold, revealing glowing eyes that burned with bloodlust and hatred. Her halo had shattered, now a deep blood red. In lieu of her lost blade, *Dawnbreaker*, she wielded a flaming Profane Greatsword formed from the blood of the Demon Lord Yeenoghu.
The weapon possessed the ability to transform with her needs, able to take the form of various weapons; including twin swords, a greatbow, and a lance.

## Personality

Zariel was a being of unrelenting drive and ferocity. Prior to her fall, she was the High General of Mount Celestia, the single greatest and most powerful Solar (Except perhaps Archon). She obsessed with the destruction of Evil, and believed that the gods were not doing enough to destroy the threat that Demons and Devils posed to reality. In her eyes, the gods were being cowardly and bowing to evil by not destroying it. As such, she took it upon herself to destroy the evil within the Infernal Plane, and fell from grace due to her hubris.

Despite her fall from grace and the suffering it brought, she did not lose her burning desire to fight endlessly. Her ferocity was so intense that it stoked both respect and fear within Asmodeus, leading him to bind her with Dimensional Shackles and make her the Lord of the First Layer. In this position, she was able to further stoke her bloodlust and hatred for centuries. She was an endless well of determination, but this determination was also her downfall. She would stop at nothing to claim victory, even the lives of her entire army tenfold. She was a highly irrational being who was an idealist to a fault. Even as a servant of the evil god Asmodeus, she still believed she would eventually succeed in her goals of destroying demonkind, and would eventually ascend from the Nine Hells and claim her revenge upon the gods she believed abandoned her.

## History

### As a Celestial

Originally, Zariel was a Solar in service of Bahamut and the other gods in the Celestial Plane. As one of the most powerful and respected Solars, she defended the Mortal Plane against extraplanar threats for many centuries. Some time in the past, she single-handedly defeated Yeenoghu, the Demon Prince of Savagery, smiting the beast back into the Infernal Plane. As reward for her deeds, she was promoted to an Archangel and assigned to oversee the Blood War between Demons and Devils. This war, with its endless bloodshed and violence beyond all else, changed Zariel. She became obsessed with stopping the Blood War and putting an end to Fiends as a whole, viewing them as the peak of all evil.

Zariel brought her case to the gods, suggesting that the Celestials should intervene in the war for the greater good. The gods refused this notion, angering Zariel. She instead took it upon herself to end the Blood War, starting with the Devils. She gathered her own personal army of mortal knights, dubbed The Hellriders. With this army, she descended into the Infernal Plane, assaulting the layer of Avernus. However, she and her army were victims of her overconfidence, and they were no match for the army of Avernus. Zariel held her own on the front lines, cutting down thousands of Devils, and defeating the Archduke of Avernus, Bel. However, her army faltered, and the rear of her army was routed, fleeing the battlefield. She and her few remaining troops stood engulfed by the horde of Devils, and were cut down.

Zariel, however, survived. Seething with humiliation and hatred beneath a pile of corpses, she was taken prisoner and brought before Asmodeus himself...

### Fall to Darkness

Zariel was spoken to by Asmodeus, who surprised her by expressing respect for her achievements. Unlike the other gods, he expressed understanding of her goals, and even support of them. Asmodeus understood her desire for conquest, and even more understood her feeling of betrayal at the hands of the gods. Facing grave danger, Zariel struck a deal with Asmodeus. In exchange for her servitude, she would retain her life, and be able to continue fighting to end the Blood War. It was towards this end that she became the Archduchess of Avernus, replacing Bel in his defeat. Asmodeus, however, feared Zariel's power as an Archangel, and sealed her using Dimensional Shackles, restricting her powers and binding her to servitude.

Despite Bel's defeatA and removal as Archfiend, Asmodeus forced him to remain in Avernus and serve under the new Archduchess, much to Bel's fury. To further torment the failed devil, Asmodeus bound the two with a curse that prevented one from killing the other directly. This left Bel unable to even attempt to kill Zariel to reclaim his own place, and forced him to serve begrudgingly as her chief tactician. The two then served Asmodeus in fighting the endless Blood War for many centuries.

## Archduchess of Avernus

As the Archduchess of Avernus and leader of the devilish forces in the Blood War, Zariel descended further into the futility of the endless carnage. The harder she and her forces fought, the more demons rose to face them. This eventually ground any goodness out of her heart, reducing her to a being of pure rage and passion. She would fight for centuries in this manner, all sense of fighting evil now lost in the haze of fury.

She would be temporarily usurped for a short time following her intense battle with Demogorgon. Bel, despite being unable to kill her, ambushed the exhausted Zariel following her narrow defeat of the Prince of Madness. Bel managed to incapacitate Zariel for some time, taking over his old position as Archduke of Avernus. However, she would eventually recover and defeat Bel to reclaim her throne.

## Invasion of the Mortal Realm

Zariel would eventually grow tired of fighting the Blood War. Having been able to think following her humiliation at the hands of Bel, she began to realize the demon threat would never be destroyed without an increase in forces. While she had already dispatched numerous underlings to the Mortal Plane to corrupt and recruit warriors (most often fallen paladins), she felt this was no longer enough. In the year 2332 AC, she invaded the Mortal Realm with an army of devils. She was halted, however, by the current Sentinel, Tyrwin Lemos. Lemos managed to defeat Zariel in single combat with the power of the incomplete Greatsword of the Sentinel and his own willpower. Zariel, her forces routed, was forced to retreat in shame. Lemos would be betrayed by an ally soon after and slain, resulting in the disappearance of the Greatsword of the Sentinel for many years, until it was reclaimed by Artoron L. Graves in 3114 AC.

Despite her humiliation at the hands of Tyrwin Lemos, Zariel did not give up on her goals of invading the Mortal Plane...