In this second installment of Fiendish Foes we’ll be taking a look at Malphas. Just like Amduscias (who I detailed last week), Malphas was introduced to D&D through Ed Greenwood’s Nine Hells article in Dragon #75 and he served as a vassal to Tiamat. But Mr. Greenwood did not create him whole cloth, instead once again taking inspiration from much older sources.

Malphas with a trowel, most likely for his building abilities

In the 1863 Dictionnaire Infernal, Collin de Plancy described Malphas as a president of Hell who governed 40 legions. He appeared as a raven or a human with a harsh, loud voice. Malphas is a builder of impenetrable towers and citadels yet destroyer of enemy barricades. He finds good workers, gives familiars, and receives sacrifices but will deceive you at the altar.

Malphas’ seal

Malphas is a great president, he is seene like a crowe, but being cloathed with humane image, speaketh with a hoarse voice, be buildeth houses and high towres wonderfullie, and quicklie bringeth artificers togither, he throweth downe also the enimies edifications, he helpeth to good familiars, he receiveth sacrifices willinglie, but he deceiveth all the sacrificers, there obeie him fourtie legions. Johann Wier – Pseudomonarchia daemonum (1583)

Malphas has also appeared in Castlevania

In his 1904 work Goetia, S. L. MacGregor Mathers‘ description of Malphas is very similar to Plancy’s and Wier’s but he adds a few interesting details. He states that Malphas can inform you of the thoughts and desires of your enemy and tell you the things that they have done.

In his transition to D&D Malphas retained some of these characteristics, but lost others. He is described as a Duke of Hell in command of 40 companies of Abishai. He has a human and raven form, the human form is described as “a powerful, dark complexioned man in black velvet studded with gems”. His robes have 333 gems, each of them worth at least 100 gold! And he has the ability to create a structure similar to Daern’s instant fortress. He also had ESP, which functioned similar to the detect thoughts spell of 5E. He served under Tiamat alongside Amduscias and Goap (more on him later).

In bringing Malphas to 5E I tried to retain the stats from his earlier appearance while also adding in more of his historical lore. So I gave him more divination magic to fall in line with his knowledge of enemies, and stone shape to help with his building capabilities. Similar to Amduscias I see him wandering Avernus with his Abishai and thwarting demonic or warlord activity. The players may hear of his insight and seek him out to find more information on Zariel, Lulu, or any other creature. They may encounter him when they see a fortress just pop up not too far from them, or right in the way of their infernal war machine! Or maybe they are the subjects of his divinations and they realize it and must figure out who is spying on them.

Let me know what you think and if you used Malphas in Descent Into Avernus in the comments!