DEMON after 2012 - your thoughts?

[Steve]

Indeed he was. But in his 4E incarnation in Creatures of the Night, Archimago was also pledged to the Solipsist, but in addition, carried the debts of all the other promises he made to demons, dimension lords, and the Kings of Edom. And that holds true for his 5E version. In CotN the price of his return was having to pay all of his debts. That's what makes Archimago's return such a frightening prospect: he has to make sure that Hell feasts on human souls; that the Kings of Edom are freed; and that Earth's universe falls to Unbeing.

How about this? Instead of DEMON working exclusively for the Kings of Edom, under Archimago new factions are allowed to arise within it. Some Demonhames could work for Hell, some for the various extradimensional powers, some for the Kings of Edom and some for the Solipsist. It would be the "big tent" of mystical evil.

[DShomshak]

...And maybe by using DEMON fragments to pay off his debts -- or seem to, anyway -- Archimago finds a way to swindle everyone and finally emerge as a cosmically-powerful free agent. He warned them with his name: He is Arch-Imago, the Grand Illusion, a spiritual liar.

 

Though the Tezcatlipoca suggestion is also interesting. If he could snatch some of the disrupted energies as the Leap Day Working breaks the bounds of Reality, he might be able to stay in the mortal world indefinitely. Finding out his real goals in using DEMON might be tricky. While the Enemy of Both Sides has destroyed the world more than once, he also claims to have created it. As I've learned more about Tezcatlipoca and how the Aztecs saw him, I am less inclined to think he would seek simple revenge or destruction.

 

Dean Shomshak

[segerge]

How about this? Instead of DEMON working exclusively for the Kings of Edom, under Archimago new factions are allowed to arise within it. Some Demonhames could work for Hell, some for the various extradimensional powers, some for the Kings of Edom and some for the Solipsist. It would be the "big tent" of mystical evil.

 

The idea I had after posting yesterday was that the energies released caused... something... to happen with the Kings of Edom.  Something which has been sensed by the leader of each surviving faction of the original DEMON.

 

In short, think of Game of Thrones, with the Kings of Edom playing the part of the various claimants to the Iron Throne and the surviving parts of DEMON fighting the Kings' proxy civil war on Earth to determine which King wins.

 

I swear I was sober when this idea originally came to me.

[Ninja-Bear]

Would the Death Dragon make an appearance? And for us not in the know could someone post a spoiler on the Leap Day Workings?

[Lord Liaden]

Allen Thomas described a scenario for February 29, 2012, in considerable detail on pp. 156 and 157 of D:SOD -- more detail than I think would be Fair Use to transcribe here. But to summarize:

 

 

Some of the events leading up to the ritual that Luther Black needed to set in motion worked, others didn't. But almost at the last moment the Trismegistus Council uncovered Black's plot. Superheroes around the world rushed to find and destroy Demonhames, while a host of super-mystics, both good and evil, confronted Black and his Inverted Trinity in Mexico City. No few of them were killed in the conflict

 

Black never found his fifth Inner Circle member, so he tried to make do by tainting Dyer van der Bleek with the power of the Qliphoth. But when Dyer and the rest of the Inner Circle stood before Black in Mexico, it was revealed that Dyer was a Trojan horse for the Descending Hierarchy of Hell. Dyer exploded with hellfire, consuming Black and the Circle, and breaching Black's summoning circle, allowing the essence of the Qliphoth to suck out the power Black had stolen from Sharna-Gorak and cast it back into that monster, along with Luther Black's soul.

 

 

There really isn't anything in this event directly connecting it to the Death Dragon, so there's no apparent reason why that monster would appear here. And I for one feel that would be evil overkill.   But that much supernatural mayhem would surely attract the attention of the Dragon (of which the Death Dragon is only an avatar), so if you wanted to work it in somehow for your own campaign it should be doable.

[Ninja-Bear]

Thanks LL just what I was looking for.

[segerge]

There really isn't anything in this event directly connecting it to the Death Dragon, so there's no apparent reason why that monster would appear here. And I for one feel that would be evil overkill.  

 

Well, that makes me feel bad   The TASK FORCE version of Leap Day had Shadow Destroyer masquerading as Chantal in the Inner Circle waiting for the correct moment to subvert the ritual.

 

And that was before Captain Chronos dropped the original Doctor Destroyer and the two superheroes who had saved him back into the normal flow of time right in the middle of the summoning circle...

[Lord Liaden]

Hey, Shadow D fits in just fine. He has nothing to do with the Death Dragon either. His masters, the "Presences Beyond," are themselves godlike Qliphothic entities; and they were also the patrons of Sharna-Gorak. They're just not Kings of Edom, although they may be related to the Kings.

