Belial - The Emperor of Passion

Belial is the Emperor of Passion. As the Second Emperor of demonkind, she is a powerful shapeshifter who can adopt any form. No other being in all of Cryopod can change their appearance as effortlessly or flexibly as she can. Additionally, she possesses incredible strength, and can stretch and bend her body much like Mr. Fantastic, or Elastigirl from The Incredibles.

As a succubus, Belial and her sister, Nerissa, possess the ability to bewitch men weaker than them. Their pheromone manipulation allows them to turn men into subservient slaves, though most succubi tend not to need to resort to such vulgar acts to receive their allotment of 'male essence'. After all, they are the pinnacle of sex appeal, and as such, most men will do their bidding willingly.

Belial is one of my favorite characters in Cryopod. I know this, because she was the very first character I commissioned to have art drawn on Fiverr.

She's gone through a lot of phases over the last two years. My original conception was for her and a different character to be like two sides of a coin. I wanted Jason to have an angel and a demon girlfriend, and that was my starting point. When I re-read Cryopod Classic, the introduction of Belial and the angel was... awkward. To say the least. Some might even call it cringey.

For me, I absolutely -despise- harem series and love triangles. I absolutely hate them. Not the act of having multiple girlfriends or boyfriends, mind you, but just the standard way authors always write them. It's always a series of increasingly dumber moments, all which never lead to a conclusive payoff. Archie and Friends is the oldest series that does this, and I still have no idea if that idiot redhead ever picked a girl by the end of the series. (Betty = best girl)

So, with Cryopod, I wanted to avoid those pitfalls. I would rather Jason simply have two girlfriends and there not be much friction as a result of the choice. The problem, of course, was the execution. A lot of readers, at the time, didn't like the sudden romance development out of thin air. I like to think they simply didn't like it because I was still a terrible author at that point in time. I think, now that we've reached the current parts in Refresh (Parts 137+) that I've proven I'm much better at writing relationships.

The question to ask is: Will there still be a harem in Refresh?

Hmm.

We will see.

Regarding Belial, I thought I would also post any art related to her that I've had done, instead of posting wip work for this set of images.

Azante created the original Belial, and while I actually liked her face, the rest of her body was not what I would call sexy. I did like most of her design, but just... look at her! She looks like a marshmallow!

I had another artist, Gammanoodles, iterate on her, and while he improved the body and background drastically, her face turned out weird, and I wasn't a fan of her horns, either.

I went back to Azante for the final version, and at this point I knew it wasn't going to work out. She just... bleh. I wanted to go for 'sexy' but it just wasn't happening.

MWTX fixed her artwork and made her sexy. Finally! Now she is a character I am proud to display in the pages of Cryopod's eventual artbook!

For the next character, I haven't yet decided who they will be, but I know they will be great. Thanks for sticking around, and thanks for reading!