Azazel (3.5e Monster)

Azazel
''A very long time ago, Azazel, a powerful Archdevil at the time, fell in love with a mortal woman. She was slated to marry the emperor of a great empire despite her hatred of the man. Azazel offered her power, riches, and most importantly escape from the emperor in exchange for her love. What he offered was everything she ever wanted and she readily agreed.''

''Unfortunately for her, the emperor was one step ahead. His magicians, masters of powerful curses, created a spell to tether her to the material plane. Despite Azazel's power, he could not take her away from the plane. His only option was to make a place for them to live in the material plane itself.''

''Azazel created a rift to the Nine Hells and conquered a small nation to rule. He and the mortal woman had many children together over the course of a few decades before the emperor took his revenge. In this time, the emperor's magicians had researched a curse to place on Azazel to send him back to the Nine Hells and bind him there forever. The emperor began a war with Azazel, waiting for the right opportunity to unleash the curse. When the moment was right, the curse was laid and the powerful devil was sent back to hell, bound forever.''

Although there is certainly much more to the tale of Azazel, most of it has been forgotten. His legacy is the race called by his name: the Azazel. But he still exists waiting for the right opportunity to break the curse.

Personality
Like any other powerful devil, Azazel understands existence as a long-term game. Being immortal, he knows to carefully coordinate plans far enough in advance that waiting a few centuries to get what he wants isn't really a big deal. At least, he'd act like this if he hadn't been stuck basically powerless for millennia.

As far as he is concerned, something needs to be done now. He's become impatient. The powerful forces of the Nine Hells barely have any foothold in the material plane anymore. Clearly the Archdevils just aren't competent.

The Curse
On the eve of his banishment, every hundred thousand years, the curse on Azazel is weakened enough that he can break free for one week. Dark omens will appear approaching this day and seers will forsee a terrible darkness coming to the material plane.

In order to break the curse, Azazel must find a woman to agree, without any coercion and with full knowledge of the implications, to take his place in his prison in the Nine Hells.

Despite the complications built into breaking the curse, Azazel does have a plan to break it. He knows the woman that he loved (and who loved him) had her soul trapped in a gemstone. If he can find the gemstone and free her soul, he will be able to ressurect her and he knows she will take his place. Her desire was to live with him in the Nine Hells in the first place, after all.

Military Tactics
Azazel generally leaves his military tactics to his pit fiend general. All of his intelligence about the goings on in the multiverse come from this pit fiend and he trusts the pit fiend to wage a war far better than he could.

This being said, Azazel is still very impatient, which leads to recklessness. Although his general may lead the war in the best way he can, Azazel may still make some rash demands that may lead him into unwinnable battles. His requests will always be aggressive, which leads to a predictable weakness that could be exploited. Of course, he still has a devil army at his side, so even with predictability, he may be an overwhelming force.

Combat Tactics
When it comes to fighting heroes, Azazel is a master of hit-and-run assaults. He prefers to lure enemies into areas with lots of walls and twisted passageways. Since he can see through walls, he can easily gain an advantage by teleporting in for quick strikes and then retreating.

His aura of teleportation allows him to split a party up, so that he can engage a single target at a time. When surrounded or fighting large groups, he will teleport into the center of the group and use his offensive teleportation to disable their magic items and cause some fall damage.

He saves his break magic ability for dimensional anchors, but for a serious enough spell, he will use it as soon as possible.

When below 1/4 his max hitpoints, he will try to escape and wait until his fast healing gets him healthy enough for another attack.