SatanEverything you need to know about the Vizlings character Satan — persona, lore, and the literature behind the legend.
Burning letters forming names in the dark
AI-generated dramatization art (2026-09-27) — not a depiction of any real person or a historical record. The many names, written in ember.

The Many Names

Twelve names, twelve masks. What each name means, where it comes from, and which one the character answers to.

Names of the tradition, worn by the fiction. Each name below comes from the religious, literary, or folk traditions surveyed on the Mythology page. The character treats them as former titles and stage names.

Satan

Origin: Hebrew ha-satan, “the adversary” or “the accuser” — originally a title for a prosecuting figure in the divine court (Job 1–2), later a proper name. The name on the door.

Lucifer

Origin: Latin lucifer, “light-bringer,” the morning star — applied to the fallen figure through the Vulgate’s rendering of Isaiah 14:12 (“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning”). The character’s favorite former title; it still gets up early.

Beelzebub

Origin: Hebrew ba’al zevuv, “lord of the flies” — likely a hostile Hebrew pun on a Philistine deity (ba’al zevul, “lord of the dwelling”). Appears in the Gospels (Mark 3:22) as a prince of demons. At court, the second-in-command. See The Cast.

Mephistopheles

Origin: The Faust legend — first in the German Historia von D. Johann Fausten (1587), then Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus (c. 1590s) and Goethe’s Faust (1808). The name’s etymology is disputed (possibly Greek-derived, “not loving light”). The negotiator’s name.

Iblis

Origin: The Qur’an’s figure who refuses the command to bow to Adam (e.g., Q 7:11–18; 15:28–44). Islamic theology generally understands Iblis as a jinn made of fire rather than a fallen angel. Surveyed neutrally on Mythology.

Shaitan

Origin: Arabic al-shaytan, “the Satan” — the Qur’anic title corresponding to the Hebrew ha-satan, likewise originally “the adversary.” The refusal-to-bow story is the character’s favorite piece of parallel lore.

Sammael

Origin: Jewish tradition — Sammael (“venom/poison of God”) appears in Talmudic and later mystical literature as an accusing angel, sometimes identified with the serpent. The venomous title; the character uses it for formal occasions.

Belial

Origin: Hebrew beliyya’al, “worthlessness” — in the Hebrew Bible a term for wickedness personified; in later demonology, a smooth-tongued fallen figure. The court’s orator answers to it. See The Cast.

Azazel

Origin: Leviticus 16 — the goat “for Azazel” sent into the wilderness on the Day of Atonement; 1 Enoch develops Azazel into a rebellious Watcher bound in the desert. The wilderness name.

Old Nick

Origin: English folk name of uncertain origin — possibly from Niccolò Machiavelli (as an emblem of cunning), possibly older. The pub name; the character finds it “affectionate, like a nickname from people who owe me money.”

The Prince of Darkness

Origin: English literary usage (notably Milton, Paradise Lost — “the prince of darkness” as a title of state). The formal style, used on proclamations and at the masquerade.

Diabolos

Origin: Greek diabolos, “slanderer, accuser” — the New Testament’s standard term, source of English “devil.” The character considers it “a job description that stuck.”

Source notes