Hell has had many rulers. They have all been ruthless... terrifying...
powerful. Yet, they have all been enslaved or died as newer demons
have ripped them bloodily from the throne. The Malebolgia is but one
in a long line of these demons. However, he is different. He is more
cunning than all those previous. More vicious. More cruel. And he,
above all, can see into the long term. He has made his own army to
protect him, even as he trains them to attack Heaven someday.
Born, or rather, forged in the fires of Hell's eighth plane, the
Malebolgia had his first conscious thought seventy millennia ago.
His creator, Leviathan, a Grand-Mal Demon and total ruler of Hell,
sculpted his pet, infusing him with rivers of necroplasm and
charging him with energy from the most loathsome and hideous acts
any being can perform. True to his nature, shortly after reaching
complete sentience, the Malebolgia turned on his master and slew
him before his startled court during a three-year blood feast. After
imprisoning his creator's surviving essence, he ecstatically placed
the crown of rule upon his head and became the supreme master of
Hell.

Now, as he has done for more than 70,000 years, the Malebolgia
schemes sublime horrors from his throne. An innovator, he has
managed to stay one step beyond the grasp of the other demons who
covet his title. While he did not invent the Hellspawn, they are his
greatest warriors; those creatures built from murder in the same
way he had been made from evil. They are his puppets, his
entertainment and toys. He uses them on occasion to torment his
weaker rivals. But most importantly of all, he uses them to form the
officer corps of his Hell-born army: his officers of the damned.

In our time, the Malbolgia has raised one particular officer who's
made him more proud than the ten before him. In life, this Hellspawn
was known as Lieutenant Colonel Al Simmons, and his soul's torture
has been Malebolgia's great pleasure. For unlike the hundreds
preceding him, this Hellspawn sold his soul for a pittance: the love of
his wife Wanda. In him, level upon level of torment have intricately
intertwined to form the perfect destructive force. This Spawn
performs evil acts for noble reasons -- the truest damnation for any
man.