Magical School: The Diabolist
Magical School: The Diabolist
GLOG-compatible ash-soaked summoners
These grand and mighty devils,
they are less than men;
broken hearts laid bare and empty, unable to hold what they once held dear.
Insincere malice, however deadly, hides only puppets cutting with desperation and futile hate at their strings;
mere spirits minding their soul’s prison
Starting Equipment: Black or brown robes with no clear markings (0.5#), 4 sheets of spellpaper1 or equivalent in magical components, codex (leather- bound tome, 1#)
Description
Most people know where Hades is (down). Only a diabolist knows the details.
Hades, like all afterlives, is a physical place. It is located at the bottom of the Grand Disc, where Hell clings to its underbelly with its great and fiery engines rooted and bolted into the rock above. Hades is located at the bottom of the world because that is where abandoned souls eventually wind up, after years of slumber and slipping down through the abyss.
Diabolists make deals with the demons that live in Hell. They make deals for power, and by lust for gold. Devils are often very agreeable. They are eager, even, to grant mortals power. They can wait decades for a payoff, and those asking a demon for power are rarely a bad investment.
Unlike organized schools, diabolists don’t have a singular driving philosophy. They are driven by their own curiosity, lust for power, lack of inhibition, and/or desire to thwart their role in life. Generally, diabolists are often self-destructive and unstable individuals who are fundamentally at odds with their society. They may or may not attempt to justify their actions to themselves or to others.
Perk
Masterless undead will approach and ask to serve you. You are fluent in the language of demons. Whenever someone breaks an agreement they made with you, you intuitively know that they did.
Drawback
All of your spells leave a distinct lingering crackling smell of sulfur and ash in the air. Barring extreme circumstances, you can never enter the afterlife of most gods. Your soul will, over the course of years, slip down with the waters across the abyssal ocean floors and into the depths of Hell.
d6 - Mishaps
MD only return to your pool on a 1 or 2, for 24 hours.
You suffer 1d6 damage.
Random mutation for 1d6 rounds, and then make a Will save. If the 3 mutation isn’t lethal and you fail your save, it becomes permanent.
Sheer writhing incapacitating agony for 1d6 rounds.
Instead of casting your spell, a (1d4: lemure, devil, imp, demon lord) is summoned, with variable temperament.
1d6 nearby corpses (if any) reanimate and attack for 1d6 rounds. Take 1 damage for each absent corpse.
Dooms
Fool’s: You become possessed by an imp for a day.
King’s: You become undead, if you weren’t already. Your flesh starts rotting. You have enough willpower to avoid decay. You will become a zombie in 1d6 days, and then a skeleton one month later.
Final: Your patrons in Hell have had enough of you. Every corpse within [Level] miles of you reanimates and converges on your location. A demon lord and his immediate lieutenants are summoned by their nearest loyal point of contact on the surface to join the hunt. Even if you survive, you will never be able to summon devils or raise the undead (by summoning souls) ever again2.
You can avoid your doom by becoming a Lich, by slaying a demon lord and his immediate lieutenants, or by performing three major acts in the service of a demon lord’s agenda and then finding a way to become a devil.
Notes
Diabolists are summoners. Their playstyle revolves around demonic deals and abusing their relatively cheap minions. The majority of their utility and combat spells don’t bother or even benefit their undead and demonic summons. On top of this, they have an unpredictable flexibility if their player is creative enough, as summoned devils can be asked for many services beyond acting as mere combatants.
It is perhaps possible to play a diabolist as a fundamentally good character, but their themes make it a difficult proposition. If the GM has a distaste for evil games, the diabolist may not be a suitable school to play.
d12 - Spells
These spells are designed for the GLOG’s magic system. Casters get (usually) 1 Magic Dice (MD) per level, added to a dice pool. They can add as many MD to a single spell-cast as they have, and then roll the invested quantity of MD. The sum total of the dice (plus their Intelligence, in my preference) becomes the variable [Sum]. The total number of dice rolled is [Dice]. You can get extra MD from wearing a wizard’s robes, among some other sources. Doubles and triples cause the Mishaps and Dooms described above, respectively.
While reading the spells’ bar, R: range, T: targets, D: duration, S: save.
1. Animate Corpse » R: 30' T: corpse with intact skeleton D: [Dice] days
Summon a soul, a shade, or a lesser demon from Hell to possess a corpse. The contract lasts for [Dice] days. Whenever the spell is ended, there is an HD-in-8 chance that the undead is willful enough to stick around afterwards.
