Bonus Content 2-2: Of Other Planes and the Powers of Darkness (1/2)

(A treatise, by Anasmath of Kai-Tan, the Wicked City.)

It’s long been the nature of the ‘civilized’ peoples to become disaffected with the world, and seek to change it in huge, dramatic ways because they don’t like the gods, or dislike how reality works, or even simply hate their neighbors but lack the power to do anything really nasty to them without being squished like ants.

To these people, the cultist job is a glittering lure, attracting them in droves to reject prosaic reality and substitute their own.

Well not their own. Invariably, like clerics, cultists draw their power from otherworldly entities of nigh-unimaginable vastness and influence.

But unlike clerics, the entities called upon are not necessarily amenable to the world, the people in it, or even the fabric of reality as this plane knows it.

These entities are not meant for direct contact with the world, the gods say. And when they stray into the plane that mortals know as Generica, it can cause disastrous results.

This is known; the gods of Generica dwell in a place they have referred to as the Nephs, which is why the servitors that venture forth from such places are sometimes referred to as Nephilim. These servitors may be called by Conjurors who have invested in Oracle or Clerical jobs, or instilled into holy relics by Saints, but only with the permission of the managing god in question. Though the gods have rivalries and can be petty, they generally work together to uphold the structure of reality, do good for their worshippers (however loosely good is defined in some cases,) and promote the general weal of civilization.

However, the three known dark powers (There may be more, as yet undiscovered, at least by this august researcher,) dwell in very different places. Furthermore, each power offers their servitors only to those who become a cultist and choose to ally themselves to one of them. They are jealous, and do not tolerate each other, no more than they do the upstart gods.

Furthermore, adding to the confusion, each dark power is made up of a miniature pantheon within itself, that CAN work together within its unholy court, but is under no obligation to do so. Oddly enough, each miniature pantheon contains three things which could be considered to be gods.

As there are twelve living gods, it’s long been thought that there are in fact, twelve dark gods, which hints at the existence of a fourth dark power. But this has never been conclusively proven, and this researcher cautions against seeking symmetry where there may possibly be none.

In theory, it IS possible to be a cultist of a dark power without choosing one of its three god-equivalents, but doing so effectively makes one of their skills useless, thus lessening the degree of power they can bring to bear. And this researcher has never known a cultist who ever willingly chose to go for the option that gave them LESS power.

THE DARK POWERS

The known dark powers are threefold. The Daemons, the Djinn, and the Old Ones.

DAEMONS

The first are the Daemons, sometimes called demons by the unenlightened. They are led by the daemon lords Cron, Vhand, and Nephzed. Daemons profess to only wish to strengthen mortality by driving the powerful to acts of pragmatism and tormenting the weak until they get stronger or perish and stop sucking up resources that could strengthen the powerful. However, this researcher has heard conflicting stories… in essence, their true goals, at least those of the upper echelons, seem to involve eliminating mortals altogether, and going back to a far less chaotic world.

Daemonic Servitors come in a huge variety, but most are specialized in one role, and only really skilled at that role. Hellhounds are guards, imps are unobtrusive messengers, succubi are lovers, shadowfiends kill, and so on, and so forth. You CAN use a daemon for different things than its skillset, and in time they may develop some useful skills toward it, but generally they are best suited in their original role.

Daemons are said to dwell in a place called Far Rhun. No mortal I know of has ever been able to return from attempts to visit this realm. Daemons say it is an orderly place, pleasant, with much free space and only populated by daemons and their subjects. Each subject rules over lower daemons, and obeys a higher one, and it is of the highest ones I will speak.

Cron is the lord of entropy and punctuality. By enforcing entropy, making ruins and laying low powerful organized structures and hierarchies, you earn Cron’s approval. Nothing lasts, Cron knows, and he wants everything non-essential cleared so he doesn’t have to worry about it anymore. The changeover has irritated him, and he wants his followers to simplify it, by the most brutal means possible. His Darkspell is ArcKill, which inflicts unpreventable damage.

Vhand is the lady of deception and theft. She’s particularly interested in muddling mortal knowledge, and is said to be filled with glee when her followers steal books or falsify them, or both. She is said to have been working overtime when the changeover struck, ensuring that the flow of information between various lands contained an excess of falsehoods and misunderstandings. Her Darkspell is Pagestealer, which allows the cultist to mimic a foe’s simpler skills.

Nephzed is the daemon of legions, who organizes and is involved somehow with planar access. Nephzed lurks on the borders of the Nephs, challenging the forays and excursions of the gods in inscrutable ways, but is usually forced to grudgingly retreat and let them through after battles unimaginable by mortal standards. But the war is never completely lost, and Nephzed cannot be brought to heel permanently by the gods. Nephzed asks that his followers slay holy monsters and clerics and oracles, and bring low the gods and those who support them. The changeover has meant the opening of a whole new battlefront to him, and a corresponding rise in both power and risk… he was practically unknown before it, but now his stature grows to rival Cron and Vhand. His Darkspell is Denial, which, though difficult to use, can counter a divine spell. Or another dark power’s spell, for that matter…

THE DJINN

Beyond the Nephs and behind it, lies the elder realm that djinn call the Dev. It is said that in the early days of the world, after Konol hauled creation out of chaos, that the inhabitants of Dev were employed by powers inscrutable to forge the physical laws and elements and lands of the world itself. Whether it was the gods or other powers is up for debate, but what IS known is that the Djinn are jealous of the gods, and scornful of the power that the gods refuse to apply directly to Generica. (Which for some unknown reason they refer to as Prahd.)