City of Spires

Edited by Cassey Toi

The begining Treasures once filled even the beggar’s satchels, the towers of the least nobles reaching heights of a hundred feet or more, a red light district like none the world had ever seen, dens of vice filled with all sorts of vile and decadent pleasures, temples to gods long forgotten gilded in diamond plucked from trees of platinum, all this and more could be found in the City of Spires in central Shayakand. When the empire fell, and the endless hordes of raiders, pirates and poverty stricken from without the city came to the splendors, the saw for themselves an opportunity. Riches beyond imagining lay before them, and history thousands of years in the making lay at their fingertips. The rarest artifacts fell first. The royal seals, the genie king bottles, the diamond seeds of the platinum trees. In a matter of months the City of Spires was stripped bare, from its most secure vaults to its last drops of crystal clear water, everything disappeared, some ending up on the other side of the planet or on other planes entirely. For two hundred years, the Spires have stood, slowly crumbling beneath the weight of age.

However, one thing remains in the city, and draws power to it still. Unknown to even the most thorough of the looters, and even the last emperor himself, was that the gods always watched over the City of Spires. The instant it fell, an avatar of five gods manifested in the catacombs beneath the royal palace. They waited out the ransacking of the city and then walked its ruined streets, lay in its torn beds and searched the vaults for something to remember the glory by. Four gods found something that only they could connect to, took it into themselves, and departed back to the heavens. The fifth, who was not a full god  merely a demideity, had no ability to create avatars, and so was there in all his power. When he found something to take with him, something from deep within the earth, the very essence of the city and the planet, struck out at him. It was as though the corruption wrought in those months finally found an outlet in this young god. Wracked with divine, horrid agony, this unfortunate entity fell into a state of eternal torpor, a gaping hole in his chest that oozed strange, indescribable liquid.

For two hundred years this god, caught between life and death, called the mad, cruel and sick to the City of Spires. Only the most depraved and twisted can hear the call, and so some of the first to come were rakshasas, aboleths and powerful demons, devils and aberrations without name. With the god’s body entombed behind walls of enchanted, indestructible adamantine doors, the new denizens of the City of Spires have found their own ways to harness the powers of the corruption of the land, city and god. Their efforts drew many, lesser evils to the ruins, and now a ecosystem exists, hidden from the outside world by the machinations of those in control. Until one of the denizens finds a way to the god, none plan to make a move. Of course,  it’s just a matter of when.

Chattel District

The largest and dirtiest district of the City, made up of what was once the market, residential and beggar districts, the area is home to the various lesser aberrations, demons and devils that swear fealty, are slave to, or are bound to, the powerful leaders of the four factions. From chokers and assassin vines, bearded devils and dretches, lemures and quasits, imps and doppelgangers, the inhabitants live in squalor, the streets and buildings covered in two inch thick slime from the years of waste and torture and murder. The actual living quarters of the city vary in look and furnishing, catering to the various temperaments and desires of those residing in them.

For the devils, almost all of the various houses, shacks and lean-tos have their walls covered in paper, shackles and various implements of torture.  Of the aboleths, their servitors in the pit of the Chattel District do not walk its streets or crawl beneath them. Instead, their servants are, in fact, their larvae, maturing slowly on the waste, blood and entrails of outsiders, other aberrations and the lingering despair of the lost people of the city.

The demons, on the other hand, have no real reason to make anything of their homes, and so fill them with whatever they wish.  Among the demons and unknown to them is the shadow demon called Xirix. A being of extreme conflictions; his body is made of pure darkness but, contains a single mote of the first star to light the sky above Shayakand, Xirix serves the will of both the Abyss and Heaven at the same time. Thoroughly insane, Xirix currently works to subtly and constantly shift the balance of power from one faction to another, keeping the entire city in a state of constant chaos, but safeguarding the god’s corpse from desecration and exploitation. The only beings who know of its existence are the aboleth masters, but even with their supreme intellect, they can neither predict nor impede Xirix’s movements, and this fact infuriates them to no end.

