Bound To Power: Another Summoning

[Requires Neutral for all three planar Alignments]

When banished back to hell, you find yourself in an emptiness. A place where no one else dwells. There is no one else here, and there never will be. It is a place for you. Your private torment. Only through force and intention could another demon or wizard invade, and the very world would reject their presence, weakening them until they’re finally cast out.

You need not fear harm during your time in hell. That's… a limited blessing. But it can be a blessing.

You are in what can only be called a ‘blasted hellscape’. There are other demons here, though they aren’t common. The sheer hostility of the place winnows much of the population, with most demons bound to a Wasteland spending the majority of their time dead or summoned out of hell.

There are many damned souls, each trapped in their terrible punishments. There’s resources, and sometimes you might be able to trade with the damned. If you’re masochistic enough to want to enter such zones.

Still, if you can survive, that very pressure can make this place useful. It’s dangerous for otherworldly invaders - a mage wanting to hunt you down might think twice before invading here. There’s other powerful demons, who might become allies, or food, or components for spells. And the region is rich in materials that can become alchemical reagents and other useful substances.

Less hostile than the wasteland, with your demonic regeneration along you’re unlikely to die to the elements… too often. It would still make the worse places on earth seem paradisiacal. So quite pleasant for hell.

There will be the occasional demon village. Getting the right to settle in one is no mean feat, but they can be traded with, and they’re someone to talk to.

The drawback to such a place is that… It's survivable. The number of hostile demons you’ll encounter will increase tremendously. The zones around damned souls are still terrible even for hell, but there’s resources to gather there. And material beings can survive here without that much trouble if they prepare right. At least for a time.

There’s many things you can claim in such zones, whether by trading, harvesting from the damned, or taking from the environment.

Anything more pleasant than the desert will be settled, no matter how terrible it is. So this option is for any such territory. They are many, and varied, but they’re teeming with demons and the damned. Whether islands choking with life both above and beneath the waves, or vast multidimensional labyrinths, or living rape tunnels… anything more livable than the desert is going to be overcrowded.

Just remember that demons are born of the worst expressions of both order and chaos, filtered through entropic evil. Your decision making might not be tainted by such things, but that’s hardly common.

You are not locked into a single return point when you come back to the Abyss.

For +1 Binding, you can lay your mark upon a pair of hells as you pass through them, gaining the ability to banish yourself from one to the other, and back again.

For +2 Binding, you start out only knowing two hells, but you can learn more. Whenever you find yourself on a new layer, you can add it to your repertoire, returning to it as you will. You will find it difficult to reach layers too far from your own alignment.

[Requires Neutral for all three planar Alignments]

The demons of the plane you arrive on are people. They are the products of their choices. They have many negative pressures, and their natural instincts push them in a dark direction, but they can rise above it. Or fall.

But they own their choices, and they can make better ones. They can be good, or foul. If they rise, they can fall, and if they fall, they can pick themselves up again.

They’re people, despite it all.

In some ways this is a disadvantage, because people are predisposed against demons, and you trying to act better will get put down to demonic trickery (like it does with many demons trying to rise above the stereotype), rather than something genuine. You’re giving up certain power for theoretical moral freedom, with a group of people that probably don’t require external forces to push them towards evil.

Is it worth it?

Maybe you are not unique? Perhaps otherworldly souls being harvested into demonhood is a known phenomenon, at least in hell. The wizards will think that they know better than to fall for the mad words of demons of course, no matter how true.

No guarantee that anyone was isekai’d from your world, but there are other demons out there with the same experience, and like you, they may have unusual moral freedom for demons.

You are a demon, a native of the Abyss. A native of the afterlife, life and death mean little to you. If you die, you simply go back to the Abyss to form a new incarnation.

Only attacks upon the soul can do lasting damage to you, and even other demons and the divine struggle to wield such things.

Your lifeforce is both a thing of the seething chaos and entrapping fetters of order, infected with cosmic entropy. While with this alone you have little power, if you gain power you can easily invoke such forces.

You are neither alive nor dead. You may draw upon the substance of hell to form a new incarnation if you lose your current one.

By default, you will form a human-ish similar to your old one, though that could have been changed by the path you’ve already taken, or the powers you claim from here on.

It’s possible to slowly reshape the incarnation you take, but it’s limited by those paths you’re bound to. If you have the ‘Lover’ role for instance, then all incarnations you take will embody that role to some extent.

By default it takes you seven days to form a new incarnation from scratch. Likewise, you will slowly heal any injury or deprivation - you can think of it as being restored 14% of the way to wholeness every day.

If you are forcefully banished from a plane - killed - you will be barred from leaving the Abyss for thirteen days.

This is a mercy, because if you are summoned while disincarnated, the summoning will create a new incarnation… and repair your Bond from any damage it’s currently under.

-1 Portent

+1 Role

It seems that you were fated to serve the role you find yourself in.

Your potential is tied into realizing it, but you pay no deeper price.

+1 Role

The entropic nature of the Abyss infests you through the auspices of the role you were forced into. You will find yourself naturally displaying the Evil of the Abyss through that role, and the Abyss will corrupt and subvert your natural personality and inclinations in service to that role. It’s not overwhelming, but it is a foothold Entropy will always have over you.

