#sparkfinder

[Piotr Jabłoński] Things fall apart, the center cannot hold, etc. The assorted envoys of Hell promise the end of all things, because it’s an important part of branding, but no one in Hell is actually dedicated to the project of destroying the world. In the minds of many, they’ve already won. So there’s still a department in the sprawling bureaucracy that must be touted in the yearly company newsletter, and funds and legions must sometimes disappear in the name of Apocalypse, but no one really believes in it. Except for the Scheduled End Department itself. Starved of resources, the devils and lawyers of the SED achieve a surprising amount in Hell, due to the fact that there’s no chance for them to advance in the traditional hierarchy of the company. It would have be “reorganized” into another facet of Hell long ago if not for the fact that it’s headed by a senior partner, known by the twin theonyms GOG and MGOG. Within the department, it’s a whole other underworld. The exact manner of causing the apocalypse I will leave to your discretion, but it definitely involves weird sacrifices and breaking seals. Don’t come up with a way to stop the apocalypse after it’s already triggered. Either the players prevent it or get amazingly creative. The apocalypse itself is more straightforward. The armies of Gog and Magog, which exist on the borders of (somehow) every nation, will arrive to sack and plunder. These warriors wear strange sigils, their kit a combination of ancient and modern styles and items. They are endless and intelligent, and probably have some aggravating ability that makes the PCs roll disadvantage against them constantly. The art below isn’t really what I’m thinking of, but it feels ancient enough:

In my Pathfinder setting, Hell is a Wolfram and Hart style evil bureaucracy. “Lawyer” is the profession of most powerful NPCs from that plane. The Devil, and most evil gods of each pantheon are considered “junior partners” of the firm. Up until now, I haven’t actually tried to figure out what a senior partner of Hell would be like, because if the Devil isn’t high enough ranked to be one, then they’re probably too important to include in most stories. Still, it’s a piece of worldbuilding I’m interested in working out. There’s a few alternatives I’m currently considering.

Greater Gods

This seems like the most straightforward choice. There are more primordial forces than Satan, and they’re basically him at a higher order of magnitude. Where a junior partner is one of the leaders in corrupting a world, senior partners are evil gods drawing profane power from multiple planes or negotiating with entire pantheons. They’re colossal outsiders that do sanity damage to mere mortals, even to be looked up. Probably they’ve got crazy names like Zzanxerox the Sinuous. You can climb around on them and they have encounters inside themselves like meaty minidungeons.

Powerful NPCs

This puts more emphasis on Hell as an enterprise, that people can embark on for profoundly selfish but basically understandable reasons. These are folks who are powerful enough to kill demigods because high-level characters are the scariest thing around. Basically the PCs of some other story. Each one has some pulpy story about their rise to power, like they zombified an entire plane or turned each of their bones into a phylactery or killed an archangel and invested the soul wisely, turning it into a fortune over the centuries on the soul market.

Bureaucrats

Doubles down on Hell as a bureaucracy. Why would the highest ranked people be the most physically powerful when their job requires excellent paperwork and leadership skills. Bearded devils with expert levels and skill focus (profession: lawyer.) Wizards who focus on maximizing workplace efficiency spells. The higher up you go, the more banal and meaningless it seems. Maybe in the deepest reaches of Hell, there’s a nice suburban getaway for Senior Partners to raise 2.5 kids and form bowling leagues.

Concepts

The Devil is a personification of evil, and in a way that’s comforting. Senior Partners aren’t about being comforting. Evil, pain, and hatred are not intrinsic or necessary. Instead, they confer in their obsidian hall, discussing how best to cause suffering across all existence. Nigh-unkillable even compared to a god, they are difficult for mortals to comprehend. Possibly not even alive in the usual way. The First Evil from Buffy is a similar sort of concept.

Grand Conspiracy

Deep in the woods, a broken-down shack sells tickets to spy vague glimpses of the Bowdler. Every day, widows and orphans crowd against the river banks to watch their loved ones, and to caution travellers against rowing across, knowing they will never return.

The Bowdler is a mockery of humanoid happiness and joviality. Appearing as a humanoid in orange formal attire and an orange cap, Bowdlers in their homes are very accommodating and, when playing crony to an evil ringleader, affably violent in the way of the gentlemen highwaymen of myth.

Bowdlers usually reproduce by inviting travellers into their homes, the peculiarities of their magic gradually making them one of them, for anyone who stays with a Bowdler becomes themselves a bowdler. However, in combat there is another method they employ, expedited, to bowdlerize their victims.