Lastly, the rakshasa pashas, who reside in the spires of the royal palace where the Emperor lived his last days, hear reports from the various aberrations that infest the sewer system and the dark streets not even the demons or devils enter. These hordes chafe at their pride, however, and so the pashas count the whispers of the wickedest members of the former city populace as their allies. Not ghosts in any sense of the word, the whispers are more impressions, emotional runoff and secret wishes left behind not by death, but by the empire’s fall itself. Tapping into these reservoirs of strange energy through a means provided by their allies in the unknown planes, the rakshasa understand the city and its energy better than any save perhaps the whispers themselves. Because of this, they are the closest to finding the god’s corpse, yet progress has slowed. Something stands in their way, a thing of light and shadow, the very same being that stymies the aboleth and pits the demons and devils against not only each other but the rest of the city. Xirix does its work well.

Center of Conflict

Perhaps the most dangerous place in all of Shayakand, it is in this once glorious courtyard of the Grand Palace, that the open battles for territory, power, status, magic and souls take place. Demon blood, devil’s bile, the nameless fluids of the aberration all co-mingle here and are funneled, via the city’s complex sewer system as modified by the aboleth, into the Chattel District. For twenty years, the fighting has continued at all hours. The entire area is deemed the only place where fighting can occur by all of the major factions. In a rare show of co-operation, the nalfeshnee and ice devil lords agreed to forbid conflict anywhere else in the city. The rakshasas were not at all fond of the idea, but with fewer numbers and plots both groups could easily undo with force, they acquiesced and quietly await the day they find the corpse.

For the aboleth’s part, the whole mess is merely a tool for the advancement of their children’s growth. They have noticed, however, that the force hampering their progress does not deign to enter the Center, or the area within a thousand feet of it. Therefore, they are slowly shifting the centers of their plans to that area. To that end, several double agents among the ranks of the demons and devils that oversee the ongoing battle work for the aboleth and their own faction. On the demon side, several crystals of Abyssal ice are placed at key points in the courtyard, collecting energy the demons do not understand and the aboleth wish to keep secret. The devils draft contracts in concentrated aboleth blood and circulate them throughout the ranks of devils that both live in the area and have stakes in the fighting.

The rakshasas look down from their spires in the palace in disgust at the constant bloodshed while sipping cups of finely distilled Sanguine Ecstacy. They have knowledge of the double agents and know the general location of roughly one third of the strange crystals. They have copies of several dozen aboleth blooded contracts which they’ve tried, unsuccessfully so far, to decode and exploit. They too have noticed Xirix’s, for they know its name, lack of motion in this place. While they find it curious, their plans take place on a much subtler, more subterranean scale. The catacombs beneath the city swarm with the whispers, and as the rakshasas learn more of the deep vaults, the closer they come to their, goal.

Xirix is, of course, not inactive in the Center. Far from it. This is perhaps its favorite place to “play” as it calls it. It was Xirix who provided the rakshasa with their intel, not the whispers, though it would thank that strange phenomenon if it could or felt a need to. Traversing the line between law and chaos and blending in “more than perfectly,” as the aboleth would call it if they knew, Xirix gathers little trinkets from each of the factions and scatters them around the entirety of the Old Empire, from one side of the peninsula to the other. More importantly, Xirix has, hidden and locked away the collected knowledge, or the majority of it, of every faction combined. If any of the warring parties found Xirix and somehow extracted that information, that group would find the god within months, rather than decades. Flitting between loyalties, moralities and motivations by the day, sometimes the hour, Xirix remains, and shall remain, at large for a long while yet.

Hell’s Bastion

Dominated by a river of molten steel tempered with the blood of the damned, what was once administrative district now resesmbles nothing of the kind. The gates of the noble’s quarter, masked by impossible illusion, show Asmodeus himself spewing forth the river of crimson slag. All around this horrid testament to the power and will of Hell dance the mindless hordes of lemures that feed on the infernal metal, growing slowly into whatever their Lord wishes of them.