+1 Role

The Tyrannical nature of the Abyss infests you through the auspices of the role you were forced into. You will find yourself naturally displaying the Order of the Abyss through that role, and you will fixate on the role and its tasks and develop neuroses that drive your natural personality and inclinations to fall into the role. It’s not overwhelming, but it is a foothold Tyranny will always have over you.

+1 Role

The Whimsical nature of the Abyss infests you through the auspices of the role you were forced into. You will find yourself naturally displaying the Chaos of the Abyss through that role, as whim and confusion function as a strange attractor, pulling you back to the role and its function. The changeability of the abyss will undermine aspects of your natural personality that opposed the role, pushing you towards stumbling into it.. It’s not overwhelming, but it is a foothold Whimsy will always have over you.

+1 Binding

+1 Role

Your Binding forced the role upon you, and rules you through it.

The binding has a bit more of a hold on you, but you pay no deeper price.

+1 Binding or -1 Portent per purchase (Max 5)

You express the entropic nature of evil. Any time you are working towards an entropic purpose, your results are magnified. This could be direct and physical, or more conceptual, but it’s an improvement of roughly one fifth each time you purchase this. That is: 20%, 36%, 48.8%, 59.04%, and 67.232% at five purchases.

Likewise, effort you put forth towards entropic ends is reduced or refunded, as the moral vector of your actions is supported by entropy itself. Whether that's stamina you would have consumed in a rampage, or the blood sacrificed to cast a spell, it’s all reduced by a fifth each time.

Likewise, you are shielded from forces of entropy and evil. Entropic or unholy force turned against you has its intensity scaled down by a fifth each time you take this, and before it reaches you it must overcome a well of resistance. Think of it as having to completely overcome you once(or twice, thrice, etc.)-over before it begins to affect the real you.

Resisting Binding is always Entropic.

+1 Binding or -1 Portent per purchase (Max 5)

You express the chaotic nature of hell.

Any time you are working towards a whimsical purpose, your results are magnified. This could be direct and physical, or more conceptual, but it’s an improvement of roughly one fifth each time you purchase this. That is: 20%, 36%, 48.8%, 59.04%, and 67.232% at five purchases.

Likewise, effort you put forth towards chaotic ends is reduced or refunded, as the moral vector of your actions is supported by Chaos itself. Whether that's attention you would have devoted towards a scheme, or the endurance to flee a crime, it’s all reduced by a fifth each time.

Likewise, you are shielded from forces of chaos and transformation. Whimsical or disruptive force turned against you has its intensity scaled down by a fifth each time you take this, and before it reaches you it must overcome a well of resistance. Think of it as having to completely overcome you once(or twice, thrice, etc.)-over before it begins to affect the real you.

Resisting Binding is always Whimsical.

+1 Binding or -1 Portent per purchase (Max 5)

The ordered nature of the Abyss fortifies you.

Any time you are working towards an ordered purpose, your results are magnified. This could be direct and physical, or more conceptual, but it’s an improvement of roughly one fifth each time you purchase this. That is: 20%, 36%, 48.8%, 59.04%, and 67.232% at five purchases.

Likewise, effort you put forth towards concrete ends is reduced or refunded, as the moral vector of your actions is supported by Order itself. Whether that's reagents you would have consumed in a ritual, or the time it takes to draft a plan, it’s all reduced by a fifth each time.

Likewise, you are shielded from forces of order and stasis. Tyrannical or defining force turned against you has its intensity scaled down by a fifth each time you take this, and before it reaches you it must overcome a well of resistance. Think of it as having to completely overcome you once(or twice, thrice, etc.)-over before it begins to affect the real you.

Resisting Binding is always Ordered.

Binding reduced according to Impact, +1 Entropy per purchase

The entropic evil of the Abyss has gotten into your soul. A dark voice now speaks your thoughts to you, and it… reframes your thoughts. It takes a dark joy in entropy, degradation, and cruelty, and it works to share that with you. If you’re not careful, you may never even notice when it subverts you.

A second purchase of this makes it harder to hear your own thoughts, to find the place where you end and the voice begins. It begins to be able to tug at your instincts, reactions, the truths of your nature under the surface.

This also marries the entropic evil of hell to your own nature. You gain the weaknesses of demons to that which is sacred, and holy forces enhance any binding attempt against you. This effect strengthens on a second purchase.

Binding reduced according to Impact, +1 Whimsy per purchase

The chaotic nature of the Abyss has infiltrated your being, causing unpredictable and erratic behavior. Your actions may not always align with your intentions, and your thoughts may jump from one idea to another without warning.

A second purchase infects your perception and memory with chaos. Consistency becomes a struggle as you become mentally unmoored.

This also grants you the weaknesses of demons to orderly forces of creation, as constructive forces restrain and suppress you. Additionally, any attempts to bind or control can be bolstered by using symbols and forces of making against you. This effect strengthens on a second purchase.

Binding reduced according to Impact, +1 Tyranny Per Purchase

The ordered nature of the Abyss has infiltrated your being, causing rigid and inflexible behavior. Your actions may become overly structured and predictable, and your thoughts may become fixated on specific ideas or routines, and you become inclined towards obsessive-compulsive behavior.

A second purchase strengthens this. You find it hard to reorient, reevaluate, and that it’s easier and easier to double down on mental habits and reinvest in choices already made.

