I was going to wait until a good reason for a discussion thread spring up, and I've got one. Demon design! But just for fun, I'm going to make this an unlocked feature. In short, can you guess the underlying theme/common element of all the demons?

Here's a list of the demons and their associations:
Beyond - What lies outside the known world
Discord - The unpatterned
Eye Blossom - Impossible growth
Nobody - Nonexistence
Yesterday and Tomorrow - Past and future

Here're some associations you'll never see in demons:
Gravity
Trees
Today/the Present
Growth
Love
Warfare

Can you figure it out?

>>74935

Existence.

>Gravity
Exists
>Trees
Exist
>Today/the Present
Exists
>Growth
part of existence
>Love
symptom of existence
>Warfare
symptom of existence

>Beyond
Not a part of our reality, therefore not of our existence.
>Discord
Existence functions on inherent predictable cooperation between fundamental forces at quantum scales, it is anathema to existence.
>Eye Blossom
Magical growth ignores reality, it is independent of our existence
>Nobody - Nonexistence
herpderp, e.g. "durr"
>Yesterday and Tomorrow - Past and future
Events cease to be part of our existence as soon as a single moment has passed, and events that have yet to happen will not be part of our existence until they happen.

This all presumes that Existence is defined as a universal absolute, such that other Existences may also be present in that foamy sea of extra-universal chaos, yet each reality may only Exist with respect to itself, unless some divine super-normal activity bridges a path of raw space-time between two realities, to cause them to collapse into each other's Event Horizon.

Yeah, pretty much. Gods and such embody things that are- demons embody things that aren't, or are outside the normal scope of things.

Yup, you pretty much got it. Now for demon creation! Only three things're absolutely required: the name and theme, as well as anything particularly noteworthy about them. Examples of noteworthy things would be stuff like Yesterday and Tomorrow's being paradoxical twins, Discord being a multiple of voices, or Nobody being easily forgettable. Strong personality traits also count. If you like, you can supply a sigil as either a description or an attached image. Here's the form.

Name:
Theme:
(If any) Noteworthy stuff:
(Optional) Sigil:

Anonymous 2013/08/09(Fri)20:30 No. 74947 ID: 01531c
File 137610540272.png - (3.04KB , 371x497 , Untitled.png )

>>74942

Beginner demon creation is go!


>Name:
Cross
>Theme:
In our reality, there is no such thing as a straight line; even the fastest distance between two points in space is warped by interactions between fundamental forces.
The demon Cross says fuck that bullshit.
>(If any) Noteworthy stuff:
Power:Cross has the power to make anything take on reality-defying straightness.
These are examples of how to command Cross's power, any verbiage will do!
'straighten' magnetic field lines!
'fix' the edges (also the points) of a sword or pair of dice!
'align' the blue markings on notebook paper to be perfectly parallel!
'cross' the red markings on notebook paper to be perfectly 90 degrees to the blue markings!
'correct' an area of space to be perfectly de-warped (for as long as it stays in range, consider the speed of earth's orbit+earth's revolving)
You get the idea

Limitations:
Cross cannot effect distinctly spherical, circular objects or shapes!
Cross cannot effect distinctly rounded corners unless bounded by the intersection of edges!
Cross can only effect metaphysical things if he gets his/your hands on it!
Cross can only focus on one task!
Cross can only maintain an effect with a sacrifice to power the enchantment!
Cross can only effects small parts of any distinctly larger-than-you object!

>(Optional) Sigil:
Three lines interesecting a rectangle.

This one probably wouldn't be a good idea for us to use due to probably not getting along with Discord, but the idea amused me:

Name: Perfection
Theme: Well, what its name implies. Lower powered abilities would involve making an aspect of something exact (such as throwing a projectile with complete accuracy at a target), where higher powered abilities would optimize in ways that are either more abstract, take more objectives into account, or account for things that the user does not know (such as telling the best lie in a situation for a desired effect).
(If any) Noteworthy stuff: Vain and has demon OCD

>This one probably wouldn't be a good idea for us to use due to probably not getting along with Discord
That's fine. Demons for use by other people are good, too.

