Hadriel App

[abyssalarcana]

PLAYER
Player name: Lauren
Contact: Plurk @tinylongwing
Characters currently in-game: None!

CHARACTER
Character Name: Caedra Nisariel
Character Age: She looks to be somewhere in her late 20s-early 30s, but her memories span back nearly 80 years in total.
Canon: Original - a villainous NPC from the Dungeons and Dragons game I DM for.
Canon Point: Current - see her history.

World Description: Caedra hails from a homebrew DnD setting, though one not too far off from your average fantasy world. The main planet in the Prime Material plane is known as Arneth. It has all the things you might expect of a habitable planet - biomes ranging from arctic to tropical, standard physics, and is made up of one massive globe-spanning landmass divided in places by a few large seas and oceans. The landscape is settled by a diverse array of humanoid and non-humanoid races, and equally at home in Arneth are humans, dwarves, elves, halflings, orcs, giants, dragons, and more. There are kingdoms and empires, tribal societies, trade routes and pirates and vast wildernesses. There are gods, and they are real - gods of noble, lofty concepts; old, mysterious gods all but lost to the passing of time; and gods who live in the material world, bound to places in which they wield great power.

Much of society exists at a technological level comparable to the late Renaissance period in Europe. although this varies wildly depending on location and culture. The rock gnomes within the Pantai empire, for example, have recently perfected their zeppelin-like airships, a stunning new achievement. But they did this partially through the advanced application of magical craftsmanship, for research into the arcane arts in Arneth far supercedes our mundane Earth's scientific work. Magic is widespread in Arneth, although not often to an excessive power. Most commoners of many races never learn to wield arcane power. The few who are born with it, or study it, must take many years to master the most basic of abilities, although rare individuals exist for whom this power comes more easily, and such people are hailed as champions and scholars when they use these abilities to benefit those around them and fight back against the dangers of the wilderness that are always right at the doorstep of civilization.

But like most settings within the Dungeons and Dragons ruleset, the Prime Material world is not the only world that exists. Arneth is part of a multiverse of locations colloquially known as planes. There are worlds composed entirely of fire or water, worlds where the landscape is in perpetual twilight and decay, bright sunny places of beauty where pure celestial creatures promote goodness and civility, and worlds of deep, howling madness where death and dismemberment exist around every corner. These places are all loosely connected within the multiverse but passing between them is not easy. Long ago, you see, this multiverse was all one place, until the gods began carving off pieces of it and shaping them to their desires. That one place was a realm of chaos, but of infinite possibilities. The gods took the parts they liked, as they emerged piece by piece, and left behind the one place they could not manage to control or find any redeeming qualities in.

The heart of the multiverse, or what remains of it, is now a place of utter depraved insanity, where violence, entropy, hatred, and fear govern what passes for life. It is a place of constant war and struggle, where law and hope and goodness cannot exist except for in brief moments to serve the needs of its warlord-like rulers, who have divided up the infinite spiralling madness into territories they only defend through sheer brutish strength and power. It is inhabited primarily by an endless horde of creatures that the rest of the multiverse has come to call demons, which multiply without limit and seek to plunge all of known existence back into that darkness, so that all of the hope and joy and love that the gods try so hard to foster can be devoured and utterly destroyed.

That place is known as the Abyss, and that is Caedra's home.

History: A thorough history can be found here. To summarize:

37 years ago, Caedra died. Before that, she was human, but memories of her mortal life come only in fleeting glimpses. She remembers fleeing captivity at an early age, aided by her family, all of whom had been captured by slavers. She remembers continuing on when they settled, slipping away into the wilderness and running as far as her feet would carry her, to a distant city named Hafeld. She remembers her attempt at summoning the demon lord Amamot in hopes of bargaining for power to take revenge on those who had tried to steal her away; how in the course of learning from him and doing his bidding, she fell in love and gave birth to his child. Most of all, she remembers that one night when she, channeling his power, plunged Hafeld into despair, committing a chain of murders and summoning creatures from Amamot's domain with the blood, resulting in the deaths of some 20 innocents in what became known as the Black Night. She never did get her revenge, but it felt less and less important in time.

