Adimarchus

* Demonic Form
* Angelic Form

**Adimarchus**, also known as **Adimarchius** is the demon prince of Madness and lord of Occipitus. He was worshipped as **Zotzilaha** by the Yexacans of Tamoachan. Adimarchus is imprisoned somewhere in the Underworld. The exact location is not known, but the demon prince's presence seems extremely strong around the Pit of Hatred.

## Biography

All but the smallest, squalling babes have heard the tale of the Fall of Adimarchus, the renegade angel who made war on Heaven. So strong was his deception, and so puissant his rebellious host, that the Archangels of Heaven were able to repulse him only at great cost: they carved the ground out from beneath his feet, and sent a tract of their own luminous Realms of Righteousness crashing down to the Underworld. Adimarchus’s minions were destroyed, but he himself survived, forever banished from the cloud-bright planes.

Ruler, now, of the descended wreckage of the Realms of Righteousness, Adimarchus still was power-thirsty, and made war against demonic foes, expanding his control of that poisonous realm. For thousands of years, he clashed armies with his nemesis, the Dark Prince. Then a new challenge beset him from an unexpected quarter: Kishar-Asaru, a beatific paladin with angelic blood. Kishar-Asaru arrived in the fallen angel’s domain, questing to redeem Adimarchus’s black soul and return with him to Heaven. The aasimar cut a swath across the tumorous plains of the Underworld and confronted the demonic lord in his own throne room. Long they fought, until, exhausted, Adimarchus sundered Kishar-Asaru’s bright blade with his own dark-hearted sword.

Yet something in the paladin’s eyes sparked his compassion, long-buried and forgotten, and he found he could not kill Kishar-Asaru, nor could he subject her to the torments of the Underworld. Instead, he wooed her into friendship, and from thence to love; and the two joined forces in a mighty push against the Dark Prince’s howling armies.

But while this epic battle raged, a sudden thing occurred: The Dark Prince’s minions captured Kishar-Asaru with surprising ease, casting her half-mortal body into the tormenting prisons of the Underworld. Adimarchus could not bear to lose his love; he forfeited the battle, abandoned his army and his realm, and fled to free exquisite Kishar-Asaru. He knew now, within his soul, that he should have welcomed Kishar-Asaru’s offer of redemption; and as he quested, he indulged himself with notions of the two of them rising together to Heaven, purged of all wrong.

Alas, this dream was not to be. The only way for Adimarchus to free Kishar-Asaru from the monstrous, deathless guardians of the Underworld was to submit himself to servitude instead. As Adimarchus stepped into the twisted cage that would confine him for eternity, he turned back once, to bid his ally and his love farewell. And then, with horror, he beheld the newly freed Kishar-Asaru metamorphose into a grinning, black-skinned fiend—not angelic, nor a paladin, but instead the sly, devoted daughter of his great nemesis, the Dark Prince!

As he descended into servitude and madness, Adimarchus learned the lesson which he himself had taught the host of angels long before: that the greatest evils hide in plainest sight.