Teoc’fnenahl - A succubus and trader in fate

The demon before you has pale skin, chalk in colour but of much smoother, richer texture, such that it almost but not quite seethes with an inner glow of red.   Her eyes are swollen red orbs shot through with black and yellow veins, irises that are either snake or cat-like (depending on the angle) watch you with an immortal’s patience.  Her hair is that precise, freshly shed blood colour, spilling out behind her and around her shoulders like so much liquid silk.

Y-you can’t look at her mouth. Those lips.  Thinking stops immediately-

Fanged.  You remember that they are fanged and look away.  She chuckles, a throaty and knowing sound.

There is a table, covered in a light layer of what seems black felt, in a semicircle around her.   “Her” seems appropriate but you really don’t know.  The last one had skin of actual smoke and smoldering ash….which was unsettling.

She laughs again, challenging now, a deep rustling of ...curtains? Behind her.

They say her kind has wings.

There is a crack and she lays a spread from a deck of cards before you.   

Smiling

(INVITING - THOSE FANGS - perfect, warm, hopeless THOSE FANGS),

 Perfect lilac and pearl fingernails tracing the silver edges of the plaques, both offer and obscene caress.  

            “Cards?” musical. Lower Like the perfect card shark, with every passing deal or shuffle of the cards the deck itself changes shape and colour and detail.  

Any game of chance played with the aid of cards may be played here for any stakes that either will claim or have.   This does mean that the cards can be literally anything that Teoc wants them to be, up to and including any flavour of Tarot Deck or such things as Decks of Many Things etc. whether they can duplicate Amber trumps is up to the Judge)  

          “Door?” Just behind and to the right of her, sliding open like a hidden door panel in the air itself, is a rectangular doorway of irregular dimension and coruscating purple and red light.   “Where do you wish to be today?  Who do you want to be?”

She can open a door to theoretically anywhere in the multiverse; likely as that she is to attempt to trick the characters to walk through into a type of particular place - the inside of someone’s mind, into another’s body, etc etc.  (This is in fact her preferred means of disposing of irritating mortals;  some have found themselves drug addicts in 1970s new york, stone statues magically bound to watch sorcerer’s treasure rooms, or within some bard’s inner world, in addition to ‘merely’ sending people to their sun, or the 8th Hell, or the Lightless Flesh Realm of Infinite Crawling Life, or ancient Blackmoor, or wherever/whenever.).

        “RED?”  The moment any but the slightest interest is shown a decanter will appear, and she will pour the purest form of what seems to be pure liquid colour into the hexagonal but transparent glass.

          “What is it?”

          She proffers the glass to you. “It is RED.  Drink it, and feel the fire burn you.”

Other services she can offer

She is happy to inseminate one.  If for some reason there are difficulties in this arena, or one merely wishes to taste sex of the Pit, she will be happy to indulge you.  If two (or more*) people which to procreate despite biological or other differences she will be happy to “intercede as facilitator,” even providing or procuring additional ‘genetic material’ as needed.  

She will be equally happy to indulge any other such carnal acts and in any form desired.  She will know any particular tastes or desires of course, sometimes before the victim er possessor themself knows.   

Despite the above she does not offer actual time travel (at least not into the past, she can almost certainly send people into the / a future at will) as, while a demon, being a succubus she has sufficient sense of self to find the paradoxes thus unleashed personally threatening; consequently she will instead send characters into one of the infinite parallel worldlines most similar to the time and place in which the characters describe.  IF one does not exist she can probably create a (small) pocket dimension that resembles one, at least for a while (say … an adventure session).  

* Three parents via succubus? This practice is called "a Marriage in Hell”: and it is exactly what it says on the tin....despite expectations such a child will be fully mortal with perhaps an extra demon trait or so and a slight proclivity towards chaos and magic. I.e. most 0 level would-be wizard characters could qualify.

Teoc’fnenahl is merely one of the many members of Tamarah's court that you may meet in the Book of Scarlet Abomination (drive thru link) now available for the DCC rpg. 

Vlitherax (Type I demon)

Vlitherax (Type I demon)

Alien avian

The (type I) vulture demon primarily is known as the errand creature for its betters, sent forth to cross material and planar boundaries to snatch desired life forms, and sometimes summoned up as particularly vile mounts by abyssal inclined witches and wizards. .

