The Circle of Archdemons Part 2 (Patreon)

Hey guys. Here's another worldbuilding post.

You guys expressed interest in exploring the Circle of Archdemons in greater depth, so I sat down and used my magical, otherworldly looking glass to spy on them a bit more and figure out how things work. I'm dividing this into a couple of parts, so if you're only interested in the characters, you can skip ahead. The first bit will be about the Circle itself.

The Circle:

The Circle of Archdemons is a collection of nine powerful fifth-order demons. The decision-making method for the entire body is made up of a consensus of votes. However, not all council members have equal votes. Votes are largely determined by a combination of personal power and resources. Some members of the Circle are significantly more powerful than the others.

While the top three vote holders have remained static for centuries, the lesser members of the Circle have been frequently replaced through various means. Nevertheless, despite violent upheavals and structural changes, the Circle has remained strong for more than a thousand years and continues to be one of the defining forces of Hell and the de facto most powerful legal body on the Fifth Layer.

The Circle rarely comes together more than once a decade. Historically, the only exceptions to this have been when the seraphim sent operatives into the Hells to gather intelligence. Capturing and torturing those operatives earned the Circle a personal commendation from several of the Prime Sins and solidified their position of power within the hierarchy of demons.

Until that point, the Circle was nothing more than a loose collaberation between Archdemons who recognized eachother's strengthes and collaberated for mutual gain by uniting in a way the Prime Sins never could. By founding this joint union, these archdemons were suddenly powerful enough to hold their combined assets and territory even if one of the Prime Sins decided to test their control over their men and territory.

To this day, most of the lesser demons spread throughout the higher hells, particularly the fiends, take orders from the Circle or a member of it. The archdemons care little for the scrambling and petty feuds between third order fiends, but the Circle has reworked their entire society so every stone stacked upon another and every semblence of a civilization on the second and third layer is a homage exclusively to them.

Dagon, The Hungering Dragon

Dagon takes the form of a massive, hungering serpent. Usually, Dagon is too large and glutinous to be anything more than an engorged snake. When particularly hungry, though, he possesses a skill that allows him to form wings of dark energy, granting Dagon the ability to fly.

While Dagon was a founding member of the Circle of Archdemons, they are no longer a member. Despite no longer being present, his presence is still felt by existing members. Nearly six centuries ago, he finally consumed enough souls to grow his power to the sixth order and left the Fifth Layer of Hell to descend to the next layer and grow even more powerful by joining the ranks of the Prime Sins.

Dagon possesses the ability to devour anything. In doing so, he has a small probability of gaining one of their skills for his own use. Over the ages, he's amassed a huge arsenal of abilities.

Moloch, The Tormentor

Moloch takes the form of a Minotaur. Six crimson eyes blaze across the head of a snarling, inhuman bull. Beneath that bull's neck is the body of a giant, shaped like a man but with crimson skill and rippling muscles covered thick skin.

This demon is renowned for its aggressive and cruel tendencies. His name alone is enough to strike fear into the hearts of anyone who would get on the wrong side of the Circle. He's always ready for a fight, and the Circle often uses him as an enforcer to deal with fourth order threats. If someone going against the Circle is unfortunate enough to warrant this member's personal attention, they're liable to get torn limb from limb and devoured. Many would-be archdemons met an inglorious end at Moloch's hands.

Kortharat, The Giantess

Kortharat takes the form of a massive woman with three sets of arms running down her sides. Her lower body is that of a horse, and she wielders a spear roughly the size of a building. In her younger days, she would ride across the surface world, trampling entire human armies to death with her passage. She can shrink herself down from the size of a giant to something more reasonable. She has trouble getting upstairs, so the Circle usually uses a first-floor meeting room instead of their underground facility.

This mighty warrior woman can enlarge herself to incredible size. Her stomp is a skill that can knock entire armies off her feet, and once she reaches a gallop the forces that could bring her to a stop are few in number.

Azizos, The Warrior

Among the oldest members of the Circle of Archdemons is this Azizos. He is a warrior, plain and simple. For him, life is a battlefield, and every moment is a fight. Once, he walked the surface world with his sword in hand, challenging anything he thought would make a worthy foe. Reaching the fifth-order was one of his biggest regrets, for after no mortal man could be his match. Fortunately, after the hells formed, he found his way inside. The demons gave him the bloody, violent welcome he desired, and he soon found himself right at home.

Azizos posses incredible speed, strength, and agility. His sword is renowned throughout all of the Hells and is one of the few Mythic-grade items not in the hands of the Prime Sins.

Resheph, The Undead Emperor

Resheph sits upon a throne of bones crafted from the bodies of his enemies. The foundations of the throne are small, little rabbit and deer skulls that he can scarcely remember killing in his mortal days. But above them are piles of human bones, then those of demons. The back of his throne is adorned with six sets of skeletal wings, still glimmering gold from the seraph they were torn from. All six were once heavenly protectors before The Undead Emperor got a hold of them.

No one knows if there is flesh or bones behind the pitch-black armor he always wears, but he is the densest concentration of Demonic Spirits to inhabit a single entity anywhere in Hell. He can conjure legions of undead where ever he is, and has even succeeded in killing and reanimating demons and seraphim on occasion, which most demonic wielders of undead energy ordinarily considered impossible.

Hadad, the Stone Ape

He was once a humble spirit of the forest, but a bloody death and endless years of battle forged him into something far more. To this day, the Stone Ape has never spoken a word. But that doesn't keep him from spreading his power and influence throughout the Fifth Layer of Hell. He cares little for tribute and followers, though many flocks to his staff in the hopes that they can learn to fight as he can.

He possesses a foresight ability along with enhanced speed and reflexes, making him an incredibly skilled fighter.

Ba'alat, The Shadow

She takes the form of a shadow, flickering between hidden crevasses. No one has seen her true form, but it is rumored she was once a great thief from a faraway land. One day, she stole from her own gods and was forced to flee all the way to the Sacred Seas. There, the item she stole reshaped her spirit, transforming her from a human woman into a living shadow of dark and malevolent power.

She possesses an instantaneous translocation skill, and is under the effects of a permanent intangibility power.

Nikkal, The Hawk

Nikkal looks like a hawk with bladed feathers and four glowing eyes. Talons like steel and a beak-like a razor can shred anything in her way. She is capable of taking human form from the neck down, though she rarely does so. The fact that her head remains that of a hawk means it isn't practical as a disguise.

She possesses several air manipulation skills and incredibly sharp vision.

Note:

So there we have a couple more members of the Circle of Archdemons!

I hope you enjoyed them. I don't think many of them will get anything more than cursory mentions, but they exist in the universe, and we might see a paragraph or two about them in book 3.

I've got a new version of book 3's outline, and it's all starting to come into place (at least until I actually start writing, at which point my outline usually falls apart and has to be rewritten several more times).

Let me know if there are any other aspects of the world I've yet to mention that you guys want to explore. I think I can do at least one more of these before I have enough of the outline done that I can start finalizing what happens in book 2 and send it off to beta readers.

Thank you all for reading!

It's weird to me to think that people are actually interested in my world-building documents without me first incorporating them into a story. I've made this thing since way before I finished my first novel, but they've always been just for me to get my thoughts together.

Secondary note - The anthropologically inclined among you may have started spotting a pattern in demon names by now. Yes, these and most of the powerful demons share names with Ancient Phonecian minor deities. Most of the demon names are at least loosely inspired by words from ancient Phoenician, though I had to make a few up because I need more demon names than there are minor gods (Also, I couldn't exactly use Mot and Ba'al, since so many other sources of fiction have used them.)