Before the past year, the creatures of the Void had no substantial presence on Gaia, bound as they were to Rifts and temporary passages to escape the chains of their prison. With Vitrumaria bringing the practice of daemon summoning to Everend, though, the entities now play a crucial role in determining the fate of the world, whether anyone — daemons included — like it or not.

Although daemons experience the frameworks of human morality again and again as their interactions with people become more regular and thus nobody can say what the future holds for their kind, as a whole the entities are more amoral than good or evil. Eons spent in the Void forced them to adapt to a reality whose nature doesn’t align with the wellbeing of this world. In fact, most daemons ignore their kind was once native to Gaia, the secret being only known to the most ancient and cunning among them. Daemons embody concepts and forms of magic from primordial Gaia such as destruction, creation, and rebirth, twisted by an eternity passed outside the boundaries of reality. They have magic of their own, many replicating the effects the spellcasters of Everend can create, but their powers — their mere presence — corrupts the world and changes the essence of the creatures inside it, tainting them with the primordial elements.

Two broad categories of daemons exist: The lesser daemons, who vary wildly in rank and power, and the mighty sovereigns, who are more akin to actual divinities.

Flagros

Even more than other daemons, the flagros interact with us with eagerness: Our emotions and desires feed them, conflict helps them grow. They start as living flames, with clever eyes and fanged mouths, only to turn into furious bonfires and raging stars. Be careful with them, though: Those taking their first step into the art of summoning love flagros for how happy to fight they are, not to mention they infuse their energy into items of any sort — even buildings! — and turn them into marvelous means of transportation, but the daemons yearn to find their purest expression of self in a devasting explosion. 

Both sociable and easy to summon when compared to stronger daemons, flagros nevertheless hold within their blazing form the potential to be extremely dangerous. Their essence as daemons of fire and strong emotions with a love for battle certainly make them excellent picks for any summoner in need of help to defeat their enemies, but it’s the sheer destructive potential of flagros who solidified their reputation as living weapons. 

Vitrumaria dreams to employ flagros in great number someday, the daemons’ ability to explode at will after their flames are fueled a precious tool in any general’s arsenal, while the secretive summoners of Talpidium discovered their nation’s geothermically active nature suits well the flagros and that the creatures’ help can power instruments and tools away from indiscreet eyes. 

Flagros’s Magic

• Blazing Strikes (1 hit): All the character’s attacks gain the Flaming tag.
• Blazing Shield (2 hits): The character becomes immune to fire and explosions.
• Incinerate (2 hits): Inflict the On Fire area effect (Minor) on the Area or increase its Complication rating by one step.
• Immolation (3 hits): The flagros gains the spotlight as soon as the character passes it, detonating with the Explosive Demise Art.
• Fuel (3 hits): The flagros reflexively activates the Feed the Flames Art, regardless of their current Health. 

Qessarach

Some creatures from beyond this world are isolated miracles of the Void with few existing brethren — if any — while others are more akin to animal species, despite the sentience all daemons demonstrate. Still, you’ll discover some hold a sense of belonging and community that goes well beyond the kinship members of the same species demonstrate. The qessarach is one such example, arguably the most notable among the daemons we observed. Although I don’t think this plays any role in their attitude, each qessarach resembles a mundane human of Everend, save for traits such as unusual hair and eye colorations. Differences come up when you notice a qessarach’s belly terminates in a massive arachnid’s thorax, the effective lower end of the daemon’s body. Qessarach want nothing more than to protect their kind and ensure they all have a safe place to exist, which in my humble opinion makes them more akin to us than they are different.

Qessarach are a kind of daemons who combine the features of human, spider, and scorpion. Ever since the first qessarach made their way from the Void into Gaia, the arachnid people have tried to find a permanent way to reside in the new world. 

Unlike many other daemons, qessarach have a civilization of their own, where people live together and collaborate to protect their loved ones from the dangers of the Void. After an eternity spent beyond reality, with so many dreaded daemons endangering their kind with their mere existence, the qessarach look at Gaia with hope for a better future. Qessarach aren’t averse to the idea of a peaceful coexistence with the people of Gaia, dreaming to effectively become one themselves, but for now are taking their time to study Everend and decide the best approach to realize their aspirations.

Qessarach’s Magic

• Arachnid Strikes (1 hit): All the character’s attacks gain the Poisoned tag.
• Chitinous Armor (1 hit): The character gains an armor with the Padded and Resistant tags.
• Arachnid Gait (2 hits): The character becomes able to walk on walls as if they were a normal surface.
• Webs (2 hits): The character gains the Entangle (Short range) Art, using Aim + Dexterity or Stamina for it.
• Web Architecture (3 hits): The character gains the Barrier (Light) Art. Alternatively, out of combat, create a structure like a bridge or wall in the Area. The structure can sustain heavy weights akin to a convoy or a passing army without trouble and, unless destroyed by weather or direct attacks, lasts indefinitely.

Nightmare Lanterns

Summoning a nightmare lantern equals confronting your worst fears. Even when properly enticed and bound, the daemons elicit a primal response in whoever looks at them, tapping into the deepest recesses of their mind. Resembling a floating cluster of giant disembodied eyes, nightmare lanterns already look horrifying before you notice the translucid mass surrounding the eye core. The actual “body” of the daemon, an ephemeral structure made of dream matter with vague resemblance to a cephalopod or jellyfish, tentacles, and all. Whether they devastate your mind with their psychic powers or crush your bones through a combination of ectoplasmic limbs and telekinesis, nightmare lanterns are behind a good amount of the cautionary tales about botched evocations that circulate nowadays.