Caedra can't remember much after that point, although she knows she died fairly young. Her crimes against the gods saw her soul swiftly delivered to the creature she had sworn service to, and Amamot granted his fallen warlock a sort of gift, in recreating her body out of Abyssal material.

Now fully a demon, Caedra has spent the last three decades continuing to assist Amamot. She is the caretaker of a portion of his domain known as the Garden of Thorns, and in this role she does as she pleases to keep its inhabitants in line and afraid of their master, as well as whatever it takes to fend off any would-be intruders. She also has dedicated her time to studying languages and poetry, perfecting her magical abilities, and keeping an eye on important targets of Amamot's plans through scrying across the planes. She is one of the demon lord's preferred consorts, as well, though this comes at a cost, for there are plenty who are jealous, and far more who are purely malicious toward her as a result. Still, out of her continued feelings for him, she has voluntarily taken his name as a symbol of loyalty and devotion.

In the last year, Caedra has been kept quite busy keeping tabs on a variety of events in Arneth. Of particular interest to her are the activities of her son and grandson. Her son, Virion, is back in Hafeld aiding his parents in a quiet takeover of the city, a plot that has been in the works since the success of the Black Night massacre. And her tiefling grandson Malthus was traveling with friends for a few months while working for his grandfather as a warlock as well, seemingly following in her own footsteps in many ways. She even got to visit him briefly in Arneth, when he helped her cross between the Abyss and his world so she could lead a small force of demons to assault a Giant temple that was guarding a valuable primordial artifact. Sadly, they were defeated - the temple was secretly sheltering a very powerful angel in their midst, who killed several of the demons and banished Caedra back to the Abyss.

Just recently, Malthus arrived in the Abyss himself after a botched attempt at transporting his entire group of traveling companions there with him. It's another frustrating setback, but Caedra can't help but be delighted at this opportunity to get to know her grandson better, and to help train him for what will inevitably become an all-out war for control of Arneth, or at least a portion of it. In fact, it's on her way to meet with the boy and his grandfather, to discuss some of their upcoming strategy, that Caedra initiates a teleport - and arrives in the completely unfamiliar world of Hadriel.


Personality: In the terminology of Dungeons and Dragons, Caedra is Chaotic Evil. She is a tanar'ri demon, and this is their nature. She, like the rest of her kind, is a physical embodiment of this alignment, and she, like them, is driven by the will of the Abyss itself. She hears its whispers in her mind, always urging her forward, to kill, desecrate, and destroy, with the eventual goal of tearing down the multiverse and reducing its beauty and organization to the churning madness at the heart of everything. Law, rules, and regulations are anathema to Caedra, who thrives on freedom. Tell her not to do something and she may well do it just to spite you. Moral codes are there to be broken, kingdoms are to be plunged into endless war, and the gods, who would impose their rulings and judgment and morality, will one day be brought to their knees by the might of Abyssal hordes. And kindness? Generosity? Altruism? They are illusions and deceptions only; tools to trick prey into a false sense of security. Few things give Caedra more pleasure than the simple act of murder, and that is all too easily achieved when someone thinks you are their friend.

But that's demons for you, and they're not all utterly intolerable. Caedra actually comes across as surprisingly pleasant. She has a cheery, bubbly sort of personality, and very little seems to get her down for long. It's not all entirely deception, despite what she would probably tell you if you asked. She seems to genuinely stay positive most of the time, and is optimistic about her goals and future. She remembers vaguely how, as a child, she had nothing, and as a young adult, she was barely able to scrape together enough coin to rent her shoddy apartment in Hafeld's poor district. Now, she lives like a queen, and she relishes it. She loves the exotic foods and fine drinks, the luxurious fabrics that make up her wardrobe. She firmly believes that these are things she has earned, after decades of continued and devoted service to Amamot. She has these luxuries because she is ambitious, and has the ability to back it up. As a young adult while still mortal, she managed to grab the attention of one of the most powerful demon lords in the Abyss, and she used the powers she was granted to gain his favor. Caedra is resourceful, proud, and most of all, confident in herself and her abilities.

