Character 4: Despairing Demonologist

Background

Elsrelm was a small but powerful nation, one of the four that originally formed the Nexus. Mages here were specialists in the Demonology; a school of magic involving the summoning of mystical energies and entities from the Hell Dimension. Elsrelm had always been an unpopular nation due to its connection with the evil realm and the fact that its government and bureaucracy is populated by a mix of humans and demons, resulting in a terrible system of control and oppression. The powerful families and demons in Elsrelm acted with almost total impunity, whilst the low born and powerless were at the mercies of a corrupt structure.

Demonology is as much negotiation and persuasion as it is art or science. Practitioners summon entities and energies from Hell, and must be precise in their gestures, chants and symbols to ensure that a demon of appropriate power is summoned – as raising an unmanageable demon is death for the demonologist. But once the demon is here, the summoner must then strike a bargain to get what he or she wants. Negotiations are complex arrangements, and many demonologists must summon a single demon multiple times, to make offers and counter-offers in order to secure their desires. Once agreement is reached however, the demon is bound to it, totally. The strength and power of a demon makes the demonologist almost certain to get their desires.

Character concept:

An ancient summoner, this man is an academic, not a War Wizard, at least not in the traditional sense. He is physically weak, frail of health …and is a traitor to the Nexus. The old Demonologist saw the World War coming thanks to an old deal he had made with a powerful demon who gave him advance warning of the destruction of his guild. Knowing the ruin that was to come, the old man stole as many ancient tomes as he could carry and escaped to a safe country within the Alignment, where he continued his research.

Whilst in the tiny country (which specialised in mind-control magic), he came to the theory of scaled-uncontrolled summoning. He postulated that a series of mind-controlled and mind-linked mages could be compelled to undertake a powerful summoning over a large area that would cause that area to temporarily transition to Hell, whilst a similarly sized chuck of hell would transition here. This might be enough, he posited, to cause significant damage to military infrastructure, as well as killing many Nexus combatants (both those who transition to hell and are attacked) and those around the affected area which is now swamped with raging demons.

This idea was regarded very warmly by the Alignment commanders, who gently supported his research. He worked on it for years, with nothing but gentle prompts and encouragement and almost total autonomy. In the end, he completed his academic paper, the Alignment military thanked him for his service, and promptly conducted a mission using mind-controlled POW demonologists on the very capital of Elsrelm, at a scale that dwarfed the old man’s ground tests.

The demonologist was mortified when he discovered his work was to be used at such a scale, and against civilians, but his protests went unheard. Unexpectedly the power of the uncontrolled test increased exponentially with the increases in scale (not on a straight line as his theory anticipated), and fully a third of the land mass of Elsrelm (and a not insignificant chunks of neighbouring countries) flipped over to hell to be replaced by a demonic hellscape of smoke blood and brass. Unlike his prior experiments, the two locations have stayed flipped ever since. The nation of Elsrelm ceased to exist at this point, and a new kingdom (Dark Elsrelm) dominated by uncontrolled and unbound Demons is rapidly rebuilding in its place.

The war ended within weeks of this, with all Nexus nations surrendering rather than face a similar fate. But many eyes are now looking at the demon rulers of Dark Elsrelm nervously.

What does he want?
The old man wants to undo what he has done. He has been summoning progressively stronger demons to flip the two locations back, to sink the nation into the ocean, or even turn back time, but no entity he is brave enough to summon has this level of power. He is tortured by the hundreds of thousands of civilian lives he condemned to Hell, and fears what has now been unleashed on the world. His greatest fear is the trickles of reports that indicate that the boundary of Dark Elsrelm is growing.

Whew. One more to go. See you tomorrow.

Cheers