>Cross
That's a lot of limitations for a demon and kinda a specialized theme. Still, an interesting idea. I'll just say that its users can overcome individual limits with enough spiritual energy--those limitations're just the path of least resistance. In exchange, Cross can have larger effects than usual for less energy when it obeys all those limitations.

>>74987
>That's a lot of limitations for a demon and kinda a specialized theme.
That's because i made Cross's power ridiculously OP.
>I'll just say that its users can overcome individual limits with enough spiritual energy--those limitations're just the path of least resistance.
That's right!

Zaealix 2013/08/10(Sat)09:49 No. 74998 ID: ab1da0
File 137615338203.png - (2.49KB , 200x200 , Monstrificus.png )

Name: Monstrificus
Theme: Monster of myth- harpies, werewolves, dragons, and yes, zombies.
noteworthy things-
Monstrificus is often underestimated by inquisitors because his is a widely utilized sigil by beginner demonologists seeking to cause trouble. The problem is two-fold- early on his power only creates a monster. It does not, actually enable you to control that monster. Many a young demonologist has thus met their end, to the point that more often than not, if there's a warning comic or cartoon about 'don't mess with demons!' they'll show some gothy looking kid (think chain and her bunch) drawing out a sigil, summoning a monster, and then being eaten by it, before the inquistors come and kick it's butt.
That said, he DOES have his uses, but for the most part he's known as noob bait.

>Monstrificus
Regarding the "early on", I'd like to note that there isn't really a progressive sort of thing like that. There isn't anything like "leveling up" demons. You can do the same things with a brand sparkling new demon as you could with one you've had for a long time, though it might take you a while to figure out the full scope of what you can do. Likewise, with more practice, you'll just become better at doing what you already could do.

Basically, the main limitations in play here're spiritual energy and your general expertise with manipulating demonic power (the Sight does help here).

That said, I like the idea of a demon that's hazardous to the user, so I think I'll make it so that controlling the monster takes spiritual energy. A newbie could summon a monster, but would run out of juice sooner or later trying to keep it under control. Whereas a veteran could easily control regular monsters indefinitely, but might come into peril if they try pushing their limits too far with summoning more powerful monsters.

>>74999
Additional note: If you find yourself running out of energy, the common solution is to just off the monster before it can break free. But don't wait until you're near empty--getting a monster to sit still while you kill it takes considerably more energy than just siccing it on people or other things it either doesn't mind or outright like doing.

The alternate history thing is interesting. It makes sense with the setting. The European advantage came from superior technology and the introduction of a lot of disease. But the use of bound gods and/or demons could have shifted the balance considerably, made things much less one-sided. Obviously there are all kinds of demons and gods with destructive wartime applications (especially aztec gods! Sheesh), and anything that could have blunted the spread or impact of the new diseases would have made a big difference.

>>75005
Yeah. Don't expect indepth alternative history development, I just thought about how the world might be changed by the kinds of powers in this quest. For example, many religions wouldn't exist as we know them, or would be considerably different. Which would have its own impact on history and... yeah. That's a lot of work for a quest like this and I probably won't dwell fully on that.

I did go over the Virginia stuff a bit with someone else--basically I'm better than him at coming up with this kind of weird concept, while he's better at the nitty gritty practical details like what industries a country would have and whatnot. Basically, I went to him with "What if the Native Americans had the ability to repulse the invaders?" and he suggested the breakdown of nations you see there in the quest.

So, I've been having way too much fun coming up with often random or nonsensical sayings to use for update subject lines. Should I switch to something more descriptive instead?

Also, here're a couple of demons.

Name: Infinity
Theme: Infinity
Sigil: The familar figure-eight infinity symbol.
Noteworthy stuff: One of the more well-known demons, but remarkably difficult to bind or comprehend. Even the smallest powers're beyond newbies. To boot, the greatest powers're literally impossible to use because near as anyone can tell they require infinite spiritual energy to use. You can't even use Infinity to get infinite spiritual energy because that requires infinite spiritual energy.

That said, Infinity can be used to make things persist longer than they otherwise would. In fact, it's one of the methods demonologists've used to achieve longevity.