Caedra has seen hardship and succeeded where so many others would not. After all, she lives in a realm of eternal violence, and is occasionally the target of everything from rude jokes to vicious attacks because of what many perceive as favoritism toward her from Amamot. But anyone who targets her had best be able to defend themselves, for her immediate reaction is usually to punish. She wields the powers taught to her by Amamot with deadly efficiency and does not hesitate in the least if offended or threatened, especially because when surrounded by other demons who feel similarly, it's important to regularly remind them just how much force she wields, so that they won't be tempted to try the same tricks as her victims. To Caedra, almost everyone is expendable. The only value in preserving life is when that life is useful. And so of course, Caedra isn't entirely insane and knows when there is something to be gained by working together with others, even if she personally would prefer to just slaughter them and be done with it. There can be great benefits to selecting those who are useful and aiding them to accomplish greater goals. Caedra absolutely recognizes that most creatures are not as cruel and selfish as she and the rest of her kind are, and that even if she is prone to backstabbing and treachery if it suits her, the non-demon races will often make promises and actually try to keep them. Because of this, particularly strong members of these races and species can actually be very helpful indeed when there is a common goal at hand.

Among demons, Caedra is fortunate. She was specifically given her current form as an instrument to Amamot's plans, and while under his protection, is in a relatively secure position in an otherwise dangerous and unpredictable world. And as she did in her mortal life, Caedra loves him desperately. Obsessively, perhaps. She, like so many of her kind, feels and responds to emotions deeply and intensely and the burning rage of the Abyss is occasionally tempered by her even stronger pull toward the demon lord whose side she has stood by for so long. He is the one person she would sacrifice everything for - in part because her drive to destroy is best accomplished through helping him, but equally because there is nothing she wants more than to love him and be loved back. This can and has presented a problem. When she came to Arneth and led the attack on the Cloud Giant temple at Grunfjell, the goal of said attack was supposed to be to retrieve the artifact. When Caedra discovered there was an angel in disguise at the temple, she should have held back, should have waited until plans could be adjusted - but she was afraid that if she did so, the angel might leave, or that Caedra might be replaced in favor of someone more expendable. For in her time, Caedra has realized that the only time Amamot showed genuine romantic feelings for her was long ago in Hafeld, shortly after a pair of angels had led an attack on his Abyssal layer. When he defeated them, he consumed their souls, in contempt of the gods and as a massive boost to his own powers. But the side effect he never told anyone about, that to her knowledge she alone has realized, was that those angelic souls poisoned him, and for a few short years he was capable of kindness, generosity, and even romance. So when she realized what she had found at the temple, impulse and obsession drove her forward despite the caution she should have had. The artifact would have allowed them to bridge the gap between the Abyss and Arneth with more ease, but if she could capture the angel and deliver its beating heart personally to Amamot, perhaps he would love her the way he once had.

There are a handful of others she seems to care for as well. Caedra loves her and Amamot's son, despite his flaws, and considers herself responsible for Virion's well being when his father seems to care far less. When Virion died in the mortal world and came to the Abyss as a new demon, Caedra was the one who sheltered him from the ravenous horrors of their world until he was strong enough again to defend himself. Caedra is eager to get to know Malthus and to see what he is capable of, because although the boy resembles his grandfather physically, his personality reminds her strongly of what she remembers of her life as a human - he's bold, ambitious, charming, and deadly. He is a worthy addition to her small list of allies, and with that additional bit of leverage, she will hopefully remain in a position of power and privilege, and together, under Amamot's banner, perhaps they will achieve what the others in the Abyss have always sought. If either were to oppose her she would turn on them - she would have to, of course, because she always comes first - but they seem just as willing to work with her and Amamot as she is with them, and so they form a sort of family clan where each is willing to support the others so long as they share the same goals.

