Character Creation

I do want to mention about the Infernal Court discussed in the Los Angeles thread.

As far as the Court goes, your characters can have as little or as much interaction with it as you’d like. The Court is there, operating in the background. It’s up to you to decide how affiliated you’d like to be with it. The Court can provide some useful resources and is a good way of connecting with other demons, but can itself be a source of problems due to the politics involved.

I think my own character wouldn’t have a lot of affiliation with the court, though he might sometimes work in tandem with their interests. He isn’t opposed, just not super aligned, which might still lead him to be considered a partial threat.

Let me think, I'm checking the books right now.

With what I plan with regards to Lore of Patterns, Legacy and even just mundane knowledge - I could imagine the court having reached out in the past. I don't see a political career for myself though.

In the first post of the thread, I have placed a link for the Demon Players Guide. I decided to provide it here since it's kind of a must-have for Demon games. The Player's Guide has a brief section of errata on p. 14, a chapter with Merits and Flaws, and rules for building your own apocalyptic form (rather than using the "visages" provided in the core book). It also elaborates greatly on various Backgrounds.

Don't want to burden new players with more material to read, but if you have the time and inclination then it might be worth giving the Players Guide a quick look.

Taking in the Players Guide is largely why I haven't settled on a character yet.

It's made me re-think the viability of a Malefactor, primary Forge.

Also the custom apocalyptic form options and Rituals have been really cool to learn about too.

@Tequila_Mockingbird so I'm pretty much split dead even between two concepts.

1. Faustian Malefactor, who possessed their mortal host (a greedy trust funder) during basically a botched summoning ritual. I think it would be interesting to explore what the mortal retaining majority control (at first) would look like, and so the demon would start out as just a voice in the back of their head-type of situation. Slowly eroding their humanity until they take full control. Primary Lore of Forge, but with at least 1 dot in many others (eventually) to facilitate creating Relics.

2. Cryptic Fiend, who possessed their mortal host (a street-kid tagger) after a traumatic/deadly accident. The mortal is dead here, so the demon is in full control, but is plagued by the memories of life that are the reason the mortal was so desperate to not to die (and let the demon in), struggling to remember anything of it's angelic past. Primary Lore of Portals, cuz it's just so super friggin cool, particularly when combined with Light, so that it can eventually use illusions to make people walk through it's portals into traps or whatever.

I think both of those concepts though have a couple big questions surrounding what I'd like to do with them that may make them more or less viable.

RE: Malefactor - crafting systems can break a lot of games, but the Relic crafting system in the Players Guide seems pretty damn tight to me, when I put my GM-hat on. As a player, what concerns me is I'd be going 4 dots into Forge, and so I'd ofc want to have the opportunity to try to craft some Enchanted Relics from time to time, but that can take days. And projects like that may not fit into the narrative pacing of just any ol' campaign. I don't want my coolest thing to be impractical to use, so can you tell me whether or not it seems to you like there would be the "narrative space"/in-game time to use that Evocation?

RE: Fiend, with Lore of Portals, the value of that lore unfortunately depends I think A LOT on what the ST considers a portal. Doors and windows. Great. But that's pretty limited, and doesn't allow for much creative use of the Lore. What about car doors? What about the trunk? What about cupboard/cabinet doors? What about a toilet bowl lid? What about a suitcase or even briefcase? All are hinged covers to separate/discreet spaces, but are they portals?

Thank you for your time you're putting into all our questions and things.

I really like both concepts, especially the second one, though I have thoughts on the first one.

In Demon: The Fallen, the default assumption is that the demon is fully in control. When a demon possesses a mortal body, either the mortal's soul is ejected out of the body or gets buried deep inside. Either way, the demon is fully dominant. However, the demon has complete access to the mortal body's memories and emotions, which get incorporated into the demon's identity. Hence, if the mortal host loved someone, most likely, so will the demon, etc. The benefit is that the host's memories and humanity serve as a partial buffer against Torment, snapping the demon out of the trauma of Hell.