Where the river ends, a spire of supercooled lead rises, transformed from mithril while retaining the toughness. At the peak of the spire the eyes of the gelugon master of Hell’s hordes gaze out over the city, directing the movements of its lieutenants through telepathy and carefully worded trigger phrases. A cleric of Hell itself rather than any of the archdukes, the ice devil wants for nothing in its chilly demense, but can feel the power of the god-corpse surging through the ground and into the metal. A crystal culled from the Mines of Mammon acts as an indirect connection to the divine energies emanated from the corpse, but can divulge neither the keys to its prison nor the exact location of the vault.

Infesting the tower and spilling onto the fields of tempered steel that were once homes of the wealthy merchants not quite rich enough to live in the noble’s quarter. Barabzus and erinyes patrol the ground and the sky. Hell’s archers collect the wrath that still hangs in the air around the failed nobles’ former homes. Hamatulas prowl the rifts in the earth carved by the reshaping of the spire, searching for and secreting away the hidden clues to and of the god-corpse.

However, perhaps the most important task the devils undertake as they take part in their dual role of power acquisition and divine energy collection is the simplest. They want to continue the expansion of a virtually undetectable sphere of infernal energy, to cover the entire city, and, should all go well, the whole of Shayakand. Unfortunately, every other faction besides the demons know about the sphere. The rakshasa, through the whispers, knew of it first. The aboleth know the most, but either do not understand the intention or care enough to do anything. If the demons know, it is only their nalfeshnee leader who has any idea what it may or may not portend. Regardless, they seem little concerned, and the eternal bloodbath that occurs in their part of the city continues unabated. Xirix haunts them in the shadows of the lead tower and the darkest corners of the ice devil’s living quarters, smiling inwardly as the infernal pawn struggles against a chain it can never break.

Chaos Uncontrolled

At the center of the sluice, which feeds and dilutes into the Chattel District, is a simple mound, several dozen feet high, made of bones, disappointing demon servants and whatever else she feels like: the throne of Izirales, nalfeshnee vassal to the Lord of the Unknown. She makes few decrees to her servants, talking instead to groups divided by general ability and power. To them is a single task, to be carried out in whatever way they feel fit. Izir, as she calls herself, is in perfect tune with the pure chaos of the demon and knows that despite what her underlings do, ultimately, serve her purposes. Her agreement with the ice devil (whose name she wishes he would say, only so that she could defame it), is a direct order from the Lord and it chafes at her pride with every second that passes. The strict limitations the devil set down were approved before she read them, and her only solace is her master’s portfolio: the unknown.

The slums and waste pits of the City were the least of its splendors, yet there were beautiful things here to. Sinkholes for sewage blocked by obsidian stoppers and material waste incinerated into a fine violet mist. Now, those places spew forth untold repulsiveness. The sewers serve up both failed aboleth experiments for the demons to feast on and the worst the city has to offer. The demons use it as “bathwater.” The material waste is now just that: “wasted” pieces of the material, plucked away by demons, toyed with and cast aside. It molders and stinks, bending the air around it just enough to be revolting.

Because the demons do as they “wish,” they do not seem to have any overarching goals to drive their activities. Izir knows otherwise, as she wants nothing more than to spread the indescribable chaos of the Abyss across the entire world and into the space beyond it. That she cannot accomplish this alone or with the help of “her” servants she doesn’t know, but the aboleth are keenly aware of it and the contract with the ice devil clearly states as such. Xirix still feels the faintest attachment to the demons and so dances with his shadow demon cousins until they just begin to see him. Then he vanishes, seemingly without having done anything.