Left to her own devices, Caedra is creative and contemplative. While she's quite outgoing, she values having time to herself every now and then for pursuits such as learning languages, gardening, and writing poetry. The latter has always particularly fascinated her, and at her home in the Garden of Thorns she has amassed quite a collection of poetry by a variety of authors. Common themes of her own poetic works include love and almost religious worship of Amamot, elements of her childhood warped by her perceptions from the Abyss that result in some truly dark and violent imagery, and more meditative, quiet pieces that reflect the world around her as well as her memories of Hafeld - of dark, cold, wet city streets, of ships in the harbor and the rare glimpse of stars through a cloudy night sky. That said, her works referencing Hafeld are also brutal and bloody, a swirl of anger and emotion mixed with sheer passion and joy at killing her victims or unleashing the horrors of the Abyss on a quiet and unsuspecting city. Some of her work also has an underlying theme of melancholy - of loneliness, isolation, and a yearning for freedom.

I suppose if I were to summarize, Caedra is one of those rare demons who has lived just long enough to see the value of thinking before taking action, but not long enough to be entirely patient. She has learned how to pick fights she believes she's likely to win, and when to run if things look grim and her own existence is threatened. Strong impulses and emotions still rule many of her actions, even though she does have long-term goals and believes she has the means to achieve them. As a person, she really does seem pleasant enough - she's happy to indulge in entertainment, creativity, and things she finds enjoyable, and is capable of teamwork and even a sort of friendship when she finds herself in the right sort of company. But the core of her being, the essential nature of demonkind, is that she is but an extension of the Abyss, which will some day consume everything that was stolen from it by those beings who dare to call themselves gods.


Inventory: Being in the habit of carrying very little on her, Caedra arrives with not much at hand. She has clothing, of course, her current preferred style consisting of a chemise, bodice, petticoats, boots, and a black woolen hooded coat and skirt with white fur trim. Over that, she wears an embroidered pallium with designs inspired by the patterned garments of her original homeland in Arneth's region of Abachar, but with Amamot's sigil and staff at the end. Worn as a necklace beneath her clothing is an iron sigil of Amamot pendant.

Additional possessions include a rose-shaped brooch of Abyssal iron, through which she can focus her spellcasting if need be; a set of tuning forks kept in an inside pocket which are tuned to the frequencies of various planes; and a ring, designed to look like a pair of thorns, which she wears on the ring finger of her left hand.

This ring is technically a cursed item and cannot be removed except through magical means. She could remove it if she wanted to, but instead she considers it her most valuable item. Sealed within Caedra is a portion of Lord Amamot's soul - just a tiny fragment, a sort of safeguard in case someone actually manages to defeat him in combat. Like a lich, or Voldemort, many demon lords preserve pieces of themselves through amulets or horcruxes or what have you, and so Caedra is basically a living soul container, and the ring is part of the seal placed on her.

The only other object she has with her is not a physical item per se, but a summonable weapon which usually takes the form of a black rapier with a thorned vine hilt, though she can change it or dismiss it as she pleases.


Abilities: Hoboy. Well, as befitting a powerful evil DnD creature, Caedra can do some nutty stuff. I'll go ahead and summarize, but if anyone really wants a full list of spells and some other things, it's here.

As a demon, Caedra does not need to eat, sleep, or breathe. She might do these things anyway if she feels like it, particularly eating, because food is delicious (and she quite likes coffee especially). The one form of sustenance she truly craves is souls, which she can capture from a creature she has just killed. If she finds a way to contain a soul she can extract various other benefits from it instead of just outright consuming it, such as using its energy to bolster her own powers, or seeing into its memories. Physically, she is more durable than she looks, impervious to poisons, and cannot be affected by spells that cause her to be charmed by or afraid of their caster. This is not to say she cannot experience fear, of course - she absolutely can. Additional innate abilities include the ability to see normally in darkness, and telepathy within a 120 foot range. She also is technically immortal, though it's a limited sort of immortality. Her body does not age unless she wants to look older. If she leaves the Abyss for another plane and is killed there, she simply re-forms in the Abyss, pissed off but otherwise intact. Only in the Abyss can she truly be killed and stay dead.

