DEVIL CONTEST
hello it is me YS Voya
Here is a bird devil contest for all of you. The deadline for this contest shall be Tuesday, April the 4th! If you have submissions you can put them in the ksbd tumblr, submit them to ksbdabbadon@gmail.com, or simply post them on this comic page.
May you reach concordance!
Surely Ys Voya you remember Sonata the Songbird…
The blue devil with the broken mask. Once a speaker of secrets, always watching, always trying to pass on such information, to the highest bidder. One of these transactions of the tongue was quite displeasing to the Commissar of the Goldweavers Guild. Having caught the long limb’d devil they sought to break her they instead settled for silencing the lithe one. Stitching the lips of her mask up with such great care, and artistry, and a mild curse that threatened to unmask her should their work be undone.
Sonata the Whisperer was no more. Finding herself without the ability to trade in secrets she instead learn to tinker, dismembering any poor machination she could lay her deft hands upon. Spending much time with only her thoughts to keep her company and the incessant words of others it took her some time before she could learn to whistle from between her stitched lips. Mimicking the machines and toys she took apart, mocking the harlots as they sang and prattled at her, and watching always watching and listening. Unable to speak, but quite able to mimic the sounds she heard, humming and whistling to herself as she worked.
Eventually she composed the finest Song she could come up with, so she made a music box to capture it. She made this gilded gift for none other then the Commissar who had changed her so much. She delivered it personally, while he was occupied with his craft. Arriving home he opened the box and from it sprang a bluebird with a broken beak, whistling a tune, a song as pretty as the automaton with its sapphire flake feathers, gilded legs and silver eyes. Bewildered he leaned in to appreciate more this feat of miniature music making and as the song ended he heard a click… and then no more. For Sonata’s Lament was not just a bedazzling music box, but also a sophisticated bomb. The Commissar, his guild, and the Hell they occupied were devastated by the blast and as it all smoldered, sonata whistled her tune and began to look for something new to occupy her time with, selling her services to appreciators of her fine handiwork.
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Dossier: Sonata of Hell 251 aka “the Songbird”
Category: Blue Devil
Role: Mechanic
Notes: Unable to speak, but able to communicate through gesticulation and tunes. A fine mechanic, a mad bomber, and a mediocre jewler able to mcguyver her way into and out of many situations. Very likely seen with with a proper burglar, a bruiser or an interpreter.
Simple enough
The Mastermind:
The Gold Devil.
The Acrobat:
Blue Devil.
The Bruiser:
The Red Devil.
The Mechanic:
The Green Devil.
The Face.
The Pale Devil.
I note that the prompt did not specify one of each. Therefore, secret best combo:
Talker – Blue
Bruiser – Blue
Mastermind – Blue
Mechanic – Blue
Acrobat – Blue
Can’t recall any of their names, but the Bruiser may have been described on this snippet of a journal I found:
“A Gold Devil, tall, quiet, often emits a sound like chimes, but the source and their body remain wrapped in concealing layers of cloth. Possessing one pair of arms of approximately human size, always gloved. If one does not fight or do business with them, this is all one is likely to find out.
If one does see them fight, they will find that the ringing stems from a rack of swords and other blades they wear over their strangely large shoulders around their strangely slender body. In combat, they are an elegant flurry edged steel, equally capable of using any blade as a melee or a ranged weapon with their six (in total) slender limbs. They wield no Art, but are so adept at their method of fighting that, given the option, they will pin every enemy in the area to an object without killing them. And, if given the reason, they will then slowly dispatch them one by one with a small blade or spike.
Because of this habit, they are quite identifiable from some distance by the sound of fighting, followed for an inordinately long time by the sound of screaming.
If asked if they should be referred to as he or she, they emit a hissing snicker and do not answer. They are perfectly capable of speaking, and quite erudite, but prefer to use time not spent on violence to consider more interesting methods of violence.
They are loyal if they are paid, and are typically the sole survivor if they are not.”
i do wonder what their name was.
I once had an unfortunate run-in with a pale devil. A lover of all manner of tricks and traps, who I was convinced could aid me in acquiring some fine china from a collector who, shall we say, refused my generous offer. I watched it tinker with the door of that great safe, cooing and giggling to itself, gripping half a dozen gadgets and gizmos in one spindly hand, while stroking that hideous bulge on his shoulder with the other. Was that another face? I tried not to pay too much mind to it. The last thing I wanted was to offend the hot tempered thing.
The whole operation went sour soon after, as the intricate locks seemed to frustrate the beast, who opted instead to blow the doors of the safe off. it scraped up its agreed-upon half of the china dust from the floor, shook my hand, and said it was the most fun it had had in weeks.
