Belphegore
CHARACTER BIO
Beneath Belphegore: Lord of Sacrifice, lays the remnants of a very old man known as Bel Phastus. He remembers the time before the Throne Wars, and served Ha’Sathan in the Priesthood of Destruction, proselytizing the necessity of endings to the peoples of Cheol. He remembers the cooperation that once existed between the Wild Horde and the Celestial Order, led directly by the Overgods. Two sides of the same coin: creation and destruction, tasked with maintaining balance. Bel Phastus was a man of intellect and believed both philosophies to be necessary, neither to be preeminent.
When Ha’Sathan slew Zenith, Bel Phastus was horrified. While his brothers and sisters in destruction gloried in the rise of their Lord, he felt a time of terrible imbalance lay before them. His Lord’s twisted vision of the strong never dying by virtue of cannibalizing the souls of the weak was an inelegant, unsustainable system. Bel Phastus, a mentor and confidant to young Kerioth, favored of Ha’Sathan, was quick to proclaim the legitimacy of the Lord Akrathil upon his apotheosis. In him, Bel Phastus saw hope to re-establish a semblance of order and balance in a chaotic world. However, his mortal body had grown old and frail and his health began to fail him. As he saw his death coming for him, he gave in to his fear of an afterlife with no Overgods. If he were to die, where would his soul go? The existential horror was too great to bear, and so he took Akrathil’s Sacrament of Blood.
The impact of Dehvathae was immediate and profound. Bel Phastus was filled with an unholy vigor beyond anything he had known even in his prime. Possessing the strength of a beast and boundless endurance, he cast aside his uncertainty and committed himself to Lord Akrathil completely, rising to become his most trusted Viceroy and taking the name Belphegore. He was at the vanguard of the conquest of the world, and with each victory his access to the intoxicating Dehvathae increased. As the stolen blood’s influence took hold of him, his body began to twist into a form reflecting his now corrupted soul. His thirst for the life extending substance became unmanageable. In his gluttony, he would march his victims to their terrible end by the hundreds, bathing in their blood, exultant in his addiction. Thus he earned the moniker: Lord of Sacrifice.
Upon the inexplicable disappearance of Lord Akrathil, Belphegore was forced to reflect for the first time since the Blood Crusade began. He had seen himself in his mortal life as a gardener: removing without pleasure those lifeforms that were contrary to the order and prosperity of the world. The world he once saw himself as a steward of was now a smoldering ruin, in no small part due to his own actions. Ha’Sathan was dead, and Akrathil was gone. His fellow Viceroys were turning on one another. They were consumed with their lust for extended life and greater dominion. Dehvathae was becoming scarce as his counterparts abandoned restraint in pursuit of power. Now the world’s population was so depleted that there were simply not enough people left to conquer to fuel their immortality.
He saw that the inevitable conclusion of their current trajectory was absolute destruction and ultimately his own death. Whether it be at the hands of one of his former comrades in the throes of Dehvathae withdrawal, or a slow and agonizing diminishment as his access to new victims was lost in this dying world, it was clear where all paths led. Feeling the long-forgotten fear of death rise within him again, he committed himself to wresting control of the Immortal Host. He would sit the Blood Throne so that he may bring order back to this dying world and thereby live forever as the new God of Destruction.
Fueled by his immeasurable lust for Dehvathae and guided by his keen mind, he built a stockpile of the substance unmatched by any of the other Viceroys. His mastery of the Arcane and knowledge of Lord Akrathil’s dark science gave him the tools he would need to approach and risk the Blood Throne: gateway to Godhood. Thus he committed his Tower of Sacrifice to the Blinded Peninsula, and ordered his Cohort to defend against all interlopers as he focused on achieving final victory.