Furthermore, for those familiar with 5e DnD terminology, she is the equivalent of a 20th-level Fiend warlock with the Pact of the Blade. In short, she is able to summon a magical weapon at will, usually in the form of a rapier, and additional spells and abilities can be used to augment her melee attacks. She has a variety of other offense-based magical skills, used purely for dealing damage at range or in close combat.

Some of her more subtle abilities include afflicting someone with temporary madness, entering the dreams of a sleeping person or altering them, changing her own physical appearance, placing someone under a temporary state of magical paralysis, or enabling herself (or someone else if she has good reason) to be able to anticipate everything seconds before it actually happens, for an 8-hour duration. She does also have the ability to counterspell or dismiss magical effects and curses.

And should she need to escape, or move great distances, she can teleport, fly, or make herself invisible. Normally she is able to jump between planes but for the sake of keeping her in Hadriel, that ability will not work. Normally she also has other abilities that draw directly on her connection to the Abyss, such as summoning other demons or banishing people to that delightful place, but those also will be unable to function here.

It is important to note that all of these crazy-sounding abilities are actually more limited than they might sound. Casting a lot of powerful magic is draining for a warlock, and she can only do so much and for so long before she has to rest up, making it incredibly important that she choose wisely before she acts. And again, I want to emphasize that although she can do a lot of pretty powerful stuff, as befits the setting she comes from, she can be evaded by someone quick enough, and someone with strong internal willpower may well be able to shrug off her mind-altering spells.

More mundane abilities of hers, though no less important: she picks up languages easily and seems to relish in doing so (and currently is fluent in Abyssal, Common, Tocharan, Draconic, and is working on Primordial), she's not a terrible poet (though that's always a matter of taste), she's quite adept at tying knots and mending clothing by hand, and even without the use of magic she's a convincing liar and excellent at reading people's intentions.


Flaws: The door brings in Evil and Chaos, you say? How fitting.

I touched on this a lot in her personality section, but for the sake of summarizing it all neatly here: Caedra's truest desire is to spread chaos and evil throughout every bit of existence. Sure, at home, she has found she's most effective at doing that by serving a powerful demon lord, but she's happy to do so through her own actions as well whenever possible.

Caedra is impulsive. That's probably one of her biggest flaws. She's learning patience, is certainly better at it than most of her kind, but she can still act rashly and unpredictably, and where a more logical normal mortal person might reconsider an action that could put them in danger, or endanger those around them, Caedra is far more likely to charge forward, sword in hand. Confidence becomes overconfidence as the desire to kill and destroy overwhelms rational thought. Especially outside her home domain, Caedra can be reckless, because she knows the only place she can truly die and stay dead is if she is killed in the Abyss.

Her personality, described previously as positive and cheerful, can verge on manic. She does feel emotion strongly. She just doesn't always feel the right emotion, depending on what someone might expect. Partially this comes from her callousness and the lack of value placed on the lives and feelings of those around her, but partially it's just that this is how she is. But to those used to the human, elven, halfling, or other standards of behavior, it can be jarring when, say, your best friend is bleeding out on the ground after some epic battle and not only does Caedra just not seem to care, she's instead gleeful and elated about her own role in the fight.

A lot of demons seem to express particular personality traits, and those born from once-mortal souls such as Caedra often represent exaggerated and twisted versions of something they felt strongly in life. For Caedra, this is obsession. Amamot is certainly her main focus but that isn't the only way this particular flaw surfaces - her current pastime of accumulating new languages, for example, is unusual among demons and she, normally social and outgoing, will instead sometimes lock herself away in her cottage for hours, if not days, as she practices making perfect calligraphic strokes and dedicates herself to sentence structure, only coming out when the desire for interaction finally overrides whatever she had been working on.

One final flaw that deserves to be mentioned is that Caedra is the sort of warlock that most in her universe hate. The nature of the pact she made with Amamot was not truly one done out of desperation or any desire to help anyone other than herself. She willingly contacted him, seeking a gift of power rather than pursuing magical study or clerical service. She's the sort of person who would rather sneak into the teacher's office and steal the answers to the exam than study. She might feel now like there's little she can't accomplish, but if presented with a truly challenging problem, she is more likely to try and talk her way out of it or around it, or look for a shortcut, than to do honest work.


