Fiends of Ilderon

> "Demons are not to be feared, you know what they want. No, you must be weary of the mortals drunk on devils' power. They come with open arms and promises, but the true desire of their hearts are unknown. You could walk away better off than you were, or you could walk off in chains with a new devil to call master." **--Unknown Author, *Lost letter recovered by University Archivists*, Discovered in 1284 WE, possibly written in 592 WE.**
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## Overview

Fiends are often evil beings locked away on the Bridge or lurking in the dark corners of society. There are universal concepts that have power. Beings that claim domain over those powers are often referred to as gods. But sometimes tiny fragments of that concept take on sentience. Most of the time this happens in the form of a fiend or celestial. A fiend can be naturally occurring or shaped into being by the will of a god. Fiends, however, are unable create self-sustaining beings. They cannot animate life or reproduce without the aid of a being that harbors the fires of creation (A soul granted from Alilia or an Earthfire).

## Demons & Devils

Demons and devils represent the majority of the greater fiends of Ilderon. Most knowledge relating to their origins or true nature have been lost through the Shatterings. Demons and Devils are formed with fragments of concepts such as destruction, knowledge, or fear coalesce and become sentient. The defining characteristic marking devils & demons as separate from true living beings is that they will always possess an innate desire to absorb more of their defining concept to grow. A demon born of destruction will always desire to destroy, and will passively absorb the desire for destruction from others the demon encounters.

True living life possess slivers from many different concepts, so often times a demon might seek to kill a mortal and absorb the pieces of a concept they might desire from the mortal's soul. Devils will often make deals or trades to gain the concept they desire specifically.

## The Depths of Jaharutha

Better known as the Caves of Collection, the underwater Depths of Jaharutha served as a prison complex for many of the fiends stuck in the realm of Ilderon. They were locked in the Bridge to prevent them from ravaging the material plane of Ilderon. The goddess, Renaltuh, granted them a cavernous complex under the oceans of the Bridge to server as their home and prison. Jaharutha for the few souls that have seen it claim that it is a large layered city around a volcanic vent. Renaltuh allows the fiends of Jaharutha to manage themselves so long as they don't directly interfere with mortal affairs on the material plane of Ilderon. Jaharutha is a land that struggles between law and chaos just as much as any other settlement.

The Devils of the caves have come to accept their sentence and stay within the confines of the caves. They take advantage of any souls foolish enough to find their way to the domain of Jaharutha. The demons however are marked by their defiance and constantly try to find ways to escape their prison.

### The Jailers of Jaharutha

Content to live out their eternal sentence of confinement in pleasure, certain devils have risen to the task of being jailers of their demonic brethren. Many a devil's job is to eternally imprison demons in Jaharutha. As such devils have developed powerful magic to do so, that they seldom ever let others discover.

## Dethen

Unbeknownst to Renaltuh, the god Deldeth used the amount of death caused by war between the Dorii and Serii to manipulate and temporarily break the bonds isolating Jaharutha and the prisons the jailers had formed. As a result of his actions countless demons fled into Ilderon. The demons became enamored with the world and found out by slaughtering mortals in mass they could grow considerably in power. Several demons became too powerful to be fought or to be killed, and soon mortals had to make deals with the devils of Jarautha for ways to contain the growing demon threat. With the growing death toll caused by the demons' presence, the devils were able to manipulate the rift Deldeth created and travel to the material plane of Ilderon.

Instead of slaughtering mortals for power, the clever devils integrated themselves into the societies of the world and traded the knowledge on how to bind demons for service. Most mortals weren't aware they were giving up pieces of their souls to the devils and attempted to reneg on their contracts. It was then the world was introduced to some of the most horrific curses that conquered the victim's mind. The god Deldeth manipulated this conflict from both sides and blessed the cursed individuals the limited power to control their curse. These specialized demonically empowered, devil-cursed, and god-blessed beings became known as Dethen.

### Dethen Swarm

With a new legion of these powerful dethen, Deldeth had found his chosen children. Mortals would continue to live in fear and struggle to respond to the rising threat of Demon Lords, Dethen, and Devils claiming Ilderon's greatest champions as servants. This hopeless period of time became known as the Dethen Swarm and lasted for nearly 200 years (455 WE to 670 WE).

### Guided Wars

The Dethen Swarm would eventually be stopped when the goddess, Emira, brokered peace between the Dorii and Serii and lead the world's first united assault against the Dethen. Emira lead the mortals of Ilderon through the Guided Wars and slowly weeded out the demonic threats within Ilderon and with the help of Renaltuh, the world was able once again to seal the fiends, demons, and now dethens back in to the Depths of Jaharutha.

## Shattered

Tempted by an evil wizard, many people were tricked into bonding and consuming cursed demon blood in order to achieve the ability to absorb elements of magic and grow in power. While more magically potent than a normal mortal, the resulting beings were cursed aberrations having wild reactions to magic causing them to shapeshift temporarily into demonic forms. The people are now commonly referred to as Tieflings.