The Nexus
Roleplayer Training
Malbolge was originally an endless rocky slope where rock slides and avalanches of boulders were common. Numerous copper fortresses provided some refuge from the avalanches. Once ruled by Moloch, he was deposed during the Reckoning of Hell and replaced by The Hag Countess Malagard. Malagard has since died, her body expanding and imploding to the point that the entire layer is literally her remains, and Glasya, daughter of Asmodeus, currently rules Malboge. Now, the realm is alive, being formed from the flesh and bones of the Hag Countess.
As "The Crushing Lands", Malbolge was a place of craggy, black stone and ash filled with stinking vapors, smoke, fire pits, and huge caves and caverns in which ancient Baatorians lurked. The air was hot and choking, and the whole layer existed at a steep tilt so that no flat terrain exists. Falling was a constant danger there, as were rock slides and avalanches.
The Sixth has had more known lords than any other layer of Hell. The earliest known ruler of Malbolge, the archdevil Beherit (along with his consort, Batna), was destroyed by Asmodeus for violating rules regarding the promotion of devils. Subsequently, the layer was ruled by Baalzebul through his viceroy, Moloch. When Moloch defied Asmodeus after the Reckoning of Hell, the former was exiled to Avernus, while rulership of the Sixth was passed on to Moloch's leman, Malagard the Hag Countess. Malagard's reign was short-lived, however, as she was deposed by Glasya, Asmodeus's daughter and current Lord of the Sixth. As of Fiendish Codex II, Glasya used the Hag Countess's body to reform Malbolge. Thus, the Sixth plane of Baator is in fact little more than the Hag Countess's innards and bones. The Countess is technically dead, though her life essence still remains on Malbolge. The tunnel made from the remains of her throat still expands and contracts, as if something immense was breathing shallowly.
Malbolge is now a noisy place populated by tormented lemures, cornugons, and the occasional spinagon. Large numbers of lesser devils on this layer are missing all or part of at least one limb, or have some other sort of disfigurement or infirmity—a testament to the days when Baalzebul and Moloch ruled here, both of whom delighted in the torture of their subjects.
The nobles of this layer once dwelled in copper fortresses, whose metal plating helps ward off the worst of the falling stones. The Hag Countess once traveled between these fortresses in disguise, testing the gentility of her subjects; she despised mindless brutality, and destroyed those who committed it.
After the Hag Countess' demise, those few nobles were not purged by Glaysa for treachery now live with the Princess of Hell in her palace, a grotesque, five-story building formed from Malagard's skull.
The 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons retains much of Malbolge's history. Malbolge's residents include barbed devils, cambions, chain devils, legion devil veterans, and succubi. The hellwasp devils - mezzodemons that were corrupted by Glasya during the Blood War - keep their hives in her Garden of Delights.
Lord of the Sixth - The Archduchess Glasya
The current Lord of the Sixth is Glasya, daughter of Asmodeus and former consort of Mammon. Glasya ascended to her lordship in the dramatic displacement of its former ruler, the Hag Countess. The move has many of the other lords scrambling. Glasya appears as a supremely beautiful humanoid with copper skin, wings, a forked tail, and small horns.
The archdevil Baalzebul once ruled this layer through his Grand Viceroy Moloch. Moloch was cast down when he defied Asmodeus during the Reckoning—the general rebellion that ripped through the Nine Hells ages ago. Most authorities acknowledge that it was the Hag, one of Moloch's most trusted advisors, who counseled Moloch to rebel. The Hag was then set in his place as Lord of the Sixth, and Moloch fled and went into hiding.
Until Glasya's promotion Malbolge was the hardest layer of Baator to traverse, being a never-ending slope bouncing with eternally rolling boulders. The Hag Countess, its former ruler, was not actually a devil but a supremely powerful Night hag from the plane of Hades. The Hag Countess resided in a stronghold that was the core of a mountain-sized boulder which perpetually rolled down the slopes of Malbolge. None of her nobles knew exactly where it was or on what path it rolled. When she occasionally visited them in their copper fortresses, the nobles hosted her, though they rarely knew that it was her due to her expert disguises.
Then one morning, the Hag Countess was wracked by terrible spasms, collapsing down the eternal slopes, which soon after began convulsing with earthquakes, turning itself inside out. The Hag Countess was seized by the soil of the layer, then held fast as she underwent a massive transformation, her body growing to titanic but inconstant proportions. Her skull ballooned to the size of a vast fortress as her ribs distended and bent into massive, arching mounted ranges that circled the whole layer. Her innards were buried, becoming subterranean passageways and her organs burst, forming lakes of bile and viscera. Her fingers became ten white towers, strands of her hair turning into greasy white trees, her teeth sinking into the earth to become a source of ivory for mining. As the surviving inhabitants of Malbolge crawled out of the ground where they were buried, a golden litter descended, bearing the new ruler, Archduchess Glasya.
Glasya detests Prince Levistus and is using her intelligence networks and fledgling cults to gather information she can later use to gain her father's approval to destroy the Lord of the Fifth for good, in revenge for the murder of her mother.
Prior to Baalzebul, Malbolge was ruled by the archdevil Beherit, who was destroyed (along with his consort, Batna) by Asmodeus for disobeying "restrictions upon the elevation of devils."