Caverns of the Unknowable

When they named their current base of operations, the aboleth were unaware their future neighbors would a) be demons and b) be servants to the Lord of the Unknown. Despite this, their pride and innate knowledge of “we were here first” keeps them from changing the name of the cave system. Besides its name, no one has any good idea of what the inner workings of their home looks like. Ostensibly, it simply is a large cave system with a huge central chamber, wherein a gigantic sphere of water, opaque enough to be almost a solid mass surrounded by strange apparatus that modern scientific and magical knowledge cannot begin to fathom. Whether this is actually what the caves look like, or indeed if they are even caves, is unknown to the demons, devils and rakshasa equally. None of them have the means to decode the infinitely complex equations that make up whatever it is that is happening down beneath the city streets. Yet the aboleth have the ability to connect to each and every section of the city through the sewers, and, barring their own connection to the whispers, they have ways of gathering information from anywhere and everywhere within the walls of the City of Spires.

Most importantly of all, not even Xirix can penetrate their barriers. He doesn’t have to. They move just slow enough for him to do everything he needs to do.

Palace of Masters

If anywhere is fit for the rulers of a city to reside, it is in the Palace of Masters. Every creature that resides in the city, even without bowing to them, gives credit to the rakshasa clan of fifteen members, all female. Their fortress of pleasures and splendor encompasses the nobles quarter and the once ruined former royal palace. After they arrived, only a year and a half after the aboleth, the fifteen, each more powerful than an average pit fiend, balor or aboleth master, set to work expanding the palace walls to the walls of the nobles quarter, making the palace the size of an entire district. Once completed, they populated their home with a variety of creatures from strange planes between the larger spheres. Jungle worlds with octopus plants, ocean worlds of freezing steam and fiery worlds of constant stellar wind are but three of the exotic locales from which the palace inhabitants come. The wonders that make up the inside of the castle defy description, as they are as varied as the creatures that dwell within.

The tallest spire in the City of Spires is the seat of power for the rakshasa and also the housing for the strange material that allows them contact with the whispers and their connections among the spaces between. It is from here that they guide the aberrations that serve them towards two goals: the god-corpse and a secret that only the rakshasa could keep. The fifteen rule as an oligarchy and make no decisions as individuals. Should any of them do so, the agreement set down on their creation as rakshasa is null and void, and the entire group would cease to exist. This natural connection lets them hear the whispers as though one were hearing it, and so they have full command of the information at all times. To their chagrin, the whispers knows next to nothing about the god-corpse, and what information it gathers is spotty and inconsistent. The wards on the vault of Shayakand are strong.

Xirix has no dealings within the palace. It’s reasoning is that there is simply nothing there for it.

Adventures Amongst the Spires

For low level adventurers:

The abundance of low power monsters that inhabit the City and their predations in the surrounding lands could lead to rescue missions to the Chattel District, retrieval of an imp’s binding contract for a friend or important NPC, the slaughter of a dretch horde massing near one of the gates. Stealth missions are truly the order of the day here, as the creatures in control may not have time to check everything that comes into their territory. However, escaping the City of Spires is just as much an adventure, for any overt action will draw the attention of the powerful in the city. Outsiders are not tolerated and exiting will be a danger beyond anything before it.

For mid-level adventurers:

Things become much more active once characters reach mid level. They have a name for themselves, their entry, or, if they’ve done something really exemplary, proximity to the city is almost immediately noticed. However, few in the city would directly oppose them at first. Curiosity is more prevalent than open hostility. Missions into the city could be minor assassination, bartering, trading, even. There could be diplomatic missions if they are not with demons, or with demons if the characters are good enough. The PCs are still too weak for an all out assault on the city.

For high-level adventurers:

If they are so inclined, the PCs could, go on a quest to undermine the power structure of the entire city. They could raise an army to topple it. They could make “peace” among the leaders of the four factions or call a complete cease-fire. At the ultimate level, the PCs could delve into the vault of the god-corpse and do as they wished with it. The possibilities are endless.

Devdanchar – A Shayakand Villain

Edited by Jonathan Jacobs

Ethos

When creating Shayakand, a lot of thought went into how different the humans and other humanoid races are from traditionally European-based fantasy settings. Amongst those differences is a concept called Purusartha. According to Purusartha, the four essentials in life are:

• Kama – desire and sensual pleasure
• Artha – wealth and glory
• Dharma – doing the right thing
• Moksha – liberation from the cycle of reincarnation.