The mistakes we make in our youth.
Ah, multiplicative malleable manifold of pasts imperfect, what a glorious thing to exclude from existential experience.
One can not outthink one of the Great Pillars. Out(wi//chea)t, though… Therefore the Mastermind needs to be of colour Red. And have a long nose. Because.
Also, burds.
A pair of identical twins of Blue would easily disable anything mechanical by simply finding small parts, that someone clearly lost here. I mean, what if someone just went and stole thouse things, that would be horrible! It is truly a lucky coincidence, than, that two creatures of renown honesty had found thouse parts to keep an eye on them cogs!
Golden Doll, or Metallic Marionette, if you will… How truly it was said, that when a strong mind moves, world shift to heed it. An Acrobat second to none; she ponders, and the world follows.
The Word and the Muscle – Green and Pale tandem would fill all your needs for it. Just don’t ask who of them who, though – they may answer.
Ubiquitous Umber is a Gold Devil and a skilled warrior who is taking the position of “Bruiser”.
Umber is a devil who has held the position of Gold once before, but he was betrayed by those he considered his allies and shackled by many new names, causing him to become a deformed Pale Devil. He spent many years In this form, lamenting his failure and believing himself completely unworthy of the Gold or any form above that he held. At least until the day he got into a fight with a blue devil and slew it. Perhaps this does not seem like such a great feat, seeing a blue devils aren’t that impressive, but one must remember the depths to which Umber had sunk. Slaying this supposedly superior being to himself filled Umber with the confidence to seek freedom from his names, though it is a confidence he must regularly rebuild.
Since that day Umber has always sought to test himself against Devils of higher ranks than he. If he can defeat them he views himself worthy of reaching the next rank and only then will he seek an opportunity for ascension. In his current golden state he has been met with something of an issue, as the only rank above Gold is Ebon. Ebon Devils are rare and he has had trouble tracking one down. He had been tracking Vladok and intended to duel the Ebon Devil before his prey’s… demotion at Alison’s hands. That was vexing. Now he believes that accomplishing a great feat will make him worthy enough to ascend to Ebon-hood and what feat is greater than robbing a demiurge? If not it might at least draw some dark attentions to him and give him an opportunity to prove his mettle.
Ubiquitous Umber clothes himself in rags and fights with nothing but his fists, believing that donning armour or wielding a sword would be cheating, as he would not be relying on his own strength, merely the strength of his weapon/armour.
2x Blue Bruiser
Tha cannot easily fight more than one foe alone, and these two devils know this. Chatty and loud, they will launch themselves at you with the barest of warning. Kleptomaniac expertise will have your weapon disappear from your pocket and bludgeon you from behind without hesitation.
Green Acrobat
This silent green devil has lost their wings long ago. With no fear of heights to hold them back, this theft of their freedom has forced them to hone their skills. Will frequently combine acrobatics with magic to do the seemingly impossible.
Red Mechanic
All manner of tools, tubes, bottles, and pouches are hidden and tied within this devil’s flowing coat of hair for easy access. Likes to lay traps in plain sight by leaning against a wall and hiding their actions behind their fur.
Gold Face
This devil has a golden mask and a silver tongue. It is not enough to simply know secrets; the trick is knowing how to USE them to your own ends. No plan is perfect, and what can be more unpredictable than the sudden wandering of one who is shirking their duties, following a hunch, or is late for an appointment. Force is not the solution when one’s absence will be missed, and only the darkest of threatened secrets can be wielded by one with a mind mean enough to use them.
Pale Mastermind.
The trick to a successful heist is in the planning. None are more unassuming than than a silent pale devil. Their face betrays no thought, purpose or emotion, and their gaze is inscrutable. Routinely ignored, they are just one more face in the crowd, and and this is the key to successful surveillance and planning without being caught. Communicates to the others with their hands/writing.
A fallen devil who finds themselves in the darkest pit and with the palest of hues. Small, unnoticed, he makes his way despite being a small man in a world of titans. He will be the rock that shatters the window of opulence and greed, for even a ant can have greater dreams than a dragon. His intent is an edge that can Cut, his determination is an undying flame, his plans are a weapon that can kill a god. Others may be his hands, mouth and feet, but his will and his designs shall crack the pillars of heaven and carve a path for the Successor of the Conquering King.