Name: Eyeless
Theme: Illusions and the unreal
Noteworthy stuff: This demon perceives everything as an illusion. Its binders have to be careful not to lose themselves in solipsism, but it's very versatile in terms of manipulating perceptions. A very viable alternative to Nobody for coverups, but Nobody's more efficient at outright disappearing from notice.

Hrrm. Demons are frankly, things that never exist right, or can't exist normally right?
See, Right now I'm hearing 'bring cool fiction concepts to life' and I'm wanting a bit of clarity why there can't be a Demon of Powersuits/ Giant Mecha.
Something like that seems like it shouldn't be, but yet...Demons are all about things that don't exist, and perhaps never will. So it does seem like a legit possibility...

Continue having fun with the subject lines. Nothing wrong with how you've been using them.

>infinity
...huh. Not sure how I feel about that being rated as something outside the normal bounds of reality considering it's importance in math and physics. I mean, I sort of get how it's outside ordinary comprehension or application or experience, but. Could imply some differences in underlying physical laws and concepts.

>>75069
Good points. That'd make it one of the more borderline cases, then, with both proper/'deific' and improper/'demonic' uses. A lot of the more abstract gods're like that. The applications demonologists use it for definitely violate natural laws, though. ("People die when they die? Yeah fuck that.") Standard inquisitor procedure for those guys is to hurt them until they run out of spiritual energy.

Mecharious
Theme: Mecha suits.

Info-An odd Demon, Mecharious is one of the smaller demons, due to being slow to work with, and massive lack of subtlety. That said, this demon enables creation and utilization of 'battle suits' that increase in size, power, and duration of existance with more energy. No sigil, exists, mainly because the demon simply hasn't taken the time to 'stabilize' one that summons a simple armor or something, perferring to focus on whichever ideas it's current users are creating and aiding them in this process.

>>75076
I feel like you could extend that general concept to super robots, or possibly even mad science in general.

Now that I think about it, if something could exist but has not existed so far (like uninvented technology), would that make it a demon's domain or a god's?
Also, do magic, spiritual energy, and gods themselves count as part of reality for the purposes of gods/demons? Could there be a demon of any of those if so (or a god of those if not), or a demon of demons?

I'd say a demon of outlandish or impossible technology, really. Anything that couldn't actually happen in this universe. So mecha wouldn't count but crazy super mecha would. And potential technology isn't precisely a demon domain, but could fall under "Things Yet To Come" which could violate casualty by bringing in things or knowledge from the future. This is a more specialized and thus more efficient case than Tomorrow which covers more general time travel.

A sigilless demon isn't really usable. A foci is required, whether that be sigil or vessel (the latter not being an option for demons). Yes, this mean that there're sigils for gods, too; they're just way less used. Said sigils tend to be more sensible than demons'. Not an absolute rule, just a tendency.

Interesting question about magic/spiritual energy/gods being valid themes. I'd have to think about whether something as recursive as a god of gods or demon of demons would exist. Probably, but their usages would largely be limited to gaining knowledge--controlling their domains would take an infeasible amount of spiritual energy.

Spiritual energy and gods exist, so they are valid god but not demon themes. As for magic, let's unpack that word. The word 'magic' is honestly, my shorthand for 'the process of binding'. there could be a god of that sort of thing (but not a demon, even for the process of binding demons). Said god could make crafting vessels quicker and more efficient and make binding generally less taxing. Also, said god would be more friendly toward demons since essentially they're an important part of its theme.

Or in short, a god of binding exists. A god of magic, not really, because that includes the sort of unrealistic and fantastical thing you see in fantasy novels and whatnot. Stuff like waving wands and going hocus pocus. That's more of a demon thing. More explicitly, a demon of Fantastical Magic. Rather broad in application, thus more taxing than a narrow concept, and it would require following the forms of the magic (like waving a wand and going hocus pocus).

I'll add that there actually exist gods of technology and science which would be able to accelerate development somewhat by helping scientists and engineers postulate ideas projected from the natural laws, and whatnot. Big difference from using future knowledge, in that one is hypothesized using current knowledge while the other's pulled out of your ass. Notably, the latter could get you lottery numbers (so could Tomorrow, really). In theory a god of gambling could swing things in your odds, but they actually refuse to do this as that would go against what they stand for.

