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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ripzerai" data-source="post: 2713733" data-attributes="member: 38324">Fair enough, but that's not exactly what I meant by "rules." Certainly, the whole of Baator isn't his realm in the sense that Nessus is his realm, but he's the guy in charge of the plane. He can summon all the other Nine to appear before him once a year, for example - that's an example of him commanding through his personal power alone. He devoured Beherit whole, banished Armaros, Gargauth, Nergal, Moloch, and Geryon, and transformed Baalzebul. He does control Nessus in exactly the same sense that Demogorgon controls Gaping Maw and Orcus controls Thanatos, although he does it in a more orderly fashion. The way I see it, Nessus obeys his commands because it is lawfully required to, while Gaping Maw obeys Demogorgon's commands because he forces it to, continually testing his will against it.Many politicians have to pit their lessers against one another to maintain their position, so that's no criterion. The method he uses to rule doesn't change the fact that he does, indeed, rule.He's not omnipotent or omniscient, but few rulers are.Whether or not Asmodeus created the baatezu is debatable. He may have, depending on whether or not you think the Dragon #28 article and the Tome of Horrors is a better source than Guide to Hell or the Green Ronin stuff. He probably didn't create the Hells, but if you believe Guide to Hell or simply interpret him as an Ancient Baatorian, he may have done that as well. I don't see how anyone can take the Dragon #28 article seriously, given that it claims that only the 2nd, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 9th layers of Hell have single rulers and explicitly ends in 20th century Earth with Belial exiled and Astaroth/Gargauth as Ambassador to the United States of America. It's just not consonant with the D&D continuity at all. You can pull out parts of it and use them (as I have), but it can't really be cited as evidence of anything. Tome of Horrors can be countered with another d20 product, The Book of the Righteous by Green Ronin, where Asmodeus helped in the creation of the Hells (with the other gods) and orchestrated the creation of the divs who he later transformed into the devils.</blockquote>

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