A fallen devil who finds themselves in the darkest pit and with the palest of hues. Small, unnoticed, he makes his way despite being a small man in a world of titans. He will be the rock that shatters the window of opulence and greed, for even a ant can have greater dreams than a dragon. His intent is an edge that can Cut, his determination is an undying flame, his plans are a weapon that can kill a god. Others may be his hands, mouth and feet, but his will and his designs shall crack the pillars of heaven and carve a path for the Successor of the Conquering King.
He is the Mastermind.
Role: Bruiser
Type: Pale
Name: Unknown
Appearance: Tiny, with four extra spider-like legs protruding from his back. Four eyes and no apparent mouth.
History:
A spidery fellow with bladed limbs, this one works for coin alone, and to coin alone is he loyal.
He never speaks, for that would disturb the sanctity of his work. Those who stand in his way inevitably perish, whether from blade or poison or strangling noose.
When you need someone to kill, he is who you hire, not the unsubtle reds (or so those who write of him claim).
I heard tell, once, of a certain Gold devil, a bruiser and cutter. A wickedly vicious thing, in addition to being viciously wicked. I did hear that it was known as Herem the Razor, for it was said that it believes deeply that it has the divine right to inflict lacerations upon all that walks upon this or any world. Herem believes itself an instrument of the evil of God, of YISUN’s own evil.
I tracked the devil to a small community on the outskirts of Throne, for I am bound by Geas to search out and destroy evil, and I did battle with the beast.
For three days, we fought. My axe against its razor. My armor against its hide.
I left its princely robes in tatters and scored a cruel gouge into its mask, but it escaped my wrath.
I know not where this bruiser can be found these days, but I know this.
It is far more cunning than one would expect from a brute.
Perhaps I confuse my tales, but is this not the one with metal-handed tinkerer?
Each finger was a strip of steel that twisted and wrapped and sliced with a whim, jamming doors and picking locks and constricting throats? The one who could slip a thin strip behind the eyeball and plant something there?
Perhaps I confuse my tales, but is this not the one with metal-handed tinkerer?
Each finger was a strip of steel that twisted and wrapped and sliced with a whim, jamming doors and picking locks and constricting throats? The one who could slip a thin strip behind the eyeball and plant something there?
There was one more, a black demon. They called him the Loony, for his mind was shattered, each shard reflecting a different reality. Some were of paths not chosen. Others, dimensions where the universal laws were completely unlike this one. Future; past; distant lands unobservable by any; secret dreams in the hearts of those never encountered before. All indecipherable. All viewing and warping. A perfect chaos.
But when one needs to distract, the Loony may have the perfect tale to befuddle. Or perhaps days past, there was a brief moment of clarity that would now act as a perfect hint. Or, perhaps most useful of all, when any mental manipulation were to be utilized in the vicinity, the Loony annihilates it, possibly unleashing crazed insanity upon that which launched the assault. Or perhaps not, and instead the effect is magnified.
I think a group of Pales should be the Bruiser(s). Think swarm of smart hive piranha.
Sudo sud Rem self-labeled them the Kleptiarchy, for it was the nature of the wiry Blue to make light of everything, a constant babbling chatter like an animate stream of sarcasm.
Splay of Orichalicum became perfectly still and deeply lost in thought at the comment, staring through the prancing blue as she compulsively touched and fiddled with everything around her – hands ever drifting to the array of monocle examining lenses jutting on flexible yet-stiff wires off the side of her head. The Nine Intractable Orichalcum Needles pierced repeatedly through the left hand, forearm, bicep, shoulder, and driven through the eye of Splay’s Gold mask seemed to glow when he became thus lost in contemplation – so lost that Strauss had given up on bringing him back and instead simply ordered the brutish Dead Heaven to lug Splay across his massive back until the Gold came out of it.
“The Hexarchy would be more apt, as there are six of us,” Splay finally pronounced, her bell-clear words the signal that Dead Heaven could release the Gold to his own motility. “Hexarchy also for we have been named a curse and anarchy trails us like a mangy dog hoping to be fed.”
Splay turned to shout to the passing crowds that streamed through the convergence of the seven-sourced Great Crossroads of Bal Ix. “Quail before us and surrender yourself of precious artifacts, ancient treasures, and holy relics for a plague passes through to divest you all of that which you hold most dear!”
For some reason, this pronouncement made Dead Heaven unleash his idiot grunting laugh. Strauss had not enslaved the towering Red for his intellect or unpredictable, vestigial sense of humor but for the ungodly two-handed meat cleaver that Strauss had found him wielding in the Meat Markets of Dead Heaven, splitting aurochs in twain with casual swings in exchange for the grimy leavings of guts and gristle that remained on the slaughter floor after. Strauss stole the brute away for his own purposes, but did give the drooling beast a name and a seemingly endless supply of bounty hunters to hew instead.
