History
Like many of the oldest lords of Hell, Moloch was once an angel created by the powers of Law to battle the demons of the Abyss in the Age Before Ages, before the Battle of Pesh and the subsequent realignment of the planes. Of all the warriors in the legions serving Asmodeus, it is said that Moloch was the greatest. He was rewarded for his prowess and loyalty with rulership of the sixth plane of Hell, Malbolge. In order to check his power, however, Asmodeus made him the vassal of Baalzebul, serving as the Lord of the Flies' viceroy on the layer he controlled. Asmodeus hoped Moloch and Baalzebul would spend their time watching one another for signs of betrayal rather than trying to storm Nessus.
This worked for a time, but Moloch and Baalzebul allied with Zariel and Belial in the Reckoning of Hell some millennia back in order to do just as Asmodeus had feared. The Lord of the Ninth was prepared, of course, and defeated the rebels handily when their pit fiend generals betrayed them.
Moloch was replaced by his mistress, the Hag Countess, who had set him up to fall. For centuries, Moloch had been recruiting allies and gathering new minions in preparation for seizing back his old domain through military force. Three days before his intended invasion, he hid in a backwater world on the Prime Material Plane to wait for the appropriate moment to plane shift to the Hells in a surprise attack. By an unfortunate coincidence, the world (obviously not Oerth) was severed from contact with other planes due to an unforeseen cataclysm involving the theft of the stone around which the world had been created. As Moloch was unable to leave his erstwhile hiding place, his army was slaughtered by minions of the Hag Countess.
Though the Hag Countess has since been replaced by Asmodeus's daughter Glasya, Moloch now dwells among the other outcast devils of Avernus, Hell's first layer. He works with other exiles to rebuild his army and return to power, overthrowing Glasya and, he hopes, one day Asmodeus too.
Read more about this topic: Moloch (Dungeons & Dragons)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“Don’t you realize that this is a new empire? Why, folks, there’s never been anything like this since creation. Creation, huh, that took six days, this was done in one. History made in an hour. Why it’s a miracle out of the Old Testament!”
—Howard Estabrook (1884–1978)
“... that there is no other way,
That the history of creation proceeds according to
Stringent laws, and that things
Do get done in this way, but never the things
We set out to accomplish and wanted so desperately
To see come into being.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)