Embracing the Demon

Koldunism Level 6

Many centuries ago, a renowned brood of koldun was known to barter directly with powerful evil spirits, and it eventually wound up being destroyed by these untrustworthy creatures. Although it may seem senseless to risk life and limb to enlist a "true" demon into one's employ, the benefits reaped by the "koldun" who were not torn apart almost totally eclipses this peril. Following this mode of thought, koldun of the modern nights have re-adapted this ritual of demon-conjuring by requiring the body of a newly dead neonate, one that was blood bound to the caster. When summoned, the demon inhabits the dead body, thereby removing it from its natural element and reducing its overall power. Doing so ensures that the demon will not have enough power to simply destroy the caster on a whim. However, the host body grants it enough of its mystical energies to perform most of its "required" task.

System: The caster must first sacrifice a blood bound neonate. The fledgling vampire cannot have spent any more than 20 years as a Kindred (otherwise the dead body will decay too rapidly for it to host a demon properly). Then the koldun's' player makes his roll, spends a blood point and casts this ritual, all the while chanting the name of the demon he wishes to summon. The demon, in turn, will be drawn from its infernal realm and forced into the newly dead vessel body. As long as the vampire was blood bound to the koldun before she was destroyed, the demon summoned into her body will not have the capacity to readily defy its master.

Once it is within the vessel body, the demon may perform any of a number of tasks, from performing as an efficient bodyguard to serving as a mentor for teaching new Disciplines. It possesses all of the physical characteristics (Attributes, Talents, etc.) of the host vampire and all of the supernatural and mental capacities (Disciplines, Attributes, etc.) of the demon. It is considered subject to the blood bond, and it cannot actively harm its master, even though it almost certainly resents him.

The demon will be physically weak for the first few nights after the summoning, as it grows accustomed to coping without the full range of its tremendous powers, and it will be restricted to the limits of the body. Within a week, it will "grow" into the body, causing it to take on demonic features. Its Attributes and powers may also increase with time (at Storyteller discretion). Over the course of a month, the body will degenerate into an unsuitable vessel for the demon, caused by both the dead body's decay and its inability to accommodate the demon's increasing powers. After a month has passed since the demon's summoning, the vessel body will fall apart, and the creature will be released from its servitude and immediately sent back to where it originated.

A demon summoned into a vessel body that was not blood bound before it was killed may consistently attempt to break free from its term of servitude. The koldun must make a Willpower roll every night that the demon remains in the vessel body. While a failed roll causes the koldun's sway over the demon to slip, immediately releasing it from its mortal chains, a botched roll will ultimately end in a bloody conflict between demon and caster, of which the outcome is almost assuredly in the demon's favor.

Mortal vessels are wholly unsuitable to properly host a demon for any length of time, and any test of this restriction will always result in the body melting into puddles of flesh and viscera almost immediately after this ritual is cast.