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Though the Hag Countess has since been replaced by Asmodeus's daughter Glasya, Moloch now dwells among the other outcast devils of Avernus, Hell's first layer.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)
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“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
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“This above all makes history useful and desirable: it unfolds before our eyes a glorious record of exemplary actions.”
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