Given all that, your first concept would need to be tweaked if you want to use it. It could still work if you wanted to perhaps do it in reverse. For instance, the demon is in full control but finds more and more of the mortal's memories and feelings starting to influence his actions. I do like the idea of a mortal becoming possessed because he foolishly summoned a demon.

There will be some downtime between chapters. Maybe not every chapter, but certainly between story arcs. That would be the ideal time to make an enchanted item, as there are usually time jumps between my story arcs. But thanks for letting me know so I can take that into consideration. Unfortunately, being able to make items would be a fairly major investment, but I'd try to make sure you had opportunities to do so. Still, it may take a while (in real time) to make certain items, depending how involved or complex it is.

As far as portals go, I'm gonna leave myself some wiggle room to decide on a case-by-case basis. But that said, I'd include doors, windows, car doors, trunks, large wardrobe, closets, etc. as portals. It should be something large enough for you to physically enter and walk through into a separate space. I would not count toilets or briefcases. Nor could you just hold up a picture frame and crawl through it.

From years of playing the Changeling: The Lost, I've had to be very specific about what a portal is, since changelings are all capable of portal travel.

While I have the demon side figured out, I'm struggling a bit with my human side. My first ideas of picking 'a human who does something with animals' seems a bit bland or simple. Instead I'm trying to think of an individual who has a bestial outlook on life. I want to avoid sexual predators or individuals like Hannibal Lecter (not what I want to play for all our sanity). At the same time, I also want the character be more than a beast walking on two legs (I play Werewolf the Apocalypse for that, good fun). And that's where I'm stuck a bit. A cop is very cliche (and begging for trouble with a gangster in the group). I'm leaning towards someone who prowls the night life or may be a musician of some sort.

Just a passing thought... what about a stand-up comic?

Some comics are known for truly biting wit, and I've seen some get downright savage when someone in the crowd heckles them. Maybe part of your schtick is heckling the crowd?

That puts you dead center in the nightlife, an outlet for (verbal) savagery, and doesn't put you at odds with anyone in the group.

Like I said though... just a thought.

Yea, it was actually a paragraph in the Players Guide that gave me the idea to have the mortal mostly in control, I'll see if I can find it and maybe there's something still workable there with it's guidance (I'll provide reference if I can find it)? Or, I can just flip it slightly to the other side then, or as you suggest, go about it in reverse. Not a deal breaker.

As for the Relic crafting, I wouldn't want to do anything crazy, just something that's cool and uses the dots right? :PWiggle room is more than fair.

I bolded what seems to be the operative narrative>mechanics translation point, above, and that sounds potentially more restrictive than what I conceive of as an interesting angelic/demonic power tho.

EDIT: *SNIP* let's not worry about it, and I'll just move on with the Malefactor.

Thanks again, Tequila.

DtF Player's Guide, p. 39, first paragraph, second column: "Enslave the Demon". Follows on the "Choosing Possession", and "The Human Soul" sections.

Just seemed like an interesting opportunity to roleplay out in a "real" and dramatic way what is kind of a trite cartoonish trope: the ol' devil on your shoulder.

It would be a battle the mortal is losing, and the demon is probably good enough that the mortal doesn't even know they're losing until it's too late.

If you don't want me to do it, that's fine.

@Khulod I was struggling with "finding" my mortal host's character too, until I poked around the Players Guide.

It's a got a lot of good stuff in there to just get your gears turning, beginning with the "Anatomy of a Mortal" section, p. 25.

Getting my head around a couple concepts, but I need to look up the various lores first to see which fits.

Why not use midjourney or generative AI?

I despise AI art programs, and they’re also really bad with specifics, unless you want to go through far too much hassle to get the desired results. I’d rather just use an actual artist’s work, or photoshop something myself, and I’m too lazy for the latter.

Midjourney has just received an update which allows inpainting. It's very powerful and suited for this kind of transformations.

Interesting. Even so, there’s still the ethical aspect which keeps me away. I do play around with it every now and again, but I don’t like using it in any "official" capacity.