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Hell is real, and the demons are after you!

Your character can now become possessed by demons, suffer demonic influence, sign pacts with devils, and find powerful resources to help them survive to tell the tale. This thread is going to serve as a general introduction, while the other thread dive deep into specifics.

Here are some general principles to keep in mind that couldn’t fit in elsewhere.

The divine hate fiends! The Pantheon’s power comes from an antithetical source, and is antithetical to, fiends. Blessed are generally allowed to ignore the customs and tenets of their faith when it comes to fiends and those they possess: destroy them and thwart their influence at all costs, in other words.

Possessed are not entirely themselves! Your character is forced to share their body with a Lesser Fiend’s soul that now uses them as a host. Much of their emotions and thoughts will slowly become corrupted, as the two souls fight to either share their space or take over. Your character’s personality will gradually become deranged, often having mood swings, bouts, or outright fits. Instead of making logical choices, they will make impulsive or emotional ones, often selfishly. Harming others tends to bring them relief and calm them from a coming fit. If the Fiend’s presence is long term and more severe, the possessed will make actions that ultimately seem unlike them. They are prone to making mischievous actions, schemes or causing grief towards others.

Animancers can sense and bind fiends. They may have corporeal forms, but demons are primarily driven to act by their corrupted souls, making them particularly vulnerable to Animancers.

Cogimens can talk to them. All demons speak a language known as Infernal, but only a few also speak Common, and fewer than that speak any other language. A Cogimens’ magic is able to bypass this barrier, and would feel familiar to demons as it is not so different from the way their devils control them.

Glossary
Blameless: Children born of a Pactbound mortal, or any mortal coupling with a fiend. The stronger the fiendish influence over the unborn child and their mother, the more dramatically their appearance diverges from the norm for their race.

Demonic Hierarchy: The pecking order of all fiends and the mortals who serve them.

Demon Lord, Devil: The most powerful fiends, rulers of their own court. Both terms are interchangeable.

Fiend, Demon, Fiendish, Demonic: All interchangeable terms. Whether a demon is called a fiend or not is personal preference, and vice versa; both words mean the same thing.

Pact: A formal agreement between demons and mortals.

Pactbound: Mortals who have a pact with a fiend.

Possession/Possessed: Those who have had a lesser fiend sharing their body, influencing their emotions and decisions.

Scions: Another term for Blameless characters.

Sponsor: A signatory to a Pact whose stake in it is that they sponsored one or more other signatories to the devil guaranteeing the contract.

True Fiend, True Demon: Warped and twisted former soldiers of Queen Grief, or those who have been so corrupted by their influence as to become indistinguishable from true fiends. Mortals who are considered true demons are treated as demons for all effects that single them out, and are not automatically considered normal mortals otherwise.

Untethered: Former Pactbound who at the time of their patron’s death were so charged with fiendish power that it lingers within them still.