Fiend of corruption

A fiend of corruption was a prestigious class of evil outsider who specialized in tricking or tempting mortals into embracing the darker aspects of themselves.
==Activities==
Fiends of corruption were preoccupied with ensuring that their victims' souls would go to the Lower Planes after death. They sought to establish close, one-on-one or intimate relationships with the mortals whom they sought to corrupt, and often used sexual temptation and seduction as a tool for corruption, particularly in cases where such a relationship would be taboo enough to generate blackmail or further desire. Their tactics involved granting boons and comfort to a mortal in need, and then trapping them in a cycle of dependence and temptation. They particularly delighted in irredeemably corrupting pure individuals or—if that failed—luring such people into inviolable bargains.
==Culture==
Fiends pursued this specialization in corruption if they already excelled at leading mortals to evil and at twisting good intentions toward their own dark ends.
While some fiends corrupted mortals purely out of the spitefulness of their nature, others did so to earn status or infernal wealth while still others did so to amass conscripts for the Blood War or the granter conflict between evil and good.
==Abilities==
They developed a number of spell-like powers that helped them achieve their dark goals. To get close to their victims, they had the ability to alter their form to adopt an attractive or appealing physical appearance, which they used to appear trustworthy if not sexually desirable. They bolstered these disguises with an ability to shield their minds from any attempt to detect thoughts or to discern their alignment. To aid them in starting mortals down dark paths, they further had the ability to suggest or even to compel mortals to commit evil acts. Once the mortal had begun a descent into evil of their own volition, the fiend could place a discreet mark of iniquity on their person to solidify their growing corruption, and eventually could temp them to change to an evil alignment. Finally, these fiends had a number of powers that allowed them to tempt mortals with boons or gifts, such as the ability to create physical objects of temptation, to bestow a fiendish graft or fiendish symbiont to reward corrupt mortals seeking power, and the most powerful fiends could even grant a mortal's wish.
Fiends of corruption relied heavily on a power to bestow their "favor" on a mortal once per day: this provided a powerful enhancement to the mortal's physical or mental capabilities, but it lasted only a day and was followed by a day when the same capabilities were cursed. However, receiving the find's favor again not only resolved the curse, but restored the full boon. The fiends would freely offer this boon to mortals in need, and then capitalize on their suffering the next day to extract a price. This price would slowly but surely increase over time until the mortal was consumed by their desire for the boon. The most powerful fiends of corruption would then tempt the mortal into an unbreakable contract, often offering them their deepest desires or wishes in exchange for their soul. When such a mortal died—even in a way hastened by the fiend—their soul was transferred to a specially prepared gemstone that the fiend took home to their native plane. Such pacts could only be formed by a willing mortal, and could only be broken by the destruction of the gem after their death.
==Relationships==
Fiends of corruption tended to work independently from other fiends, whom they found distracted from their goal of forming close relationships with trusting mortals. Occasionally, fiends of corruption would work in pairs, with succubi or erinyes bring known to do so.
It was said that a fiend of corruption may have once taught the secrets of grafting flesh to the mind flayers, who became avid practitioners of creating their own such grafts.
==Notable Fiends of Corruption==
* Wendonai, a balor in the service of the drow goddess, Lolth.
* Elinaera, a succubus posing as a courtesan at the House of Purple Silks in Waterdeep.
==Appendix==
===References===
Category:Fiends
Category:Prestige classes