This also grants you the weaknesses of demons to chaotic forces, as unpredictable and disruptive forces can throw you off balance. The wild growth of nature and fecundity repulses and erases you. Additionally, any attempts to bind or control can be bolstered by using symbols and forces of nature against you. This effect strengthens on a second purchase.

-1 Binding

+1 Portent

While there are rituals to summon a generic ‘demon’ of some type, such rituals only catch the weakest demons, just forming from the miasma of the abyss. The spell that caught you was one such spell, one that first became warped by chaos flinging it out of reality, and then further twisted by the Nothing beyond reality.

Such an event is rare beyond all imaginings though. As an already existing demon, you need not fear generic summons, but only intentional ones. While there are ways of contacting warlocks across the veil, or for summoners to home in on a particular demon, the easiest way to catch a demon to bind is with their true name. They have the fewest defenses against such.

Normally you would be spared this weakness, but the binding expected you to have a true name, one you would be forced to vomit up to your summoner. That part of the image is blurred, unclear. But if you were to forcefully consume some of the strange possibilities wearing away at the chain, it might come clear, causing you to develop a true name.

In the end, this is more a long term threat - it leaves you vulnerable to future summoners binding you, whether by your master trading away your name, or passing it onto their apprentices. There’s also other ways of using someone's true name against them.

Does your desperation truly make you trade your future for such immediate advantage?

-1 to -3 Binding

By default, you are fair of form. That isn’t to say pretty, but rather that you pass as human.

You can force the chains to drag more Hell into your incarnation, weakening them by tainting all your Incarnations with Hellishness.

For -1 Binding, it’s subtle but visible to those who look. Not a single hideable sign, but a dozen of them. Your eyes might be an unnatural color, your nails made from the wrong material, your hair has feathers in it, or similar phenomenon.

For -2 Binding it gets harder - you have demonic features on the level of having horns, claws, and a tail - and not one that easily wraps around your waist to hide as a belt, but one that wants to actively wave around.

For -3 Binding, there is simply no way of hiding the fact you’re a demon. Whether monstrous or beautiful, not only is your body shape starting to leave the basic human template in more significant ways, and you’re either too large or too small to pass as an adult human.

-1 to -3 Binding

As a demon, your presence in the mortal world is unnatural. Under normal circumstances, you can only enter it because your master sustains your presence, which gives them a stronger binding on you.

By shackling yourself closer to your demonic nature, you can have it sustain you instead. Pick ‘appropriate’ acts or emotions. For example, Fear, lust, and rage all work for emotions, while treachery or worship towards you work for acts.

For -1 Binding you can pick 5 acts or emotions that feed you. For -2, pick 3. And for -3, pick one.

If you are unable to feed upon your emotion or act, you will starve when outside the Abyss, regardless of what other abilities you have.

-2 Binding

A demon is a being of Order and Chaos alike, filtered through a lens of evil. This is not without consequence - as you are bound, your mind fractures and freezes that fracture, laying upon you a singular, inconvenient, and strange obsession. While you could cleanse that fracture, by allowing it to continue to exist you have secured a snapshot of your former humanity, of a being unbound.

While inconvenient, there is one virtue in this, no matter how much you are compelled to love your master, suppressing or denying your obsession significantly frays any bond less than the 7th binding.

-2 to -3 Binding

The precarious balance between order and chaos tips and confuses your thoughts. To hold that balance, you find yourself unable to form a discontinuity between your thoughts and your words. That is to say, you cannot willingly speak a word untrue.

For -2, there is a broad bridge between your words and thoughts. That is, so long as you could find a clear path between them, your balance is stable. In short, you speak Kyubey’s own truth.

But for -3, it becomes more strict. You must be clear and concise in your meanings; you don’t have to clear up misconceptions, but you cannot willingly create them with your words.

In neither case are your words binding. You can’t make a promise you don’t intend to keep… but many people break promises they mean with all their hearts when they speak them.

While your master can order or force you to speak false, such disharmony rages in your thoughts and soul, shredding at your Binding.

-1 Portent per -1 Binding

A demon is no mere being of flesh, but a construct of power unyielding and evil incomprehensible. As the binding sinks into your being, you create an ablative shall of power into which it may sink its hooks rather than yourself, casting aside the greater portion of your power in return for lessened bindings.

-1 Portent, +1 Binding

Your journey has marked you, dragged you like a comet falling in reverse. You have gathered portents and strangeness about yourself. Shaped by the Chains and the Abyss, your journey has made you into something new. You can shape it, solidify it, define what kind of devil you will become.

Each time you take this, make a new Omen.

Craft what you wish, but beware…

Your summoner is one of the greatest wizards in the world, striving at the limit of what is possible… that is, the petty demon he was trying to summon, who could barely fulfill the roles he had intended was the limit of what a wizard could call up.

This is a world of low fantasy, where sword and brawn are every bit the equal, and maybe even superior, to magical skill. You are unlikely to ever obtain significant magical abilities or gifts outside of the ones you’ve bought with portent or wrestled into being by strengthening your own Binding.

This is not just you. Other demons are also mostly physical threats, if rare ones.

Any Omens are likely to cost you dearly, for it wouldn’t take much to twist the future of this world. It’s also likely to be quite hard to get back to the living world if you’re ever banished.