Note: Doing the right thingis a loaded phrase that will be explained in another post. For now, keep in mind that dharma in Shayakand is not exactly the same as dharma in Hinduism. The most notable difference is the lack of the non-violence principle traditionally found in Hinduism.

The average Shayakandi sees the first two principles as practical ways of life,  essentially: make money and be happy. The last two are guidelines that govern how the practical ways of life are expressed. Doing the right thing clears the mind to receive divine knowledge. Receiving enough divine knowledge allows a person to be attuned to the divine and thus escape the cycle of reincarnation. As a result, many of the excesses that can come from pursuing money, power, and pleasure are tempered with the knowledge that there is a severe consequence for a person’s actions.

For a human to be a villain, they essentially have to believe that whatever they are doing will be worth the punishment they receive in the next life. A young human might make an effective villain for some time, but as he or she ages, thoughts will inevitably turn to the next life. In other words, human bad guys will not make good villains for a long-term campaign.

However, if a creature is already free from the cycle of reincarnation, there is no check against the potential excesses of Kama and Artha. It is for this reason that many of the ‘bad guys’ in Shayakand are believed to be demons or spirits. Even the humanoid gnolls, ogres and oni are believed to be evil spirits in a fleshy shell.

Enter our villain, a rakshasa named Devdanchar. In Pathfinder terms, he is an native outsider. What places him in Shayakand is the description of a rakshasa found in it’s ecology:

They embody what is taboo among most societies, and in the shape of those it seeks to defile, a rakshasa gorges itself on these hideous acts. Were they human, these acts of cannibalism, blasphemy, and worse would mark them as criminals condemned to the cruelest of hells.

In other words, rakshasa are the sickest and most depraved creatures in a given society. Give a creature like this immense power and wealth and you have the seeds for an arch villain.

Here’s a sketch so of Devdanchar. Some details are missing, but I hope that enough is provided to give you some ideas. Tommorrow you’ll get a chance to see some artwork on Devdanchar from Rob Torno.

Villain Sketch

Devdanchar is the name of one of the most powerful landowners in the entire Shayakand region. From his seat of power in Shayakand’s largest city, Ravandre,  he controls the destinies of thousands . He owns dozens of mercantile businesses spanning almost every city, town, and watering hole in the area. With a word, he can control nearly any good or service coming in or leaving Shayakand.

For example, in Ravendre there was no rice for sale in the city for over a month. Hundreds  starved while the city bureaucracy was unable to do anything to help its citizens. As great as the tragedy was inside the city, the greater tragedy occurred with the destruction of fifty merchant ships and the slaughter of hundreds of farmers. His reasons? Devdanchar’s motives were to have a show of force in reaction to a protest over a docking fee for one of his merchant vessels.

Despite his great power, Devdanchar is consumed with foul passions, the greatest of which is his desire to kill. He indulges his bloodlust monthly in his own personal gladiatorial arena. Fighting with only his trusted kukri, he reigns as the undefeated champion. He has fought lions, gnolls, ogres and all manner of creatures whose only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Occasionally, he will place some foul demon in the pits and systematically torture it to death to the howling cheers of the mob. All matches end in death, but death rarely comes quickly.

His human appearance hides a darker secret. In reality, Devdanchar is half Rakshasa demon, half shape-shifter. In his true form, he has the head of a tiger and the body of a powerful man. Envious of his father, the King of all Rakshasas, he builds wealth and armies to prove his worth as an heir to the throne. Unfortunately for Devdanchar, he is an illegitimate child and has no claim to the throne. His father is King, but his mother is not the queen. She was not even a rakshasa, but a doppleganger. She was indulging a desire to affect Rakshasa society and its most powerful member, the King. The King became aware of her existence and impregnated her as a lesson to her. Abandoned by his mother at birth, Devdanchar was ‘adopted’ by the royal court and raised as a servant of the royal household.

Rejected by rakshasas as a half-breed, Devdanchar has a particular fondness for destroying full-blooded rakshasas. His hatred of them runs deep. He has often travelled to the plane of his birth to systematically eliminate his half-brothers and half-sisters.

