Blood of Brimstone

Blood of Brimstone is a book uncovered through use of Study-related Inquiries.

## History

Under the guise of acting under on the authority of the Exegete Vuruzum Zelnolar, the adventurer Rinn visited the city of Oxresh to scour the libraries for information pertaining to a number of topics, ranging from the Primordial Elemental Princes, to other planes of existence and its inhabitants - with particular focus given in part to the Lord of Cania, Mephistopheles.

## Reading

### Completed by Rinn Zelnolar

There is but one individual that can truly know the machinations of the Lord of Cania, and that is the Lord of Cania themselves. It is customary for the devils of the Nine Hells to perpetually conspire against each other - sometimes even more so than they conspire against their demonic foes in the Blood War, or the residents of the Upper Planes amongst the Wandering Worlds, but to this purpose such plots and ploys are shrouded in mystery, intrigue and uncertainty. Despite this, nearly every devil ultimately lusts after the same fundamental desire, ascent up the hierarchy of the Hells, whether they pay careful attention to the rungs made of their subordinates, peers and superiors' bodies or not. How they go about this will vary wildly from devil to devil, most relying on a wealth of souls to their name, whether claimed through battle, bloodshed and war, through contracts, pacts and deals, or most commonly some combination of the two. Others instead shirk actions broadcasted to enact plots that span a dozen mortal generations held together with anything between circumstantial chance or precise and deliberate occurrences. Mephistopheles is heralded as one of the greatest minds in existence, as skilled with military strategy and studious experimentation as he is the arts of deception, seduction and beguilement. As the second most powerful devil in the Hells, it takes not a mind as genius as their own to speculate on their own eventual aspirations.

The Lord of Nessus is surely not blind to these aspirations. Every devil in the Hells conspires to claim their power, and more plots and ploys than there are grains of sands in all the beaches of all the coasts of the Ahlusian continent have been uncovered and overthrown by Asmodeus and his Archinquistor Phongor and Majordomo Baalberith. For all their focus as the devoted Lord of the Eight, Mephistopheles appears to have been responsible for numerous amongst these too, and thus the pair exist in a delicate balance. The Duke of Brimstone has not the power to overthrow the Lord of Nessus, and yet the Lord of Nessus trusts many of the other Archdevils even less than the Lord of Cania, while simultaneously acknowledging their formidable talent as a forerunner of arcane prowess, mechanical invention for sake of the Blood War, and manipulation of Hellfire, flame of pure white, burning bright and pale and said to be capable of consuming even beings of flame itself with its intensity. It was by use of this Hellfire that the Velbalt Plains are said to have come to be at the border between the Golden and Slate-Stone Kingdoms, its usage during the wars that raged after the First Gift nothing shy of cataclysmic.

Since then, the presence of Mephistopheles has thankfully been minimal. The Archdevil has seemingly sponsored a few individuals over the years, with diabolic cults and sects dedicated to them springing up from time to time, only to fade away unprompted, or eradicated by the justice of Kings, Queens and Emperors alike. In this capacity, these factions however seem to have found particular quarrel with those instead dedicated to the Keeper, a clear rivalry between their respective patrons. The *Order of the Black Veil* found themselves eradicated by practitioners of the *Exardesco Pallidum*, while the *Disciples of the Frozen City* engaged in a shadow war beneath the streets of several Realms for three mortal generations with the *Archivists of the Next*, only on occasion being noticed by the city watch of their impromptu battlefield. Other notable incidents accredited to Mephistopheles, or at the very least factions related to them include the torching of the High Chapel of the Eternal Minstrel in Port Oland within the Duchies of Tynd - although investigations seemed to suggest that devils aligned with the Lord of Nessus directly may also have been present - and interactions recorded by the enigmatic Guardians of the Flock, the faction responsible for the creation of the Great Seals of Ahlus, behind which the harbingers of the Hunter in the Ephialtes were sealed. According to such records uncovered by the Archquantos Kuiper of the Tethered Harness, a cult of the Lord of Cania referring to themselves as the *Ashes of Change* sought to offer aid to the Guardians by taking responsibility for corralling the harbingers, but their leader quickly flew into a fitful wrath-filled act of self-immolation when finding that all but the Glorious Eye, Foul Labyrinth and Cold Devourer had already been immured.