The Baatezu Dilemma

"What did you ask?"

"I asked you to write an article about the reason, why the baatezu purchase larvae in great numbers."

"Ah yes, puny little incompetent Cari'Quani..."

"Shut up and write the damn article."

"Damn... I like that word."

"Use a language that doesn't drive a mortal insane when s/he attempts to read it."

"Why should I? They would become tanar'ri then. I will not even use any corrupting runes, only normal human language."

(If you feel particularly evil or something after reading this text, well then don't worry. The lower planes always look for more souls. - The Bard)

There are several facts that you are most likely not aware of, dear mortal. (Why should I frighten you? Being friendly and noncommittal is far more productive to making good deals...) Even those who frequently walk the lower planes and / or know the darks spilled within the useful tome called Faces Of Evil, will most likely not know. Most of these events took place in a time that has to seem an eternity ago to you, before mortals walked the planes as frequently as they do now.

The baatezu aren't natives of Baator. (Some of you might already have stumbled to that, by studying their ways or carefully reading Faces Of Evil.)
The baatezu's original name is Cari'Quani
The yugoloths are relatively new additions to the lower planes. They are only around for several million of your years, while the beginning of time (and fiendish memory) is many aeons.
The Horrnar'wikk (hordlings -the Bard) drove the yugoloths out of the Gray Waste a short time after their creation. You always thought they where pathetic little inconsequential critters, right?
On their exodus to the Gehenna the Yugoloths (damn those meddling rilmani for them. Some even say the guardinals had something to do with it, but that doesn't look like them... (snip a rant against celestials, the Bard) they tricked the native fiends, the Gehereleths, into leaving their home for some time. They decided to settle in Carceri for reasons I do not understand, driving the native Cari'Quani away, who strangely decided to settle in baator.

At that time we were taken by surprise. While we had battled them before, like any other major fiendish race, no-one had ever expected that they were going to enter our homes in a fully fledged exodus. I still doubt that the 'loths are behind it. Someone has to pull strings far more subtly and out of the hiding, than even they do to mold a whole race of fiends after their desires. Looks more like the horrnar'wikk. I wasn't even aware of their existence until I was promoted to my current post. (Those who really konw the darks don't let anyone suspect they do or even exist.)

The Cari'Quani established themselves in our home plane and devised a way to change the original petitionors (nupperibo) into lemures, the basic building stock of their race. What happens to Carceri's petetioners? Don't ask me, that's none of my problems. They instituted the inquisition, a rather large body of lesser minions, who tirelessly search the plane for nupperibo and change them into lemures.

Naturally their flawed sense of order caused them to make mistakes and miss some places of the plane, that can only be reached by perfectly adhering to the principles of law and evil combined. The Cari'Quani have always put more weight into the second. Sure, their deals are as devious as any fiend's, even those of the often underestimated tanar'ri, but they don't fully understand the concept of symmetry and lawfulness. Which idiot would install a ruling council of eight in a plane of threes and nines?

With passing time we found ways to hide ever more of the plane from the Cari'Quani, but they didn't really notice, for you can divide infinity any finite number of times and still end up with infinity. They feel that something is going on, something they don't like. Always extremely paranoid, even as fiends go, since they moved to baator, the Cari'Quani are scared. Yes, you have heard that, the fiends are afraid.

They know that they don't belong into the place they currently occupy, and they know the baatoorians want it back. In addition they don't have the slightest idea how powerful their enemies might be and that's slowly driving them insane, ever more into the hated arms of chaos. The dark eight already wonder about their tenuous and slowly slipping hold on the plane, and it seems that even the yugoloths worry, though none of them seem to know what bothers them.

Why the Cari'Quani purchase the large number of larvae they do? They are desperately trying to swell their number, knowing that they will have to fight a battle at two sides. Against the angered inhabitants of the plane they occupy and the hated tanar'ri. Interestingly they hate the tanar'ri so much, because the seed of chaos within them is too strong to keep them rooted in baator, but for some reason they are unable to blame it on the 'loths, or the horrnar'wikk. (Most likely they don't even know, that the latter exist.)

It looks just like the Cari'Quani. They are already promoting fiends using quite arbitrary criteria, they think are justified in some type of law of the plane. In truth they are just personal preferences of the higher fiends or just completely random decisions. They are already jittery, knowing that they will have to face an enemy they only defeated with luck and fortunate timing. The Cari'Quani will be returned to their original home by force. (evil smile)

Did you know that...

All Cari'Quani advancing beyond pit fiend return to Carceri.
The lords of the nine are baatorian?
No yugoloth can advance beyond ultroloth? (While all other fiends have higher forms, of which mortals usually aren't aware of, except when they are foolish enough to read Secrets Of The Mighty.)
Apomps is a position and no individual?
That there are six different forms a nupperibo can take on, when maturing?

See you in Hell,
— Azmodea

Azmodea, Azmodeus, Azmodan: (s/he, it) is member of the ruling triumphirate of baator. Older than even most elves can imagine, she (the entity decided to be female for this meeting, so I will refer to it as female) is the leader of the baatorian legions, sometimes also called the legions of hell. She is involved in the planning of a campaign against the baatezu. It is only a question of time until the baatorians, the true force of lawful evil, will return in force and the lower planes will once again shiver in front of the perfectly synchronised steps of their armies.

Strangely Azmodea is lately frequently missing in the meetings of the ruling council. Some say that she is cooking up an ultimate master plan to kick the Cari'Quani out of the plane. Others claim that she has taken on a longer period of rest to lead the baatorian legions to victory in person. A rare few even whisper that she has turned stag and works for the celestials now. The other two members of the triumphirate reject the idea. It is simply too horrible to contemplate.

An other weird thing about Azmodea is, that she sometimes assumes mortal guises to see what is going on in the lower levels. Most amazingly she is usually friendly, polite, noncommittal and generally charming when doing so, never revealing her true identity. (Not that anyone would believe her anyway.) It is open to question if she makes deals with mortals this way, or if she leaves that to someone else. Her area of expertise is warfare, not tricky deals with pesky mortals. That doesn't mean she isn't as devious as Hell. Surviving and succeeding through aeons of baatorian intrigue and plotting make everyone a force to be reckoned with.