Calling upon a demon without already having its name is something only a powerful and talented wizard could do, and so grimoires of names are highly valued. Even with a name, calling up a demon is more the work of a master mage than a journeyman.

Magic has started to overtake brawn at this point, but magic is still a slow, ponderous, and not an altogether potent force. You still have limited room to grow that you didn’t take from elsewhere. This is still in the realms of low fantasy, though magic is present enough that non-superstitious people will know it exists, even if they don’t take it seriously.

However malevolent, demons are still mostly a physical threat when summoned.

If banished without a Binding, it’s not impossible for you to arrange escape, but it’s probably involved. You might be out of circulation for decades at least, if you don’t have something already set up.

Binding new demons and either giving the names and bindings to friends or selling them for profit is now common work for the master mage, but even a journeyman can reliably summon a demon if provided with a name.

Magic has firmly taken the lead over physical force. Mages are forces to be feared, and probably make up part of the ruling class, whether directly or indirectly. We aren’t quite into high fantasy yet, but we’ve left low fantasy behind.

You can learn to twist your demonic life force into various subtle corruptive effects, or use it to fuel rituals. With the right setup on the other end, you could corrupt a path from hell to the living world, though you would only be able to do this to escape to a place that had become hell on earth.

That said, magic is a talent, an innate gift. People must have the gift to learn magic, and that applies to demons as much as people. While demons are hellish, and can hence wield hellish powers, if they want real magic, they need to be demon mages. Without that, they’re still… mostly… physical threats.

Without something granting you the gift, you don’t possess the gift, and so your innate ability to grow more mystically powerfully will be limited.

Still, at this level it’s possible to take more potent Omens - as the world grows, how high you can grow before you break the sky increases.

This is much like Innate Master Mage, except magic is learned. It’s not a gift, or not exclusively a gift. That means there will be a lot more mages, and a lot more magic. Even if most of it isn’t potent, learning it has such an inherent advantage that low magic will be everywhere, even if there are few examples of truly potent workings.

This is a two edged sword. There’s no longer such a thing as a ‘magic demon’ or ‘physical demon’. Just a demon, and how far they can stretch themselves. While many demons do stick to expressing themselves as physical threats, mystical growth is now something all demons can do. But on the other hand, magic is now much more common, so those who could (and will try to) bind you now also grow more common.

It’s no great feat to bind a fresh demon, but rather something any mage, firm in his fundamentals, can do. The one who summoned you is a journeyman, fresh out of the nest. Calling up a demon of your (intended) power is no great feat, though not something your master did casually.

Magic is now firmly on top. Every village has at least a hedge witch, there are magical universities, and modest magic has infiltrated every part of the world.

While the competence of the one who holds you goes down, other threats replace it. If you kill your master, and anyone figures it out, your master's teachers are liable to come after you. There's likely other escaped demons around, which might be helpful… or the opposite. Both because there are probably demon hunters now, and because most demons are sort of awful.

Whether gift or learned, magic is now enough a part of the world that you can assume you have it, and the ceiling of what can be done, and how it can be done, is much higher even without otherworldly gifts.

You can now take significant Omens without dooming yourself, provided they take some time to grow.

Your master is an apprentice or student mage, summoning you under the eyes of his teacher. You’re likely not the first, nor the last slave of your young accursed master either. It’s not like demon summoning is hard.

The number of bad fates that could find you grows a great deal. Demons can be turned into the animating intelligence of magical items, or used as fuel for rituals. That might not be destruction for one such as you, but it is degradation. And painful. And long.

Many and varied are the abilities you can put your demonic nature to even before learning real magic, enough so that you could almost think of them as another path natural to demons, one of curses, corruption, and twisted nature. And the heights of real wizardry are high indeed at this point.

You would have to take truly potent Omens if you wish to escape before your Binding claims you forever.

Your summoning wasn’t even a thing of intention, but an instinctive expression of magical talent. Your master needed a demon, and without knowledge, skill, training, or preparations, was able to rip a demon from hell and bind it to their service.

You are in a world drowning in magic. And considering how your master called up a demon, much of it is dark magic. There is no longer a real distinction between ‘magic’ and ‘brawn.’ Power is power, and it surges into this world in a never ending stream.

Far beyond every town having a hedge mage, every town has a witch-catcher, and a monster hunter, and a hex breaker. If they didn’t, they would be buried under curses and unwholesome spawn in no time.

As the monsters get worse, what a demon can grow into becomes greater and more terrible. The heights are high, even if the depths are low.

If there are any virtues to this, there is one. What your master intended to summon up is so weak that no one starts out caring about you. Even apprentice mages have better things to do. Of course, a new demon is no great terror in this world. Watch your steps.

Even nearly godlike powers aren’t able to truly dominate this world, so you can push your Omens quite far.

In addition to magic, there are inner pathways, ways of mastering and internalizing one's own energy. It’s really the same force as magic, calling upon the same resources, only used inside oneself. But the approach is different, and even if magic is gated by a talent or gift, anyone can use their energies internally.

At the Archmage level, such things are nearly invisible; people being just a bit better than should be possible, by the Learned Master level, there are many martial or ascetic paths to power, and by Apprentice, you are entering full on Xuanxian, if not Xianxia.

Such paths are as open to a demon as anyone else. More so, perhaps, because a demon's natural lifeforce seems with potential, if of a dark and terrible nature.