A shadow of wings brought the silent landing of Glider as Splay ranted to the passing crowds like a godless street preacher. The Green sat in the midst of the Hexarchy, head tilting as it regarded each of them before sending its gaze across the interminable bustle of the Crossroads.
Though impatient for the message Glider had hopefully brought, Strauss knew better than to interrupt her before she was ready to speak. Its appraisal complete, Glider turned to Strauss and carefully nodded as it always did before speaking.
“The Masterss will buy,” it said, the soft sibilance barely audible over the creaking rumble of a passing Caravan House.
Strauss whooped and leapt into the air, blasting a celebratory riff on the Radcaster Guitar always slung across his back. The sound stoppered Splay’s inchoate diatribe, simultaneously dispersing the clog in the artery of traffic that had begun to form around the impassioned gold.
“My plan then effectss?” Glider whispered.
Yojimbo Strauss grinned and tossed his head, a clattering cascade of red bead-bound dreadlocks flying out of his face and down his back. At times he doubted his rash decision to abandon his position as High Investigative Audiologist for the Ecclesiarch of Perfect Sound and abscond with the precious Metal Radcaster with which he was so close to discovering the Second Stanza of the Song of Songs. Moments like this one when a job coalesced before them, forming a refuge of purpose and unity from their general fare of itinerant wandering. The bounty hunters were an annoyance, but he worried more during such gaps of focused effort that the five demons he worked so hard to bind would finds means of escape from their contracts and turn on him with vengeance.
He pounded Glider on the back, sending the big lizard scuttling back in discomfort at the touch. “Yes, Glider, it’s time for your plan. Dead Heaven, howdah up. Sudo, stop pick-pocketing everyone before we have to kill anyone else to keep your hands from getting lopped off – we’ll need those hands when we enter the Hall of Locks. Splay, save the torrent of rhetoric for the Primarch’s Council or whoever Glider has figured we’ll be going through this time. And Sudo, find Mottleback and let it know we’re heading out.”
As Dead Heaven adjusted the lay of the massive cleaver across his back and grunted into the harness of his howdah while Sudo flipped some arcane combination of lenses over her right eye and scanned the surroundings, finally approaching a canvas-tarped heap piled nearby. She kicked the heap and it darted away up the side of an improbably heaped wagon, setting the load to swaying alarmingly before Mottleback shifted its weight to balance the new load. It’s skin shifted to match its new surroundings, only a cluster of red eyes staring down at them revealing its new hiding spot.
“Found it,” Sudo said. “Next time I say we just leave the damn bug.”
“Ladies first,” Strauss said, gesturing at the rope ladder that cascaded down from Dead Heaven’s howdah. Grumbling, Sudo climbed up, Splay and Glider quickly following. Strauss began his ascent, but pause half-way up and turned to the wagon Mottleback had hidden upon, now almost out of sight through the endless surge of traffic.
The Pale hadn’t moved, clearly settling into one of its stubborn moods. Strauss hooked his arm trough the rope ladder, slid the Radcaster from his back, and carefully tuned it to Mottleback’s resonance. That done, he casually thrummed, the reverberation vibrating down to his soul.
For a moment, nothing happened, but then a blur of speed toppled the distant wagon to shouts and curses. Mottleback leapt onto it’s usual place on Dead Heaven’s back. Its red, unblinking eyes regarded him coldly.
He nodded, slung his guitar, and resumed his ascent. “Don’t worry, my Pale friend. I promised I’d release you one day and one day I shall.” He grinned as he pulled himself into the howdah and lit a cigarette. “Just not today.”
Name: Unknown
Type: Pale
Role: Bruiser
Most pale devils are sneaks and spies. This one is an assassin. Loyal to coin, and only coin, his name is unknown to the rest. He follows orders implicitly, but when possible uses the interpretation that allows for his bladed limbs to shed the most blood.
Name: Unknown, typically referred to as ‘The Spider’
Type: Pale Devil
Role: The Bruiser
History: No mere hired thug, the Spider is an artist of carnage. Typically employed as an assassin, his skill is in killing quietly and with utmost efficiency. Wielding poisoned blades affixed to his numerous limbs, even the slightest scratch can bring death.
Is loyal to coin, and coin alone. Never speaks.
“Dearest enemy.
I’d like to complain regarding your vendetta towards me.
As lesser beings are measured by their friends, so are we devils measured by our enemies – Quentin of the Black Pit. As such it is with sincere regret I have to inform you several of your movements against me have been sorely lacking in quality.