From his rakshasa father, Devdanchar embodies what is taboo. He gorges himself in hideous acts of murder, plunder, gluttony, avarice and wrath. From his doppleganger mother, Devdanchar has gained the ability to change shape and assume the likes and mannerisms of others.

Yet, Devdanchar is a paradox. He can often be found in scholarly pursuits. His libraries have no equal in terms of depth and breadth of knowledge. He has achieved, by Shayakandi standards, the necessary knowledge and skills to be a well-educated man. He strives to use the power of his mind to control his carnal nature. Always the manipulator, he has found ways to manipulate the world around him with his mind.  In addition to being able to detect the thoughts of others, he can detect others with the power to shape the world around them with their thoughts.

When wrestling with his desires, he has been seen alternately assuming the shape of his father and mother in an argument with each other.

Questions

• Is such attention to the ethos of Shayakand worthwhile? Does it help to inform role-playing opportunities in a non-European based setting?
• What do you think dharma, or doing the right thingin a Vedic inspired setting should look like? What do you think would be taboo?
• Would providing more Shayakandi references in the villain’s description confuse or help?

For example, Devdanchar is known as a bashawithin his home city. A basha is a rich landowner as stated in his description, but the term also denotes something of a feudal lord, social superior and surrogate parent.

• Would providing separate encounter hooks for Shayakand natives and those born outside of Shayakand (elves for instance) be helpful?

As always, I look forward to any and all ideas and thoughts.

A Day with Mr. Ambrose

Written by Stephen Dewey Illustrated by Kenya Ferrand

The overstuffed leather office chair protested loudly on its wheels beneath Laok’s weight. In their natural form, imps were rather light creatures – most being under three feet tall and composed primarily of hot gas and loosely concentrated nightmares – but it was no secret that Laok was immoderately obsessed with his “bargaining form,” Mr. Ambrose.

“Besides,” Laok had argued on several occasions, “to sit in a chair properly, one must shed unnecessary shoulder baggage. Wings make the entire experience of relaxing substantially more difficult.”

Therefore, Mr. Ambrose was the form Laok favoured more often then not, insofar as comfort was concerned, and the same form whose weight the chair now protested against.

It wasn’t a bad form, all things considered, despite the distinct lack of a tail which made general balancing – not to mention hanging from rafters – a new experience entirely. Just under six feet tall, Mr. Ambrose appeared all in all as a very well-put-together sort of chap. A tailored suit, charcoal coloured of course, with black dress shoes that reflected the light of fire quite exquisitely. A crimson undershirt, and a tie – cross knotted – that seemed the colour of orphan tears. He had a thin sort of build, looking not unlike both a nimble human and a rather large viper all at once. His face was sharply angled, adorned only by a soul patch beneath his lower lip – both for the classic appeal and the sheer irony of it. His hair was black and slicked back, making the two dark red horns emerging from his forehead even more pronounced.

Mr. Ambrose rubbed his temples as his eyes darted back and forth, looking carefully over the sheaves of parchment that covered the broad rosewood desk.

A gentle rapping noise on his door shook the imp from his concentration.

“Enter,” the devil called, making use of the rich human accent the altered form provided him.

Brymstor was quite gangly for an imp, which by imp standards is saying something. The little devil was a good deal shorter then the height of the doorknob – no doubt having had to fly up to it in order to gain entry into the office. Scrambling his way into the room with a small stack of papers gripped in one claw, the imp landed on the desk with little more then a snap of its wings, laying the pile before Mr. Ambrose.

“Another signed contract,” the imp shook its tiny devil head, as if in disbelief. “A priest of light. Seven years of service postmortem, and three favours prior. Just plain impressive sir.”

Mr. Ambrose smiled at the imp.

“Damn fine devilling, if I may be so bold to pat myself on the back Brymstor,” Ambrose joked.

“Pat away sir, pat away. How do you do it?” The small imp enquired.

