DEMONS - Lore, stats, philosophy

[James]

I will eventually be talking a lot in the section, I am sure. Demons are second to Undead for me, but a very close second. I spared you all my musings on the many-faceted aspects of the undead world, but you will have to endure it for demons because I get to write the full entries. Mwahahaha! Welcome to Thulyet and Drailur!

This first entry is just a small sample idea for one of the simplest of demons: the Imp.

IMP - THE MALICIOUS LIAR
The imp would be SC 2 or 3, but with great potential. Imps are not the slavering, hulking, terrifying beasts that one often sees when encountering demons in the Realms, but they exemplify part of what makes a demon a demon: intent. A dozen imps may not be hard for an adventuring party to kill, but that same dozen may be able to avoid death and ruin the future of that party regardless of location. They will laugh and mock a party when the sprained ankles turn to fractured legs and the healing food is revealed to be toxic ash. They will dance as the party opens a door to answer the princess's pleas for help to find it issuing from the depthless mouth of a screaming Sharzul chaos worm, then lap up the blood afterward of whoever loses the fight. In short, this is the kind of monster that makes a setting more than just a series of themed encounters and gives the andventures something to really hate in the way a single beastie never can.

Imps are one of the servile demons created by the original Vraaj race. They are tiny, gangly humanoids between three and four inches in height. They have dark red, translucent skin and disproportionately large yellow eyes. They have smooth prehensile tails a full hand-span in length – longer than their bodies are tall. Dull black horns protrude from their foreheads just above the eyes. They are naked and hairless.

Above all things, imps enjoy the suffering of others. They are capricious, deceitful and fairly stupid. Among the Drailur, “imp tongued” is an insult meaning a brainless liar. Shortsighted and whimsical, they will make up lies that will lead to others getting hurt or otherwise into trouble without long term plans. They will set up poorly made traps, make noise to lure danger, trick others to eat and drink poisons, conceal obstacles, keep the exhausted awake, and otherwise make life an annoying and dangerous affair for those who catch one's eye.

They are too small and physically weak to damage an opponent on their own, but they do have mastery over the small amount of illusion magics they control, their barbed tongues, and the propensity to tactfully retreat the second they feel in danger.

Illusionist: Can make a very fast action to change one minor characteristic of an event or object such as its color, exact shape, sound, smell, texture, wording, light level, etc. Effect incurs no feedback, but on imp can only change one characteristic at a time. Resist with Autonomy 12.
Deceitful: Even with their reputation known, Imps are skilled liars. +3 Deceive.
Small as a Mouse: +3 to sneak, +3 to Dodge. Can press itself to fit in small cracks underneath poorly fit doors.
Scent of Misfortune: Imps seem to be able to instinctively know when someone is vulnerable or reactive. They seem to appear in such circumstances and torment a person as long as the game continues to be fun, or the target of ridicule dies.

[Maugh]

So, small enough to fit under doors, are they 3-5 inches, or 1 footish? precisely how big are they?

Sounds like fun. This is a "kill on sight" monster.

[James]

I editied that into the text. I dislike using Standard measurements, or even metric when I can. Feels like cheating to use our systems. Need to get over that. As it now says, they are between 3 and 4 inches. They would also have the usual bonus/penalties given to small creatures you have listed in your CC.

[James]

The demons of the Dark Maw are physically tough in a way matched perhaps only by some of the powerful creatures deep in Keiraset. In the narrows at the base of the Maw's valleys, nature's punishment is severe. Stone rain falls from the cooled lava cast from on high, the often flash flood waters are tainted by Void and Fire, and winds shred the rocky faces of cliffs with particles carried aloft with hurricane force. Ambling through this harsh, nearly lifeless terrain, are a breed of demon immune to heavy punishment. The Gargoyle's name for the beasts is translated best as “Crawling Mountain.”

