The Seven Heads of the Serpent
As it is the first of all Sins, the High Cathedra of Pride is given privileges over the others in the Inferno’s byzantine etiquette. The magnificent throne, currently held by Eligos, the Grand Duke of Petals, stands at the head of the great obsidian table of the Infernal War Council, and its seat is set higher than the other six. All those that march under its resplendent banners do so with an eerie and unbearable light; a blinding, perverted vision of the Heavenly Host’s splendour.
The next seat at the table is of the finest gold and marble, inlaid with a mosaic of unseen works and abandoned drafts from the human world’s most beloved artists. This, the Golden Seat of Greed, belongs to Mammon, Chancellor of the Treasury of Hell. The Prince of Greed is both a necessary and loathed entity within the Court, for his hold on the resources needed to conduct the Great War is rivalled only by his hold on humanity.
Then comes Asmodeus, the Monarch of Lechery atop the Flesh Divan of Lust. Despite their bacchanalian revelry, to dismiss the cohorts of Lust as naught but hedonists would be to miss Asmodeus’s unmatched mastery of probability. It is in this inviolable architecture of agency and possibility that Lust offers that which so many crave – true, unfettered choice.
In a manner most instinctually pitiable, the miniscule Black Klismos of Envy seats an even more diminutive being: Moloch, the President of the Sacrificial Sun. Despite – or perhaps in compensation for – Moloch’s definitive lack, his idols are grander even than those of Pride, with untold infants cast unto the fires within by agonised parents in exchange for the pyrite promise of a life less detestable.
Built of rotten wood and tarnished jewels, the Hungering Throne of Gluttony has seen many contenders since Beelzebub abdicated in favour of his ruinous plaguecraft. However, some semblance of stability has returned since Bael, the Uncrowned King of Stolen Land, took the throne. Once a revered Canaanite storm god, Bael’s prophets were humiliated by those of YHWH on Mount Carmel, an injustice unforgiven by the Uncrowned King.
In stark contrast to the more elaborate thrones stands the Iron Curule of Wrath, a suitably understated and practical seat for a Sin most concerned with the destruction of all. Where the lower rungs of those that serve Wrath are all fire and frenzy, Apollyon, Lady of Locusts, takes to her role with icy rationalism, possessed of the cutthroat pragmatism needed to murder a world.
Finally, amidst a shroud of soporific fumes rests the Silk Bed of Sloth, within which slumbers Belphagor, Duchess of the Gap. Sloth is perhaps the most underestimated of the Sins, for it is not mere laziness. From the dispassionate comfort of her throne, Belphagor and her sorcerous followers orchestrate vast campaigns of inaction and distraction with the subtlety of a breeze rolling across a continent.
