Ekron, the City of Beelzebub

Even among the forbidding sixty-six domains ruled by the Heretic warlords, Ekron stands apart. It is shunned by both the mortal followers of Hell and the servants of the Court. No place on Earth mirrors the carnage and corruption of Hell so closely as this putrescent city of Beelzebub, the Lord of the Flies. The King of Gluttony was one of the first three of the most exalted angelic spirits to fall. Since those ancient days, when he was worshipped as Baal of Flies, a great god of the people known as Philistines, Ekron has been his stronghold, where the power of the Prince of Decay is at its most potent.

Today, none are welcome here. Even the Heretic Legions pledged to the Sin of Gluttony keep their distance. They know full well that even in their fallen state Beelzebub sees in them a glimpse of his hated father. Were they not created in His image? Are they not a reminder of his ancient ignominy, when his mortal followers abandoned him?

In the ancient past, Beelzebub coveted the Ark of the Covenant, seeking to claim it for himself. His servants captured the holiest of the relics in his great victory over the servants of God at the battle of Eben-ezer. Yet, though his mortal servants seized the Ark from the Hebrews, they dared not to bring it to this city, for YHWH punished those who stole the symbol of His covenant. Plague afflicted the people of each town to which it was taken and The Lord’s hand was heavy; he brought devastation upon them and afflicted them with tumours.

So terrifying was the Creator’s affliction that the people of Ekron abandoned the orders of Beelzebub and voluntarily sent the Ark back to the Chosen People. Humiliated and enraged beyond mortal measure, Beelzebub swore never to forget this disgrace. From that day on he devoted himself to the corruption of all Creation, vowing to despoil the world until all that lived would be subject to his will and absolute rule.

Beelzebub stalked into his great citadel in the Seventh Circle of Hell. Here he laboured for the next two thousand years to forge the crowning achievement of his dark genius: a plague of his own design. It would not only eclipse those his father sent to punish the Pharaoh, but mar and corrupt all Creation. Never again would he trust mankind, so weak and easily bent to the will of the Tyrant-God.

Long he laboured, pouring much of his divine essence into his work. When the Black Grail was unleashed upon the world in the black year of 1436, it brought the world to the brink of utter ruin. The newly-established Order of the Fly raised the city of Ekron from the rubble, and the power of Beelzubub seeped through from the Hellgate of Jerusalem-that-was. It slithered for many miles, settling upon towers and walls, and streamed through the streets in a torrent of demonic hell-flies, scorpions, locusts and other infernal insects infested with the Black Grail. Ekron stands as the seat of Beelzebub’s earthly power, where his worshippers assemble from across the world to offer tribute to the King of Gluttony. Wherever the Black Grail spreads and the Order of the Fly raises its lord’s standard, they seek offerings to bring back to the city. To the Missionaries of the Black Grail it is a realm of beauty and divine vision, a whispered promise of the world to come and a place their hearts yearn to behold. To everyone else it is a domain of abject horror, where a fate worse than hellfire awaits.

After nearly six hundred years under the ravages of the Black Grail, Ekron is a city of overflowing splendour and revolting decay. Entire temples, churches, mosques, pagodas, shrines and altars from every corner of the world are scattered throughout the city, borne there by the hands of untold millions of Grail Thralls. Amidst streets seething with undead corruption stand wonders of art: marble statues, elegant porphyry pillars, frescoes and icons of gold studded with precious stones. Yet though they are worth the ransom of a thousand kings, it is not their monetary value that interests Beelzebub. It is thought that the Lord of the Flies can tap into these objects of devotion, feeding on the power of adoration that still lingers in these monuments of faith. Like a parasite swelling upon its host until it is swollen to the point of bursting, he leeches the power of faith until he is so engorged with it that his great wings might once more carry him skyward to storm the Gates of Heaven.

To make the religious objects more palatable and pleasing to their Lord and Master, the Clergy of the Fly conducts elaborate rites of desecration. Through complex rituals they corrupt icons and holy places, transforming them into morsels, offerings to be devoured by his ravenous gluttony for worship and adulation. Yet he will never be sated. Though he seeks to fill the terrible emptiness festering within him, his hunger can never truly be assuaged, no matter how much of Creation he consumes.

For what the Lord of the Flies hungers for above all his other unnatural appetites, is the sole right to divine worship, a birthright he feels his Father has usurped. In his mind, the natural order is for the parent to die so their offspring may rise in their place. And who more suited to take the Throne of God than Beelzebub, the most gifted of His children?

Thus it is written in the tablets of Ekron:

“Be not afraid, for behold, I bring you tidings of great joy which shall be for all the people, for the Black Grail has come.”