When seen from afar, these demons resemble huge, six legged black panthers. Up close, however, this illusion is far shattered. Instead of fur, the six meter long demon has thin oily feathers and the tail is studded with a flail-like, studded bone growth. It has long flattened ears and four tiny black eyes between. More of these eyes dot its ribs to allow for vision below it. Its face is dominated by two luminous yellow-green eyes in which swim the black dots of four different pupils. Below the eyes, the face is hidden by a clump of long feathers. When it is ready to feed, a dozen, finger-like mandibles unfold from this clump dripping green saliva. Standing erect, an average human's head would stand just at the level of this insectile mouth. At the end of the six legs are birdlike talons with rock-hard scales and steely claws the length of a human face.

Their most notable adaptation is their musculature. Their muscles are welded tightly to bone and are harder than steel. With the dual armor of muscle and bone, its internal organs in fully inaccessible to attack. It can be easily given superficial wounds, but cannot take much damage in a single blow. Crawling Mountains have no sense of fear, do not take shock damage, and do not register pain in the normal sense.

Crawling Mountains possess animal intelligence and so are not brilliant tacticians. In a fight, They will start with a pouncing bite and attempt to eat one victim and fight off others with claw and tail while its meal dangles from its mouth. It tries to knock others away from it while it eats so it can savor the pain of its victim and keep the others alive to eat in their turn. If harassed enough, however, it will try to kill distracting creatures outright. Unlike most demons, it does not drink blood and prefers the clear fluid from skull and spine.

Endo-armor: Crawling Mountains have no external armor, but cannot take more than 6 damage from a single attack. This high mass incurs a speed penalty of 3.
Quake: As a Slow action, may rear onto back legs and then strike the ground with the other four. The impact shakes the ground in a four meter burst. All within range must succeed in Acrobatics vs. the Crawling Mountain's Grit or be knocked prone.
Night Vision: May see even in full darkness. Able to see lager area due to distributed sensory organs. +3 on perception checks.
Long Stride: If making move action only, may move at regular speeds.
Grappling Mandibles: May instigate a grapple as part of a bite attack with a +4 bonus if target is medium sized. This attack assumes the target is grabbed by the head. It does not receive any penalty to combat with claws or tail while grappling. Each round the grapple is held deals 3d6 damage to target.
Unstoppable Force: Due to enormous mass and muscle, cannot be restrained by any physical or Elemental means.
Swat: If succeeding Melee attack by 5 or more with claw or tail, may knock target 2d6 meters away, taking damage if striking objects in the path.
Pounce: May set itself as a Very Slow action. Afterward may make a single leap up to 7 meters in any direction ending with an attack and Quake ability. Recoil 3 rounds

[James]

As some of us know, the old book had more demons than the new book. When we converted for the sake of beauty, simplification (have had thanks from people on that), and concentration on core principles, we lost our good friends the Cucacharon, Gorgon, Y'Thanis, Pherin and Gargoyle (maybe forgetting some?). The Cucacharon is especially sad for me. I was wondering if I should include them in the demon entry so that they can be used by Storytellers in the setting as well as to make my stories and histories have characters that people know. I would mostly just use the abilities and descriptions provided by Rob in the original texts.

What do you think? Are we saving it for the future books, or is it okay to have both as monter entry and later on as PC possibility?

[Maugh]

I'd love to see them, of course.

Gah. it is frustrating to have content missing. Aubrey has actually been railing at me recently in getting those back. The only problem is that the differences in structure are dramatic enough that it will take a good 20 hours to update all of the old races into the new format. I'd really like to get them up, but there's work to do, and I've had other priorities within the game.

In the meanwhile, you're more than welcome to post and use anything you'd like.

Actually, if you're really invested in making the demons happen, I'd be happy to email you a copy of the UMA master excel file, and you can convert them to the new format yourself. I'm likely to edit the work, but that doesn't mean it won't save time, and anything that saves me time makes this stuff happen sooner.

Actually, the purpose of limiting to just the core concept was to more thoroughly test the stuff that goes in the first volume. I think it's fair to say that this has been pretty thoroughly accomplished. Doesn't mean there isn't more that could be fixed, (there always would be,) but if folks are feeling comfortable with the balance, we can start to re-introduce more material, bit by bit.

