Not all spellcasters are content with the temporary minions provided by Conjure spells. For those who want lasting, independent servants, and who don't mind potentially releasing horrible monsters into the world as a consequence, the demons of Pandaemonium are all too happy to provide their services.

Summoning a demon has three requirements. The first is a magic circle, one at least large enough to contain the demon to be summoned, carved into the ground or floor and left undisturbed to collect power for at least a week before the summoning. Most practicing warlocks have a secret room dedicated entirely to summoning, with a semi-permanent circle etched into stone to be used at a moment's notice, but any fairly solid surface will suffice for those who are willing to wait (even earth, so long as the circle is guarded against any scuffing or rinsing).

The second requirement is knowledge of the ritual itself. These rules assume the use of a particular Knowledge skill, Demonology, to perform the summoning; as such, anyone with ranks in the skill can be assumed to know the ritual (even those who study the skill to fight demons can probably figure it out). If the summoning is based on some other skill, the required knowledge is a simple narrative prerequisite, and it shouldn't be too difficult to find if one knows where to find the less savory magical communities (most demons want to keep the summoning rituals widespread).

The last requirement is some sort of sacrifice. Different demons accept different sacrifices, but a general rule is that the summoner must expend more expensive sacrifices to summon more powerful demons, if the sacrifices even can be purchased. However, any idiosyncratic sacrificial requirement can be waived by sacrificing a human or similar sapient being, which contributes in no small manner to the poor reputation of demon summoners.

The summoning itself takes about an hour and, as such, is a narrative-time Demonology skill check. The summoner must declare three factors prior to rolling: The general type of demon, the skill level of the demon, and the task the demon is to perform.

Demon Type

The type of demon summoned determines the base difficulty of the check, as follows:

Difficulty | Type
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1          | A weak demon with no special powers, such as an imp
           | Usefulness limited to minor conveniences, not serious tasks
------------------------------------------------------------------------
2          | A minor demon, such as a hellhound
           | No special capabilities beyond natural creatures, though 
           | they need no training to perform their bound tasks
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
3          | A demon with supernatural potency, such as a living shadow
           | This sort of demon has powers that strike fear in the hearts
           | of ordinary mortals, though trained demon-hunters will have
           | little problem dispatching them
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
4          | A demon of notable power, such as a succubus
           | One-on-one, such demons are a match for even experienced
           | demon-hunters (or foolish summoners who find that they have
           | lost control of their servants)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
5          | A truly formidable demon
           | The deeds of such beings have often passed into legend

Skill Level

Summoned demons rarely merit complete stat write-ups, and are usually far more specialized than any human would be. As such, summoned demons have only a single skill, rated from 1 to 5, which applies to anything within their fairly narrow purview, defined by their species (for example, an imp uses its skill rating when causing mischief, while a living shadow uses it to skulk and strangle). Demonic species capable of using magic have the Arcana skill at either their skill level or the difficulty to summon them, whichever is lower. Beyond those two areas, demons are unskilled, though the GM may give a demon half its skill (rounded down) if a task is tangentially related to its raison d'etre .

After setting the difficulty, upgrade it a number of times equal to skill level.

Task

Each demon is summoned for a specific task, which is defined during the summoning ritual. A task must be defined in a single sentence with a single independent clause, thus, "Slay my rival at his wedding feast" is a viable task, while "Slay my rival at his wedding feast, and bring some cake back for me" is not. Bound demons will adhere to the spirit of the task itself, so there's no need to worry about the wording being twisted (and unbound demons don't care about the task anyway).

It's possible to give a demon a highly open-ended and flexible task, such as "serve as my personal assassin." Doing so is inadvisable, however, as this causes the binding to expire after one lunar month. For all other tasks, the binding lasts for one year. Upon completing its task, the demon sticks around for the remainder of the scene before slipping back into Pandaemonium (its binding remains intact while it lingers, so it will not undo its own success to spite the summoner). If the demon's binding expires while its task remains incomplete, it will become unbound, free to work whatever evils it desires upon our world. This may seem like a perverse incentive, but the binding ensures that it will make a good faith effort to fulfill its task before the binding expires.

The Roll Itself

Once all of the above is established, summoning a demon is a simple narrative-time Demonology check against a difficulty set by the demon's type and skill, as above. Boost dice can come from making especially large sacrifices, or from choosing a task that directly advances the cause of **** on Earth (though benefiting from the latter may be a sign that you are stark raving mad). Setback dice can come from choosing a task ill-suited or repellent to the demon's nature, such as summoning a succubus to disguise herself and take your place at a convent.

