Best Demon/Devil story you have

[TheDarkSaint]

In some idle Thanksgiving browsing of the Fiendish Codexes, I was taken in with the clever ideas of demonic possession and diabolic pacts. I'd like to put it to the Playground and as for your best stories, either as a DM or PC of your experiences with the two. In what was were these two arch typical villains super sneaky and got the drop through subterfuge in your game?

[Crake]

In some idle Thanksgiving browsing of the Fiendish Codexes, I was taken in with the clever ideas of demonic possession and diabolic pacts. I'd like to put it to the Playground and as for your best stories, either as a DM or PC of your experiences with the two. In what was were these two arch typical villains super sneaky and got the drop through subterfuge in your game?

I had a succubus turn a player into an incubus and together they went on to become the lords of the underworld, the two most powerful fiends on the planes. Many people were not happy.

[Greymane]

I played one. Kinda. I made a character that was a Unique Devil and the former consort of Zariel. When Bel took over Avernus, my dude escaped to the prime material and hid in the body of a 15-year old noble boy. I explained away his better powers by saying the possession was especially botched due to his doing it quickly, and played him as a straight Warlock. So I played a former devil second only to dukes trapped in a boy going through puberty. Was pretty fun.

[Manly Man]

I had set up a high-level story involving The Black Cult of Ahm. The group was to plane shift to the Abyss, and go from Pazunia to the Grand Abyss, and go from there to a portal that took them to Androlynne. From there, they would head into The Endless Maze, infiltrate the Bone Castle, and steal one of the Rods of Seven Parts from Pale Night.

Well, as it turns out, the artifact was, in fact, not a Rod of Seven Parts, but instead the Wand of Orcus. The Cult's informer had been caught tweaked with by Pale Night, so as to draw forth adventurers to take it. Though she would 'resist', she would still let them get away, albeit with a limp, and let them take the Wand back to the Prime Material Plane. The Cult would first attempt to contain it, but when that failed they would attempt to destroy it, and when they did it would tear open a great rift to Thanatos, from which would pour out hordes of demons and undead. It would be the party's job to fend off the onslaught and seal the portal.

[Bullet06320]

while playing in a moraly challenged group, we waited at crossroads a midnight to kidnap devils that was offering faustian packs to use them to fuel our lifejammer.
things went well for a while till thier bosses showed up, oops, time to roll new characters

[ArcturusV]

I had a demon once I ran which went by the name of "Slight", a mocking name that was forced upon him because he was a small, weak, young demon. Basically two HD, by the time my party ran into him (They were level 2), he wasn't really a threat and they could have whomped him pretty handily. Would have still been a fight due to the DR, sure, but there wasn't really any question that they could take him. However I didn't just tell them that he was effectively a dratch (Never mentioned any demon type even though that's basically what he was), and they witnessed his summoning, which I described in detail, really giving the sense that the abyss was spilling forth it's most vile when this demon was summoned.

Party dropped a load in their pants at the very idea of fighting Slight and ran away. He became a recurring NPC haunting the players. Even at the point where they were level 10 and any member of the party could have just splattered him with no effort (Though he gained a bit of a stat boost over having cowed the greatest heroes in the realm, raising his demonic status). Eventually there came a threat where one player who was a bit south of Good decided to summon up this scourge for a faustian pact to deal with the archmagus who was threatening them. I don't recall what, but they used vague terms like "power" rather than concrete effects... so Slight took his soul and gave him something really pathetic like Darkvision 60' (Mostly the limit of his non-existent, mostly bluster, power) and an unholy dagger.

... which got the player upset thinking Slight and I gamed him, deliberately pulling some scam over on him and trying to figure out how to get his soul back. The idea of killing Slight never occurring (Still thought he was too powerful to take, such was the fear he instilled in the players), nor the idea that his boon was the limit of his power and he really couldn't have done more.

[TheDarkSaint]

ArcturusV, sheer awesome. That's what I'm looking for. I love it.

I'm thinking about introducing demons into the campaign so the more stories of devious demons, the better. I'm toying with the idea of having the Demon pretty unkillable when it possess other folks, ala the movie "Fallen"

[ArcturusV]

Well, the key things about it:

1) Never Class Name them. Don't tell your players "It's a dratch" or "It's a bebelith" or "It's a Succubus", etc. When they know what it is, and can look it up... it instantly fails to be scary and becomes just an XP packet.

2) They're not human. I think that was also key to the Slight story. Slight didn't behave as a "human". He was some strange thing that looked fairly humanoid... but acted anything but. Use the Telepathy rather than speech. Have them do things that normal people wouldn't either due to physiology or social convention. Classics still work like The Exorcist and it's "Head on a swivel joint" thing.

3) Description is king. Rather than just saying something like "he teleports in" describe how he does it by ripping a portal between where he is, the Abyss, and where he's going, throw in details about what sort of madness people glimpse in that brief fraction of a second, impressions of madness and true evil and suffering, etc.