I am not some ebon devil of lofty and ancient powers, nor am I a runaway from neither the temple nor the accountants, nor even the red city. These are all mirages I sent out to confound and stall those hunting me. I pride myself on even the wickedest of my many and horrific foes having had to spent several hours on untangling these tangled webs of mine.
In comparison, you fell for them whole-cloth, and you have spent the last two weeks looking for ‘Urbolg, of the fell swords’.
Initially I believed this to be intentional, with you preferring the intense humiliation I had to suffer trough at being hunted by such an incompetent. In the beginning, I quite appreciated the subtle barbs on my intelligence. As time passed however, the horrific realization dawned.
This was not the elegant torture from someone who’s mastered the honored art of passive aggression, but rather the inept moves of someone paying his informants far more than they are worth.
The sole agent of yours who did find out anything of worth, you allowed to be assassinated. Remember Timmy? I quite liked Timmy. He was a very decent fellow. Sharp and attentive, and polite to boot. I was looking forward to slowly bringing him into my own network, over a small extended campaign of directed assassination attempts.
But you stuck him in a ‘safe house’ with no backup, to few directions, no real escape routes.
Imagine my surprise and sadness when I found out my first assassination attempt had gone off brilliantly.
Quite frankly you should be ashamed of yourself. Good spies are something to be treasured. Not handled carelessly.
Not that your own security measures are much of an improvements. Your guards are easily bought off, your hideout obvious, the locks to your treasury sub par.
I will not complain of your traps. I was never good with traps, and yours are passable. In this at least, you did one thing properly.
At this point you have stopped reading, and are hurrying down the stairs, calling on guards that I am afraid will not hear you.
Regardless, I still wish to set the record straight on a few things, and perchance the hunt to follow will be less of an embarrassment for all parties involved.
I was never after your life, only your wealth, allies, estates and the set of black deathsilk clothing my associates have just stolen from you, along with most of your secret monetary stash.
I did not lay with your mistress. She ran away with your second lieutenant a month ago.
Yes your second lieutenant hasn’t been hunting me for around the same span of time.
I have enclosed within this letter a set of suggested actions and plans you may take against me. I… have to admit I have never stretched myself this low before, but while I am loath to lend aid to an enemy, I do have a reputation to maintain, and frankly you are ruining it in the entirely wrong way.
I hope this finds you in good health. May you reach concordance.
Sincerely: The Eye, The Night, The Void.
Addendum: Yes, the letter is poisoned. This should be obvious.”
The Eye, The Night, The Void is a young golden devil. Arrogant, polite, often petty. And very good at predicting the actions and thoughts of others.
Scarily good.
Having vanished for an extensive amount of time, for reasons unknown but possible related to an incident with one of the Seven, he has only recently resurfaced. Sofar his movements have been erratic, and he has interceded in the games of many lesser players.
Some say his plots carry an undertone of desperation, others hint at a larger scheme behind the many smaller ones. All agree he is unlikely to move without some purpose to his actions.
He is known for seeing farther than most after all.
He never lets people forget it.
“Shinbiter”
“What joke is this?” a warrior might think, upon being accosted by this pale devil, and this moment of incredulity is what often leads to their annihilation. Three-eyed, six-legged and barely twice as long as a proper straight sword, the unassuming appearance of this maskless and voiceless creature belies an aggression that would make the mightiest of giants tremble. And indeed it has – the devil’s moniker was borne from its storied encounter with the Colossus of Yth, which had reduced the plains of its namesake to a gray and cratered wasteland decades past. Though the Colossus was twenty stories high and its armor ten handspans thick, the pale devil battered itself against its ankle for twenty days and twenty nights, without rest or interruption, though a single glancing blow from the Colossus did fling it the entire length of the plains. Again and again it attacked that one spot, and when on the twentieth night the armor finally broke, it crawled within and spent a further ten days tearing the giant apart from the inside out.
Like all of its kind, the Shinbiter is not inclined to conversation and seldom leaves witnesses to its deeds, so few can guess at what fuels its bottomless wrath. Since all devils are merely embers of the churning Black Flame, endlessly rekindled, some speculate that within its chitinous head it retains memory of a terrible wrong done to it in its past life, and is forever lashing out in mourning of a name and mask long lost.
“…pulled old Ordo’s head right off! He had a neck so thick that this creature could scarcely get its legs around it, and yet it latched on tight and – pop! – off like a bleedin’ bottletop! And it sure did bleed, ha ha. Then it stood up on its hindlegs and beat three more of us to death with the rest of the body. Ahh, had a sense a’ humor, it did!
