Pyramid Pick from the Past
Demons (for Use with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons) [1992]
Published by Mayfair Games Inc.
Written by Mike Nystul
Boxed set with consisting of 192 b&w pages; $20.00
Demons are fun to develop in RPGs. Spirits of evil summoned by sorcerers, they are a source of corrupt power as well as personifications of malign forces. They raise questions about a campaign world's divine cosmology and the nature of souls and the afterlife. Or they can just be a set of big bad evil guys for the PCs to whomp on. In 1992 Mayfair Games started a set of demon products for their Role Aids line of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons compatible RPG sourcebooks. These demons are not based on any real-world religions but provide a useable cosmology for using demons in an RPG fantasy world.
The flagship of this product line was titled Demons, a folio containing 48 three-hole-punched individual monster entry sheets, an 80-page DM sourcebook on demons, a foldout map of the product's demon dimension, and a 64-page in-character treatise on demons appropriate for use as a player handout.
The treatise is a fun starting point. It details a legendary history of the universe, including the rising of the gods, creation of the world and men, a split into good and evil gods who war, and the divine discovery of demons as a distinct-but-heretofore-hidden corrupting element of the divine aspect of the universe. It briefly describes the divine casting out of demons into a dimensional prison, and the Compact that . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: October 24, 2003
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