The people of the world you’re summoned to possess not only magic, but also a firm grounding of science. You advance the technological progression anywhere from early renaissance to sci-fi. Likewise, you can set it on a divergent path, make the world steam or dieselpunk.

Hell may have its own dark technologies as well, to mirror the worst aspects of technological progress in the world you find yourself in.

Your presence radiates an effect that comes from your Omen’s theme into the world around you. It twists or corrupts the world in service of, or to exalt, that theme.

An expression from your Omen’s theme so deep it functions like mastered talent. You don't need to practice it and you can't lose it — you are simply, inherently excellent at this, in all contexts, always. A mortal could train their whole life and not reach your baseline. This doesn’t mean you can’t grow or learn.

Your Omen’s theme hunts down that which violates it and punishes the violation. A curse of cleanliness doesn't clean the room; it finds what made the room dirty and makes it regret existing - or possibly not exist.

Your Omen’s theme seeks out that which serves it and rewards the service. A boon of cleanliness doesn't clean the room; it finds whoever has been cleaning and makes their work easier, their tools sharper, their effort more fruitful.

Your body physically expresses from your Omen’s theme. This isn't equipment or a spell — it's what you are, written into your flesh and form.

A small, fixed set of abilities that express from your Omen’s theme. You don't improvise with these — you have them, the way you have arms. They're instinctive, reliable, and always available, but they are what they are. If your abilities don't solve the problem in front of you, you're out of options. The advantage is that nothing stops them from working. No preparation, no concentration, no resource to run out of. You are simply someone who can do these things, full force, forever.

A flexible but bounded pool of ability that expresses from your Omen’s theme. You improvise within that expression — applying your power differently moment to moment, adapting to circumstances, finding creative applications. You can't do everything, but you can usually find something that helps. The tradeoff is that you're spread thinner than a fixed power set, you have to actively decide how to apply yourself, and your peak output in any single application is lower than someone who does nothing but that one thing.

A system of knowledge and technique that expresses from your Omen’s theme. You understand why your power works, which means you can extend it — developing new techniques, combining principles, building toward applications nobody anticipated. Given enough time, your options are multitudinous. The tradeoff is that this requires study, effort, and time, and even more than Sorcery, it is a skill made of countless complex, technical, subskills.

You have servants, creations, or spawn that embody your Omen’s theme through their own nature. They act on your behalf but they are separate from you — they exist when you're not present, they can be sent where you aren't, and destroying them doesn't directly harm you. Whether they're summoned, created, corrupted, or bred depends on the theme.

A layer of reality aligned to your Omen’s theme that you can access and leverage. Not a fortress — you don't have to be inside it for it to matter. It's more that your theme has a place in the structure of reality, and you can reach into it, pull from it, or drag others into it. A domain of mirrors might mean that mirrors everywhere are slightly yours. A domain of rot means could express decay itself is a territory you can navigate.

A specific place where your power and your options expand built from your Omen’s theme. Unlike a domain, this is local — it's a lair, a sanctum, a personal hell. It advantages you, or provides you with options, or strengthens you, or harms intruders.

The Defiler transforms and mutates the world by their mere presence. They don't act upon reality so much as reality acts upon itself in response to them — warping, changing, becoming something else. A Defiler might be summoned to cleanse a plague by replacing it with something the master prefers, to reshape territory into a fortification, to curse an enemy's lands into barrenness, or simply because the master wants to live in a world more to their liking and has a demon who makes that happen by existing. The Defiler embodies both chaos in how they unmake what was, and order in how they establish what will be. They are the most passively dangerous archetype — a Defiler doesn't need to choose to be a threat. They just need to be present.

Defining Expression: Aura

The defining trait of the Defiler is that their mere presence changes the world.

Common Expressions: Curse, Boon, Incarnation, Sorcery

Whether demonic maids or Living incarnations of flame, the Defiler is summoned to corrupt the world into a new form. They embody both chaos in how they change the world, and order in how they establish a new one.

The Master achieves what mortals dream of and devils promise — perfection in action. A Master might be summoned to forge an artifact no mortal smith could complete, to paint a portrait that binds the soul of its subject, to fight a duel no mortal champion could win, or simply because the summoner coveted a servant whose every action is a masterwork. The Master embodies evil in how the products of their mastery form paths of temptation — who could resist the sword that never misses, the song that rewrites memory, the medicine that cures anything for a price? — and order in the terrifying discipline such perfection implies. A Master doesn't need to be creative. They just need to act, and what they do will be done better than it has ever been done before.

Defining Expression: Skill

The defining trait of the Master is that they wield finesse mortals will never achieve

Common Expressions: Boon, Curse, Incarnation, Sorcery

Whether demonic swordsaints whose blade-work transcends physics, or artists whose paintings trap destiny in pigment, the Master is summoned to do what no one else can.

The Ravager is ruin given purpose, the one who ends. Structures, armies, wards, lives, hopes… They are summoned when a diabolist needs something destroyed beyond recovery. A Ravager might be called to shatter a fortress, to break an enemy army, to tear apart a magical working that resists all conventional unraveling, or simply to serve as a deterrent so terrible that no one dares test it. The Ravager embodies devastation in its purest form — whether that devastation is the precise, methodical dismantling of everything in its path or the wild, screaming annihilation that leaves nothing but rubble and silence. An ordered Ravager is a siege engine that takes apart a city wall by wall. A chaotic one is the earthquake that swallows it whole. Both leave the same absence behind. A Ravager doesn't need subtlety. They need a target, and then they need everyone nearby to understand that nothing will remain.