“Me? Ach, it caught me a glancin’ blow and sent me into a cliffside. Woke up a day later to see me fellows pounded to mush and the devil long gone. I made a hearty breakfast of their remains and went on my way. I’ll see it again someday, eh? Life is long until it’s short. Bottoms up!”
– Krek Kantos, Belligerent Knight
Eveline Zejka Rosewater Golliwogg Aoi-Ue Lilikova
Every devil has its vices; the imp Eveline’s is eavesdropping. Slender, snaggle-toothed, and wild of hair and eye, this blue devil is the unseen torment of anyone in Throne who wish to conduct clandestine affairs. The city is riddled with crannies and byways and Eveline slips through them all, leaping across rooftops, slithering up drainpipes and sliding through doorways half her thickness, all in pursuit of whatever furtive quarry catches her gaze. No obstacle has yet successfully blocked her from the targets of her obsession.
From her shadowy aeries she has overhead confessions between politically disastrous lovers, leered at graphic threats made to guildmasters and all they held dear, and borne witness to a grand (and ill-fated) plot to rise up against Solomon David himself – and then promptly forgotten nearly all of it, because for Eveline, no secret can hold a candle to the thrill of hearing it spoken. Nonetheless, she’s also a drunk and an insufferable gossip, and many a business deal or nighttime tryst has ended in catastrophe due to the wagging of a certain azure tongue. The only trace she leaves behind is the scent of her beloved cinnamon-and-clove perfume, and its spice still lingers in the most improbable corners of the city.
“How about you tell me [how they found us]? The Tower of Stars is half a mile of sheer smooth gods-damned rock. We could barely talk for lack of air. Every door that had to be locked was locked. We had people inside keeping watch on every flight of stairs. Not a single hair out of place. Foolproof. Foolproof!
“…although, now that I think on it, there was one odd thing. Whole chamber smelled like a damn bakery.”
– Preem Plinsky of the Lothly Conspiracy, shortly before his execution
Dogtooth Krzhizhanofsky Cincin Salvatore
A terrible division exists within this red devil’s mind, a monstrous intelligence forever straining against the more straightforward, brutish proclivities of his type. Nearly all reds are fond of violence, but while most would settle for simply picking a target and hitting it until it stops twitching, Dogtooth’s broken thoughts channel endless, abstract schemes for destruction. He lurks within a vast network of caves, and in his hermitude his mane has grown such that he looks like some phosphorescent fungus crawling along the ground. From this endless hair sprouts protuberances of spine and fang, and he snaps them off and scrawls his plans on the walls with them until they are worn to bonemeal. They continue to regrow, no matter how he breaks them.
Dogtooth’s madness means that his designs and drawings are warped such that not even he can describe what he creates, or why – but at the same time, it also renders his plans all the more potent, for no defense can hold for long against properly applied illogic. Pree Aesma forbid that he ever be allowed to concentrate on a single target for too long, for within his scrawlings lurks the blueprint for the perdition of all things.
“…what followed was predictable. Lord Wildvane, who had fostered a kingdom from a mudhill and defeated five armies of five thousand men, balked at the devil’s warning and gazed upon the symbol that foretold his destruction. The resultant omens were, at first, expected enough. He would see the marking’s curve on the shield of a charging foe, or note its resemblance in the ripple of a glass bearing deadly poison. But as time went on, he saw the symbol in the curl of his wife’s lips, in the patterns of his city’s streets, in his own haggard and sleepless reflection. Driven to the end of his wits by paranoia in a mere six months’ time, he leapt from the bridge of the very city he had spent his life fostering – and there in the water was the devil’s drawing, fast approaching to embrace him.”
– Excerpt from The Annulment of Yana, and Other Strange Tales
Anande Yusuf Apex-Krawczyk
The Gearspider, the Thousand-Fingered, the Chattering Beneath. Once, in a fit of whimsy, Gog-Agog sealed a devil in a barrel and left it in the ruins of Contresso, the City of Endless Rain. The devil spent a hundred years listening to the patter and tick of the drops against its confinement, and emerged quite mad. That madness persisted even as the devil shed his names and gathered his strength, and still he listens for that sound above all else, especially in the clicks of locks, gears, and other contrivances – as though, in his mind, he is forever escaping the Queen of Worms’ prison.
