Seven Lieutenants of Hell

The entities known as the Seven Lieutenants of Hell are said to be gargantuan, terror-inducing and inscrutable. First among the Shinigami, both written references and the firsthand experience of the Kindly Ones is to the effect that there is a division between the Potentates of Hell and their nobility (if indeed that is a fair analogy to draw).
The Lieutenants are physically and spatially remote from the Shinigami that most consider to be their kin. Whereas Shinigami appear in the Atrium to be somewhere between eight and ten feet tall with a few exceptions, the few who have seen the Lieutenants of Hell and returned to tell the tale speak of creatures hundreds of feet tall seated in a circle in an arid crater atop a mountain. Their skin is said to be stonelike (in more recent texts) or, as the High Elves would have it, their skin is said to be or to derive from the stone from which the Atrium was originally constructed.
Sources reveal a friction between the Shinigami and the Lieutenants, though the nature of that friction is far from clear. It is readily observable that the Potentates prefer not to speak of them at all, thought it is not known whether this is out of deference, distaste or fear. There are as many schools of thought on this point as there are scholars to advance them, though leading theories include:

• Perhaps the Lieutenants have dominion over the Potentates and/or are their parents or ancestors, thus inspiring fear and/or grudging deference;
• The available evidence suggests a lack of respect for the Lieutenants despite a clear acknowledgment of their power, perhaps rooted in the Lieutenants’ abundantly well documented execution of their duties, whereas the average Shinigami disdains work either due to the unnecessary effort or the appearance of subservience to the usurper rulers of Hell;
• Perhaps the Shinigami are envious of the Lieutenants, who were created “greater”, or who may once have been “standard” Shinigami themselves before being elevated to demigodhood. (This theory is promoted with the greatest tentativeness even by its supporters, who readily acknowledge there is nothing canonical that even gestures towards the origins of the Lieutenants
• Perhaps there is no straightforward explanation and the Shinigami are simply entertained to have immortal entities to scorn.

Although there is very little in the record to suggest who the Lieutenants are, where they came from, what their duties might be and what their interests are, they are nevertheless reasonably well known to the Kindly Ones, as they were to the Elves and the Yishanim before them. Only rarely will they have any intercourse with the living (or even the dead to the best of present knowledge) but those occasions have been frequent enough and documented well enough over the millennia that their names and even something of their individual temperaments are known to the Grand Mausoleum, forming an important part of their course of clerical study.

Identities of the Lieutenants

The Grand Mausoleum contains busts of the Lieutenants just outside of the Chamber of the Black Throne in the Sanctum. Several reports from returning emissaries have remarked that they are inaccurate but nevertheless useful. The busts depict, from left to right:

• Riz (or "Holy Riz"): the voice of the Council, frequently noted in the Scriptures as having spoken first to welcome travelers and to describe the stakes of their request or the gravity of their offence. The adjective came to be used among emissaries that were grateful for her guidance. Particularly after the convoluted regulations of the Incunabulum and the caprice of the Potentates of Hell, a clear statement as to procedure and expectations was accepted by visiting mortals with gratitude. She rarely speaks in Scripture other than to direct the process of the petition, though she like Eph are suspected of being the most sympathetic to mortal concerns, or at least the ones most capable of understanding their motives.

• Akram: a trickster and liar, a literally two-faced entity whose vulture's beak can be traced as gradually eroding away in the descriptions since the earliest of days. In several cases they have expressed sympathy or hostility towards a mortal petitioner when they felt the opposite in order to extract the truth or to expose weakness to the rest of Council. There are several references in Scripture to Min threatening Akram for speaking too much, or speaking in riddles, and conjecture flows that Akram's wounds were inflicted after these warnings went unheeded.

