Thuntian Lore, "Good" Demons

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NN1
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Thuntian Lore, "Good" Demons

Post by NN1 » Sun Jan 17, 2016 1:44 pm

Not 100% sure if this is the right forum, but here goes.

After reading the Thuntian Lore about how demons need emotional energy to feed and that they can get this both from suffering or more positive emotions, but prefer suffering just because it is easier, I had an interesting idea. What if a good character, either through the power given to him/her by knowing a demon's true name, other magic, or some sort of other effect (like a gamble incorporated into a demon bargain), prevented a demon from ever again gaining emotional sustenance through suffering or other negative emotions? Since demons only cause pain to gain sustenance, such a demon would be compelled to spread joy and happiness as much as any angel would. Similarly, an angel could become a cruel torturer if restricted from their normal form of sustenance.

Food for thought...

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Guus
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Re: Thuntian Lore, "Good" Demons

Post by Guus » Sun Jan 24, 2016 10:16 am

As I understood it, angels need the specific sustenance of joy and happiness. So for "snacks" they could not torture, because their specific build-up doesn't allow for this. I guess the other emotions are simply rejected by their bodies because it doesn't accept it as food?

For the demons it could very well work. Heck, torture might be the easiest way, and they might be complete and utter sociopaths, but THunt's explanation of demons does leave room for good demons, up to a certain extent. D&D Alignments are pretty problematic (and the detect alignment spells are even worse), but with some creativity, and because deeds can make someone change alignment, it should be possible.

Par example: a demon mayor who gets an entire village of sustenance because it was easy for him to capture the souls in that manner while he had a bad case of cravings. He'd have to abide the contract that forces him to protect his villagers as well as possible. However, his snacks would never be as satisfying as they could be, but hey, he has an entire village under his wings, so infinite snacks abound!

Plus: maybe a demon comes to the conclusion that not being a complete menace to the world increases his chances of not being hunted and murdered by holy warriors like paladins and clerics. So he only makes mutually benificial contracts. Given enough time, his alignment would shift to neutral or even good. That could be a very interesting character when it's one of two players that bound themselves to each other.
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Gift Fastidious
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Re: Thuntian Lore, "Good" Demons

Post by Gift Fastidious » Sun May 15, 2016 12:24 am

From what I've read, it doesn't seem too unlikely that a group of evil cultists might want to set up a timeshare deal with a demon, so for instance each one in a group of 21 gets tortured one day of the week. This gives the demon access to three souls each day, and presumably a degree of protection. In return, the demon would also use their ressurection magic to give the cultist a fresh start, physically at the end of every torture session. They could even earn more time off by helping the demon capture more peolpe to force into the deal. These peolpe could be less evil than the cultists and therefore worth more to the demon than the cultits themselves. This wouldn't really veer toward good so much as a more solidly held neutral, though.

Another possibility is that a demon might, in an attempt to look horrifying, make itself look so pitiful that the empathy a group of kind people give to it is pain-filled enough to give it the idea of just rolling with this and pretending to be an actual maimed creature. The group, carriing it around on a litter, would be tasked with seeking out the incidental suffering in the world and to mourn it deeply, supposedly to honor those suffering but actually so that the demon might feed on its follower's vacarious pain. At some point it might even have those who feel guilt dwell on the wrongness of their own actions.

Now you have a strange being, carried around by devout followers, telling sad tales that remind us of our mistakes and losses, and calls for those who commit evil to repent. Such a demon might use magic to protect and even restore those it finds most useful, performing what appear to be miracles. Such a demon might then become part of a full blown religion, in which thousands are called to confess their wrongs and sit listening to sermons about the vile, corrupt nature of everything in the world. Similarity to any other religion, real or fiction, is entirely coincidence. ;)
Guus wrote:As I understood it, angels need the specific sustenance of joy and happiness. So for "snacks" they could not torture, because their specific build-up doesn't allow for this. I guess the other emotions are simply rejected by their bodies because it doesn't accept it as food?
If that's the case, I suppose an angel who set out to do evil might feed from an evil mortal who experiences joy through actions that cause suffering in others. While Goblinslayer and his ilk are an obvious choice, there's other possibilities, like a destructive prankster or a child of Anthony Fremon like disposition. Or hey, even the cultists of the aforementioned demon, feeding off the joy they get for being good at cultist stuff and helping them recover after sessions of torture while also bringing in more captives for attracting self-sacrificing heroes. I wonder: If good people experience deeper suffering, do evil ones experience more passionate joy? Probably not, evil seems to be more of a detached or fight-or-flight response kind of thing, but you can have evil levels of decadance.
Last edited by Gift Fastidious on Sun May 15, 2016 2:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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RocketScientist
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Re: Thuntian Lore, "Good" Demons

Post by RocketScientist » Sun May 15, 2016 11:27 am

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