Demons

[Adept]

I wouldn't make the demons subjective and exclusively cultural though. A Dara Happan, in his homeland will mostly encounter the sorts of demons that are known to his culture (and encountered in their magical rituals, and the like). He can still encounter a strange creature (like a troll summoned Dehori, a darkness demon) if he get's unlucky. He just won't know what it is, and what it's weaknesses are.

-Adept

True, but he has more "chance" to encounter his own demons which are linked to his culture.

Exactly. I agree.

 

[Adept]

http://www.concentric.net/~slposey/Gamelinks.htm
Has a copy of the first Demons article... its worth a browse...

Hawing printed the demonology article's from there, I have to say I am impressed, and thankful.

If coming to these forums had never yealded anything else worthwhile, that would have been enough.

What neat stuff, and with such nice illustrations too!

 

[Dr_Snugglebunny]

Also the Herowars original narrator's book had a Gloranthan heroquest/adventure with plenty of demons in it, most of them with illustrations. There were several more illos of 'demons' in the other books, some of which were not statted.

I've used Call of Cthulhu creatures as demons on my Glorantha game plenty of times, too. Basically demons are a great opportunity for the GM's imagination to run wild. If you want some creepy demon inspirations try Japanese animation (manga/anime) such as Ninja's Scroll, Urotsukidoji (Legend of the Demon Womb), etc.

 

[Dr_Snugglebunny]

Oh yeah-- and Tales of the Reaching Moon had some uberpowered demons spread across a few issues; much maligned by many readers back then, but useful if you want mega tough demons to throw at your PCs. Likewise the Dorastor supplement for RQ3 had stats for Krjalki and other demonic/chaotic things.

 

[GianniVacca]

Tales of the Reaching Moon had some uberpowered demons spread across a few issues

Those were more like minor gods than demons though.

There was a tough demon in one of the Questworld scenarios, but he had no POW. Very un-Gloranthan.

The idea of using CoC critters is a good suggestion. I would recommend the Oni from 'Secrets of Japan'; they are really, really tough.

 

[soltakss]

There were some stats for generic demons in Wyrms Footnotes, including the Sembraki which were demons with fiery whips, not Balrogs at all.

Demons are normally malign supernatural beings. They differ from things like ghosts and elementals in that they have to be summoned and are normally quite powerful.

Among trolls, Demons include Dehori, Ice Demons, Wraiths and even Dara Happan Angels, who are very malign to trolls. So, demons can be culturally specific. But, summon a chaos demon and most people will recognise it as being a demon.

For non-Gloranthan games, things become more and less complicated (ho, ho).

They are more complicated because there are many more worlds and many different cultures, so how can you define what a demon is in each and every culture on each and every world?

They are less complicated because most worlds/settings have fixed ideas about what demons are, how they are summoned and what powers they have. So, summoning Stormbringer Demons is different to summoning Judeo-Christian Demons in medieval Europe.

Some demons when summoned act as deities and need to be worshipped, others give powers to their sumoner and then return to the Abyss, others stay around and rip people apart. It depends on the type of demon, the game setting and what the GM or player wants from the demon/storyline.

 

[Rocketman]

http://www.concentric.net/~slposey/Games/WD-Dealing_with_Demons.pdf

I really liked this one--good original stuff that could easily be transfered to any game world with a renaming or two.

 

[B_Steele]

I made sure to add some uber-demons in the back of Legendary Heroes, but they are not Gloranthan. You could easily use them though...if you wanted to murder your players of course.

Cheers,
Bry

 

[Vivamort]

Oh yeah, I read Legendary Heroes after I posted last time. The demons and other high level critters were a very nice touch. I also enjoyed the legendary runes. More demons and the like in that vein would be a nice addition to the others mentioned in this thread.

 

[Exubae]

I also enjoyed the legendary runes

I agree the legendary runes are quite cool in their own right, a complete waste for Glorantha, but nice and tasty morsel for a 'homebrew' world.

I made sure to add some uber-demons in the back of Legendary Heroes

Most are a bit to vanilla in flavour for Glorantha, but would tie in nicely with a Hombrew world or even Questworld