Playing Demon Characters

Alignment

The first big principle is: “Demons don’t have to be evil”. Demons originate from hell, but differently than most people think they are not inherently evil. Many Demons might look scary and making a deal with them did not go well for everybody, but that also counts for many salespersons. In this adventure we therefore featured backstories and flavor texts to the four playable demons as a first impression of what demons can be like. The difference between playing a humanoid character and a demon is, that they are normally feared by humanoids and that they in most cases have less sympathy for them either.

Desires

Demons have a unique way to regenerate part from long and short rests. They can raise desires in humanoids and therefore can regain arcanum points, which is their resource for creating spellslots and casting spells (more under chapter “Magic and Demons”). In terms of roleplay this doesn’t mean they have this desire on their own as a character trait. So, for example a Demon raising laziness in people doesn’t have to be lazy themselves. In fact, they could be proud or even a “workaholic” (because they do all the work for the mortal, and he doesn’t need to do anything anymore). Lore wise this is the case because energy generated by humanoids giving in to desires flows down into hell nurturing chaos and demons. Demon Lords split the pot of this energy according to the desire that created it. Every demon causing energy to flow down into hell can keep it instead.

Being Powerful

Demons are powerful. In rule terms this means an original 5E CR 1 demon is supposed to be a 1st level demon player character in RoC. CR 1 equals a medium challenging encounter for 4 1st level heroes. Why pointing this out? From a roleplay perspective you as player should know that normal humanoids, like commoners, merchants, even guards are no threat at all. The biggest threat for demons is blowing their cover, because that means that mobs can form, priests and paladins can be contacted and so on. Slashing trough lines of guards can be fun but doing so very early in the adventure or simply choosing the wrong time, can make the mission fail. So, it’s all about fooling humanoids about what you are and using them to get what you want. But when the time is ready, you unleash hell and bring calamity to those standing against you.

Being summoned

A very likely starting point of an adventure for playing Demons is getting summoned. Summonings from cults may sound like lovely invitations, with lots of offerings and close to no rules attached. In this case a Demon will most likely be friendly to its summoners. Other summonings might feel like a yoke of slavery being put onto your shoulders forcing you to obey a ridiculous number of rules in form of a strict contract. When dragged out of hell in such a way and offered nothing but a rigid contract to fulfill, you might consider being annoyed, furious or even pity your summoner because you know you are going to make his life a hell. You as a demon know you are bound to your contract and if it forbids killing your summoner you may have to find loopholes or come up with different ways to make him suffer. In the end at least you know fulfilling your contract makes you free again and you can turn back into hell stronger than before. Fulfilling summoning contracts gains you power which out of game means levelling up.
In the adventure "Ambergleam's Demise" you will be summoned by Richard Stargaze, an old wizard, in a very straightforward and hurtful way. How will you as a demon react to that? Will you hate him for it? Will you obey his rule?