Dungeons and Dragons: Demons/Devils Major Ability Updates

[Mr. Bambu]

Summary

So, just to preface this, all of these abilities are gleaned from the Fiendish Codex publications that I read ages ago. As a legitimately brief summary of the following, all (or most) demons possess all of the following abilities by lore- such as the fact that stuff they eat gets sent back to the Abyss.

Not everything here is super combat applicable but it should be noted regardless. For the sake of simplicity, just going to copy-paste stuff from my /dndpages sandbox.

Demon Ability Additions

• Chaos Manipulation/Law Manipulation (Demons play into the multiversal balance of Chaos and Law; they are formed from Chaos and their mere presence raises levels of ambient chaos, thus causing chaotic effects to take place. With enough of an upset balance, entire planes of existence can be sent careening into the Abyss)
• BFR (Anything a demon eats is sent to the Abyss)
• Fear Manipulation, Memory Manipulation (The insides of demons generate "blood", a black viscous material that, when it comes into contact with an enemy, induces supernatural fear and short term memory loss)
• Corruption (Type 1, 2, and 3) (Note: This is less a specific ability and more just interacting with Demons through various means can cause all of these)
• Soul Manipulation (Demonic interaction rends the soul and corrupts the flesh)
• Immortality (Types 1 and 4; Outsiders, when slain outside of their home plane, will drop their essence back into their own plane of existence to be reborn, typically a century later for lesser Outsiders and potentially instantly otherwise)
• Blood Manipulation (Blood spontaneously appears in the presence of demons, oozing from walls and filling structures)
• Spatial Manipulation (Mazes conjure spontaneously in the presence of Demons, buildings can possess larger insides than outsiders permit)
• Weather Manipulation (Weather is affected by the Chaotic upset of a demon's presence, causing effects such as blizzards in the middle of summer or earthquakes away from fault lines)
• Power Modification (Demons cause magical powers to become slightly modified in their presence, giving them a sickly, corrupted look)
• Death Manipulation (Plants and animals die for inexplicable reasons when in the same biome as a Demon)
• Disease Manipulation (Creatures of good or lawful alignments may become sickened or ill at ease when in a Demon's presence)
• Animal Manipulation, Biological Manipulation (A demon can warp the creatures in the area into dire forms of itself, becoming stronger and meaner)
• Possession (Demons of even lower stature can possess enemies to take control of them)
• Non-Corporeal (Demons become insubstantial wisps whilst attempting to possess enemies, being unable to be touched even by other spiritual creatures)
• Astral Projection (Demons can project freely onto the Astral Plane)
• Mind Manipulation (Demons possessing a foe can take over their minds)
• Sense Manipulation (Aside from the target's mind, a demon can hijack a target's senses)
• Transformation (Possessed creatures can have their physiologies altered into those of demons over a course of days)
• Curse Manipulation and Statistics Reduction (Demons who take the role of a Corrupter Demon can, upon possessing a target or object, bestow curses with a touch, inducing severely reduced stats and capabilities)
• Power Bestowal (An Enhancer demon can bestow abilities upon an object it possesses, making it far stronger with various magical effects)
• Telepathy (All demon types maintain telepathy)

Like I said, a lot of these aren't terribly useful, but for the purposes of indexing should be noted.

Devil Ability Additio

• Law Manipulation, Chaos Manipulation (Devils contribute to the balance of Chaos and Law that makes up reality; with an upset of the balance in favor of either one, severe effects take place within reality, including delusion of the minds of those aligned with the opposite force, inexplicable deaths, etc)
• Corruption (Types 1 and 3) (Ditto to above, though they don't really partake of physical corruption so much, I found)
• Morality Manipulation (Merely listening to the words of a Devil can turn a target evil)
• Soul Manipulation (Devils are capable of sending souls to hell, though prefer evil ones, upon their death)
• BFR (Souls transform into a physical shell and are cast into Baator upon death)
• Text Manipulation (A devil imprints the soul of a corrupted target with their name automatically)
• Extrasensory Perception (A devil can see the state of one's soul and if another devil has claimed it)
• Pain Manipulation (A devil is capable of torturing and flaying the soul)
• Energy Manipulation (Hell is powered by divine energy drawn out from the soul via pai)
• Power Bestowal (All devils save Lemures can raise other devils to a higher rank, effectively giving the abilities of that rank)
• Reactive Evolution (Given enough soul energy, a devil can ascend to a new rank of devil, for example, a Spined Devil may become a Bearded Devil)
• Regenerationn (At least Mid, possibly Mid-High, Devils can reform from their evolution to higher ranks, which often includes losing all viscera on their body, their heads cracking ope, though based on the fact that this is during metamorphosis, I would argue this is only possible with soul energy)
• Madness Manipulation (Type 3, Anyone outside of the ranks of Baator seeing their Regenerationn is induced with crippling fear)
• Absorption (A devil can absorb the energy released by a soul)
• Immortality (Types 1, 3, and 4; Devils will resurrect if killed outside of Baator; Many devils are older than measured time itself, including several Pit Fiends and multiple Archdevils, such as Dispater)
• Disease Manipulation (Those that devour the flesh of a Baatezu once killed become lethally ill)
• Preparation (As military geniuses, devils benefit greatly from preparation, creating traps and tricks to practically ensure victory in a given encounter)
• Fear Manipulation (The equipment of a Devil induces moderate fear in those around them)

And... that's all she wrote. Thanks for commenting if you do.

