[ This excerpt is the first part of a player's character creation process if they wish to play a Demon in the "Threshold" TTRPG. Demons receive a different creation guide than their Exorcist counterparts, so it also serves as a way to introduce players to the knowledge exclusive to Demons. ]
You awaken in darkness. Normally this would be concerning, but the darkness wraps around you like a blanket, that little bit of weight so comforting. This is where you belong. It is novel and exciting yet nostalgic and familiar, like visiting family after they’ve moved to a new home. As much as the thrill of this new place sends fire swirling in your veins, and a twist of unease in your stomach, you feel safe. You will be cared for. Though you do not have any reason to think that in this strange place, the thought nonetheless persists.
Under the swirl of nerves and eagerness, you feel a pang of something else - intrigue? Curiosity? It feels odd, out of place, yours but somehow… not yours. An emotion that you’re “holding” rather than “feeling”, one that was given to you rather than originating with you. As soon as you identify that odd emotion, though, you’re hit with another, and another, and another - dozens in quick succession slamming into your chest sharp as stings. They bleed together too quickly for you to identify them, an agonizing cocktail of interest, annoyance, confusion, agitation, concern -
“Oh I’m so sorry little Wisp! Not used to empathic communication yet, huh?”
“The formerly mortal ones are terrible at using it.”
“Mortals don’t have it in their world, Candid. You can hardly expect them to just pop into existence knowing how to use it!”
“It’s not that difficult.”
“Don’t listen to my associate here, little Wisp, it takes time to figure out what emotions have each meaning - "
"It's pretty easy. Less complicated than spoken language."
"Not if you were once mortal! Give them a break, they’ve had awareness for like two minutes."
Two voices echo in the void around you. One seems quite loud, but perhaps that’s its normal volume. It certainly doesn’t lack enthusiasm. The other is far more reserved, almost quiet, but you can hear its words just as sharply, as though the words are not traveling through the air but rather echoing directly in your mind.
“You can understand us when we’re using spoken language, right? Our magic lets us be understood no matter what type of human language you normally used.”
“Whether it was spoken, signed, or anything else.”
“Just uh… try to think ‘yes’ if you can understand.”
At first you try to speak, but your mouth doesn’t open and you can’t feel the usual vibration in your throat. You raise an arm to try to signal to the voices in some other way, but your body refuses to cooperate. You do have a body, right? You look down, but all you see is the darkness.
“Well what you did right there was spin in a circle but that’s pretty close!”
“Not really.”
“They are trying!”
You hear an exasperated sigh and feel that odd, vicarious experience of frustration. You are certainly not frustrated, but it’s as though you can feel the tamped-down version, like the third or fourth echo when shouting into a cave.
“Clearly you are going to take a while to figure out communicating, which my colleague Abet seems quite prepared to wait for, but I simply do not have time for that. We are here for one simple reason: to identify where you will fit in our realm.”
“To help you decide where you fit in our realm.”
“Sure. Whatever is quicker.”
“Our realm being - what do mortals call it?”
“The ‘Demon Domain’.”
“That’s the one! We’re here to help you be the best ‘Demon’ you can be and make the best of your time here in the ‘Demon Domain’!”
“Those words are just so odd. We’ll tell you the proper terms a little later.”
“So, yes, like we mentioned, you used to be mortal - specifically, human. Not a problem, this happens sometimes when a great feat was performed in a mortal’s life and they earn a place among our ranks. Do you remember what you accomplished? Sometimes mortals come here because they made a deal with one of our bosses or just begged one of us to come here - any of that sound familiar?”
Choose one Background from the choices below, or create your own. If you would like a random background, roll a die with 8 sides (d8) and choose the background with the corresponding number that you roll.
You can remember the tiniest slivers of your past, but they’re blurred and random, like a scratched disc playing under water. The harder you try to concentrate on any single memory, the quicker they slip away.
“Don’t bother trying to hold onto those memories, by the way. They’re what tie you to Dhakira, to the mortal world, so most of them are given up to even get here. The rest will be gone by the time we’re done getting you ready to join us. It’s just helpful to think about what you did to get here in case it helps you decide what you want your Ideal to be, or what Handler you want to serve.”
