YMMV / Black Moon Chronicles

• Complete Monster:
  • Haazheel Thorn, the leader of the Black Moon that worships him as a demigod, sends his armies out on crusades of death against the Empire of Lynn. He orchestrates the apparent murder of Wismerhill's father and blames it on the empire in order to bring him over to his side. Haazheel sacrifices thousands of his troops in a futile battle so he can fake his own demise and rebuild his forces at his leisure. Haazheel, who is actually the offspring of Lucifer, plans to bring about Hell on Earth while sending as many souls as possible to hell to be devoured. After obliterating the Empire of Lynn, killing Emperor Haaghendorf, and forcing the faithful few to ascend to another dimension, Lucifer's demons rampage around the world and Haazheel's priests forcibly convert as many people as possible to increase his power, with anyone who refuses being put to the sword and having their souls ripped out. When Wismerhill turns on Haazheel and closes the Hellgate, Haazheel and his forces attack the imperial palace, causing his right-hand-man Lord Greldinard to walk away in disgust from the ensuing slaughter. He personally battles Wismerhill after first killing off all his friends, and even after having been mortally wounded, Haazheel uses the last of his dark magic to curse the entire world by ensuring that the moon will leave its orbit.
  • Lucifer himself is the father and master of Haazheel Thorn, having fathered the evil Archmage for one purpose. Sick of always winning at chess with his demonic minions, who know far better than to trust his promises to spare them should they win, Lucifer decides to make the world a grand game instead. He has Haazheel and the Black Moon run rampant, killing countless beings to receive their souls in Hell for eternal torture or to be devoured. Upon the downfall of Emperor Haghendorf, Lucifer has the gates of Hell opened to emerge, running rampant with his demons to reap the souls of all they encounter with intentions of annihilating everything until no humans remain before he moves on to other worlds. After the gates of Hell are shut and Haazheel is defeated, Lucifer promptly demonstrates his displeasure by devouring his son's screaming soul, later tracking down the refugees of the destroyed world and leading his armies to make sure none survive.
• Cry for the Devil: The Ophidians are presented as villains (because they're snakes), but you kinda feel sorry for them when you consider their position: one day an alien empire led by a mysterious God-Emperor just shows up on your planet and starts colonizing the place. When they try to repel the invaders, Wismerhill destroys their entire army before grabbing the emperor, smashing his palace, and threatening to kill his wife unless he agrees to be the bad guy in Wismerhill's Genghis Gambit. Afterwards the emperor and empress are crying in each other's arms.
• Evil Is Cool: Make no mistakes about it, Haazheel Thorn is pure evil, but there's something to be said for an archmage who had enough will of mind to build an entire religion around himself, bitch-slaps giant demons, has a succubus harem, can resurrect people from the dead, transforms into either a hulking behemoth or a four-armed Kaiju monster, and lives in a fantasy moonbase.
• Fridge Brilliance:
  • Haazheel Thorn and Wismerhill are the only two people who are apparently unaffected by succubi. This is because both of them are half-demons.
  • Greldinald's ability to unite the orc clans through violence is because he was Raised by Orcs.
• Growing the Beard: This was the first major comic series for both Froideval and Olivier Ledroit, and early on it shows. Each successive volume shows incremental improvement, but come volume 4 everything becomes markedly better.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Pazuzu, the father of Wismerhill, is a demon prince who frequently plays chess with his master Lucifer, always letting the infernal High Prince win to avoid his wrath. Agreeing to play a Cosmic Chess Game with the world as their board, Pazuzu and Lucifer both father a child on Earth, then give them resources to battle each other over its fate. Pazuzu seduces a beautiful, lonely woman by disguising himself as a dark elven prince, then sacrifices her after she gives birth to his son to give Wismerhill a motivational tragedy. Watching his son from the shadows his whole life as he goes out and builds an army, Pazuzu only directly intervenes to tell Wismerhill that Lucifer's son, the wicked Haazheel Thorne, has opened the Gates of Hell and instructs him to close it. Pazuzu stands out from most of his fellow demons with his charming personality and cunning to match his deviousness, playing a long game that ultimately allowed him to beat the great Lucifer.
  • Greldinard, born as "Dinard", was a human adopted by an orc woman who melded her stillborn baby with the human infant. After his tribe was slaughtered by humans, Dinard was taken as a slave by the humans. Organizing a slave revolt, Dinard slaughtered their captors and killed the only human who had treated him with kindness swiftly and painlessly so he would not be tortured by the other orcs. Eventually taming a Krell beast by getting his mother's soul to help him, Dinard joined Haazheel Thorn's Black Moon as the evil sorcerer's right-hand, being rechristened as "Greldinard" by Haazheel. Serving Haazheel with tactical genius and leading the Black Moon to many victories, Greldinard helps to arrange the seeming ruination of the Black Moon to rebuild in secret, only to later turn away from Haazheel in disgust when he realizes the monster his master truly is.
• Strangled by the Red String: Wis and Hellaynnea in a way that Crosses the Line Twice. To avenge her lover, Hellayna arranges Wis' girlfriend Feydriva to die in a vanishing village. After a short fight, they agree to become lovers and they remain together for the rest of the series while Fey is quickly forgotten.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Between the self-centered and ruthless Anti-Hero warlords, an empire run by corrupt aristocrats and religious fanatics, and the army of a psychopathic Evil Sorcerer this series can be a chore to get through for new readers.