[dylan]

I liked the demons that we encountered on our last campaign. You know me with names, but I think the name was Necrotesh? (sounds like anyways). Loved how they have a crystal in their head as a life source and keep regenerating like a lich, but much faster. The boss was amazing too, using his whiplike wings to slash an entire row....very scary. Although new to Jabronie and not usually his style, he enjoyed controlling the skeleton army for the last fight. Oh! and fighting the Earth/Fire guy! Terraform vs. Terraform, loved it. All in all, almost all of the creatures/demons were new to Jabronie and many were new to me as a player, great job James! Oh ya, and the description of the dungeon, with the torturing tools.... disgustingly top notch!

[James]

Thanks!
The Necrotesh is actually one of the Undead in the book, even the new one. It is a lot of fun to play and can be devastating in combat when played well. I loved it as well. It and the Curse-sewn are the only undead I used as far as fighting you in this one. The Curse-sewn was the Earth/Fire magics guy. They get their name from the fact that they are flayed, skin inked in a thousand spells, then the skin resewn onto their bodies...ewwww, I know, but very scary.

The wings guy was the Shadow Lord. I liked it as well. I think the cowering in fear thing works well to make people not want to mess with it, especially when it can press the fear and make them permanently drop their Willpower skill die to d4. Poor Tick (Ben). I am sure you guys can get help with that once (if) you finally make it back to the Temple of Traditions.

Thanks for the post! The only sad part was that You had to go and be a genius and kill the casgnapar with trickery before we could see if it works in battle....except it almost certainly would have killed you all. Thanks!!

[Maugh]

(I moved the linguistics discussion to its own thread. That is a discussion that is worth having in its own right.)

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=228

[James]

Alright, I have finished the first list of demons.
It has about 24 demons in the list running the full rank from SC 1 to SC 20. I have it in Open Office Writer format (good for Word, too). I will move it into Robs spreadsheet to get it added to our current list soon, but want feedback first since it is more cumbersome to work with that format for me (I know, I know, that makes no sense). I think it is because I am a narrative person and spreadsheets throw up flags in my mind for formula and math I don't want to be bothered with. The stats were made in the spreadsheet, though, so the balance is correct.

The file is 50 pages....I know, self indulgent much. It is an issue of formatting. I need to find a better way to format the info, and while Rob's is good to have something consistant, it seems to much about the numbers for me and not about the creature. Not sure why it feel like that for me. So, this is the list I will be using for now. It includes, in addition to basic stats, the components and what is required to extract the component and the commands for people itching to use the Animal skill to train demons...is that just me?

So, weak points:[list=]
[*] None have Arcane power. Big weak point with Demons because they are supposed to be one of the main two with Arcane, but since it is in re-draft, I have concepts, but stopped there. When Arcane is done, be prepared for a quick 10-15 more.
[*] Light on the Ranged attacks. I will work on this more. There are not enough, in my mind that Throw or Shot, and only a few with ranged magics.
[*] Naming. We are working on that, but for now there is the mess of different names. Will be fixed. Marlin is helping.
[*] Lore. Most have more info than players will want, but it needs to be formalized into Lore for people to feel use from their skill and its ability to tell weakness and such.
[*] ? Feedback from yall if you want.[/list]

As it is a big document, I don't expect many to look at the list in detail. I am open to hear about:
Weakness for specific demons
Weakness in theme
Lack of Demon Type
Too much/Too little/Unclear description
Redundant or unnecessary abilities
Format Suggestions for readability
Etc.

Demons!.odt

Demons, Part 1

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[Maugh]

Rad. You've done an exceedingly good job with this. I just red over it cursory, and really like what I read. I still need to go through and read specific abilities, but my favorite are likely things like the dark star and gibtumouth.

Thanks for working on that James. This will be very useful.

Did you still keep the spreadsheet format? Can I get a database of these, or do I need to put it in manually? I"m moer than happy to do that, of course, I just wanted to know for convenience sake.

[James]

Cool! Thanks. I do not currently have them in the format, but will do that myself soon. If you like the lesser Dark Star, I will give you my Deep Star. SC 18, Behemoth of the Deeps. Terrifying....so scary..!!!!!