“But more on that later, little Wisp! Let’s focus on these memories, for now. Since you were mortal, you are allowed to keep one memory if you so desire. In our realm, we like to trade mortal memories with each other - ”
“A bit like ‘currency’, in your realm.”
“ - and it’s honestly just so fun to have a bunch of different tokens! Humans are so interesting: they keep their memories inside, but they also impart them to external objects. It's beautiful, really, to be able to hold something that's usually much less tangible. I have two or three I would never trade to someone else… the memories attached are just too fascinating.”
Choose one Memory Token from the choices below, or create your own. If you would like a random token, roll a die with 8 sides (d8) and choose the token with the corresponding number that you roll.
Part of you wonders where memories you don’t keep go - do other demons get to use them as currency? Do they simply disappear? It seems a shame for memories you spent a whole life accumulating to just fade from existence… though that’s exactly what you did, isn’t it?
“Alright, you’re doing great little Wisp! Right on your way to becoming a proper ‘demon’!”
“That word is so vile. We are called ‘Nuv’ - it doesn’t have a translation in your language, which is why you only hear the original word.”
“It sorta translates to ‘presence’, though. It represents the combination of your spiritual and physical energy. When both of those energies are full, you have a strong Nuv! It also represents what we are, the form you are taking now. So, you and me and Candid, we are all Nuv, and since our spiritual and physical energy is full, we also have strong Nuv! Does that make sense?”
“Basically, it’s both the strength of your presence in the world and the actual form you are taking. For humans, I guess that would be the body and soul, but combined into one.”
“Try concentrating on your Nuv, feel the balance of the two energies, the push and pull. You are here, so you have the right to occupy space! Make your presence felt!”
You are not quite sure what Abet means by this, but the moment your thoughts turn inward you can feel an unexpected weight in your body. Curious, you concentrate harder on that weight, and you can feel it spinning, the rotary motion pushing out and out and out -
“You did it little Wisp! I knew you could!”
“This form is the very basic one all Wisps take. Wisps are essentially ‘baby Nuv’, since they do not yet have a lot of experience with the world and need to be protected. Once you choose an Ideal and a Handler to serve, you will be on your way to becoming a higher ranked Nuv, and the form your Nuv manifests as will change to reflect your role.”
“I bet you’ll gain ranks fast - you have us as teachers!”
This time, when you look down you see a thick mass of tar where you would expect your body to be. It ripples and oozes in an odd rhythm, and as you reach out to touch the goop at your chest, you’re startled to find a long, thin appendage reaching toward it instead of your arm. You hastily drop the appendage back to your side, but instead of simply falling, it snaps back into your mass of tar like a tape measure.
“One more thing to note about your Nuv before we move on. If you run out of your two energies, your Nuv will be too weak to sustain you, and you will spark out.”
“Not to worry, though! When you spark out, your Nuv collapses into a tiny little ball to conserve the last of its presence. A friend just has to carry you back to one of the big important bosses, and they’ll use their energy to restore you. Super simple! Basically just like when a human dies!”
“Except different.”
“Yeah! Much less permanent!”
Suddenly, you are not alone in this void of darkness. Two creatures stand just a few feet away, and you realize the voices are coming from them.
“Now that you can push your Nuv outward into a form, I thought Candid and I could show you what you might look like after you’ve gained an actual rank!”
“Like we said, Wisps all look the same, and you’ll start to look a lot more interesting once you have a role. For example, my role involves ensuring others are truthful and standing my ground, so I am large and have extra appendages to sense lies.”
“And since my role is all about helping, I am small so I can fit in anywhere!”
The pair certainly live up to their descriptions, but you just can’t help staring. The larger one - Candid - is so big you have to crane your neck to see them speak. They stand on six stocky legs supporting a huge, barrel-shaped body and a head with long, twisted horns. Their face is wide and bear-like, but instead of one set of eyes, there is a second embedded in their cheeks. The smaller one, Abet, is far more humanoid with two spindly legs and arms and a single set of eyes. They have a handful of what looks like long whiskers, but the ends glow like fireflies in the darkness, twinkling in a pattern you can’t recognize, but it seems to line up to the rhythm of Abet’s speech. Your attention flicks back to their eyes, suddenly realizing that they are just dark, deep pits of black. As you stare, thick gold liquid spills forth from around the edges and drips onto their whiskers.