SAMPLES
Action Log Sample:
This, she fears, will only go poorly.

Caedra watches, fascinated nonetheless, as the swirling waters in the great stone bowl shift their contents to a point of view just over Ifiet's shoulder. The little jarilith had served her so well in her time as her grandson's assistant, but perhaps that time is now coming to an end, Caedra realizes, as she sees the scene before her unfold. To the west, she can just make out the body of Malthus' horse on its side, the illusory black coat fading to reveal the creature's natural brown hair in the pale pre-dawn light. The creature's throat is slit, and a few feet away sits a bucket, discarded and on its side. Normally, this wouldn't interest her in the least, but tonight? It's all wrong.

For the figure Ifiet's vision is focused on, from her hiding spot in a tree down on the riverbank, is Malthus. Malthus, who is sitting cross-legged on the bloodstained field, arms spread wide, chanting while his companions sleep, oblivious to the fact that they are within a great circle of ever-deepening darkness.

No, no, this is a mistake, you can't- she wants to scream at him, as she draws in a sharp breath and immediately begins to cast, trying to formulate a message, to warn him. You haven't trained for this, the Abyss will eat you alive-

But the boy has already gotten too far with his attempt for Caedra to be able to help, and she watches intensely as his Gate backfires, as his friends wake up to the trembling soil and shrieking whispers of the boy's attempted betrayal. One by one they escape, easily able to resist the grasp of half-formed darkness from blood that was too weak to be of use, and the incantation of a warlock who was making it up as he went.

She stands abruptly as she sees the hands of the Abyss claim Malthus instead, demanding a tribute for their trouble. She doesn't finish watching; she knows exactly where they will take him, if he passes through intact. And she desperately hopes he does. Malthus is meant for so much more than this, and all she can think back to right now is their one and only meeting, brief as it was, in the wilds of Pantai. How she saw, for the first time, her own grandson in person, and how he embraced her warmly. Caedra had heard tales of tieflings close to their outsider heritage, as he was, who sought to separate themselves from their ancestors, who openly rebelled and became warriors of the gods, swearing to kill the immortal creatures they owed their existence to as if through that defiance they were somehow better.

Malthus had hugged her close, had given her a book of poetry. He had his grandfather's nose, horns, tail. He wanted to help his family in any way he could, and for that, she would be forever thankful.

Wasting no further time, Caedra clasps a hand to the rose on her collar and focuses on a clear mental image of the great cage, the only real port of entry into Ironhold. The ground lurches, vanishes, reappears - and as iron bars rise up before her, she can see that she is not the first to arrive. Behind the bars, one enormous wing blocks most of her view deeper into the cage, and all around its exterior, a cacophany erupts from creatures driven mad by the presence of their lord.

Without hesitation, she strides forward, stripping the keys from the hands of a cowering nalfeshnee and letting herself in. Amamot must have teleported directly inside, but she doesn't quite trust her own abilities to pull that off so perfectly. She ducks under the membrane of his wing and looks up, as he meets her gaze with a raised eyebrow and then lowers his arms to show her Malthus, whose chest rises and falls irregularly, whose tail hangs limp and nearly lifeless.

"He survived!" Caedra exclaims in awe, as she reaches forward to stroke the boy's blood-dampened hair tentatively. "I thought for sure I would find you here with a larva instead. What- what do we do?" A larva, just a lone individual soul, could be given a new body. That, she knew, was how she had come to be, and how Virion was now as well. But the trouble with larvae was that they retained so little of who they were, sometimes - an entire lifetime of memories could be lost, and personalities never stayed quite the same. The young man who lies unconscious before her is actually still mortal, is still who he has grown to be, and while that's exciting, it's also worrying. Too many here would love to hunt him down, perceiving him as a particularly valuable hostage, or delicacy. Once gone, he would be gone for good.

"Let me show you," Amamot replies, voice quiet and low while its inherent power reverberates deep in her chest. "He'll be just fine."