A very, very long time ago. During the Divine War.

Lord Vazotz tore through the battlefield like a hurricane of pure destruction. This world had been created by him and his siblings, and even if he hated the other gods he would never let anyone or anything other than himself tear down their hubris. His pride would not allow it. The extradimensional invaders, these creatures from beyond reality that mortals had taken to calling “Extras” also happened to produce an energy similar enough to divine spark that it was actually making him and the other gods more powerful to kill them.

They were of course slowly chipping away at the world’s foundational system faster than the pantheon could destroy them, so the Extras would soon need to be dealt with permanently. In the meantime, the surging power was nice. Having been born without a domain as he was, Vazotz was used to taking what he wanted and scratching out what he needed. His divine realm had been built at the bottom of Hell instead of the space between realms like all the other gods.

His own siblings mocked him, laughed at him, and their children of lesser power claimed domains effortlessly. Having newborn gods look down on him boiled his blood with a rage beyond description. What use was a god of cooking if the world was destroyed while he baked his cakes. Would a god of painting be able to defend this reality from the incursions? No. Not a chance.

This isn’t to say that he hated all of his siblings or their children though. Vazotz did get along with some of them at least partially. One of his younger siblings, Gyrxis, was actually rather clever. Gyrxis was born too late to be one of the High Gods, the fourteen first borns, Instead he was of the second wave, the lesser gods. Many of the High Gods had children that qualified as Lesser Gods, but Gyrxis was one of the nine born directly from the primordial shifting that formed the first fourteen as well. He was also one of a few without a stick up his ass.

As God of Trickery, Gyrxis was cold and calculating while still having enough humor to avoid boring the Lord of Hell. His children and raised subordinates held domains like Ilusion, deception, and ambush. The more Vazotz learned about the sphere of Trickery the more he liked them, but that admiration came with a level of envy as well. Without a domain of his own, Vazotz could not create sub-domains for subordinate gods to occupy. In mortal terms he could never have true children of his own.

Instead, he had to create devils from the vices and pain coalesced from human souls. The most powerful amongst these devils became his commanding Arch-Devils, but even they barely compared to the lowest of the pantheon. If High Gods and Lesser Gods occupy the highest two positions, they are followed in turn by Demi-Gods, Heroic Gods, and Divine Spirits. The strongest Arch-Devil ever born barely compares to the weakest Divine Spirit. Godhood is hard to emulate. Thus, Vazotz decided to compensate quality with quantity and birth as many devils as hell could spew forth.

At first it was thousands, then hundreds of thousands, and by the time the infernal legions spilled forth in millions Vazotz knew very well that his soldiers were missing something. Individually they lacked the strength and skill to stand side by side with the divine armies, and as a group they had no creativity or cohesive teamwork that would allow them to fight like humans did. In the attempt to borrow the strengths of those he fought alongside, Vazotz had only succeeded in compounding their weaknesses. A legion would still occasionally fell some extras in a hard fought victory that cost them more soldiers and resources than they could feasibly gain, which only further underlined the failings.

The King needed to find a way to improve his soldiers, something to either make them stronger, or make them smarter, he needed better generals. This thought is what motivated Vazotz to stop fighting on the front lines personally and step into a more logistical focused role.

The first and most glaring issue that was faced was lifespan. The divine war was already hundreds of years long, and humanoid races were lucky if they lived that long even without fighting to the death daily. The obvious solution was to recruit generals from the races that humans considered “monsters”, the quasi-immortal and extremely powerful creations of some of the more fringe gods. These so-called monsters were often nearly animalistic in their instincts, they did not form societies outside of the occasional family or breeding group, and they wielded powers beyond what any single human could hope to accomplish.

This was not to call them stupid though. On the few occasions where it had been documented of a monster killing enough extras (or humans) to absorb energy and achieve a new form, they often become incredibly powerful in a specialized way while growing into more advanced intelligences. The High God Ovreth, one of Vazotz siblings, had created a race in his own image called “Dragons”. Dragons were nearly immortal and seemed to only grow in power as they aged, many of them evolved into new and unique diversified forms as they fought alongside their god.

Dragons was a good starting point. Vazotz spent years following news of Orvreth’s battles and triumphs, hoping beyond hope to find and ingratiate himself with various dragons of power and repute. This did not go to plan. As Vazotz quickly learned, Dragons are incredibly individualistic and their pride is only outweighed by the innate desire they each have for something they valued.

For some he met it was gold coins, others books and knowledge, but every dragon seemed to have a bottomless pit inside them that they attempted to fill with possession. This made it rather difficult to convince any singular dragon to join his cause and lead a legion unless they wanted something the King had. Very few of them did. Until of course, Vazotz met a dragon that wanted everything.

The perfect general for a legion, this massive wyrm insisted that a victory at a cost was not a victory. You had to take everything your opponents had and lose nothing in the process. If he saw something as his, he would not stand for it being lost or taken. That included his soldiers.

After spending far too long searching, the ease at which his first general was recruited felt almost insulting. Almost.

Legio IV, named “Avaritia” by the King, was quickly out performing every devil led contingent in his army. If that track record could be extrapolated to other legions as he recruited more generals, Vazotz stood to become the single most powerful leader in reality, potentially ending the divine war on his own. It would not be easy though.

His personal passion project was beginning to take more and more time away from recruiting the generals as well. An undertaking he had begun long ago was slowly crystallizing in the bowels of his palace in hell and requiring more and more time from him personally. When he showed the project to his new draconic assistant some years later, there was a realization between the two of them that it was something more.

Work redoubled after that. Vazotz spent decades recruiting an eclectic council of generals to serve at his behest. Each of them was handed one of the legions of Hell, and each of them began contributing to his research. They began to feel more like friends, like family, than even his actual siblings ever did.

This council of horrors, a collection of necessary evils designed to keep the fine balance of reality in place, began to feel love for one another.

That love only made it more difficult when they realized they would soon be saying goodbye.

Vazotz research was almost complete, and the pantheon was preparing to deploy an operation barrier to the system that would not only block out the extras but limit direct influence of gods as well.

The project would need to be deployed before the barrier went up to insure its success. That left the leaders of hell only a few weeks to put systems into place to operate without their King or his generals.

His friends went first, one by one distilling power and memory into the system as they entered their sleep. It was painful, but Vazotz trusted their work, he knew he would see them again.

Once the last of them had undergone the process and he was truly left alone, he made the most of his efforts while ignoring the pain.

The timelines didn’t match up perfectly anymore, his original estimates of the deadline had been off. He’d need to edit some of the memories as they were distilled, hopefully before he fell asleep as well.

This was his best chance. This was his only chance.

He could be the last god left with access to the world, an operational block between him and everyone in his way.

It was just a shame about the teeth.