“You know, it’s not as hard as one might think,” Mr. Ambrose mused, accompanied by a conniving grin. “Let the powers that be boast all they want about keeping evil alive on the mortal plane. Master a few simple steps and any slick minded imp with half a brain can keep the fires stoked.”

Mr. Ambrose laughed, a wicked sort of noise that sounded not unlike both a cheerful chuckle and the screams of tortured innocents all at once. Brymstor however, intrigued by the man’s musings, cocked his head to one side and sat eagerly on the desk – ready to learn. Ambrose studied the inquisitive little imp for a moment, before sighing and nodding.

“Very well Brym, very well. We need more imps who know what they’re doing so I don’t mind letting you in on some of the finer techniques. Where to begin…” Mr. Ambrose stroked the small tuft of hair beneath his lower lip which, for all Brymstor knew, was one of the many souls the elder imp had bargained for. “Soul bargaining is a many layered, rather complex task…” he began.

“Like balancing?” Brymstor interrupted, toying with his tail.

“You get used to that too,” Ambrose jested. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”

“Now then, something that most devils fail to realise is that it’s not our job to simply wait around for someone to offer a deal. Waiting for those magical ‘I would give anything’ words is not the way to go about things. The simple truth of the matter becomes, hundreds of people would sell their soul daily, if given the chance, on really the most pointless of things. A good harvest, a healthy baby, a night with the bar wench… It gets tiresome really, mortals are all want, want, want. When it comes right down to it though, a quick glance around the torture pits will show you the real problem. No one’s worth torturing! The vast majority of mankind lives in shades of gray and hardly anyone these days makes a name for themselves. What’s the good of eternal damnation if they’re not even going to put up a fight? People who think they deserve it are no fun. No, you’ve got to aim for quality, not quantity.”

“Find some suitable subjects. Make a list of two hundred or so of the most valiant, stout-hearted and decent folk you can locate – the kind who look down on those shades of gray as blasphemy. Adventurers, politicians, and religious figureheads are my personal favourites. Adventurers are nice because any treasure-seeker worth his salt packs more punch then your average mortal but always wants to pack more. Politicians usually seem to need only the slightest of pushes to put them right onto the throne, and into the palm of your hand. And religious folk, well, it’s just so cute when they fall from grace.”

“Then you watch, and you wait. Everyone has a moment of weakness eventually. Everyone. But even then, when you see their willpower wane, patience is the key. If it’s meant to be, you’ll know. Finding the perfect moment is just as important – if not more so – then finding the perfect candidate. You have to time it precisely, because if you’re bargaining with the right people, there’s a good chance they will be defensive, suspicious, paranoid, and in possession of both powerful weaponry and a general animosity towards anything with horns that appears in a puff of smoke.”

“I’ve always hated that puff of smoke clause. Seems… counterproductive,” interjected Brymstor.

Mr. Ambrose nodded, “True, but good business practises must be maintained. Besides, if the timing is right, the smoke and horns should be the least of their worries. Desperation… That’s the time to strike. When a mortal reaches the end of their rope, whether figuratively or literally,” the man grinned, lost in a memory for a moment. “Yes, when they’re flat out of options, preferably alone, and terrifically distressed – that’s when you strike. They’re so distracted that nine times out of ten they think they’re composed enough to outwit you. They’re dead wrong of course… and the bargaining begins.”

“The soul bargaining?” Brymstor questioned excitedly, now that things were getting interesting.

“Well, sure. That is an umbrella term of course, but not so rigid as you might think. Most adventurers have read just enough storybooks to assume that souls are all we bargain in. Souls can be a tricky business though, especially with the religious folk.” Mr. Ambrose here switched into a mocking tone, “My soul belongs to Flufflekins! God of flowers and bunnies! It is not mine to give!” The man rolled his eyes. “Bloody ridiculous. The key Brym, is to ask for something that seems relatively innocuous – something that would bring no immediate consequence to the poor chap giving it away. The beauty of souls is that the ownership of them does not even become a point of interest until the time of death.”