Defining Expression: Power

The defining trait of the Ravager is that they possess a fixed, devastating suite of destructive capabilities that never falter and never run dry.

Common Expressions: Aura, Incarnation, Curse, Minion

The Ravager’s passage leaves debris behind. They are weapons built to tear down the world, but their passing does not end the violence. The debris often becomes the fodder for further destruction, spawning echoes of ruin that continue the work when the Ravager has moved on.

The Malefactor is hatred made methodical. Where the Ravager annihilates — tearing down walls, shattering armies, ending things in fire and fury — the Malefactor ruins. They don't destroy the castle; they make it so that everyone inside slowly turns on each other. They don't kill the king; they make his blood betray him, his mind fray, his allies recoil. A Malefactor is summoned when the master doesn't want something destroyed but wants it to wish it had been. Assassination by curse, wars of attrition waged through blight and misfortune, the slow dismantling of an enemy's life until nothing remains but the understanding that they earned this somehow. The Malefactor embodies entropy in its purest form — not the dramatic chaos of the Ravager's rampage, but the grinding, patient degradation of everything good into something ruined. They embody order in how precisely they can target their malice, and chaos in how the effects cascade beyond anyone's ability to contain them.

Defining Expression: Curse

The defining trait of the Malefactor is that their power hunts. Point it at something, and it will find every crack, every weakness, every vulnerability, and it will work on them until there is nothing left worth having.

Common Expressions: Aura, Sorcery, Domain, Thaumaturgy

The Malefactors may wield targeted harm, or push things into utter chaos. Their passage is marked by misery, sometimes small, sometimes apocalyptic, always heartbreaking.

The Weaver is control expressed as architecture. Whether blatantly declared, or woven into the fabric of fate, they curse anything that breaks their design. They don’t ruin your life, they build a system in which your life can only go one way, and if you try to step off the path, the system ruins your life for them. A Weaver might be summoned to enforce a treaty no party can betray, to build a network of obligations that binds a court together under the master's control, to lay a web of conditional curses across a territory so that no one can act against the master's interests without suffering for it, or simply because the master wanted a servant who could guarantee that deals, once struck, hold. The Weaver embodies order in the most suffocating sense, systems so thorough that even the illusion of freedom dies. They embody evil not in cruelty but in the quiet horror of a world where every choice has already been accounted for, and every wrong step was guaranteed and punished anyways.

Defining Expression: Curse

The defining trait of the weaver are curses that enforce and define boundaries. Whether for locations no one goes to, customs no one breaks, or choices no one contemplates, they shape the future through the negative space.

Common Expressions: Skill, Domain, Boon

Weavers are often plotters or rulers, and the breadth of tools at their disposal reflects the complexity of the systems they build.

The President is sovereignty expressed through multitude. They don't need to be everywhere because their servants already are. They don't need to be powerful because their legion is. A President might be summoned to garrison a fortress with tireless sentinels, to seed an enemy's court with agents who report to the master, to cultivate an ever-growing workforce that builds while the master sleeps, or simply because the master wanted an army and lacked the coin to hire one. The President embodies order in the terrifying efficiency of a hive that needs no orders to function, and evil in how it spreads — a President's minions don't stay contained. They recruit, they convert, they breed, they build more of themselves, and every new addition is another finger on a hand that was already around your throat. A President doesn't need to be in the room. They just need to have been in the room once, and left something behind.

Defining Expression: Minion

The defining trait of the President is that they are never alone. Destroying their minions is temporary; replaced by making, recruiting, or summoning.

Common Expressions: Boon, Domain, Fortress

Presidents wield others as weapons. Sometimes that looks like support, and sometimes that looks like infrastructure. It is the nature of a President to have resources to call upon, to fall back on, and to pass forward. A Demon President is a nation into themselves.

The Tempter is generosity with teeth. They gift, and giving can open doors no trickery would ever budge. A Tempter might be summoned to heal a master's dying child when all medicine has failed, to bless a domain's crops into impossible abundance, to inspire an army with courage they didn't have before the demon walked among them, or simply because the master wanted a servant who made everything easier and didn't care to ask what that ease would cost them in the long run. The Tempter embodies evil through dependency, the help that hollows out.

Defining Expression: Boon

The defining trait of the Tempter is that their power gives. The healing heals, the inspiration inspires, the protection protects; their plenty is not false. Few things are harder to give up than the promise of succor.

Common Expressions: Aura, Sorcery, Skill, Incarnation

The Tempter's power serves others. Whether nurturing healers or corruptors who offer exactly what you want most, the Tempter is summoned to provide.

The Heresiarch is forbidden knowledge given voice, they simply knows things that should not be known. They understand and turn that understanding into power. A Heresiarch might be summoned to decipher a dead language no living scholar can read, to identify the weakness in an enchantment that has resisted every attempt at unraveling, to teach a master the principles of magic that have been lost or suppressed, or simply because the summoner realized that knowledge is the one resource that multiplies when shared and wanted a source that could never run dry. The Heresiarch embodies order in the terrible completeness of their understanding. They just need to tell you something true that you weren't ready to hear, and let the consequences unfold on their own.

