Zariel

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Basic Information
Aliases	Lord of the First, Warlord of Avernus
Home	Avernus, Nine Hells
Gender	Female
Race	Unique baatezu
Age	Ancient
Rules Information
Alignment	Lawful evil
Class	None

"I did not fall into the clutches of evil. I rose to shoulder a cosmic burden."

— Zariel, Archduchess of Avernus

Zariel, called the Warlord of Avernus, is a female archdevil and fallen angel. She is best known as original ruler of Avernus, first layer of the Nine Hells, a station which has also once been held by her rivals Bel and Tiamat.

Appearance and personality

Zariel appears as an angel whose once beautful skin and wings have been ruined by fire. Her eyes glow bright white, and can cause those she looks at to burst into flame. She has pale, greyish skin, pointed ears, and red wings. A wreath of fire circles her head, which is completely bald.

She wields a spiked flail which seems to replace a missing left hand, and a hammer called Matalotok. She wears black and red armor which trails behind her in tattered cloth, and chains dangle from her waist.

Zariel is impetuous, and has a great love of battle. She is aggressive and often reckless, and lives to fight.

Like all devils, Zariel is lawful evil in alignment.

Abilities and traits

Zariel is an archdevil of great power, with numerous abilities. Her physical and mental attributes are of near-deific ability.

She can see through magical darkness. Her mere gaze can set anyone she stares at alight. Her skills of perception are unparallelled. She can communicate telepathically, and teleport at will across short distances. She can move swiftly, and fly at great speed.

She resists magic, regenerates wounds, and resists fire, cold, radiant energy, and attacks made with non-silverered weapons. She is immune to fear, and cannot be charmed, become exhausted, or poisoned. Necrotic energy does not harm her.

All weapons Zariel wields are wreathed in flame, and her horrid touch has the ability to afflict the victim with debilitating poison. She can cast alter self, detect evil and good, fireball, invisibility, and wall of fire at will, and occasionally casts blade barrier, dispel evil and good, and finger of death.

Lair

Zariel has an enormous flying fortress, 450 feet tall and resembling a massive sword blade.

Zariel inhabits a tall basalt citadel in Avernus, first layer of the Nine Hells. Its walls are decorated with the burned corpses of visitors who offend her. Some, not so lucky, are still alive when Zariel puts them on display.

The air from 500 feet to 2 miles from Zariel's citadel is continually filled with thick smoke. Bursts of flame shoot out of the ground up to a mile from the citadel, and within 9 miles, the air is filled with the smell of burning meat and the sound of wailing.

The primary inhabitants of Avernus are erinyes, imps, and spined devils.

Relationships

Enemies

Zariel holds a grudge against Tiamat, who lorded over her during her imprisonment. Unable to simply slay the dragon goddess, she instead seeks to support mortal efforts to summon Tiamat to the Material Plane, which would at least get rid of her from Avernus.

Zariel recently defeated Kostchtchie and took his legendary hammer, Matalotok.

Zariel hates Bel, who once deposed her as Lord of the First. The feeling is mutual, and the two secretly plot against each other. Among Bel's minions are Sir Ursas, a warrior with a bear claw for an arm.

Allies and minions

Bel serves Zariel as an advisor. To keep him busy, Zariel tasks Bel with crafting weapons, armor, and infernal war machines.

Zariel is served by numerous powerful minions, including the fallen paladin Haruman, now a narzugon devil; her erinyes bridge officer Nariangela; the fallen paladin death knight Olanthius; her disciple Thalamra; her most trustworthy pit fiend general Lucille; and the undead tiefling Lynx Creatlach.

Cultural significance

Zariel appears in the play The Trial of Asmodeus, in which Asmodeus, Lord of Hell, is made to testify before Primus, entity of Law. When Primus attempts to limit the length of the trial, Zariel pushes her way to the front of the group and demands to be heard, resulting in a scuffle that grows into a battle.

Zariel's iconic appearance is readily recognizable to any expert in religious lore.

History

Origins

Zariel is a fallen angel, once servant of a now forgotten deity who rebelled to serve the archdevil Asmodeus.

As an angel, Zariel's original duty was to watch over the Blood War, tracking its progress for her superiors on Mount Celestia. Zariel became obsessed with the war between demons and devils, and her desire to join the battle grew. She could not accept that the angelic hosts should stand idly by while fiends laid waste to entire planes.

Zariel disobeyed her superiors and led an army of mortal heroes into the Blood War, recruiting from the city-state of Elturel in Faerûn. The Ride, as it was known, succeeded in slaying many devils, but Zariel was soon overwhelmed by sheer number. Zariel lost her left hand and sword in the battle, ordering her devoted generals Yael and Lulu to escape with the weapon and hide it so that it could not be captured or destroyed.

Asmodeus sent a team of osyluths to the battlefield to recover Zariel's body, which they found alive but unconscious beneath a small mountain of slain enemies.

Fall

Zariel's passion for warfare so impressed Asmodeus that he allowed her to recover in the depths of Nessus, the ninth layer of Hell. There he offered her lordship of Avernus, the first and outermost layer of the Nine Hells, in exchange for her loyalty. Seizing the opportunity to dedicate herself to fighting the Blood War, Zariel accepted, and became an archduchess of Hell.

Two generals remained from Zariel's forces. Haruman, a paladin, accepted Zariel's fall and maintained his loyalty to her, himself becoming a narzugon devil. Olanthius took his own life rather than fight alongside evil, but was raised as a death knight. Zariel maintained a grudge against those of her former troops who fled the battlefield.