Now a verdant devil, Anande resembles more than anything a great tangled cluster of arms, clustered with scale and feather, with his staring chatter-toothed face often obscured by those clutching, shining limbs. With his numerous hands he grabs hold of whatever devices he can find and unmakes them, rebuilds them, unmakes them again, always relishing in the click and snap of their parts joining and unjoining. His passing can be marked by the heaps of exotic junk he leaves in his wake, and the devices that are still functional have contributed to the prosperity or ruin of quite a few passersby. Anande’s accidental gifts and taciturn nature have resulted in a small but dedicated religion in his name. This sect leaves offerings of strong locks or complex machines to his altars, believing that, unless he is kept occupied by such gifts, the Gearspider’s obsession will drive him to disassemble the cosmos itself.
The Spider is a busy one
With many busy hands.
He hears a busy ticking sound
Beneath the blighted land.
So leave your tricky ticky bits
Their locks and bolts and screws
Or else he’ll crawl beneath the world
And pull the Wheel loose.
– Folklorist’s rhyme
Lady Céline Rigodon the Eighth
The sevenfold universe plays host to unimaginable sights of suffering and debauchery alike, and at the most extravagant examples of the latter can be found the Lady Céline, the Ardent Debutante, Mistress of Whispers. Always clad in the cutting edge of finery – at one party her petticoats took up the better part of a good-sized ballroom, and at another her hat was filled with unseen creatures that whispered the onlookers’ secret regrets – and with a glass of something strong at hand, this gold devil’s command of dry wit, lascivious gossip, and affable charm immediately makes her the highlight of any upper-class gathering. She always arrives uninvited, but her tastes are so refined that some of the elite consider her appearance to be a blessing on their soirees.
Such people are exceptionally foolish, however, and more discerning hosts are known to treat her appearance with proper caution; Mother Om herself has ordered Lady Céline to be killed on sight. This is because she holds within her breast a lust for chaos unrivaled by her kind, and her golden tongue has engendered waves of destruction that have reduced entire estates to ash and then some. Her controversial political opinions at the notorious 919th Opalnight Ball in the Kingdom of Tur sparked off a war that raged for seventeen years and resulted in the demise of the royal family, the kingdom, and much of the surrounding continent. For knowledge is violence, and words are the blades through which it is expressed. The Lady Céline knows this better than most.
“One eyewitness reports as thus:
‘It was a devil, it was, one a’ them gold ones that always looks like they ought to be at a party or a pulpit. Twice as tall as a man and with her hair all bound up in gold thread. Her clothes were burning, and her hair was burning, and she had a wineglass that was burning like a torch, but she just danced and laughed and looked to be having a grand old time. And she chattered all the while, couldn’t make out what she said, but when she started to talk the fire ‘round her leapt even higher and the wind started to blow, and the crows started to rip at all the dead bodies and the live ones too, which is when I ran off. It was like she was talking to the riots ‘emselves. Like she was coaxing ‘em on.’”
– An Account of the Tasquerson Riots
Pale Face
Go Get Fucked You Stupid Piece Of Garbage Why Can I Never Bind Anything As Good As Clarence Does I Hate His Stupid Beautiful Masks And I Hate You, You Nasty Cockroach Man is the weakest and most repulsive of all pale devils, probably ever. Summoned by a nobleman’s youngest child during a sibling rivalry induced fit of pique, he typically goes by Clarence as a way to spite his binder but also because “Nasty Cockroach Man” was a just little too much of a pejorative for him.
Clarence has a severe hunchback and what isn’t carapace or mask is a mass of bug legs, none of which really bend in a way that most people would consider correct. His mask is placed in the middle of these legs, and so is rarely seen.
He prefers to cover himself in a full-body cloak as to do otherwise means living on the outskirts of society, and Clarence desperately wants to be a socialite so that just won’t do. To his benefit, a series of nodules on the upper part of his chitinous shell does somewhat resemble the face of what could be a beautiful woman, and Clarence has found that with some contortionism, a little touching up in the pseudo-face area, and some cloak-induced lighting shenanigans, he can fool the vast majority of people into thinking he’s actually pretty attractive – as long as he doesn’t forget that he still has to walk backwards to keep up the charade.
Like most pale devils, Clarence is completely mute. But he’s found that he can do a pretty solid impersonation of most stringed instruments just by rubbing his cricket-like legs together just so, and between sounding like a viola and passing flowery-prosed letters around, his inability to speak doesn’t get in his way of being charming when he needs to be.
If Clarence is ever un-cloaked or called out for not being who he seems to be, he just flips over so his mask is facing the ground and scuttles away.
Oooooh ho hoooooooo. My auspicious name and daring lateness are only offset by the tales I weave. If idle hands are the devil’s work I am a saintly mendicant who is now prone to left handed paths. I know five cheap scoundrels and you may have one delicious. They are a delightful bird.
