Player wanted to forge a pact with a demon. And it was going to be a project, until the Demonic Notice entanglement came up: so I decided it should offer up a double-edged sword of a deal. Perform the “arcane ritual” of binding (p.235) to get its service and/or take a voluntary Trauma to get Dark Attendant for free. I think this was kind of a bad deal for the PC, but she accepted! I just hope I can make it worth it for her.. (without making it an insta-win thing – since the demon is magnitude 5)
I guess the description of DA is basically saying to speak up when the PC needs advice, or to fight off threats to the PC, but when? It threatens to be a catch-all (and I don’t really like that). What are some ways to keep it from being that, but still give it teeth?
Edit: the pact says “it must be well-satisfied” which I am not having trouble with (it desires control, and the PC knows this, or else I couldn’t rightly enforce when it will work towards her destruction). This is more about the fact it “may not refuse” her, combined with it being “ready to appear at an instant”, “will manifest” to fight for her, and offers advice “without need for specific command.” Is this meant to be end-game material?
xD Maybe it wasn’t such a bad deal after all..
Maybe it only shows up in combat if the PCs blood is shed by a foe? And for advice, maybe the character has to bribe it, like with a true name.
Other drawbacks might be:
the demon is strong, so much so an aura of evil effects everyone in the room (including the PC).
The Demon demands a stone’s weight of human flesh before returning to Hell.
Ancient law prevents the demon from actually killing a foe (hurting is alright)
Every question posed to the demon causes a tooth, nail, or large amount of hair to fall out.
Perhaps it helps them, but only when helping serves its agenda.
So it wants to break through the walls of reality into Doskval, but cannot because of the Spirit Warden rituals that protect the city – and also the death eater crows can see the cracks in reality as it pushes through?
Anything where the PCs are working against the Spirit Wardens, or will kill crows, it helps with.
Anything where the PCs will be helping the spirit wardens, it’ll lie about. So it’ll give false advice, say, if a Spirit Warden is getting help it might tell them that the Warden is lying. Or it might reveal something true, but unrelated, such as the warden is a murderer. It wants to get the PCs back on track working against its enemies.
And with unrelated stuff? It’ll help, but only when it can turn that help against its enemies.
Of course, don’t tell the players what the goals are. They can figure that out by inference, when they notice what it helps them with and when it stays silent.
Left out some pertinent info about what in Demonic Attendant is of concern, so I edited it into the OP. Basically, DA acknowledges and prevents most of what you mentioned, and so wouldn’t be fair considering the deal I made. As for the rest:
Gennifer Bone re: “demon is so strong” The crew was present for the encounter (sadly for them), and it already paralyzed every PC it could (they had to resist before acting, which they did and one acquired trauma as a result!). In other words: Yes!
re: “demands a stone’s weight of human flesh” As much as I like that, it would betray the deal. I do like the falling out teeth, nails, and hair for flavor after each encounter A LOT though!
re: “ancient law” Like it! I kind of did this already in fact. We reasoned that since it “will work in secret” towards her destruction if she doesn’t satisfy it, and yet it was manifesting as part of the entanglement (and had put on quite a display already), it must be that binding makes murder of the other participant by the bound really difficult – painful even. Or else the text would say straight-up “it can show up to kill you” or similar when it’s not happy. So, I told her that part of this binding is that any action which works against the other will require a resist roll first – to which Iron Will does not make her immune (she was free to act without resisting first when it showed up, but not now that this deal is struck).
Tony Demetriou re: “Spirit Warden rituals protecting” Yes! However, it can manifest. And I suspect through more than its elemental affinity – water, preferably from the Void Sea (it’s a sea hag/succubus demon, with a void-serpent as its “Hermes” if you will). I told them I would roll fortune for it to manifest despite lacking the proper materials, but with a bit of void sea water, it just happens.
My preferred drawback for this kind of thing is the unstated and typically unintended drawback.
Demon Politics.
Namely that there are likely other demons hiding about Duskwall with their own little pawns playing their own little games, and a demon of control ls likely to be deep into the political / turf game.
While demons might have a hard time striking out at each other, assets are another matter entirely…
if you find the attendant becomes the solution to every problem (If you have a demon, every problem becomes a pathetic human waiting to be gutted), I would suggest asking your player how they think it should be curtailed. Hopefully your player isn’t just looking for an ‘I win button’ and you can have a conversation with them and see what limitations they suggest or are willing to accept.
Every time the demon is used to kill, it comes back… different. bigger horns. eyes turning red. The buds of wings form on the back. This doesn’t change it’s stats, but it does remind the PC they are feeding evil.
Gennifer Bone Not much of a drawback to your standard blades PC
If a demon pops out to fight for you every time you’re in trouble, you quickly become the #1 target of the spirit wardens, all day, every day, until you’re melted in electroplasm.
The powers-that-be will not abide open demonic mayhem and they are much more powerful than you and your pet demon if they care enough to rally the required forces to squash you.
Remember the Moscow Rules (especially number 8).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moscow_rules
Mark Griffin less a drawback, and more something they remember.
Perhaps each and every summoning puts a stain upon your soul. Let’s a “point” of stain per summoning. The PC doesn’t know about, and the demon isn’t telling. Every point is a penalty against resisting demonic magic. From any source.
Of course! Since their “Accosted by Spirit Wardens” clock is still lingering from alchemical uses – maybe I should just use that