Among all the daemons thus far observed and summoned on Everend, nightmare lanterns achieved a dreaded reputation, although not because of sheer physical power. Many other daemons are stronger, lots are better warriors, and plenty make for more efficient tools on the battlefield. What makes the nightmare lanterns unique, though, is how they combine their formidable intellect with their terrifying control of fears and their capability to wield both as weapons.

Despite their theoretical potential for both good and evil, nightmare lanterns are born out of all the terrors that plague the mind, creatures of nightmares, panicked frenzies, and screams. For each summoner entertaining a dialogue with one, dozens of stories about the horrors routing entire battalions with a gesture or haunting the dreams of a careless scholar spread across Everend.

Nightmare Lantern’s Magic

• Oneiric Horror Strikes (1 hit): All the character’s attacks gain the Stun tag.
• Partially Corporeal (2 hit): The character gains a +1 Enhancement on Defense rolls. Can be purchased multiple times, up to +3.
• Power of The Mind (2 hits): The character gains the Telekinesis (Short Range) Art and can use it to hold grapples.
• Superior Intellect (3 hits): The character gains 1 Intellect Advantage. Can be purchased multiple times, but can’t take their Intellect Advantage total above 2.
• Nightmarish Flesh (3 hits): The character gains the Unusual Anatomy Quality.
• Horrors Unleashed (3 hits): Lower the nightmare lantern’s Mental Disruption Art current cooldown by 1. If the Art’s cooldown is 0, the nightmare lantern activates it right after you pass the spotlight.

Sovereigns

Above any other creature, claiming the title of divinity and well worth of it, Sovereign are entities of immense power, timeless age, and otherworldly perspective, eidolons of greatness both bright and terrible unbound by the limitations affecting beings of less godly nature. Their might ignores — or shatters — the laws of Gaia and their actions reshape the world as each step and gesture they make changes the fate of entire nations. A Sovereign can raze a mountain or lay waste to an entire army with a manifestation of power, making them coveted forces to summon despite the risks channeling one of them into service entails both for the summoner, their enemies, and the nearby region.

As beings of nearly supreme power well above lesser demons, Sovereigns don’t have dice pools. Rather, their traits describe the effects they impose over the battlefield, both as formidable blessing for their summoners, terrible afflictions against their enemies, or impossible challenges to face.

Whoever summons a Sovereign into the battlefield commands a force with few equals on Gaia and beyond, but the call of the Void binds the divine creatures to temporary manifestations. Still, a single Sovereign can change the tides of history with their mere presence, a truth the inhabitants of Gaia discovered with dreadful clarity.

Sovereign Outburst

Type: Simple Action

The Sovereign rolls an attack dice pool of 13 and +4 Enhancement against the highest Defense among all enemies. On a success, it equally affects all not-allied characters in the Area. The attack benefits from the tags listed in the Sovereign entry and ignores any Advantage both from characters and structures.

Using Sovereigns

Sovereigns are game-changing daemons and should be handled with care. Finding one should be the focus of a story, and learning to summon it should require effort. Beware having antagonist summoners use a sovereign unless the party also has access to one or two of their own. You may choose to use such a tactic to show the group a devastatingly powerful enemy that they must run from and work on gaining the power to defeat. Just beware of how your players will react if all their characters get Take-Out in a scene, even if that’s a planned plot point.

Sakhalla, the Dust Bringer

The earth trembles. Twelve large monoliths free themselves from the ground, floating at equal distance in the sky, rotating with slow yet inexorable rhythm. The unearthed dirt coalesces in front of the circular structure, taking the shape of an ornate golden mask. The object trembles, until two teal abysses open as its eyes. Sand pours from the mask, turning into the ephemeral robe of an indistinct entity, hidden save for their six arms, each shifting from slender and frail to robust and mighty in a blink of an eye. A sandstorm surrounds them, darting at absurd speed one moment and freezing midair the next one. Yet, the sand never ceases pouring. As their hands compose gestures beyond mortal’s ken, the figure unleashes devastation upon the world, shattering earth, sky, and time.

Sakhalla embodies both the inevitable entropy that grinds everything to dust, the might of the earth, and the unforgiving nature of time itself.

Effects: Characters need only 1 hit to purchase the Sunder Trick and move with supernatural speed, gaining +1 Speed Advantage and rolling the higher dice pool during mixed actions. Their attacks gain the Piercing and Brutal tags while their gear can’t be damaged at all or have its rating reduced. Sakhalla imposes the Quaking and Suffocating area effects on the scene. Additionally, antagonists need a simple action to move between Close and Short range and can’t perform Rush Actions.

Outburst Tags: Brutal, Piercing

Vodalak, the Absolute Zero

A powerful blizzard blinds the world. Once the white-out recedes enough to see again, the presence of a cyclopean ice pillar demands to be acknowledged: The pillar emanates a dreadful aura where cruelty joins hatred. An echoing like muffled thunder precedes a scream like a choked lament. The ice explodes and shatters in all directions. Where it once stood, a horrible warlock, gaunt and distorted by resentment, floats midair. Rime dots his long pale beard, while a horned crown of frozen iron fuses with his very own frostbitten flesh. After a moment spent examining those beneath him, judging them worthy of his spiteful disdain, the entity snaps his gnarled fingers, and cold devastation follows.  

Hateful Vodalak wishes nothing more than to wallow in bitter solitude, something he’d gladly reduce the world to a frozen wasteland for.

Effects: Encased in ice armor, Vodalak’s allies gain one additional Injury box and the Ice tag on all their attacks. Combat Tricks against them require 1 additional hit, while they need only 2 hits to purchase the Critical Trick against enemies subjected to the Petrification status effect. Vodalak imposes the Extreme Temperature (Cold) and Extreme Weather area effects on the scene. Additionally, antagonists who don’t take a physical action during their turn suffer a Moderate Complication, gaining the Petrification status effect if not purchased off.

Outburst Tags: Brutal, Ice