This immense creature has two broad wings of partially feathered, semi-reptilian appearance, the craned neck and head of a vulture, two powerful hind legs that dangle behind in flight like a bee, each ending in sharp triple toed talons   The spotty and blotchy texture of the mottled skin-scale=feathers combination, as well as it’s irregularities of shape and colour often lead to this creature being mistaken for undead at even medium distances.

Vlitherax Init +2 ; Atk Beak +3 melee (2d6+2 and DC 12 Fort save v disease) and/ claw +1 melee (1d6+2 ea);

AC 14; HD 5d8 hp 32 or MV 10’ or 60’; Act 1d20; SP Demonic traits, Stinger, cross planar boundaries and Seek Target (See below)x; SV Fort +4, Ref +3, Will +1; AL Chaotic.

Special Attacks

Stinger +5 attack (DC23 Fort save or be immediately paralyzed; death via heart & respiratory failure on fumble)

 Special Abilities

Demonic Traits (infravision, darkness, crit range 20; half damage from non-magical weapons and fire)

Cross planar boundaries  (cannot do so on it’s own without being given instruction from higher power), then limited to immediate point of transit and back.  

Seek Target - fundamental to its planar crossing ‘ability’ is the ability bred into the creatures to imprint on a desired being in order to be able to seek it out.   It’s not as effective as it sounds as they are not that smart but it works enough that the shotgun approach works in most cases.

Secret Stinger's physiognomy

Deeply hidden within the thickest of it’s feathers, just inside the leg of it’s left leg is a  small semi retractable stinger, containing an extraordinarily potent paralytic that it uses to subdue its prey for capture and return flight. The stinger, which relaxes, strikes, and is immediately withdrawn is hard to see; those few who have reported a four or so foot tongue-like tendril with a blistery bone hook at the end.   THe poison is not actually poison but toxic spores which regularly build up on the stinger=tendril and clump on the bone hook itself

History -

Believed originally not to have been demonic at all but a surviving scavenger species from the Galaxy of Black Stars, brought to the abyssal realms and cultivated over successive generations.  Their former capacity to roam the interstellar void by traveling in vast flocks through hyperspace has been perverted to allow them in small numbers to be sent to the material planes and otherwise on missions of acquisition and capture.

Possessed of only a rough intelligence and a somewhat blunted cunning, they are nonetheless of doggest persistence when their prey is involved.  

Why is the Vlitherax here?

A patron demon lord or other power has dispatched the thing to fetch forth a nearby mortal of unusual power or purity - perhaps one destined to become a paladin or great holy figure?  Or one with a great potential for celestial magicks?  Can it be stopped and if not, do they try to follow?

2. This is a craftier sort - it seems as above but in fact this is a dodge on behalf of some fell power to fetch forth heroes from the mortal plane for some dark reason of it’s own.   Either they will be attacked directly or they will be in for a surprise thinking they are rescuing some princess, for example.   Where do the fell birds try to take them?     (Stuck for ideas 1 the Crimson Hell 2 Dante’s inferno 3. Land of Hades 4. The infinite pit of the abyss  5. A random hex in pandemonium 6. The courts of chaos 7.  The Eternal Wicked City  8.  The blasted wastelands of cancer  9.   The Screaming Kingdom of 7000 Skins Being Stretched At Once  10. Ultor-Fehl, the Final Shadow of Total Despair)

3. The creature is one of several bound by task or spell to a great evil sorcerer of a far away land, they have been sent east (or south or whatever) to gather the particular spell components (read: sacrifices) needed for a Ritual of Power.  Favored local npcs, pets, horses, or the like can be targets.  Or, of course, one or more characters themselves.

4.  There is a flash and the clash of arms and then a fiery column rains down from the sky a mile distant.   Investigation sees the charred semi intact corpse of the  Vlitherax , its hind claws still clutching a cast iron cage in a death grip, though the door is open, and tracks ….. Go that way.  Who or what managed to escape?  Will you go after them?

5.   The creature is one of a small flight of them (roll a d20) - a demon lord or such has determined that an ancient weapon of great power lay somewhere in the area - they are tasked with covering a search area of (5d00) miles, so they will not be grouped as such.  But this will be noticed. What are they seeking?

6.   An extraordinarily rare occurrence - one of the greater demons has tasked a named servitor demon of their court to take this being and hide a powerful item of good - a relic, the remains of a saint, or some advanced scientific knowledge, hopefully somewhere far and somewhere obscure.  Enter the PCs