Hellfire's Grasp: The Lord of Cania

Hellfire's Grasp: The Lord of Cania is a book recovered from the belongings of Makaria Urilius left at Black Scar Redoubt.

## Description

Written by an acclaimed Tyndian philosopher Berent Docci, Hellfire's Grasp: The Lord of Cania discusses the Ruler of Cania, the Eighth Level of the Nine Hells. The so-called Duke of Brimstone, Lord of Hellfire and Archduke of Cania, Mephistopheles is considered amongst one of the most powerful devils in existence.

## Research

### Completed by Faustus Howell

Cania stands in defiance to the preconceived concepts of the Nine Hells of Baator, for it is not brimstone and flame that engulfs the landscape, but instead wind and ice. Glaciers travel unnaturally, scaling towering mountains to engulf them in frigid tombs thousands of feet thick, before moving onwards once again with an uncanny and guided haste. Vast forgotten civilisations lay encased in the ice, along with battlefields of archons and devas locked eternally in place, their weapons glowing faintly still with a radiance not yet fully quelled. While Stygia, an equally vast domain similarly associated with the cold, is sometimes seen as Cania's equal, those few that have travelled to both domains - and returned - report that the non-devil related threats of Stygia come from its untamed wilderness, and the beasts that roam it, whereas Cania itself is the great bringer of hostility. Unprotected travellers suffer winds capable of freezing a man's breath in his lungs, the blizzards themselves hungering after humanoid souls at the behest of the few devils said to reside there - and their master, the Archduke Mephistopheles.

For all that Cania does to shirk stereotypes of the Hells, the Lord of the Eighth appears to freely embrace them and as such is reported to take the classic infernal diabolic appearance. Looming over most creatures easily, he chooses to appear as a toned humanoid with maroon-black skin, fiendish claws tipped with golden nail, bat-like wings and burning white-gold eyes set beneath a set of rams' horns standing proud from long platinum-blonde hair. Mephistopheles' disposition can be considered as nothing short of exemplary or masterful, and he is generally considered across the Planes 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. Rehabilitated cultists have reported him to be softly spoken, calm and collected in his words, with the utmost wit, reason & self-restraint to each gesture and remark, akin almost to that of a nobleman. But it is for his domination of Hellfire, a magical flame capable of burning alive even those immune to conventional and magical flame - so much so that even the Satrap Elo dal Ithah al-Bazenan, who bathes each day and night in a chamber of molten rock and metal, finds worry stoked in their heart at the prospect, for which the Lord of Cania is most known. Burning bright and pale in its intensity, it has since found use in the forging of weaponry of Infernal Iron, which is likewise mined in Cania. Highly resistant to heat otherwise, only Hellfire generates the requisite temperature required to mould the metal - and thus has proven necessary for the creation of the weapons and armour used by the devilish armies engaged in the ongoing Blood War.

It is to this Blood War that the Lord of Cania is said to direct most of their attention. As the Lord of Nessus' second-in-command, Mephistopheles has taken it upon himself to further the devilish interests in the conflict, always seeking for methods through which an advantage may be wrested from the jaws of the denizens of the Abyss and the other subservients of the Elder Elemental Eye. Along the edges of the River Styx as it flows through the Lower Planes devils enact the commands of their general, it is said that the war has raged ever since the combatants first came to be, and given that few independent parties would willingly aid one side over the other, seems set to rage for an eternity longer still. A victory of one side would surely allow them to turn their attention elsewhere, and as such, the entities of the Upper Planes have generally taken a policy of paying little mind to the calls of parley or alliances, however tempting the prospect of smiting down fiends of either side may seem, lest it shift the favour of the War irretrievably. Most notable amongst the weapons forged as per Mephistopheles' design are that of the Hellfire Engines, semiautonomous bringers of destruction driven by a will towards destruction - whether loosed against a demonic incursion or crusading mortals - fortunately rarely seen beyond the banks of the River Styx, or within the Hells themselves.