Devil

Corrupted Souls Of Hell

Devils are the unnatural citizens of hell. The souls of once-living people become corrupted and transformed into these evil creatures that lure mortals into unsavory deals and wish to reform the world into one of their own design. Tricksters, businessmen, psychopaths, all devils conform to hell's influence, becoming what they're famous for: being the most evil creatures in the Barren.

Deals & Contracts

Thanks to the Pact Keeper (god of contracts and oaths), Devil's are able to trade souls for something near equivalent to a wish through a Divine Contract. Unless Devils have a well-made group of followers, contact with a devil outside of hell could only be found in places where the fabric between realms is thin and a devil can project their consciousness through them. The most common locations where this phenomenon takes place are areas that represent travel, most prominently crossroads. Souls that devils receive don't take a physical form in hell unless they're freed from the devil. Souls allow the devil to use them as an infinite source of mana, increasing its and its follower's power through magic. Commonly, souls will not be taken immediately (as this would usually kill the body containing the soul) instead the devil will propose an amount of time between the deal being made and when they return to retrieve it.

Physical Form

Ghosts use their surplus of mana to create a glowing humanoid incorporeal form; devils use their mana to absorb blood (occasionally other biological tissue as well) and transmute it into a new body. This is where the iconic red skin comes from, though it is important to note that devils can have many different shades of skin tone and blood is not its determining factor. When a devil dies (when its body becomes too dysfunctional for its spirit to hold on to) its spirit returns to hell if it wasn't already there and dives into the River Styx. It uses the river of blood to construct a new body so that its cycle of life and death may continue.

Spiritual Form

Devils at their base are spirits that have been corrupted by hell's magic. The process of corruption can take days or years to complete as the spirit requires a broken or twisted set of morals that the landscape of hell will naturally break down over time. This corruption will give devils the natural ability to harness and command hell's magic, giving them powers tied to their personality, history, and the layer of hell they were placed in.

Defeating Devils

Though destroying a devil's physical form will send it back to hell, that isn't truly defeating it as the devil will most likely find this as a temporary inconvenience. Devils have the advantage of eternity, so unless they want something that only exists in a certain time frame, waiting is no problem. Hence fourth alternative methods have been created to have a more reliable victory against these evil creatures.

Tricking

The hardest method is to trick the devil. This can include a cacophony of highly situational methods, but for simplicity's sake will mean putting the devil into a moral loophole. Devils gain their power from their spirit's corruption, which is due to their broken morals. If someone were to be able to fix these views or effectively point out their flaws to the devil they may not only decide to give up but they may also have their corruption reversed, and therefore lose their power. As long as the devil doesn't return to hell to have their corruption rekindled, this is the most permanent solution.

Trapping

Being the easiest to complete, the trapping method may be the most effective when it comes to victory. When a devil's physical form is destroyed it can be sealed within an object before it returns to hell, trapping it. Its magic will slowly leak out over time, producing a curse on the object it's created in or even in the location it's held in. Being disconnected from its assets outside of the object, the devil may need to rely on temptation or mischief to free them. This most often takes the form of convincing a curious researcher or a power-hungry warrior into feeding the object blood, when enough blood is amassed the devil will be able to create a new body and become free from its prison.

True Name

Hearing their name from a time before their death ties them to a devil's past when they weren't corrupted, an overwhelming experience to go through. Speaking a devil's true name will force it to follow a single command of the speaker's choice. Once this command is spoken their true name cannot be used in the same way again until a century passes. Using the power of a devil's true name could mean telling it to return and stay in hell for the rest of eternity, or for the more nefarious speaker, to enslave it. Devils (being devils) often will find loopholes in their commands which will allow them to escape their obligation to the speaker, but depending on the command will most likely stop it for quite some time, especially if it's used to complete one of the other methods of defeat.

Devil Worshipers

Followers of devils act to either advance their plans or assist them in escaping hell. Worshipers are initiated by swearing their souls to their patron when they die, allowing them to receive special demonic magic and rituals but losing their ability to make contracts with their patron to free them. The most commonly received rituals are those that allow the creation of portals, summoning their patron, mass memory-bending rituals to alter their patron's true name, and the creation of small wells of hellish magic.

Vampiric Cults

A devil's preferred form of worship are cults consisting of one or more vampire families. The reasoning behind this is that if a vampire were to be willing to become possessed by a devil, the transformation process would be incredibly quick as the necessary resource to accomplish it is blood, and no one gathers more blood than a vampire. Only a few families dedicate their eternity to a devil however; Devil worshipers originate from needing something so bad that they turn to fiendish forces to gain it, and there isn't much a vampire would need from a devil since they tend to already have immense power, long lives, and heaps of knowledge. Regardless of how rare it is, the fear of vampires joining the forces of hell has implemented itself enough to create the common belief that vampires are of demonic origin when they, in actuality, originate from the moon realm.

Devilish Hauntings

When a corrupted spirit begins haunting the living, it'll slowly drain their victims of their sanity which will make it easier to possess them. The devil's preferred method of escaping hell is possessing a living creature, which after a process of months or years (depending on the devil's power) will be able to transform the host body into its own. Devils also prefer to possess yet-to-be-born children (which requires them to break down the defenses of the mother) because though it's slower to transfigure the body it's the most stealthy; the child will grow up as usual, as the devil slowly prepares the process of rapid transmutation, and by the time the host is an adult, the devil will take over and transform it within seconds.

Origin/Ancestry

Fiend

Geographic Distribution

• The Nine Hells

Related Myths

• The War Between Heaven and the Hells

Fun Facts

• Devilish hauntings are often confused with poltergeists.
• The Pactkeeper is forced to allow devils to create divine contracts because a devil had tricked him into one.
• Most devils are either Lawful Evil or Neutral Evil.
• When the ritual to replace a devil's true name with a fake one in the minds of those who know is completed, not even the devil will remember its true name.