Lord and Master

Hey guys, quick heads up...while i really want to continue this amazingly prolific streak that I've kept going over the last five weeks, I feel like I need to pull it back a bit, so I'm going to reduce my output to only three a week rather than five. Hopefully that won't break too many hearts, but I'm thinking it's either this or risking burnout between this and "real life". 

Anyways, this entry is going to talk about an odd demon commonly known as Master Leonard, pictured on the right. Master Leonard, while being a demon of relatively little reknown in popular culture is supposedly one of the more influential demons in all of Hell. Specifically, he is the chief-master of ceremonies for all orgies, sabbaths, and black celebrations. In addition, he is the strongest sorcerer of all demonkind, leading to his being worshipped by practitioners of the black arts. His appearance is that of a man with three goat horns coming out of his head, a black face, and very "goatish" features overall. His overall demeanor is apparently very withdrawn and depressed, until a gathering occurs, at which point he becomes incredibly charismatic and outgoing. Outside of that, he specializes in transformation and shapeshifting into a variety of forms, which is fully in line with his capricious and tempestuous nature. As to any historically/religiously memetic reasons for his existence, it is postulated that he is the personification of one of the goats spoken of in Leviticus 16:8.

Studies in Heaven and Hell

Autoduo and Abaddon. While the origins of Autoduo are somewhat obscured (based as far as I can tell in a book by Richard Greenfield called “Traditions of Belief in Late Byzantine Demonology”), supposedly, if you're the sort of person that believes in angels and demons having domains and spheres of influence, Autoduo is the Angel of the First Hour of Sunday. Outside the fact that this is the angel who supposedly kicks off each week, the other thing I find striking about it is it's name...what an odd one, right? What is the etymology behind it? Strictly speaking, it means “self-two”, which in and of itself seems either paradoxically nonsensical or unbelievable profound...Or is there really any to be found? Was it just a manufactured label by the writer of that treatise to make it sound or seem more mysterious than it truly was? To quote the commercial after Mr Owl punked that kid over the Tootsie Roll Pop, “the world may never know”. 

On the other hand, Abaddon is a much more interesting name to try and pick apart...though mostly considered a demon, there is enough variance that it's hard to place it in that category with any real amount of conviction. See, while most official sources place “Abaddon” as an alternate name of Satan, others place it as the name of one of the fallen angels who originally sided with Lucifer, but quickly turned penitent and abandoned the war entirely for either side. Other sources claim that it was the angel that -bound- Satan to the deepest recesses of a bottomless pit, like an angelic super-jailer. Yet others purport other spellings of it (Abdon) as an alternate name of God, while others claim that it's the archetypal avenging angel, in that it was the one called upon by Moses when he called down the plagues on Egypt. However, regardless of good or evil intent, Abaddon is most assuredly a mysterious, dangerous entity of some sort, which in turn makes its nicknames “the Angel of the Abyss” or “Angel of the Bottomless Pit” quite apt indeed.