[Ninja-Bear]

Just wondered because if I recall correctly the Death Dragon from Watchers of the Dragon was evil incarnate and with all that magical energy released I thought he might be free for a time. Though DD might be in a different continuity and as such no affected. Then again perhaps the ripples in the multiverse would affect DD in a game of WotD.

[Lord Liaden]

If you want to say that's what happened, it falls well within comic-book logic. When the physics of the genre is so rubbery, its magic is even more so.   But just speaking from the viewpoint of CU cosmology, the Dragon and the Kings of Edom (and their kin) are totally different classes of entity. The Dragon is indeed evil incarnate, but it's human evil, recognizable and comprehensible. The creatures from the Qliphoth aren't evil, or good; they're completely alien to our form of life and intelligence. They don't care about us, except to the degree we're useful to their nigh-incomprehensible purposes. And Qliphothic matter, energy, and magic are also alien, and have an unnatural warping effect on comparable things from our universe. Mind you, there's nothing that says that warping effect can't go in the direction you want.

[Opale]

Allen Thomas described a scenario for February 29, 2012, in considerable detail on pp. 156 and 157 of D:SOD -- more detail than I think would be Fair Use to transcribe here. But to summarize:

 

 

Some of the events leading up to the ritual that Luther Black needed to set in motion worked, others didn't. But almost at the last moment the Trismegistus Council uncovered Black's plot. Superheroes around the world rushed to find and destroy Demonhames, while a host of super-mystics, both good and evil, confronted Black and his Inverted Trinity in Mexico City. No few of them were killed in the conflict

 

Black never found his fifth Inner Circle member, so he tried to make do by tainting Dyer van der Bleek with the power of the Qliphoth. But when Dyer and the rest of the Inner Circle stood before Black in Mexico, it was revealed that Dyer was a Trojan horse for the Descending Hierarchy of Hell. Dyer exploded with hellfire, consuming Black and the Circle, and breaching Black's summoning circle, allowing the essence of the Qliphoth to suck out the power Black had stolen from Sharna-Gorak and cast it back into that monster, along with Luther Black's soul.

 

 

There really isn't anything in this event directly connecting it to the Death Dragon, so there's no apparent reason why that monster would appear here. And I for one feel that would be evil overkill.   But that much supernatural mayhem would surely attract the attention of the Dragon (of which the Death Dragon is only an avatar), so if you wanted to work it in somehow for your own campaign it should be doable.

 

Well actually, it's the apotheosis of my current Mystic Campaign starting in Vibora Bay ^^ My PCs just met Cloaca, and Tappan Arkwright, and are going to need to understand how to ally/use with Demonic entities and Therakiel evil schemes to stop DEMON... but I'm digressing.

 

GMing this afternoon, so back to work woot !

[Matt the Bruins]

Were I running a campaign, I would avoid anything that smacks of just repeating Black's plans or having DEMON quickly bounce back "even more dangerous than before." I think Black's Leap Day Working would have been taking advantage of some pretty fundamental the-stars-are-right synchronicity, and once that's averted the Kings of Edom should have to wait quite a while for another opportunity to be freed from imprisonment. Like, multiple human lifetimes.

 

Without overarching direction DEMON's individual cells might be flailing around aimlessly and drawing more attention than before, but the scale of their threat should be seriously reduced for the forseeable future.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah I agree, that's why I brought up the loss of their magic.  Faking it with tech for a while as they desperately scramble for a new source of power would give you scenario options as the GM.

[Marcus Impudite]

To expand on my previous post, if the Leap Year Plot fizzles out, Luther will pretty much be toast; the only question is who will do him in. To his (very likely former) followers, the failure of his master plan means they no longer have a reason not to pull the plug on his life support machines and let the bastard go flat-line; Hell I would be genuinely surprised if it's never crossed any of their minds to pull a Starscream on him even before that point. As for the heroes, as far as many of them would be concerned, Black has already lived WAY LONGER than a man as despicable him deserves to; doubly so when you consider how many innocent lives were sacrificed on his account over the centuries.

[assault]

Magic like the Leap Day working doesn't fizzle. It makes a much more harrowing noise, with souls being sucked and so on.

 

Also, if we follow the page 156-7 version, there was a big explosion of hellfire.

 

Basically, I can't see any interesting version of its failure where Luther Black would survive.

 

As far as his lackeys go: most of them didn't know he actually existed or where he was. The ones that did were the ones most under his thumb - basically the only likely candidate for rebellion is the Left Hand. (But he's quite likely to try, now that I've read a bit more closely.)