The Reckoning

During the ancient baatezu civil war known as the Reckoning of Hell, Zariel sided with Baalzebul's faction, on whose side also stood Moloch and Belial. The opposing faction was led by Mephistopheles, Dispater, Mammon, and Geryon.

On Avernus, the first layer of Hell, Zariel gathered a massive army under the premise of striking the tanar'ri as part of the Blood War. Belial, warned by his consort Naome of the politicking of Asmodeus' daughter Glasya, intended to use this army to carry the Blood War, in order to unite the feuding factions against a common enemy. However, when Glasya murdered Naome, the enraged Belial ordered Zariel to intead invade Dispater's city of Dis, the second layer of Hell, where she laid siege to the capital.

Mammon sent forces to relieve the siege, forcing Zariel to retreat to Avernus. The key point of the battle shifted to Maladomini, with all sides sending their forces there for a massive battle.

The battle never took place. Geryon, secretly working for Asmodeus, had arranged a deal with all of the pit fiend generals of both sides, and gave the signal for them to overthrow their rulers, including Zariel. In an unexpected move, Asmodeus re-instated the overthrown rulers, except for Geryon and Moloch.

Imprisonment

Zariel held the rank of Lord of the First, archduke of Avernus, and was the first known archdevil to hold this title. This would change when Bel, an upstart pit fiend general and loyal servant of Zariel for centuries, overthrew her in the most dramatic coup in the history of the Nine Hells.

Asmodeus rewarded Bel for his ingenuity by officially recognizing him as the new Lord of the First. This was of benefit to Asmodeus, as Zariel had been infamously quarrelsome and conniving, while Bel had little political support and was unlikely to conspire against Asmodeus. Eight pit fiend generals, of which Bel was one, were given command over all the legions over Avernus, with Bel in practice no more than a puppet ruler.

Bel kept Zariel imprisoned deep within his Bronze Citadel by some unknown magic, where his abishai torturers carve off parts of her flesh to feed to their lord. Bel slowly siphoned off Zariel's power for himself. Legend has it that the fireballs which explode seemingly at random across Avernus are caused by Zariel.

Restoration

Bel eventually began to fall from Asmodeus' favor, and Zariel was freed and re-instated as ruler of Avernus, with Bel reduced to her advisor.

The background given in Descent into Avernus contradicts earlier lore. Previous sources, including The Rise of Tiamat (2014), agree that Zariel was the original ruler of Avernus until Bel rose to power, an event suggested to have occurred long ago. Descent into Avernus instead claims Zariel did not fall from grace until at least 1354 DR, a mere 14 years prior to the events of the 1998 video game Baldur's Gate.

Current activities and goals

Zariel's agents aggressively recruit mortal souls, offering gifts of courage and martial skill to anyone who will pledge their soul to her armies in the afterlife.

Zariel and Bel both have plans to rebuild the Infernal Machine of Lum the Mad. They have sent agents into the world to achieve this.

Some tieflings have blood ties to Zariel. They have excellent Charisma and above-average Strength, and can innately cast the spells thaumaturgy, searing smite, and branding smite.

Worship

A few cults of Zariel once existed, but fell after she was overthrown by Bel. Her cult has steadily grown since her return, and she has agents throughout the Material Plane.

Cultists of Zariel are typically berserkers, gladiators, knights, warriors of all sorts, and refugees with no other choice. Their goals include conquest, as well as acquiring fame, glory, and fortune. The cults of Zariel flourish in times of war. Those who can cast spells favor true strike, heroism, spiritual weapon, and crusader's mantle.

Statues of Zariel appear in a Temple of Moloch.

Artifacts

Zariel gifted the Burning Orb of Etiol the Abandoned, a white sphere said to have been carved from the astral corpse of the god Vorel.

The powerful Sword of Zariel was once wielded by Zariel when she was still a celestial.

Zariel gifted her agent Lynx Creatlach a crystal eye which serves as a crystal ball of true seeing, and magical teeth with the abilities of a ring of mind shielding and a Nystul's magical aura effect that protects against detection of undead.

Publication history

AD&D 2nd edition

Zariel first appeared in Guide to Hell (1999).

D&D 3rd edition

Zariel is mentioned in Manual of the Planes (3e) (2001), Book of Vile Darkness (3e) (2002), Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells (2006), and Dragon #359 (Sep 2007), the final print issue.

D&D 4th edition

Zariel is mentioned in Dragon #428 (Oct 2013) and Codex of Betrayal: Glasya, Princess of the Nine Hells, Dungeon #197 (Dec 2011).

D&D 5th edition

Zariel is given the most detail in D&D 5th edition products, notably appearing on the cover of the adventure module Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus (2019). Zariel and her activities are also described in The Rise of Tiamat (2014), Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (2018), and the adventure module Infernal Machine Rebuild (2019).

Zariel and her following are primarily detailed in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (2018), p.10,21,23, and 180.

Inconsistency

A seeming retcon occurs in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (2018) and later sourcebooks, notably Descent into Avernus. These sourcebooks suggest that Zariel was an angel until around 140 years ago, falling from grace recently and replacing Bel as an upstart.

This contradicts most earlier lore, which places Zariel long ago at the Reckoning of Hell, and has Bel as the upstart general who replaced her in a radical coup after centuries of loyal service. D&D 5th edition's The Rise of Tiamat (2014) also describes Zariel as returning to her seat of power after a period of imprisonment, rather than ruling for the first time as is implied by 2018 and later works.

External links

• Zariel's statblock (CR26) at Wizards.com (2019)