MOLOCH
Former Grand Duke of the Sixth Hell
Horrid King, Prince of Tears
Aliases: Molech, Melek, Malik, the Abomination
AoC: Control, greed, the sacrifice of sentients, holocausts, rogue baatezu, witches, warlocks
Superior: Unknown (The Dark Lord of Nessus)
Allies: Chemosh, Huitzilopochtli, the General of Gehenna
Subordinates: The Flayer, Herobaal, the Maliku, Carniveau
Rivals: The Hag-Countess
"Molech rejoices thro' the Land from Havilah to Shur: he rejoices in moral law & its severe penalties" -- William Blake
"Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men! ..." -- Alan Ginsberg
A darkling monster of pure greed, a shadowy alien reptile all claws and horns and razor teeth. The worst of Baator's exiles, he collects the tears of mothers and the souls of their children. His face is smeared with blood. Moloch was the prime minister of Hell under Beelzebub, valued for the evil wealth in his council. When Asmodeus' glib tongue played all of Hell under his rule, Moloch was allowed to rule the Sixth Hell under the watchful eye of Beelzebub's servant Bileth. When Lilith, the Hag-Countess, was bound to him as his consort, he assumed the role of Witchmaster of Baator, the unholy counterpart of the Coven-Mistress.
"who copulated ecstatic and insatiate with a bottle of beer a sweetheart a package of cigarettes a candle and fell off the bed, and continued along the floor and down the hall and ended fainting on the wall with a vision of ultimate cunt and come eluding the last gyzym of consciousness, who sweetened the snatches of a million girls trembling
in the sunset, and were red eyed in the morning but prepared to sweeten the snatch of the sun rise, flashing buttocks under barns and naked in the lake..." -- Ginsberg
Those were grand times. To each fortress of metal Moloch and his infernal court would ride in its turn, the Hag with her owls and cats, with her dark mutterings and her flaming sword, Moloch with his heavy crown, the whole procession pulled by thousands of slaves with giant Baatorian beasts of burden and Herobaal with his baatezu legions. Nearby, with a train of her own pulled by hundreds of nightmare steeds, rode Bileth, Baalzebul's Tribune, Lady of Nightmares and Moloch's equal.
The Maliku were Moloch's advisors, in charge of ruling the layer's petitioners in his absence. They were pit fiends or cornugons, but they often appeared as human kings.
After the Reckoning Moloch was given to the General of Gehenna for reasons even the General couldn't guess at. In fact Asmodeus had gained intelligence of a secret the yugoloths had kept regarding the origins of fiendish teleportation abilities, and wished to have an agent among them in case something should happen to it. He lives in Gehenna still, where he rules a court of outcasts. Molech's wasting valley is filled with the charred remains of burnt corpses. In the torn and smoking cities of his realm Moloch's reign is absolute, and none rise against him without being instantly annihilated.
"Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!" - Alan Ginsberg
Freed of the need to wander between homes that Baalzebul had imposed on him during his tenure in Malbolge, his realm in Gehenna has grown into an endless machine of terror: towers rising into the void, baatezu and their slaves building weapons to supply themselves and any who will buy, soul-rendering factories churning out coins and miasma, witches riding over the night with wild dances, held in thrall to their lonely master who still thinks of Lilith. Still restless, Moloch himself is often on other planes hiring yugoloth mercenaries in preparation for his ultimate reconquest of Malebolge. These days the lord's attention is most focused on the Prime Material, where he establishes various fortresses from which to launch his attack and concentrates on developing various cults dedicated to himself, "pale priestesses enfolded in Veils of Pestilence," (-William Blake) and influencing the development of societies. He tries to tempt mortals into exterminating each other and to participate in human sacrifice, his cults and covens undergoing fiery and deplorable rites of initiation.
He visits worlds on the verge of destruction, but whether this is on the orders of the General or the Dark Lord or for reasons of his own is obscure.
THE CHURCH
Alignment: Lawful evil or neutral evil
Classes: Sorcerers, Diabolists, Clerics
Domains: Death, Fire, Diabolic
Weapon: Dagger
"His burning idol all of blackened hue
In vain with Cymbols ring
They call the grisly king
in dismal dance about the furnace blue" -- John Milton
Servants of Moloch are in it for the power, or because they are ordered to be in on it. They believe that the destiny of the world is to be swallowed up by the lower planes to live in fiery torment, but by performing a symbolic sacrifice in life this can be avoided; it's possible to become one of the elect in Moloch's awful court.
Worshippers of Moloch are generally outcasts in all but the most permissive of lawful and evil societies, forced to work in secret cults. They work at the direct orders of one of Moloch's minions, often a baatezu or yugoloth.