You can raise any kind of undead so long as their HD is equal to or less than [Dice]×2. Incorporeal undead still require a corpse, but the corpse is obliterated as the soul is summoned. There are two ways to make permanent controlled undead:
You may keep your MD invested into the spell. They will not refresh from sleep until divested from the spell.
Cast the spell with 3+ MD. This allows you to make a HD 1 or 2 undead that is permanently under your control. At 4+ MD, you can make permanently controlled HD 3 or 4 undead.
2. Command Undead » R: earshot T: undead D: [Sum] rounds S: INT
Shout a single clear order to a group of undead whose combined HD is [Sum] or less. They obey until the order is fulfilled or for as long as the spell lasts. If they’re under the control of someone else, their current controller may attempt an Intelligence save to prevent them from listening to your command.
3. Summon Devil » R: 30’ T: flat surface D: [Dice] hours S: WIL3
Summon a devil from Hell whose HD is [Sum] or less. They will not be under your control, but they are not usually outwardly malicious without reason. Devils are contained by unbroken circles of salt or silver. They perform services in exchange for services rendered.
You can banish a devil that you summoned by ordering it to leave, but if it doesn’t want to, you will have to pass a Will save to be rid of it.
4. Inflict Disease » R: 30 T: creature D: N/A S: STR
Summon a disease of [Dice]×2 HD or less to possess your target. They get a Strength save to negate the attempt. Diseases are sprites that can theoretically be appeased.
5. Possession » R: touch T: creature D: [Dice] hours S: WIL
Target must pass a Will save or be suppressed and put to sleep. Your soul occupies and controls their body for the spell’s duration. Your body is left crumpled in a soulless coma. If either your target or your body dies during the spell’s duration, your soul will be stranded forever.4. Inflict Disease » R: 30 T: creature D: N/A S: STR
Summon a disease of [Dice]×2 HD or less to possess your target. They get a Strength save to negate the attempt. Diseases are sprites that can theoretically be appeased.
6. Personal Sigil » R: N/A T: spellpaper D: N/A
Draw a personal sigil upon a suitably conductive medium (spellpaper or any equivalent usable for a scroll) through which the owner of the sigil can be summoned. Anyone can activate the sigil, which will instantly bring you to a safe location near them regardless of distance, or into a nearby trap such as a circle of salt if any are present. The sigil cannot be duplicated. Anyone who can read Arcana can identify it as your sigil if they know your name.
7. Demonic Cry » R: earshot T: [Dice] targets D: N/A S: WIL
Inside a bellowing war cry, the caster intones a demonic sound audible only to his targets which inflicts fear in them. In addition, all non-demonic characters who hear the cry must pass a Will save or lose their footing and collapse prone. All demonic characters who hear the cry gain advantage on Strength and Will checks for the next [Sum] rounds.
8. Ash Cloud » R: 60’ T: area D: [Dice]*10 minutes
A [Dice]*10’ radius area is filled with a blast of hot sulfuric smoke that chokes all who breathe it in. While inside the cloud, characters take [Dice] fire damage per round and cannot see greater than 5’ around them. The cloud will eventually settle on the ground in the form of a thick gray ash. It can stain clothes and leave trails of footprints.
9. Flamethrower » R: 30’ T: 90° cone D: N/A S: AGI4
Spray an area down with fire. Anyone inside is ignited and takes [Sum]+[Dice] fire damage, and may try an Agility save to halve the direct damage.
10. Godless Oath » R: touch T: willing person D: until irrelevant
Oaths are normally made with a god’s oversight. This is a blasphemous form of oath that is made between two mortals without a god involved. Both caster and target must agree to the terms of a deal and the terms for violating it. The terms are magically enforced in the form of a spell or spell-like effect that either party is capable of producing at a strength no greater than what this spell is cast with, to be inflicted upon the first violation of the pact’s terms.
11. Darkness » R: [Dice]×10’ radius T: area D: [Sum] rounds
An area around a designated point within 30’ is filled with a supernatural pitch darkness. Light cannot penetrate, and light spells fail if their [Dice] is lower. The darkness can be seen through by anyone who can see in the dark.
12. Summon Lemures » R: 20’ T: flat surface D: [Dice] hours
Summon a big pile of [Sum]×2 lemures, which are very weak sad gelatin demons. They will do anything you ask, and can be banished with a thought.
Spellpaper costs, converted, approximately 5gp, and is used to create spell scrolls and other spell-carrying vessels.
I am not so confident about this limitation. I’m open to suggestions for improving this Doom.
WIL = WIll. Subsitute Charisma or possibly Constitution if desired. I derive HP bonuses from Will, so it might be used in either case.
AGI = Agility. Substitute Dexterity if desired.