Pazuzu, Shedite Princess of Plagues

By Michael Walton

The world is evil. It must be punished.

Pazuzu was created as a Kyriotate of Fire, but she heeded the words of the Lightbringer and Fell during his rebellion. She served Belial for centuries without particular distinction -- she never found the infernal Word of Fire much to her liking. When Saminga was elevated to Princedom, Pazuzu transferred to the service of Death. That is where the Shedite found her true calling. As an angel of Fire, Pazuzu punished the cruel. As a demon of Death, she recaptured some of her former glory by killing evil Humans. Even then, it was evident to everyone except for Pazuzu and her Superior that she was quite mad. Which probably explains why Saminga showed her such favor.

During a tour of duty in the Middle East, Pazuzu perfected her technique of finding corruptible individuals, inciting them to kill criminals and then possessing the resulting corpses. She made sure that her pawns were all devoutly religious. This earned her the ire of the Archangel of Faith. It also attracted the attention of an angel of Fire named Murad. This latter proved to be her undoing. Murad knew that he wasn't powerful enough to take Pazuzu on alone but he lacked angelic support. Instead, he found a group of Humans and recruited them into the War. While Murad used Songs of Forbidding to keep the demon from fleeing into a different Host, his Soldiers riddled the animated corpse with Songs and gunfire while the mundane agents fortified Murad with Essence. The Shedite was finally forced to abandon her Host, at which point Murad beat her down in celestial combat. Pazuzu, minus a few Forces, drifted down to Hell and was severely punished by Saminga as soon as she recovered from Trauma.

The unfairness of it all rang in Pazuzu's shattered mind. Why should she be punished? She had done God's will -- she knew it was in the Divine plan that the cruel should suffer. It wasn't her fault that the angel cheated. For years she pondered the injustice as she slaved away in the Soul Yards. Then it dawned on her -- she was suffering justly! Pazuzu had rarely lifted her hand against women or children, yet women and children sinned. She had never punished a member of the clergy, but they were even more prone to hypocrisy than laymen. She had even stayed her hand when a subject repented, thereby refusing to carry out God's just sentence. Pazuzu realized that she was being punished for showing mercy. The revelation that people should be punished not for what they did but for what they were going to do was the most profound insight of all. Pazuzu fell to what passed for her knees right there in the Yards and began singing praises to the God of righteous cleansing wrath. Other demons edged away from her nervously, but nobody wanted to miss the show of this crazy Shedite being blasted out of existence. Just before the overseer arrived to destroy Pazuzu, Lucifer himself happened to stroll by. He heard her singing and, intrigued, examined her more closely. Then he smiled and said, "Arise, Princess of Plagues. Go forth and smite the wicked that the righteous might prosper." Pazuzu's joy knew no bounds -- her holy mission was endorsed by the Archangel of Light himself! She immediately went about the business of recruiting Servitors and setting up her Principality. Now, at the dawn of the new millennium, she is ready to usher in a new age of righteousness.

Pazuzu is a classic Shedite, albeit with Habbalite tendencies. She most frequently appears as a womanlike figure made of buzzing insects. If she has to blend in and be completely humanoid, she usually takes the form of an ugly old woman. Her Word encompasses all manner of disease but also includes plagues of Biblical proportions. Pazuzu has learned to make such things look like natural disasters, but she looks forward to the day when the need for stealth is past and the servants of God will walk the Earth openly. Only then will the world finally be made clean.

Dissonance

Servitors of Plagues cannot show mercy to those who are condemned to suffer; once sentence has been passed, it must be carried out. Repentance is desirable, but it's not enough to turn aside God's righteous wrath. It doesn't matter if the target is too strong -- that just means that the demon must employ other means to achieve the goal.

Targets of Plagues must also know that their suffering is the will of God. It is Dissonant for Pazuzu's demons to punish evil without telling their victims that they deserve to suffer (and preferably why). Whether the punishment is for actual or potential sins is irrelevant.

Band Attunements

All of Pazuzu's demons are attuned to some type of sin and have a special way to use their Resonance for punishing sinners. The detection aspects don't work on Celestials or Ethereals, but the Resonance aspects do. All of these Attunements are Partially Restricted.

Balseraphs: A Balseraph of Plagues knows liars, hypocrites and egomaniacs by the sound of their voices; the sinner's words are accompanied by the buzzing of flies. The demon can use his Resonance to make someone experience the symptoms of any disease that the Liar has knowledge of.