If the roll is a success, the demon manifests in your circle, and you need only restate the task as a formal command before loosing it upon the world to carry out your bidding; it is guaranteed to harm neither you nor anyone else present at the summoning so long as its binding lasts and none of you attempt to interfere with its task. On a failure, the circle's magic is expended to no effect--unless, of course, you have uncancelled threat or a Despair, in which case you might not like the effect it ends up powering.

Special advantage options:

• 1 Adv: You summon an unusually broad-minded demon. Choose some other niche outside of (but no broader than) the demon's natural purview. It can now apply its full skill there as well.
• 1 Adv: The demon has some supernaturally-acquired tidbit of information that will help it on its task: For instance, if you summon it to search a particular region for a lost artifact, it may already know which city the artifact is in.
• 2 Adv: You summon a unique, mutant variety of the demon, with a special magical quality or increased characteristics.
• Triumph: The demon's binding will not expire

Special threat options:

• 1+ Threat: For each threat spent, the demon gains a Rebellion Point. The GM can later spend a Rebellion Point to let the demon ignore its bindings to carry out a single goal in the scene. This may compromise its Task, but won't directly cause it to fail.
• 1 Threat: The summoner suffers a tainted wound. This wound is obviously demonic in nature, though hiding it is at worst inconvenient. It also resists healing, reducing the summoner's Wound Threshold by one for the rest of the session. When it does heal, it leaves behind a scar that might be identified as demonic if examined closely.
• 2 Threat: The demon has a specific agenda. It won't directly conflict with its Task, but the demon will attempt to realize its agenda as much as possible within the Task's confines. After completing its Task, the demon remains in this world to carry out its agenda.
• 3 Threat: If the skill roll fails, the demon is still summoned, but is not bound.
• 3 Threat: The magic circle continues to leak hellish energies, blighting the land around you. The blight spreads evenly, creating a circular pattern that is obviously unnatural (and easy to triangulate) to anyone with a map.
• Despair: The magic circle becomes a persistent portal. Unless you manage, with great difficulty, to seal it back up again, unbound demons will occasionally find their way through.
• 2 Despair: The summoner is bodily transported to ****.

That looks pretty cool! I do have a couple of suggestions:

In my setting, I added a Knowledge skill called "Forbidden Lore", which is a career skill for a small number of classes, and is not attainable except as a career skill. It covers pretty much every kind of terrible, sanity-blasting secret you would expect. That might be more useful as a general "things we were not meant to know" skill than Demonology, while serving the same purpose for your rules.

Also, you should probably set a limit on how many demons one can have bound. I suggest Presence or Willpower rating -1 or -2 as the limit. In addition, attempting to summon additional demons while you have one bound increases the difficulty of the ritual by one Difficulty per currently bound demon (or if you're feeling especially cruel, it upgrades one Difficulty die per demon already bound).

I'll steal that.

The tier 3 Animal Companion talent is another approach to having a bound demon. It's also useful for something like a golem.

59 minutes ago, Direach said:

That looks pretty cool! I do have a couple of suggestions:

In my setting, I added a Knowledge skill called "Forbidden Lore", which is a career skill for a small number of classes, and is not attainable except as a career skill. It covers pretty much every kind of terrible, sanity-blasting secret you would expect. That might be more useful as a general "things we were not meant to know" skill than Demonology, while serving the same purpose for your rules.

Also, you should probably set a limit on how many demons one can have bound. I suggest Presence or Willpower rating -1 or -2 as the limit. In addition, attempting to summon additional demons while you have one bound increases the difficulty of the ritual by one Difficulty per currently bound demon (or if you're feeling especially cruel, it upgrades one Difficulty die per demon already bound).

Or the total Willpower of all your daemons must be less than or equal to yours. Anything over and you need to make checks to control them with the difficulty equal to the amount their Willpower exceeds yours.

This way you can have multiple small daemons or a single larger one, too many isn’t too risky if it’s only a little bit but if you get greedy things can go off the rails really quickly

Nice! You should talk to Cyvaris and put your alt rules together with his and create a tome of secret magical knowledge. I have seen seveal good ideas in the forums for talents,rules and so that get swallowed after a couple of days. I would hate if these great ideas would permanently be lost to the community.