“The price you ask should be relative to the weight of whatever is being requested of course. A permanent boon to a mortal should come with a permanent penalty, while a gift that only aids them for a few moments or days should have a similarly temporary price. Where creativity enters the picture is in convincing the mortal in question to agree to a deal where you are actually getting the better end of the bargain, regardless of what they think. For example, an adventurer may think that promising something as simple as say, a ‘favour’, is well worth it when their own life is on the line. But when the favour is called in, and you demand three innocents killed, it’s a net gain on our part. Favours are better than gold and silver – a fact that, thankfully, mortals still don’t grasp. The lives of firstborn children are always a good standby too, though it works best if you know the child is going to grow up to be a great champion of good or some such rubbish. Besides that, bargaining for things like names, talents, faith… Hells, even the use of some words. I’ve seen it all. I’ve done most of it,” the man chuckled.

“Is it true,” Brymstor perked up, “that you made a deal so a holy man couldn’t say the name of his God anymore?” Mr. Ambrose smiled at this, leaning back in his chair, puffing out his thin chest as best he could.

“Poor sap had to use nicknames from that day forward. The best part of that bargain? He was on a quest for some ancient relic of that very same God when we hatched the deal – chap had run afoul of some quicksand.” Ambrose could barely tell the story through his laughter as he continued. “So he reaches the temple and finds this dreadfully old artifact – an orb of some sort or another. Three guesses what the final word of the incantation was to activate it!” The two devils filled the office with laughter, Brymstor nearly falling off the desk.

“He must have been furious!”

“He was,” smiled Ambrose.

“How in the hells did he last?”

“He didn’t.” Ambrose stated simply, as Brymstor’s laughter subsided and the imp raised an inquisitive eyebrow – or at least the ridge where an eyebrow might have been on a more hairy creature. “Village was invaded by Gnolls a few months later,” the man continued. “He decided his silence wasn’t worth the death of his family, so he broke the bond to activate the relic.” Ambrose shook his head sadly. “If I wasn’t the devil whose brilliance spawned that contract I might have even felt bad for the man. He was a decent fellow, all things considered. A paladin, a knight of purity, chosen by divinity with a shiny chair and a set of wings waiting for him in the afterlife… Death for him and his would have done the whole family a bit of good really – being relocated to a cottage on the clouds and all. Peace, happiness, and such.”

“He died a fortnight later, unrelated causes, leaving behind two children and a wife who relocated swiftly to the bed of his squire.” The man shrugged.

“What happened to him? His, well his soul I mean?” Brymstor asked tentatively.

A sickening grin crossed Mr. Ambrose’s face as he leaned forward and locked eyes with the small imp, forcing Brymstor to utilise every ounce of his willpower to keep from running in terror at the man’s overwhelmingly malevolent presence. Suddenly, a snap resounded through the tiny devil’s mind as memories rampaged forth through his unprepared mindscape. A scream escaped Brymstor’s lips as his thoughts were wracked with terrible understanding. Falling from the desk, the imp writhed on the floor as Ambrose stood – letting forth a contented sigh.

“And that, Sir Brymstor, is the bit of soul bargaining that warms my heart. The true art of it shines forth most impressively in a broken contract, and in carrying out the punishment very clearly laid out in the fine print.” Mr. Ambrose walked around the rosewood desk to better watch the waves of burning realisation as they washed over the tortured man. “Don’t you worry, Sir Brymstor. The memories will subside soon and you can go back to filling out my rather impressive pile of paperwork, and of course seeing me as I am – a brilliant, brilliant man.” Even now the fits of anguish in the small creature began to be replaced by obedient complacency. “And you can continue, Sir Brymstor, your afterlife of blissful ignorance. At least, until tomorrow.” With a final satisfied sigh, Mr. Ambrose returned to his chair and began glancing over the newest contract that the former paladin had brought him.

A devil’s work, thought Ambrose with a smile, is never done.

Join the forum discussion on this post

A Day with Mr. Ambrose by Nevermet Press is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.nevermetpress.com/contact.