One viridian green supplicant marches idly through life. He is as silent as pale but thoughtful like dung fly gold. He speaks only curtly and in other worlds but how he handles -machines-. He spins them like silver on a lyre. He speaks as though from other worlds. Slow but uncannily bright. A wickery wicked man with too small wings for his body. They call him Uglazototh
But you want more? Shameful ornithology. Take two for the price of one.
Silvery slimmershades are artists of skies, and these two are twin acrobats without identity. Some say they are brothers. Others sisters. The wise recognize that what they are changes on the subjectivity of perceptions. They are what they wish to be, and do they ever soar. They coil in the air and dance along roof tops and between gutter pipes. They are Ilo and Oli. DO NOT SAY THEIR NAMES TOGETHER AT ONCE. SPACE THE NAMES AND DO NOT SUMMON THE FORBIDDEN ONE.
A quarter dozen. Fair trade fair deal. A flock? A FLOCK?! A– Well if you insist.
Take the sanguine hue of the charming one. His teeth and lies are like silk as he hulks like the roughest and dirtiest of them all. But he is a Face. He wears his nature like armour to surprise all who find his barbed tongue brutally smashing them into dust. Many become motes to his blade. His boasts and body are distractions in all ways. The least subtle demons are often the greatest enigmas for how do they live so long? Call this charmer Choifrazkava
For a full team you need two more. Beyond my name! Were all these but dreams?!
She is beauty. She is also death. She is gold. She is also lead. Any brute can kill, but it takes wisdom to MURDER. The cunning assassin can not exist as a mortal, for cliches are eternal. The femme fatal is in all ways sharp, and kills without anyone else knowing. They simply become the void. Veqaxelotz writes the writs of Secret-Murder in plain sight.
Have a touch of the one who planned it all. I wish I could say it was me. I AM NOT THAT SMART I’M STILL A STUDENT AFTER ALL.
Why can green look so gold? She is all her wings, but inside she is simply her thoughts. They are many. They are long. And they have stretched the eons. Green hues mean that for all her planning her perfectionism has meant her hesitation. Why would they take the jewels when they can have the ransom? Why take the ransom when they can have the kingdom? Ylillilyz is simply unable to decipher herself. She needs the call.
Speaking of calls I know many caws.
There was that one. The ebon mask. Her mind was shattered, each shard seeming to view a different reality, perhaps the future or past. Maybe a distant world. And each shard will tell you about it if you but listen.
How did her mind break? The mask cracked. No, of course you can’t see any cracks on it! It’s cracked on the inside. Supposed to be impossible, but this one managed it. No, don’t ask her how it happened, she’ll tell you a thousand thousand versions of the story simultaneously.
Of course she has her uses! That many facets reflecting pure chaos warp mental influence. Dissipate it entirely or turn it back on its user. Telepathy is an open road to assault from thousands of minds simultaneously.
I do not know how she came to have the ebon mask. She had always been quiet, unassuming and unambitious, especially for a demon. But one day, she had it. And she cracked it.
In my travels, I have met many a companion that had been equal parts indispensable and treacherous, and though I considered it too rude at the time to merely ask if they were of the black flames of chaos, I imagine their visages would fit well in a story of daring and death.
-The first I met was Ta-Sen-Ro, a small pale being borne from a consortium of minds, who, as a test of maturity, had to spend three years and one hour within a cube without connection to it’s kin, held within a place without doors or windows, and ascertaining a means of escape. With the collapse of his world-mind, Ta-Sen-Ro discerned the 103-fold path, a means of granting infinite time within one’s mind to consider and weigh every aspect of a problem in a world of his own making. He solved the test in but an hour, and saw fit to leave, to open things that can’t be opened, find the flaw in the flawless, and to crash through it for the sake of riches and power that it’s time among his mind-siblings never afforded him.
I saw Ta-Sen-Ro, in the midst of a fire-time meal, without stopping the consumption the cooked beast I had conquered, it brought forth wire as sharp as a razor, and pouches crafted for alchemical calamity, and headed into the dark for ten minutes before returning to sleep next to the fire.
I dreamt of thunder that night, and when I awake before the creature, I looked out to find bodies of brigands, as though they had been shredded to pieces. I asked the demon, and it said that it had considert every possible outcome that night, with his and my deaths being of occurence far too often for his liking.
I’ve seen him find the ignition switch of a godwalker and have it attack a crime-lord’s hide-out as he strolled in to steal from others their riches and artifacts in turn.
Last I heard, he had made a name for himself and took several apprentices, noviciates that thought with sufficient scrutiny, they could gleam the true secret of the little pale thing’s skills, despite his many entertaining and informative papercraft lectures.