[ben-zayb]

ArcturusV, sheer awesome. That's what I'm looking for. I love it.

I'm thinking about introducing demons into the campaign so the more stories of devious demons, the better. I'm toying with the idea of having the Demon pretty unkillable when it possess other folks, ala the movie "Fallen"

I think that is possible with the Fiend of Possession PrC. In one of my soon-to-play campaign, I have a Devil cohort (Epic campaign has leadership) with such PrC whose purpose is to possess weapons and armors. I can only imagine how awesome it would be once he's animating a Sizing (Colossal) Riverine Tower Shield .

[Valdor]

I am on my phone so I apologize in advance for bad spelling and all that.

So basically I was in a campaign as a PC. We were all about 21st ECL and decided on a whim that we were going to take out Bal (I think that is how you spell his name). we went to his domain and started out pretty good by wiping out all his little minions and lieutenant and commanders. We then were able to finally draw him out of his fortress and we proceeded to fight him and all of his minions. After a long grueling fight where couple of PCs had already died, then been resurrected, then died again, that then resurrected once more. Our druid that was shaped shift did into some sort of huge flying creature (I can't remember what) and was able to grapple Bal and fly above his fortress above a very long and sharp spire. The rest of the party then started to throw stuff like Magic Weapon and Sovereign Glue on the spire. We used the rule of cool so the DM let a few rules slide by. The Druid than plunged down wards and impaled himself and the Demon Lord onto the now enchanted spire. We had already dealt considerable amounts of damage to Bal and while this was not the final killing blow, the rest of the demons the were watching the battle then spread tales of the epic battle to the rest of the levels of hell.

This is my favorite from my group and what we have done.

Edit: Wording, spelling and grammar.

[AdamantlyD20]

I am on my phone so I apologize in advance for bad spelling and all that.

So basically I was in a campaign as a PC. We were all about 21st ECL and decided on a whim that we were going to take out Bal (I think that is how you spell his name). we went to his domain and started out pretty good by wiping out all his little minions and lieutenant and commanders. We then were able to finally draw him out of his fortress and we proceeded to fight him and all of his minions. After a long grueling fight where couple of PCs had already died, then been resurrected, then died again, that then resurrected once more or druid that was shaped shift did into some sort of huge flying creature (I can't remember what) and was able to grapple him and fly above his fortress above a very long and sharp spire. the rest of the party then started to throw stuff like magic weapon and that glue that cannot be lossened except for a special item. we used the rule of cool and a lot of our stuff. So the DM let a few rules slide by. The druid than plunged down words and impaled himself and the Demon Lord onto the now enchanted spire.we had already dealt considerable amounts of damage to Bal and while this was not the final killing blow, the rest of the demons the were watching the battle then spread tales of the epic battle to the rest of the levels of hell.

this is my favorite from my group and what we have done.

Pretty epic, i like it.

[AdamantlyD20]

I once played a campaign with a gish necromancy/ scythe wielding caster while i played a red dragon bloodline sorcerer, who eventually went dragon disciple and became a dragon in the final battle against Oxious, an Archdemon 15 feet tall. My character had already permanency enlarge person on himself and was effectively the same height at 13 feet tall. The demon was using a lot of fire magic and the two of us went toe to toe, me using half of my turns to counter spell his scorching rays and fireball spells, while my party member debuffed and used blast spells from a distance, shooting huge balls of negative energy at the demon and i. I had linked my life to the demon's and anytime i took damage, the demon recieved half of the damage instead of me. Eventually, we diminished his HP and the active volcano we were fighting inside started to erupt, i became a red dragon and the party member rode on top of me to escape the volcano before it engulfed us in lava.

[Xervous]

*Perspective notes* This campaign setting does not have widespread knowledge of teleportation, summoning doesn't work for setting reasons, and most NPCs aren't higher than 6th level at best.


In the current campaign that I am GMing, the players "rescued" the foreigner princess they had been questing after for some time. Little did they know at the time that she was a succubus spy set in place with the expectation that someone was coming to rescue said princess.

Over the next hrm, six? or so meetings, the party traveled with this "princess" to the northern port city, taking her through a city in the midst of contested elections that quickly resolved themselves at the mysterious deaths of the two non Lawful Evil candidates.

And when they got to the port city, which happened to be the capital city of the region, they took the "princess" with them to see the king in an important meeting concerning a dark artifact that had recently been unearthed (Far too many lord of the rings quotes were made at this time, though the proposed solution of tossing it into a volcano would have actually just empowered the artifact. And yes, the party dwarf broke one of his weapons.) So inhuman assassins posing as serving boys struck at the same time that the succubus dominated one of the royal guards. Only then did some characters in the party begin to suspect.