• Ino ("eye no"): An entity frequently referring to Min as his "sister" or "twin", Ino speaks only rarely but has been noted to be moved by boldness of purpose. Ino is the only Lieutenant to announce his vote to Bishop Liepzig in the matter of Erroll Tuck. In that case, the alchemist in question achieved immortality but ultimately sought clemency, asking for a guarantee that he would be permitted to enter the afterlife he would have earned but for his unholy work, in exchange for destroying every trace of his achievement. Ino was impressed by Tuck, and asked one question: "What would you have deserved / Had you lived differently?" Tuck professed that he could not have lived differently, that it was his nature to challenge the gods, and for that reason he sought clemency as if he had died the moment he picked up the mortar and pestle. References to the very fact of votes in Council are rarely seen in scripture, and declaring votes in front of mortals even more so. Ino's response to Tuck that his vote had been secured was therefore highly notable. It is for that reason only that we know Tuck was not universally condemned. The Council's ultimate decision was never announced. Ino famously stated in the Conversations of Ilduin-i that Naraoch was the greatest among mortals, and that only the word of Erei or "our Father" could ever cause him to condemn her. (There is great debate about whether the latter reference is to Sylvanas, Arcus, Jergal or possibly even Unum.)

• Min: Tempestuous and aggressive, Min has a violent temper and has destroyed emissaries and annihilated souls for perceived disrespect. She refers to Ino as her brother or her "heart", and has never expressed sympathy for any mortal before her in Scripture other than those seeking to return to life for the limited purpose of extracting revenge. In one case, the petition of Aldid Ormuan, Min took to her feet and challenged Unum to fight if he would not support Ormuan's request to return to life long enough to take revenge on behalf of a tribe exterminated by genocide.

• Eph: A figure of inscrutable motives, Eph is frequently a speaker in the Scriptures, seeking to clarify facts or to tease out emotion from the petitioner. Eph seems to specialize in exposition, but instead of doing so in service of the petition itself, Eph seems to take on the role of examiner or interviewer. A common joke in Kindly Ones clerical studies is that within the first year of studying the deep Scriptures, novitiates begin asking one another "what then came to pass" from the sheer volume of Eph's use of the phrase. (Did Adria come over to study last night? Maybe. And...? What then came to paaaass...?) Eph seems, more than any other Lieutenant, to be in tune with mortal motives and to ascribe importance to events on the mortal sphere. It is common wisdom among emissaries of the Kindly Ones to attempt to appeal to Eph in the unlikely event you are summoned before the Council, as they may help you translate your case and be most likely to vote in a petitioner's favour. That said, Eph has never shown any particular favour to a petitioner seeking to return to life for love. Any of the Learned Ladies or Gentlemen will be the first to tell you: love is not a winning argument in Hell.

• Erei ("airy eye"): Never speaking in Scripture, Erei is an enigma. Ereidic scholars have posited everything from the possibility that there is no seventh Lieutenant and Erei is merely a statue or a name for the location where the Council meets; to the possibility that he is the scribe or memory of the Council; to the possibility that he may be an aspect of Destiny sitting ex officio. This latter theory gained much support among the Yishanim but has since fallen into disfavour as there has yet to be a coherent theory as to why Destiny would be concerned with planar mortality that is not steeped in chauvinism.

• Unum: The other silent Lieutenant, Unum is somewhat less of a mystery than Erei. He seems to be the head or chair of Council, and the authority to whom the other Lieutenants direct their arguments. Whenever they begin a speech for or against a petition, their Cantos invariably begin "My brother Unum," followed by some descriptor meant to sway him that serves as a thesis statement for the argument: "My brother Unum, who acts in the name of Justice", "My brother Unum, who is merciful to the weak", "My brother Unum, who does not tolerate deception", etc. While he has never spoken in front of mortals, he is not passive, as is Erei. Records reflect him standing to chasten Akram, waving off Eph to conclude their remarks, and in one case to answer a challenge from Min. (Regrettably, the emissaries were shown out before that scene concluded.) There are also recorded instances of other Lieutenants making reference to things Unum has said and done in the past (including the feeding of ducks!) indicating that unlike Erei he does speak and have opinions, and that he is not exercising unilateral authority like a king or judge. There is consensus among scholars that Unum must act like some form of consensus-builder, Speaker of the House or other organizing figure through which the Council acts. He is indisputably the most powerful and fearsome of them all, but he does not seem to be willing to -- or to be able to -- act other than as an instrument of the Council's collective will.