Daemon

Imperfect Ascension to Immortality

When you transfer your character to the Daemon playbook, you gain demonic power:
Primordial and Summoning. You retain action points, special abilities, friends, rivals,
and items. Reset your trauma and stress to 0. Change your xp triggers and vice according
to instructions below.
This playbook lacks certain features required to create new characters, and as such, must
be transferred to by an existing character. This playbook is not accessible by normal means -
the character must find the arcane and potentially perilous way into the Ascension.

XP Triggers
-You caused ruthless destruction or displayed overwhelming force.
-You prioritized your dark desire over your former beliefs, drives, heritage, or background.
-You struggled with issues from your vice or compulsions.

Vice
You started to form a Dark Desire. A complete Demon indulges its desire whenever the
opportunity is present, but for now yours are content to be fulfilled once a while. You may
indulge vice by spending one downtime activity, or when the situation allows.
What is your Dark Desire, and how do you normally indulge it?

Example desires: Mayhem, Knowledge, Corruption, Power, Freedom, Influence, Pleasure.

Consult page 304 of Core Rulebook.

Compulsion
Instead of trauma, you gain compulsion. Upon marking the fourth compulsion, you're
completely consumed by your dark desire and no longer can be considered a person. You
must retire, and highly likely to reappear as an NPC demon who has an unusual(and more
often than not, undesirable) interest in your crew.

Superiority
You consider humans to be inferior and weak, and will belittle or ignore them.
Most people will not take it well, especially if you’re pretending to be a human. Not like that
matters, though.

Ostentatious
You like to show off your greatness, insight or intricate plans - with speeches or actions.
You might indulge a villainous monologue and say too much, or attempt an unnecessary act
of grandeur.

Apathy
Human emotion is hard for you to understand or sympathize with.
You used to be human after all, surely it shouldn’t be that difficult? Right?

Unstable
Your mood changes easily and unpredictably.
Bad news to anyone interacting with you, considering your strength and power.

Paranoid
You are obsessed with personal safety, and trust no one.
Anything that may threaten your precious immortality must be destroyed with extreme
prejudice. Your true name must be guarded zealously.

Conceit
You are overconfident and will not relent in face of actual danger or tasks beyond your
abilities.
given your resilience, “actual danger” would not be what it means for a normal human.

Inattentive
It is hard for you to focus on things, unless it is directly related to your Dark Desire.
It’s probably not that important anyways.

Obsessive
You are obsessed with a certain goal or method that is not directly related to your Dark
Desire.
Maybe you’re taking some sort of artist mindset. Maybe you prefer certain methods a bit too
much.

Corruption
Obtaining the power of the demon puts you further away from humanity. Unless otherwise
stated, you gain one corruption each time you take a demonic power (not including your
first ones, Primordial and Summoning).

Temptation
You have to resist when passing on an opportunity to indulge your Dark Desire.
Resisting your desire alone doesn’t count as struggling with it.

Radiation
Even when you hide your demonic feature or true form, everyone can feel that you are not
an ordinary being.
The extent of it depends on how acquainted they are to the supernatural. A normal person
might get an ominous feeling or strong impression on you, while a Whisper frequently
dealing with Demons might get the gist of your true nature.

Rejection
Demonbane Charm affects you. You may resist its effect.
Demonbane charm is an arcane device that demons prefer to avoid. It might give you an
unpleasant, adverse reaction or even fear. Every charm is a bit different, and the owner of
the charm (mostly the GM) says how exactly it affects you.

Restraint
Your human name compels you. Those who know your true name can summon you even
without your permission (you are compelled to answer this summoning), and you must abide
by any vow you make upon your name.
If you were for any reason using your real name as a scoundrel, now is a good time to get an
alias. How many people know your human name? How many among those know what you
currently are?

Mutation
You take a beastly or monstrous appearance. Everyone will immediately know you are a
supernatural being.
Skin of smoldering coal, a giant of soil and rock, a serpent made of water, an amorphous
mass of element, etc.

Ferocity
When you lose composure, you transform into a monstrous form. The form remains until
you regain composure.

Sublimation
Your spirit no longer exists. Death of your current body means total destruction.
The process is gradual, and your personality - or what is left of it - is safely transferred to
your physical body.

Demonic Power
Demonic powers are not special abilities, and therefore cannot be accessed by veteran
advancement. Upon filling the Playbook XP track, you may choose and get one Demonic
Power or one Special Ability(as Veteran advancement).

