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Gods and Demons


Lloyd Dupont

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Gods provide their follower with Miracles...
What do Demons do?

I know that RuneQuest / BRP generally doesn't differentiate between gods and demons mechanically, hence both gods and demons provide miracles to their followers...
But in plain common English this seems to go against common sense, demons don't do miracle, they do.... dot-dot-dot.. what would be the name?
 

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17 minutes ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

What do Demons do?

They can do miracles, though minor ones, because they are not gods... yet. They really want to become gods, and seek followers to worship them.

They can generally get a few, on rare occasions perhaps a small cult like following. The larger the following, the more impressive their miracles become! 

The problem is that they are real bastards. They have this tendency to get tired of their following, and then you see things in media about a group of families that were found dead on a remote farmstead in North Dakota.

SDLeary

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Ha! that's what happened in North Dakota?! hahaha! :D

On another forum a friend of mine argued demon are like evil gods, and evil gods do evil miracle... so miracle it is!
So I guess the agreement is, it is miracle for demons too... or I could make a new word too, if like, need to come up with something sounding good though.. or bad, in this case! 😛 

Edited by Lloyd Dupont
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I'd agree with SDLeary, mostly "demons" are below the "godly" power-levels.

But that appears to be strictly a matter of how you define your own campaign / world, honestly

 

"Classic" demon schticks (again, depending on your world) run to:

  • Needing to be summoned to act within the world
  • Getting sacrifices (preferably humans) instead of mere "worship"
  • Possessing worshipers
  • Possessing victims/targets
  • Power bargains (give-X ==> get-Y)

I'd look closely at D&D's conceptual model here:  they have gods with all kinds of alignment, and Clerics who interact with their gods according to the same game mechanics. 

Is that the conceptual model you want to use?  Is "demon" the ubiquitous term you want for the "evil gods," or is "demon" more an alignment-specified term for servants of the "evil gods," more akin to "angel' or "deva?" 

Do you even want to go with the trope of the "gods" just being "extreme humanity:"  the "good-aligned" gods  shining with holy purity, the "evil-aligned" ones being sociopaths with tons of power and evil SFX ?

It's a matter of definition, really.  How do YOU want to define these terms / these entities... in your world? 

Edited by g33k
definition
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There are a couple of ways for demons to pay back their mortal supporters for sacrifice and worship.

The demon familiar enters a form of contractual servitude. It uses its innate (magical) abilities to reward its "master"'s gifts. There is usually a reward clause for the demon in the contract, things like the soul of the contractor, or a firstborn child, or similar.

The genie offers a limited form of rewards to its summoner. In the original story, for a major favor done.

The demon cult works exactly like a spirit cult, only without shamans.

Demonic deities are deities and may work through cults, or through propitiative sacrifice. Being deities doesn't necessarily protect them from coercion by powerful summoners.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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It was not really an RPG question, but a purely semantic / language question which strike me out of blue as I was using the world  miracle at work, for some reason I cant remember! 😛 

But as g33k spelled it clearly (I didn't quite understand SDLeary, bad forum reading during work hours), demon also have less power than gods so the don't do miracles or their infernal equivalent... that's another good answer I guess! ^_^ 

Although, to be pulling straw, when Jesus turned water into wine in the bible, I think they call that a miracle. But I am pretty sure a demon could do that too! And if it doesn't, its on purpose! 😛 

So now it's either way, either demon are lesser magical beings not able to perform miracle, or they can and they are called (infernal) miracles! :) 

Edited by Lloyd Dupont
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4 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

It was not really an RPG question, but a purely semantic / language question which strike me out of blue as I was using the world  miracle at work, for some reason I cant remember! 😛 

But as g33k spelled it clearly (I didn't quite understand SDLeary, bad forum reading during work hours), demon also have less power than gods so the don't do miracles or their infernal equivalent... that's another good answer I guess! ^_^ 

It really depends on how you are defining things: daimōn/daemon is 'deity' or 'genius'. Daemonium/daemonion is 'lesser or evil spirit'. So you can really work the entire range. I tend to place 'real' Demons in the Angelic range of powers, ie they are fallen Angels. The power level is the same, the intent is what differs.

As Angels can perform miracles, so can Demons... the miracles aren't of the "Let there be light..." variety, but as you point out water to wine would be right up their ally. So is shapeshifting into something mean and nasty... or perhaps that's their real form after so long being twisted and malevolent and appearing human is the shapeshifting. (if you want something infernal, mean, and nasty very quickly, Melleus Monstrorum is priceless)

SDLeary

 

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On 10/2/2019 at 5:00 AM, Lloyd Dupont said:

Gods provide their follower with Miracles...
What do Demons do?

In the Out of Print Merrie England: Age of Chivalry, for BRP, I had Demons providing magic in several ways:

  • Demon Nobility could be worshipped as part of a Satanic Cult, so you worshipped Satan and called on his Demons to provide magic, so they provided Divine Magic, in effect (I used RQ-style magic with BRP)
  • A Demonologist could make a Pact with Demonic Nobility, to gain some ability, spell or whatever from the Pact
  • A worshipper could worship the demon independently as a deity and gain some magic from that, this is especially true for those Demons who used to be Pagan Deities

Minor Demons are only really good for summoning and commanding to do tasks, as they don't grant magic themselves.

 

On 10/2/2019 at 5:00 AM, Lloyd Dupont said:

I know that RuneQuest / BRP generally doesn't differentiate between gods and demons mechanically, hence both gods and demons provide miracles to their followers...
But in plain common English this seems to go against common sense, demons don't do miracle, they do.... dot-dot-dot.. what would be the name?
 

The effect is effectively the same. Just call it Magic, or Magick if you want to be pretentious.

 

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