Defining Expression: Skill

The defining trait of the Heresiarch is methodology. They understand and there is little they cannot dissect, reverse-engineer, or infer. They are not merely learned but masters of learning itself.

Common Expressions: Thaumaturgy, Skill, Domain

The Heresiarch’s knowledge and mastery of the pedantic can be leveraged to win more than arguments, but turned into a lever against the world itself.

The Trickster is deception incarnate. They don't overpower, but misdirect, and by the time you realize what actually happened, it's already over. A Trickster might be summoned to infiltrate a rival's court wearing a stolen face, to weave an illusion so complete that an army marches on a fortress that isn't there, to steal a secret from behind wards designed to stop anything but a convincing lie, or simply because the master needed a servant who could be anyone, anywhere, at any time. The Trickster embodies chaos in the way they dissolve certainty — nothing is reliable when a Trickster is involved, not your senses, not your allies, not your own memory — and evil in how they weaponize trust itself. A Trickster doesn't need to be stronger than you. They just need you to believe something that isn't true for long enough.

Defining Expression: Sorcery

The defining trait of the Trickster is flexible, improvisational deception. They have flexible tools built that they can adapt to many purposes.

Common Expressions: Power, Skill, Curse

Whether ghostly phantoms or silver-tongued shapeshifters, the Trickster is summoned to be what reality isn't and corrode certainty. Their passage leaves doubt behind.

The Siren is hunger wearing a halo. The Siren doesn't have to give anything at all, but rather their presence is the gift, and the withdrawal is the weapon. A Siren might be summoned to shatter the morale of a besieging army by making every soldier ache for home, to make a court love their master with the fervor of zealots, to reduce a rival's inner circle to a squabbling mess of jealousy and obsession, or simply because the master wanted a servant whose presence made everything right and whose absence made everything wrong. The Siren embodies chaos in how they dissolve orthodoxy — reason melts like snow falling into a hot-spring - it’s entered a place it’s not welcome, and a different order belongs. People do things they would never do and say things they would never say, and later can't explain why. It embodies evil in the dependency that follows. A Siren doesn't seduce you. They don't have to. You walk into the room with them and you're already halfway to ruining your life. All they have to decide is in which direction.

Defining Expression: Aura

The defining trait of the Siren is impact on choice. Emotions, priorities, memories, inhibitions, fates. They change the world of people.

Common Expressions: Incarnation, Skill, Boon, Sorcery

Whether devastating beauties whose presence unravels marriages or faceless horrors that fill rooms with creeping dread, the Siren is summoned to rewrite the future.

The Muse is potential with an agenda. The Muse offers what you could be, because you can resist temptation but you cannot resist becoming the version of yourself you've always known you should be. A Muse might be summoned to elevate a mediocre court into a golden age of art and innovation, to take a bumbling apprentice and forge them into the mage their master needs, to turn a ragged militia into something that fights like it has a destiny, or simply because the master realized that the most loyal servants are the ones who owe you everything they've become. The Muse embodies order in the terrifying trajectory they set — once a Muse starts improving you, the path curves inevitably toward what they decided you should be, and what you wanted for yourself matters less with every milestone — and evil in how they make the cage feel like wings. You aren't enslaved. You're fulfilled. And you will fight to the death anyone who tries to take that fulfillment away, including yourself.

Defining Expression: Boon

The defining trait of the Muse is that their power improves. They Sharpen, they deepened, under them potential unfurls. Whether a muse can turn this inwards varies.

Common Expressions: Skill, Aura, Sorcery

Whether brilliant mentors who sculpt champions from clay or twisting corruptors that grow horrors, Muses are those who craft improvement. Their passage leaves growth steeped in hell’s truths behind.

The Abomination is biology refusing to behave, its body a war crime. An Abomination might be summoned as a living siege engine that adapts to every defense it encounters, as a monster that hunts down a master's enemies by becoming whatever kills them most efficiently, as an unkillable horror planted in a mountain pass where nothing may enter or leave, or simply because the master wanted a bodyguard that makes armies reconsider their career choices. The Abomination might embody either Order or Chaos in its design; above all, it is violence made physical.

Defining Expression: Incarnation

The defining trait of the Abomination is that their body is a weapon into itself. Maybe it adapts, solving problems by becoming the solution. Maybe it is already perfect to some martial ideal. The Abomination is a threat incarnated into flesh.

Common Expressions: Power, Skill, Sorcery

There’s a simplicity to the Abomination. A hellknight who can manifest a blade that burns with hellfire, a protean consumer who builds its body like a machine made from bone and sinew - it operates along simple physical axis. Simple doesn’t mean safe.

The Idol is perfection. They wield a body so exactly, terribly right that it becomes its own argument. An Idol might be summoned to stand in a court and quietly degrade every mortal around it by comparison, to be the incarnation of a principle that justifies itself through their existance, or simply because the master wanted a servant that could walk into any room and own it without saying a word. The Idol embodies order in the crushing weight of an aesthetic so complete that it reorganizes everything around it — fashion changes, architecture shifts, people start sculpting their own bodies toward an impossible standard without realizing the standard is standing right there — and evil in how it makes mediocrity feel like suffering. You were fine with how you looked before you met an Idol. You will never be fine with it again.