Kaja 2013/08/12(Mon)02:53 No. 75093 ID: 13d429
File 137630121548.jpg - (58.78KB , 662x662 , devourer.jpg )

Since it was mentioned in the latest update:

Name: The All-Devourer
Theme: Consumption of anything, physical or conceptual
Sigil: A circle with inward-pointing triangles symbolizing teeth
Noteworthy stuff: Unsurprisingly, it's constantly ravenous. Has been know to eat demonologists too weak to deal with it.

>>75072
Infinity being somehow both a god and demon, not really fitting either definition, and remaining practically unusable by human casters is amusing appropriate to theme.

>demon of impossible technology
Unless your aim is to escape persecution by escaping off-world, that seems an absurdly bad demon to contract. So much evidence. ...might work for some kind of secret base or remote hacking equipment? Dunno. Seems a hard fit for kids trying to blend in at a high school they already stand out in. Seems more suited to an adult with more resources and places to hide.

>Eyeless versus Nobody
Getting a demon to cover up what we've done is going to be an important part of the endgame. For the moment, I'm thinking simple cover ups is more attractive than illusions, especially with the pitfalls described. A highly subjective viewpoint is dangerous when you're already going around remolding reality. (And it's kind of meta, but we do illusion magic way too often. I don't really want to play Chee or Liz again).

>meta gods/demons
Whether or not they exist, they seem pretty far outside the scope of what we would have to worry about.

>gods
Starting to wonder what gods might be useful to have on hand, for long term planning. Main problem I see is a gods' vessel wouldn't be concealed the same way our demonic contracts would. And gods that are sympathetic or tolerant to demons are red flags we don't necessarily want to put up.

...the best god to have around might be something that works as a scapegoat. An acceptable target for others to blame what was really demonic intervention.

Jeeze. This is, uh, fairly intense scrutiny for day one of keeping up the masquerade.

Even if she lets us walk away, she already basically knows what happened. The only thing she seems to be lacking is proof or confirmation. Which means we'll have to turn our activities down to almost nothing to stay safe.

Yeah, I'm wondering if I played things a little too hard. But I intend to give you ways to get through this regardless, even if they might come with prices. Honestly, a large part of this happened because you covered up your escape in such a flashy way.

But rest assured, the situation isn't necessarily as bad as it looks. She isn't mentioning it for obvious reasons, but Virginia both requires more strict proof than the Holy Country and has a more busy, less well funded Inquisitor division. Also, you have a little more wiggle room than you think, if you're willing to take a risk you haven't been so far.

And regarding having to tone your activities down to almost zero, the Inquisitors aren't all-seeing. There're plenty of ways to do stuff without leaving traces where they'd be seen.

>you covered up your escape in such a flashy way.
Well, originally we were fairly ignorant as to how this world worked. I assumed the whitecloaks pursuing was a risk we had to prevent, and that there might be evidence of the ritual we didn't want to leave behind.

We weren't aware it would so obviously stand out as a work of discord, or the demonic patterns trace thing, and I didn't expect the whitecloacks responsible to get gnabbed so quickly.

>if you're willing to take a risk you haven't been so far.
The most obvious risk seems to be to lie directly to her, and count on Nobody shielding us, or using discord double-think to sell the lie to her truth god.

Big problem of course, if we outright say "I'm no diabolist" and we don't sell the lie is we're fucked. I was a lot more willing to try it before she let on she basically suspects discord- she might be wise to our specific tricks.

>Well, originally we were fairly ignorant as to how this world worked

Yeah, I'm definitely going to give you an out or two because of this now.

> lie directly to her
And the biggest of this- if we successfully beat her lie detector, and she later catches the lie? That proves we had a means to deceive her, that we used a demon.

Out of curiosity, are there any gods of secrets or concealment that are demon friendly and inquisitor opposed? We might want to boost our nobody shield, since it looks like that ain't gonna hack it for long and I don't think we can handle a third demon yet.