Djinn: Pazuzu's Djinn are attuned to laziness and apathy; they see these sins as a gray haze around the sinner. When they Attune to someone who has a communicable disease, they become carriers of that illness and can pass it on normally.

Calabim: Destroyers who serve Pazuzu can detect the wrathful. The taste of bile floods the demon's mouth when a violent person draws near and gets stronger as that person gets closer. At the Calabite's option, his Resonance may inflict damage at the rate of one Hit per hour as if the target were in the grip of a virulent disease. Medical treatment can halt the damage if the physician makes a Medicine roll to correctly diagnose the disease (each victim will suffer a different malady). This use of destructive Resonance creates no Disturbance.

Habbalah: A Habbalah of Plagues knows the greedy by the cold that washes over the demon whenever she touches such a person. These Punishers can use their Resonance to inflict mental illness on their victims (a phobia or mania of the demon's choice). Insanity imposed in this manner has the normal duration for Habbalite-inflicted emotions.

Lilim: Those who are prone to envy and jealousy can't hide from Pazuzu's Lilim. The demon sees a green glow emanating from the eyes of these people. After fulfilling a sin-related Need, Pazuzu's Tempters can strike their victims blind instead of Geasing them. This lasts for a number of weeks equal to the level of Geas that the Lilim could've imposed. If the Tempter ever accumulates a total of Geas levels greater than twice the victim's total Forces, she can forfeit them all to render her target permanently blind! Note that this blindness is not Discord; when used on Celestials and Ethereals, it only effects the target's current Vessel. Lilim-imposed blindness can be cured with the Corporeal Song of Healing, but only with a CD at least equal to the demon's Celestial Forces.

Shedim: Just to prove that she has a sense of irony, Pazuzu sends the Fleshless to punish sins of the flesh. Shedim of Plagues see a pinkish aura around the lustful. The aura is streaked with black in those who carry sexually transmitted diseases. Any Mortal who has sex with the Shedite will automatically contract any STD carried by the Host.

Impudites: Takers of Plagues can tell a glutton by his carrion odor. Instead of charming their victims, they may use their Resonance to make someone violently ill. This nausea imposes a penalty equal to the CD of the Resonance roll on all tests and lasts for a number of minutes equal to the demon's Corporeal Forces. On an Intervention favorable to the demon, the target is completely incapacitated (i.e. too sick to move).

Servitor Attunements

Evil Eye: The demon can afflict someone with bad luck by making eye contact, succeeding on a Will roll and spending 1-3 Essence (in that order). The victim suffers a penalty on all rolls equal to the Essence spent for a number of hours equal to the CD of the Will roll times the demon's Celestial Forces. The target of the Evil Eye can resist with a Will roll, to which Celestials and Ethereals add their Celestial Forces. Humans with the Blessed Advantage are immune to this power.

Fleshcraft: This Attunement allows the demon to use the Celestial Song of Form on someone else (the demon must learn the Song normally). Fleshcraft can also be used to add or subtract up to two levels of Charisma or negative Charisma at the cost of 1 Essence. Using this power on one of the Damned while in Hell costs no Essence, and the effect is permanent.

Wages of Sin: By spending 1 Essence and succeeding on a Perception roll, the demon can find out what level of punishment would be just if the subject of inquiry had met his Fate (the person being read need not have met his Fate). This Attunement tells the user how badly the person deserves to be punished, not what he deserves punishment for.

Distinctions

Knight of Vermin: The demon can cause an area the size of a single-story house to be infested with small creatures for (total Forces) days. Rodents and insects are the preferred pests, but arachnids, reptiles and frogs have also been used.

Captain of Wormwood: With a touch, Pazuzu's Captains can render (total Forces x 100) gallons of water undrinkable. The effected water changes color -- usually to deep red -- to signify its unhealthy state.

Baron of Pestilence: A Baron of Plagues can extend the effects of either of Pazuzu's lesser Distinctions over an entire city. Pazuzu only has three Barons as of this writing, all of whom earned her favor by soul-killing Word-bound angels of Fire.

Higher Distinctions

Pazuzu offers the standard Higher Distinctions from Hell's peerage system; she has no special ones of her own, nor does she feel that a truly dedicated Servitor would need them.

Basic Rites

• Cause someone else to be punished.
• Contaminate a food or water supply.