Primordial
Demons symbolize primal forces of the universe. Choose an element you represent. You
gain a demonic physical feature related to your elemental affinity. At this stage, pretending to
be a Tycherosi is still feasible.
Mundane physical attack or harm is ineffective against you. You are immune to the
supernatural fear some beings instill upon sight, and to possession by spirits.
When the downtime begins, mark 4 ticks on your healing clock. You cannot be treated in
normal ways, but may spend a downtime activity to mark 4 ticks on the healing clock.
You have 12 stress boxes instead of 9, and your xp tracks are longer (you now advance
more slowly). You gain compulsion instead of trauma.
Gaining a compulsion or physical harm causes you to temporarily lose composure
(compulsion does not drop you out of current conflict). In this state, you can only perform
actions related to indulging your dark desire or removing the threat in front of you. You regain
composure after sufficiently indulging your desire.

Summoning
You may grant a permission to summon you to any person you wish. A summoning is a
simple ritual that lets you know who summoned you, and where. You may communicate with
your summoner by simple messages. Summoning does not compel you to answer. You may
revoke permission any time.
A summoning is a simple occult ritual that requires no stress, downtime activity, special item,
or action roll. It takes a few minutes to prepare, and hard to perform while moving unless on
a vehicle. Ritual component includes the element you symbolize, but you decide how exactly
it has to be performed. Summoning alone does not grant you travel to the place.

Arcane Speech
You speak in the ancient tongue of sorcery. Every human ear can discern it. When you push
yourself, you can speak arcane effects related to your elemental affinity into existence. If the
magnitude or scale of the effect is high, GM may require additional stress, other cost,
artifact, power source, or other condition.
When you take this power, you may choose to not add corruption. Doing so will cause you
to speak only in the Arcane Speech.
While humans can understand the Arcane Speech, they certainly know it is, in fact, not a
language they normally use.

Shapeshifting
You may take 1 stress to transform into a creature of your choosing, including human. You
may take an additional 2 stress to gain the creature’s special ability or mimic someone’s
exact appearance(unless it is your own former self, in which case it is free). You start a score
transformed (spend stress for additional effect only). Reverting to your true form does not
cost stress. You gain +1d to hide your identity or avoid notice while transformed.

Follower
You gain followers that absolutely obey and pay dedication to you. Create and add a gang
cohort as usual, and add Edge: Loyal(without adding a Flaw). Followers know your true
name.
Taking this power does not add corruption.
Their “dedication” might not always align with your intention. Do not trust them too much.
Also note while their respect may extend to your crewmate, they are ultimately loyal only to
you.

Ruinous Force
You may push yourself to do one of the following: perform a feat of superhuman strength or
speed - engage a large gang on equal footing.
When you push yourself to activate this ability, you still get one of the normal
benefits of pushing yourself (+1d, +1 effect, etc.) in addition to the special ability.
If you perform a superhuman feat, you might shatter stones and dent steel with your bare
hands, overtake a galloping horse, jump from ground level to rooftop, etc. This factors into
effect.
If you engage a large gang on equal footing, you don’t suffer reduced effect due
to scale against a large gang (up to 20 people).

Remote Vision
You may use elemental affinity to achieve clairvoyance. Depending on the distance, arcane
protection and other circumstances, may require fortune roll, action roll or resistance.
Your element must be present in both your position and target location. Candlelight, puddle
of water, stone wall, etc.

Strange Travel
You may take 1 stress to teleport through your elemental affinity, alone(0) and up to the
places down the road(3). You may take additional stress to take others with you or travel
longer distance - take one stress for each additional level of scale or range. Depending on
the arcane protection and other circumstances, may require fortune roll, action roll or
resistance. Teleporting to answer a summoning does not cost stress.
Your element must be present in both your position and target location. bonfire, well, pile of
dirt, etc. Consult the Magnitude table for additional effects.

Anechoic
You are no longer visible to ghosts and cannot be harmed by them. You are immune to all
harms inflicted on spirit. You can no longer directly perceive or interact with Ghost Field. You
are still able to indirectly influence the Ghost Field with the objects of the real world, or
attune and harness Electroplasmic energy.
Taking this power does not add corruption.
You can no longer perceive things that exist only on Ghost Field, such as echo, spirit well or
some magical traces. Note that a ghost that manifests has some presence in the reality.
Some special abilities may conflict with this power - these abilities are now accessed through
tools or arcane ritual, and may temporarily be broken or disrupted.

Instill Fear
You are terrifying for the living to behold. Anyone who sees you either freezes up in fear or
flees in panic. A PC can resist with Resolve to ignore the effect. Those with frequent
exposure to the supernatural may be resistant or immune to the fear you cause. You do not
instill fear while transformed.
Taking this power does not add corruption. However, you may choose to add a corruption
and gain the ability to decide who to not cause fear. This also enables you to instill fear in a
person you choose, while transformed.