 

[Xulrev]

I agree with all of these, and think a slight note should be made:

The Chaos/Law manip is a severely limited form, and should likely be notated as such just to be accurate. It takes a huge swing in numbers for one side or the other to upset the Balance, so isn't even applicable to individual Devils/Demons I would argue and is a racial boon that only occurs in very specific circumstances.

I believe this is a fair, albeit slight, alteration with the rest of the abilities being fairly straightforward, no?

 

[Qawsedf234]

I would also make a note about regen. While Mid/High-Mid makes sense with the promotions/demotions its also not really indicative of the Regenerationn when not going through the shift. So I would try to do something like with the Atropal abomination

> Regenerationn (Low-Mid without repercussions, but it can go up to High-Mid although this weakens the Atropal heavily),

So in this case

> Regenerationn ([Whatever the form is], High-Mid during metamorphosis)

 

[Mr. Bambu]

The Chaos/Law thing is scaled to AP, essentially, yeah. Small tier demons seem to only be able to affect reality on a local scale, nothing like the demon lords visiting a plane and just absorbing it into the Abyss. Like the table says, your average demon can show up and randomly cause stuff like weather effects, seeping blood, and buildings that are much larger on the inside than on the outside (and probably pretty much anything else that would be chaotic and evil, but probably not totally useful unless you want a bunch of cattle and plants to die off).

As for the regen... I somewhat disagree? It is during metamorphosis, but metamorphosis is also the only time they have access to soul energy which powers all this shiz. So I think it'd be more accurate to say, "blank via soul energy", and Low-Mid without it (if they have it at all).

 

[CrimsonStarFallen]

poor Bambu, being in Limbo for over 2 weeks smh

This all seems fine.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Crimson this is why I adopted you, you are a good son. Very epic. Just earned yourself a few extra christmas presents.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

All of this seems fine to me. Only gripe I have with it is the BFR, which should probably have a "possibly / likely" attached next to it in the P&A section, from what the scans say, though you are free to correct me here.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

I'm fine with Possibly, prolly would have put it like that anyways. The scans are from in-universe explanations so they aren't sure either (hard to tell when you'd need a dude on the other side in the Abyss watching to see if chewed up human flesh popped out).

Anyhow, cool.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

everyone who comments and accepts gets admin rights forever, my favorite commenter becomes owner of the wiki

 

[RatherClueless]

XD

 

[Sir_Ovens]

Would a demon even eat its opponent as a form of attack though? Like if it isn't a move it does usually I don't think it should be an ability it inherently has.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

1. I didn't say it would, only that this is an effect that it can (probably) do. Last I checked characters also don't Immortality Type 1 their enemies to death either. We're an indexing site of character abilities, not strictly combat powers.

2. Some would absolutely eat their enemies, yeah. There are Glutton demons, yeah.

3. I... what? "I don't think it should be an ability it inherently has." I mean no offense but this isn't about what you think it should have. This is about what the in-game scholar/lore people/etc state that they inherently have. The demon they tested on for this was even just the lowest tier of demon (a Dretch).

 

[Antvasima]

This seems fine to me as well.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Okay so I forgot about this, but I do wanna put this through. So! The pages that need revising:

Demons:

• Acererak

• Balor

• Demogorgo

• Malcanthet

• Orcus

• Sertrous

• Soneillon the Whispering Quee

Devils:

• Asmodeus (Dungeons and Dragons)

• Bearded Devil

• Bone Devil

• Horned Devil

• Imp (D&D)

• Malkizid, the Branded King

• Pit Fiend

These are just the ones that have pages thus far, there are dozens of others awaiting in sandboxes and such.

 

[Antvasima]

You can probably apply the suggested changes then.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Alright, Demons are done, will work through the up-and-ready Devils now.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Alright, now the devils are done and... that's all she wrote. I'll close this down now.

For the record, outside of adding new abilities I've altered certain profiles to reflect current understandings of the verse (for example, Asmodeus' angel form didn't have Abstract Existence despite that being decided quite some time ago, Demogorgon lacked the Concept Manip held by Demon Lords other than him, etc).