>>75116
Gods of stealth and the like can hide you from sight, but they can't make patterns look different (so you'd be able to go unseen, but not pass yourself off as an ordinary person). Demons're the only things that can mess with pattern sight; this has been covered already in the quest. If you wanted to amplify the nobody shield, you'd simply improve your spirit strength, and right now Haven has considerably more.

My current guess is Haven pulled a Rozalin.

Ie, she's a living sealed evil in a can. She voluntarily made herself into something less to enjoy her current life. And keeping the lid on that, and when possible, maintaining her own ignorance, is necessary to maintain it.

So it turns out designing a murder mystery, particularly a supernatural one, is hard. My apologies for the delay. I'll either try to finish it up today or just go with something more straightforward.

>>75299
Hmm. You could work around part of the difficulty of a free-form supernatural murder mystery with partial railroading, maybe. After all, we won't be in direct control of the inquisitor, and she has experience and protocols guiding her we're largely ignorant of.

Regardless, I'm glad to hear things will continue! I've been enjoying this quest.

nothing 2013/08/17(Sat)23:52 No. 75315 ID: 9ddf68
File 137680873496.png - (10.29KB , 1152x648 , The Dreamer.png )

Name: The Dreamer
Theme: Makes dreams into reality
Sigil: an empty eye
Noteworthy stuff: The Dreamer has the ability to make dreams real. For example if you were dreaming that you could fly then you would fly in real life, If you were dreaming you were someone else then you would become that person in real life, if you are dreaming that you are a bird then you'll become a bird in real life, ect. You're only limited by your spiritual power and imagination. (the more out of this world something is the more power it takes) In order to use The Dreamers powers you have to be sleeping but since the person is living there dream they usually just move around as if they were awake or pull people into there dreams, which means the easiest way to defeat someone using The Dreamer is to wake them up. (So unless they're a heavy sleeper or something whatever would wake them up normally will wake them up if they're using The Dreamer. Like they could be flying through the air only to have a random car alarm go off waking them up while they are still 'flying' causing them to go splat on the ground below and for this very reason most people using The Dreamer dope themselves up with sleeping aids before falling asleep). The Dreamer is also one of the hardest demons to summon/bind since in order to summon him you have to be asleep which most of the time means you have to be able to have lucid dreams (some people have somehow done it on accident while having normal dreams but that's extremely rare and they tend to have little to no control over there new power)

>>75315
I like this demon. Accidental binding is a hilarious notion, but you have to put the sigil on your body which is a kinda deliberate act. Though it might be possible for sleepers' closed eyes to count. I'd have to think on that. If so, then they'd just have to, for some reason, say "The Dreamer" repeatedly or otherwise call for its attention in their sleep. The third condition's already been met.

In fact, it's actually somewhat harder for lucid dreamers to meet said third condition. A little easier than most other demons, but still far harder than for a non-lucid dreamer (on the flipside, it's far easier for said lucid dreamers to invoke the demon's name and to deliberately use its abilities).

Yes, the third condition. I know I only listed the sigil and the calling of the demon's name before. The third condition is why binding your first demon is hard (though it becoming easier after that is another hint at what binding a demon does to you). A clue has already been given to said third condition in this quest, and the previous paragraph is also a huge clue.

Can any of you guess what it is? It'll be revealed regardless after we return to Kate.

>>75322
Well given this demon's power, if you bind/mark yourself in the dream it just transfers over to your real body. (that's how I saw it anyway) And the accidental idea I had I came up with when I asked myself "how would people learn about a demon that can only be found in there dreams" So I pictured it that people first found out about this demon completely by accident and only later found out how to properly use it's powers.

As for the 3rd condition... is to actually get the demon to appear/ show up for the binding... maybe.

>>75315
This demon sounds like a hilarious deathtrap that almost no sane person would want to consider using.

>sphere
It's starting to sound like a math department is a pretty blasphemous place to hang out. Every theoretical construct or idealized model is going to be the domain of some demon.

>>75339
It's not as much spheres as impossibly perfect spheres. But, yeah, a lot of those kinds of concepts have both divine and deomonic expressions, or even entities that're both. There were nations that banned that kind of thing, but they ended up eventually getting conquered by the ones that didn't. And anyway, it's not as much the conception of those kinds of things that's blasphemous as it is bringing them into the world.