 

Lord Liaden has made a plausible argument for the Black Shepherd taking over after Black's failure, but I don't see him being particularly likely to be able to do so before it.

[Lord Liaden]

I did think of another post-Black scenario, potentially even more disturbing. As I pointed out earlier, Demoiselle Nocturne is the likeliest to have been able to escape the death of the rest of the Inner Circle. In the aftermath Nocturne would be in a good position to take control of the group herself, which D:SOD implies she aspired to do. It's frightening to think of what DEMON might work on if led by a creature from nightmare.

 

I also made a case for one or more of the Inverted Trinity also avoiding destruction. My proposed scenario had the Black Shepherd regaining his free will and enslaving the Left Hand; but if the latter remained free, he'd never accept any lesser position than leader of DEMON himself. As presented in D:SOD the Left Hand is too arrogant and impulsive to make a good leader; but if Demoiselle Nocturne also survived I could see her using him as a figurehead, employing her "feminine wiles" to manipulate him behind the scenes.

 

In that case the ground would be laid for an even more blasphemous Inverted Trinity at the head of DEMON. Despite being magic-spawned monsters, the Left Hand and Demoiselle Nocturne are still male and female, so it's not impossible that they could have a child...

[Matt the Bruins]

Why not five?

[Lord Liaden]

As in five leaders? Like the former Inner Circle? Sure, why not? The more the merrier.

 

Luther Black was big on specific numbers because of the significance of their mystic symbology, particularly in relation to his apotheosis ritual. Now that he's not in the picture there's no pressing need to confine DEMON's leadership to a set total. Although most cults and occult conspiracies still favor numerological precedents, like the thirteen members of the High Coven at the head of the Circle of the Scarlet Moon.

[Tanis Frey]

My gaming group did a thought experiment setting for the aftermath of Feb 29 2012.  We called it:

 

Dr. Destroyer saves the world!

 

Time line we came up with.

 

Feb 29 2012, Demon's ritual draws the majority of the high power supers into a fight with Demon Inner Circle.  Vipers local nest become involved on the hero's side.  Mechanion Takes control of Unity station and nukes the battle as it is in progress.  All members of Demon die in the mystic backlash, most other mystic heroes/villains not involved in the fight also die from the backlash.  Mechanion also nukes stronghold.  The World Super Powers then launch their nukes at each other because Mechanion feeds them false intelligence on the source of the nuclear attacks.  WWIII occurs.  The USA, Russia, China and other 1 st & 2nd world nations suffer heavy losses from nuclear strikes.  Most of the nukes headed to Europe are rerouted by Mechanion to hit major population centers in the 3rd world nations.

 

March 1, 2012 Mechanion's army of drones marches out of the north sea to conquer Europe.  The population is enslaved to build factories that are designed.  European Viper nests and Eurostar step up help defend with the European militarizes but get over run by the millions of drones.

 

June 1, 2012 After loosing Europe the remaining Viper leadership, plus elements of UNTIL and Primus, the Tiger Force and other Militarily groups agree to swear alligence to Dr. Destroyer.  The first target is to retake/or destroy Unity Station as it has sunk most of the world navies and Dr Destroyer knows where a working teleport pad is.

 

Players would each make a super hero but most of the time an adventure party will consist of 1 super and a bunch of viper agents (or agents from another organization).  We would rotate who super is leading a squad.

[Ninja-Bear]

I just picked this book up yesterday. Nice writing as always though creepy!

[Ninja-Bear]

And I definitely see a rival of DEMON to the RED Banner!

[Matt the Bruins]

As in five leaders? Like the former Inner Circle? Sure, why not? The more the merrier.

I was actually thinking more along the lines of potential sacrifices/host bodies for five Kings of Edom.

[Steve]

Hmmm... the Crowns of Krim might make for interesting leadership of DEMON.

[Lord Liaden]

Interesting, but probably not credible. Most occultists consider the wearers of the Crowns to lack true magical skill and knowledge, depending on artifacts for power. (Not entirely true in the case of Dark Seraph, but pretty much for the others.)

 

Frankly, I'm surprised Dark Seraph hasn't started his own cult to Krim by now. (Hey, maybe that could go in the upcoming Champions Villains Vol. 4!)

[Steve]

Perhaps a "Cult of Krim" could be a new group that rises up in the mystic underworld after DEMON shatters in 2012, worshiping Dark Seraph as the Earthly avatar of Krim, with the other Crowns of Krim working as his Dark Apostles.

 

Would you call them Krimmists or maybe Krimians?