Defining Expression: Incarnation

The defining trait of the Idol is that their body is not merely beautiful or powerful but definitive. They are an answer.

Common Expressions: Power, Curse, Boon

Whether breathtaking figures of impossible grace or terrifying paragons of physical supremacy, the Idol is summoned to be the standard. Their passage weighs on the world itself.

The Elemental is force, incarnate. They often are destructive more as much by side-effect as intent; when the cold descends, you are not a target, but it will devour your warmth all the same. An Elemental might be summoned to manipulate the weather, to provide warmth or cold or water or some other elemental font, to control nature, or simply because the master wanted to show their mastery over the physical world. The Elemental embodies both an Order and Chaos that dwells outside the boundaries of civilization.

Defining Expression: Sorcery

The defining trait of the Elemental is their embodiment of a force not normally incarnate as life.

Common Expressions: Domain, Power, Minon

Whether formless darknesses that eat light or a walking pillar of earth and stone, elementals are primal in a way that seems almost indifferent to Man.

The Ritualist is method put to purpose. The Ritualist studies the machinery of power for the sake of using it. A Ritualist might be summoned to perform a working too foul for any mortal mage to complete without destroying their own soul, to devise a ritual that weaponizes a ley line into a death sentence for everything within a hundred miles, to systematically dismantle the magical defenses of an enemy's stronghold by understanding them better than their creator did, or simply because the master needed someone who could look at a magical problem, no matter how terrible, and say "I can build a process for that." The Ritualist embodies order in the systematic rigor they bring to the unspeakable — their atrocities come with diagrams, timetables, and quality control — and evil in what those systems produce. A Ritualist doesn't improvise. They don't need to. They've already accounted for every variable, and the variables include your screaming.

Defining Expression: Thaumaturgy

The defining trait of the Ritualist is that they possess not merely magical knowledge but magic open to design. They are able to implement workings, rather than merely manipulate existing forces.

Common Expressions: Skill, Sorcery, Domain

To the Ritualist, magic is not a tool. They have to many magics to give any one of them that level of importance. No, magic is a toolbox, one as deep as the Abyss itself.

The Artificer externalizes power. Whether through tools, weapons, or arcane devices, the Artificer creates masterworks through infernal engineering. Their great strength is that what they make is not dependent on them - whether it’s infrastructure or a personal weapon, their craftsmanship has a reality external to their own. An Artificer might be summoned to forge a blade that can cut down a wall, or forge one that can cut down a thought. They might be tasked with crafting a lock to seal a break into another reality, or to seal someone’s loyalty. Or maybe simply because the master wanted a craftsman who could turn any request, no matter how absurd, into something they could hold in their hand. The Artificer embodies order in the terrifying regularity of their output and evil in what those pieces do to the world when they leave the workshop.

Defining Expression: Thaumaturgy

The defining trait of the Artificer is that their knowledge produces things independent of the Artificer.

Common Expressions: Boon, Curse, Fortress, Skill

The Artificer makes, and that is enough to change the world.

The Echidna wields parenthood as a weapon. They bring from themselves, but it’s for their own sake–whether they bring forth children or tools is mistaking the two as different things. An Echidna might be called to staff a tower with guardians that are born knowing its layout, to birth a self-sustaining plague of lesser demons that overwhelm through numbers, to produce fetches of those they consume who could be used to stealthy take over an organization, or simply because the master needed numbers and didn't care what those numbers looked like. The Echidna embodies chaos through a fecundity that chases collapse, and evil in how thoroughly it objectifies life.

Defining Expression: Minions

The defining trait of the Echidna a teeming life that overflows. Their minions come from them–whether spawned, budded, hatched, or divided.

Common: Incarnation, Aura, Domain, Fortress

Whether grotesque mother-things that birth armies from their own flesh or elegant hive-minds whose spawn are beautiful, identical, and everywhere, the Echidna is summoned to fill space. Their passage leaves an ecosystem behind.

The Oracle is knowledge that watches you back. They reach into out and pull back knowledge. Maybe from the future, or dream, or fate. They have acces to a layer of reality that may or may not exist, but in either case one that holds knowledge. An Oracle might be summoned to find an enemy who has hidden themselves behind every ward and false trail that magic can produce, to monitor a kingdom by listening through every reflective surface, or simply because the master wanted a servant for whom the phrase "I don't know" is a temporary condition. The Oracle embodies order in the horrifying implication that everything is already known and the only variable is who has access — and chaos in how the break the symmetry of secrecy that allows for stability. Spying implies effort, but an Oracle simply occupies a place where your secrets are furniture.

Defining Expression: Domain

The defining trait of the Oracle is that they have access to a conceptual territory that contains information.

Common: Boon, Curse, Fortress

Whether a Blind seer and silent watcher, the Oracle is summoned to know things. Their passage leaves unease behind, and a future that has been rewritten in infernal ink.

The Abyss is a teeming horde of diversity that defines belief. The examples below don’t even scratch the surface.

Defining Expression: [Expression]

Each Nature has its own expression that it takes in a specific direction, the reason why it’s considered a category.

Common Expressions: [Expressions]

These secondary natures will give context and depth to the primary one, solidifying it as a complete nature.