Buy me a coffeeDevils, Gods, and the Prime
The Gates of Hell (Dice Freaks) Grimoire of Cosmic Entities Volume One By Eli Atkinson, William Church and Serge W. Desir, Jr.
Original Concept by Serge W. Desir, Jr.
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There are countless legends and tales about how a powerful wizard gained ultimate power after forcing Mephistopheles to divulge a profound secret. Others tell of how a tyrannical, warrior king acquired the allegiance of Abigor and his 666 Legions and used them to create a new empire. Some share stories of how Merorem the Darkwind erased a priest’s embarrassing past, allowing the clergy woman to take control of a major religion. Still others tell how a purloiner discovered the path to riches after making special arrangements with Scax. In all cases, these tales relate how a Power of Hell played a pivotal role in a mortal’s acquisition of greater power; furthermore, in all cases these stories reveal how the mortal came out ahead in the bargain. However, it can be said with no doubt that any time a mortal makes a pact with a devil, the mortal will almost always lose in the end.
Devil summoning has become a staple in worlds across the Cosmos. Indeed, summoning extra planar creatures is typical of many powerful religions and particularly common among self-styled adventurers and treasure-seekers. Yet, there are differences between summoning even a creature as strong as a pit fiend and calling on the aid of Carreau.htm”>Duke Carreau. While a pit fiend can often use a planar portal to enter the material plane, most Dukes, arch-devils, and Lord-Regents do not have this capacity. The irony here is the fact that the highest ranking devils wish to enter the Prime with greater frequency since this is the most common way for their kind to gain access to the greatest number of mortal souls which in turns bolsters their power and prestige among their peers. Furthermore, access to more mortals enhances Hell’s very clear perspective not just on Evil, but on the nature of Existence; the more mortals and lesser beings are forced to contend with direct and pure aspects of organized evil, the more power Hell has within the rest of the Cosmos.
Many are unaware of why devils of cosmic entity status are restricted from traveling without limitation across the Realities. The answer lies in the gods. In most worlds the gods selfish of their hegemony in the planes and within the mortal realm pooled their divine might to bar or limit extra planar travel. Due to arrangements made shortly after Antiquity and the Dawn of the Gods, divine beings gained “legal rights” to the mortal coils, rights that all but stripped cosmic entities of direct contact with mortals. The gods feared that cosmic entities, limitless in their access to numerous worlds, would reap the benefits of veneration and worship, the food of deities. The gods suspected that cosmic entity involvemet with the mortal realm would not only rob them of their sustenance, but could catapult cosmic entities back into the roles they held prior to the rise of divine beings.
As is often the case, the gods were correct. Cosmic entities would indeed reap great rewards from mortals if they had the ability to interact with them directly. Unlike gods, who are empowered by veneration, faith, and belief across almost any planar boundary and require worshippers in order to exist in the first place, cosmic entities, while not dependant upon worship to exist, require immediate supplication from lesser beings in order to grow in power. It is for this reason that cosmic entities tend to require fairly simple, yet very intense, rituals from mortal celebrants. The immediate act of belief on the part of a mortal greatly enhances the power of a cosmic entity; mortals, enticed by the clear and obvious power of a cosmic entity, are more likely to fall to their knees and offer their lives and souls to cosmic entities. It is through the use of mortal souls that the greatest distinction between gods and cosmic entities emerge. Gods typically do not consume souls since in doing so they lose access to a worshiper. Indeed, even a dead mortal offers worship in the form of a spirit within the god’s realm in a variety of ways (often through eternal, unending praise). However, cosmic entities, even those dedicated to goodness and righteousness, gain much from consuming or at least distilling components from a mortal soul; this explains the voracious pursuit for souls exhibited by devils, demons, and other evil cosmic entities. By consuming enough souls, a cosmic entity can achieve greater power and station, so much so that it could eventually displace a god altogether.
However, the gods know that they cannot keep cosmic entities out entirely. After all, almost every god in some way “borrows” the essence of cosmic entities in the portfolios they represent. Additionally, gods needed servants and allies among the various extra planar beings in the Realities Beyond. Many gods established treaties with cosmic entities of similar ethical and moral bend that allowed them access to their immortal servants. Through the pure manifestations of the various Ideals, so-called outsiders or elementals, gods can intercede on the behalf of a mortal.
Thus, arcane and divine spell casters have limited ability to summon beings from the Realities Beyond to perform various tasks, but always for a short period of time and with little real risk to either the summoner or the summoned. In most cases, beings summoned in this fashion are relatively weak compared to the monstrosities that exist in the Realities Beyond. Eventually, however, truly powerful mortals gain access to magic that transcends typical summoning. Some acquire the ability to call extra planar creatures of significant, although not cosmic, power to their worlds; while divine spell casters of great faith have the ability to forge alliances with such creatures as representatives of their gods, arcane spell-casters of great skill learn how to bind extra planar creatures to their will. Such alliances and bindings call for great knowledge on the part of the caster and can reach a high pinnacle of extra planar power. Eventually, some spell casters transcend even this plateau and move on the greatest form of mundane summoning: gate. Upon gaining access to gate, mortals risks ripping the fabric of magicks that bar cosmic entities from interacting with the Mortal Coil. At this point creatures like solar’s and balors can be invited into mortal reality. Such creatures, among the greatest in the Realities Beyond, can have far reaching impact in the Mortal Coil. Indeed, so potent is this magic that specific creatures may be called and the especially brave summoner can even attempt an audience with a cosmic entity or god. But even the gate spell, with its tremendous reach, cannot breach planar boundaries and/or divine decree enough to allow cosmic entities (and in some worlds gods as well) access to the mortal realms.
The ability to summon cosmic entities requires tremendous power and either a degree of desperation or a lack of wisdom. Summoning a cosmic entity of any kind not only carries risks to the summoner, but to an entire world because, once summoned, the presence of a cosmic entity unravels the reality of the mortal realms. Although devils are purveyors of order, even they corrupt the world in which they have no business existing. Greater threat lies in the fact that once a Power of Hell is summoned to the Mortal Coil, most conjurors are ill-prepared for their power or the effects the Power’s presence will have on the surrounding environment and lives. However, most conjurors arrogant, desperate, or foolish enough to summon a Duke, arch-devil, or Lord are not overly concerned about the peripheral or long-term effects of their actions and it is for this reason that no one to date as discovered the means to successfully create an incantation or spell that guarantees 100% success.