Really, a lot of demon concepts kind nudge rather close to the line between unreal and real things--I tend to go more for cool and dramatic ideas than pure adherence. It's more of a general thematic guideline than a super strict one.

And the Dreamer'd actually be usable if you had a way to maintain awareness of the real world while asleep. Which, frankly, is one of the less insane things demonologists can do.

>>75339
Or to put it another way, those mathematical departments'd only be blasphemous if they tried to make those purely theoretic constructs and such real.

My apologies for the long delay in updating. I became preoccupied, and it didn't help that I lost an update already in progress, or that Marlene's section's been harder to write than the Katelynn section.

Glad to have you back!

>lost an update in progress
Did your browser or the site eat your post? One way to avoid that would be writing updates in a word processor / text editor that actually allows saving and copy pasting.

Or you can stick a form-recovery add on like Lazarus on your browser, so you can recover the text when your browser eats your posts.

>>76395
I used one that's apparently more memory efficient than Lazarus, but I didn't have it on the best settings for my needs. And anyway, it looks like it does a limited number of entries, so I've been pondering switching to another extension. In the meantime, I'm saving it in a text editor.

Also, thanks for the welcome back! Even if your IP's changed, I recognize your posting style, so a hearty welcome back to you too.

Hypothetical demon named 34.
Has the power to instantly transform things pornographically. This means making people and objects more sexually attractive/explicit/relevant, porning-up places, situations, relationships and organizations, or even outright making people start doing it with no warning or apparent reason for it.
(For shame, this discussion thread has existed for over a month and only just now someone is finally submitting this idea?)
I'm not even sure what 34's sigil should be, perhaps any representation of genitalia or sex will do (including a swastika)?

>>76418
I will concede memory efficiency isn't a strength of Lazarus'.

And yeah, I'm lucky if my ID says stable for a few weeks at a time.

>>76426
Demons are for things that don't exist. Rule 34 does exist, for everything. Therefore, that would be the domain of a god.

I suppose it would fly if you couched it more as a demon of impossible sexualization. Still, seems like there would be a lot of room for gods of love/sex/porn/etc. Not sure the rule-breaking freedom of turning to a demon would actually be much of an advantage, or worth it, for that powerset.

>>76426
Heh, rather cute. A little too much on the silly side for what I'm looking for, but it did mildly amuse me. Though my favorite would actually have to be the demon 63.

>>76427
And, yeah, that's another reason it wouldn't fit--sexuality falls quite well within gods' domain.

>>76427 >>76429
I would've figured that not all porn exists until some act of deliberate creation makes it exist. If it already existed that would imply infinite porn since there's infinite possibilities of porn, but there observably is not infinite porn so therefore the entity 34 is all about making the potential into the real. If you say that transforming the infinite potential of porn into actual, existing porn is a matter for the divine in this cosmology then... I guess it is. I was figuring it would be demonic since it didn't actually exist because an infinity of porn existing in physical reality is a fucking bizarre concept. I mean not even the internet is infinite, so where would it all exist?

>>76430
Okay, I'll clear this up. You seem to have profoundly misunderstood this, which's probably my fault for not making it more clear. First of all, this isn't about specific instances of concepts. This is about the concept itself. The concept of porn exists in the world and has many instances. The instances that don't currently exist're still covered under the umbrella of the concept that exists. Just like how there isn't a demon of humanity just because not all humans that can possibly exist do, or demon of suns just because not all suns that can possibly exist do, or demon of trees because... well, you get the idea. Again, it isn't about specific instances. It's about whether the concept's even possible. Sure, it's extremely improbable that the prime minister of Virginia'll suddenly start making out with the Aztec Emperor, but that's still something that could conceivably happen within the rules of the world.

So I guess the real dividing line between gods and demons isn't the existent and the nonexistent, but the possible and the impossible.

>>76431
Mm, cleared. This certainly implies things about Discord. It also suggests that we may even want to try a cool end-run variant on resurrecting Katelynn's parents where we regrow them. You know, impossibly grow the same people over and then hide the evidence that they actually died in the first place.