Of course, this led to a bubbling conflict when the loyal swordsman, who had originally been questing for the princess, caught wind of the others' plans for her. After a few not so subtle hints and clues, the party dwarf confronted the succubus in her room on the boat they were now riding on. After eating 5/6 negative levels, the party burst in to save him. The succubus, acting as if horribly wounded (which she was), appealed to the swordsman to save her. The swordsman rolled quite high on his Iaijutsu focus and nearly brought the dwarf into negatives (20 Con warblades tank for days...). And then, the succubus made a brash demand of the swordsman in such a manner unfitting of a Berethian princess.

With the swordsman finally opened to the truth, the succubus caused an explosion with a stored spell and escaped out the resulting hole in the side of the boat (also worth noting that she won initiative). As the fiend soared away on batlike wings, the players all opted to avert their eyes after being prompted for a second will save. Of course, one of the crew members kept on watching and the players saw him falling overboard with a idiotic grin on his face.

And of course I haven't revealed what I'm doing with other outsiders yet.

[Vhaidara]

I threw a succubus at a group of 6 level 6's, conssiting of a CN Kobold Spellthief, a N Changeling Druid building for MoMF, a N Raptoran Druid building Beastmaster, a LN Earth Genasi Fighter/Wizard/Runesmith, a LN Half Emerald Dragon Air Genasi Monk, and a CE Half Elf Wizard (Who was trying to make Richard from LFG). The first three (kobold, changeling, and raptoran) were first time players, and I was a first time DM. This was there second adventure.

So, a woman comes running towards them out of the swamp that they are gathering herbs in for the local alchemist, pursued by a par of 5 headed hydras. After the party positively trounces the hydras (2 rounds, and I think they got hit once in total), they gather around the woman. Conversation begins, and the kobold is hit with Charm. Save failed, and no one notices the SLA going off. So now the kobold is in favor of helping the woman back to town.

Now, the kobold was probably the worst choice because he was more like CN(E), and suddenly he wants to help someone else. The next target is the CE Wizard, who fails his save. When I explain that he now genuinely cares about someone to the player, he determines that his character simply breaks (he isn't able to comprehend these feelings).

So now 1/3rd of the party is charmed, and still no one has noticed. However, once again, the change in attitude from the evillest members of the party is starting to make the monk and runesmith suspicious. Then the changeling gets hit and fails his save.

I now have half the party charmed, which was highly unexpected (most of them made the save on like 5+). And then a raptoran's hawk gets charmed (because of Beastmaster, the hawk had like 9HD and could probably solo the party). However, the runesmith finally IDs the spell and points it out, granting everyone a new save. Everyone but the kobold and the bird makes it.

At this point, they roll initiative. The CE Wizard wins, screams "SHE MADE ME FEEL", and fireballs her. OoC, we talk him out of it on the grounds that she is in the middle of the party, and therefore the party, including him, would get scorched. So he magic missiles.

The druid shifts to fleshraker dinosaur and gets ready to attack. Then she moves behind the kobold, because I've decided this is the perfect chance for a recurring NPC. One that will continually get on their nerves in the most perfect of ways. So, like a good non-combat demon, she Greater Teleports away.

I later stated her up as a mid level beguiler. Sadly, I am no longer DMing the campaign, but if they ever let me DM again, she will return.

[Christine Daae]

I am in a game at the moment were I am a level 7succubus/3bard with 10th level bard casting. Lilith walks around all day in a group of two tanks and a malkonvoker never being attacked due to her class abilities that Grant her immunity to being attacked.

In town I spend my time in the most pleasing form while wearing clamored armor. Tempting all how come near to do evil and spread chaos. So far she has the party split on how trustworthy she is as she never really helps in battles. Only sings and dances.

[starwoof]

In an evil game I was a hobgoblin cleric with a superiority complex. I always joked that instead of a shoulder angel and a shoulder demon, he had a shoulder imp and a shoulder quasit.

The dread necromancer got to the point where he had a literal shoulder devil in the form of an imp familiar. The imp's personality is played by the DM, his actions controlled by the player. The imp and I came to the agreement that we hated each other. I decided it first and attempted to drown it. He decided it while I was drowning him. We the players knew that I wasn't going to kill the imp because it was a familiar, but our characters didn't know that.

Having Create Water on call at all times just in case I needed to drown the imp again became a running joke. :smallbiggrin:

No wonder he was startlingly unhelpful...

[Telonius]

Running Shackled City, when the party went to Occipitus. As they entered the Feathered Cathedral, there was a Succubus (Liuvash) and a couple of Salamanders in the pews. The succubus happened to be shapechanged into a "damsel in distress" sort at the time, to amuse the Salamanders. Well, the team came in and got the drop on the Salamanders, dropping one of them in the surprise round. The succubus took that as her cue to really get into her role, and beg them to save her. She claimed to be trying to learn as much as she could from the tattered Celestial songbook she was holding (upside-down, of course).

Since the plane itself was supposed to be composed of various parts of Celestia and the Abyss, I decided to run with it. She became a "risen demon," much like Saureya, the fallen Astral Deva they encountered later in the chapter. The two ended up as the joint rulers-in-absence after the party became rulers of Occipitus by passing the Test of the Smoking Eye.