“...do you not like my eyes? Probably look pretty weird to a mortal, huh?”
“Mortals are the weird ones. They stay the same no matter what their role is.”
“You are just so rude sometimes! Have you considered being Tactless instead of Candid?”
“Now that was just uncalled for.”
Abet’s whiskers change briefly to a soft blue before flickering back to the usual gold.
“Let’s move onto Ideals, then, since we’re talking about them now. Usually a Handler, a boss Nuv, sacrifices some of their Nuv to create Wisps, so being formerly mortal is quite unique - you’re a Wisp without any loyalties built in! You can serve any boss and choose any Ideal!”
“It’s a lot of freedom, which can be overwhelming, but don’t get your goop in a knot over it. The Ideal you choose will become your name - right now we just refer to you as Nil, a being without a name - and your Ideal implies the boss Nuv you work for. The one you choose now won’t be the one you have forever, though. The names you go through over time are a badge of conquest and merit. They are earned.”
“Yeah! Maybe you’ll perform a selfless act and decide to take up the Ideal of Altruism. Or perhaps you’ll defeat someone in battle who has the Ideal of Loyalty, and you'll take their name instead of your own. Maybe you’ll even combine names - if you were Ambition and defeated War, perhaps you would be called Conquest!”
Choose one Handler from the choices below, or create your own. If you would like a random Handler, roll a die with 8 sides (d8) and choose the Handler with the corresponding number that you roll. Each Handler has a list of common Ideals that serve them, but the Ideal you pick may fit with more than one Handler.
Once you make your choice, you feel so much more purposeful. Your very being suddenly has a direction, a meaning, some reason for existing that you will pursue to the very end. You feel complete.
“To quell more of those human assumptions about us, dividing us into ‘good’ and ‘evil’ based on our Ideal is absolutely ludicrous.”
“You really love binaries huh?”
“You just can’t tell if a Nuv is good or evil based on their name. Humans are the ones that decided ‘passion’ is good and ‘obsession’ is bad, despite them being different shades of each other.”
“‘Rebellion’ is evil when you’re the one in power, but it’s righteous and necessary when you’re the one suffering - is that not the same Ideal?”
“Listen. We have a lot of questions about how humans think about things, but we’ll bother you with that another time. All you need to know is that ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are independent of the Ideal we uphold, and you should never think that because you have a certain Ideal you can’t be one or the other.”
“All that said, it’s helpful to throw your lot in with the Primal Good or the Primal Evil, since they are the ones obligated to restore you if you spark out.”
“You don’t have to work for either one of them of course, since any Handler that likes you can restore you, but there’s usually a bit of a wait since they have only so much energy to give out at a time. Critically, choosing good or evil doesn’t mean you are fully one or the other - no Nuv is wholly good or evil, we have aspects of both.”
“Except the Primal Good and Primal Evil.”
“Well obviously except them, Abet.”
Choose one Alignment from the choices below. If you would like a random Alignment, roll a die with 3 sides (d3) and choose the Alignment with the corresponding number that you roll.
“I think that’s enough for today, don’t you? We can tell you a bit more about the higher ranks of Nuv once you settle in a bit more. It’s important to start thinking about which rank best fits what you hope to get out of your life here.”
“For now, just get used to this body and get a feel for what your Ideal means!”
“And practice your empathic connection.”
“And that! We’ll tell you more about what the next steps are soon! Once you feel like joining the other Wisps, we’ll even have a task ready for you!”
“You did a good job today. Rest well.”
With a warm burst of pride that you know by now originates from the other two Nuv, they dissolve away and you are left in the darkness. This void will certainly take some getting used to, but you feel so much more whole than you ever have. You can’t help wondering what the ranks of Nuv are, and hope Abet and Candid return soon, but you find yourself at peace. This is where I belong.
[ Further character creation would follow ]