The Diabolicals

*“Let all come together; Men; Menlikes; Elven compatriots, on street or woodland; so spake the First Emperor. Do as I have, and scour lesser Daimonry whilst in the Heavens I fight – that Man and its Servants might prove their goodness; so spake the First Emperor.”* - excerpt from the Scriptura Solis, Tome Eight, Verses Twenty-Nine to Thirty-Four.

*“For what reason did Sol Imperii ensnare these demons, and not scrub them from the face of Cyros? Why, the answer is clear, good folk of Roeswerp: HE is THEM! THEY are HIM!”* - Net Scatazh, Roeswerp vagrant, imprisoned for anti-social behaviour and later liquidated for blasphemy in private execution.

The Seven-and-Nine

The Seven-and-Nine Wards Diabolicals refers to the daimonic pantheon, though official reference to any “pantheon” is outlawed under the Anaforikós blasphemy – “referential,” or “likeness”. Demons, daimons, devils, the Church alleges that these manifest on Cyros primarily through acts of blasphemy: therefore, words and rituals are warded closely.

Usually, demons represent perversions of the Angellic Court of High Elysium: to Honos Laurifer’s mirror, there is Chort, the First of the Secondborn: a war-devil driven by bloodlust and plunder.

Whereas Honos Laurifer is to represent honourable battle, for example, Chort is just the opposite; the patron-”saint” of murderers, war-criminals, and architects of vast systematic cruelty. Often, in cases of the latter, a court defendant will need to prove that Chort did not “suggest the murder by whisper” or “guide the defendant into making it seem like an accident” – how precisely the defendant can disprove this is a mystery to most lawyers.

It is also claimed that this infernal court - now imprisoned within the baleful stars known as the Nine Diabolicals - once roamed Cyros, freely, engaging in their dark arts at whim. It is said that only through a bloody brother-war in the heavens between sons and daughters of Sol Imperii did the Celestial Court triumph and bring low their kin, leaving two dead to the world and the rest sealed away from the material world.

Religious scholars theorise, behind closed doors, that those demons who simply surrendered were given more “lax” treatment – and that their associated sins, usually more petty, are more prominent as a result.

The Demons and their Worshippers

Though the great devil-lords of the Wards Chthonic have been sealed away, acts of sufficient evil from the faithful of Sol Imperii are enough to allow lesser devils to temporarily exist in the mundane world.

A veteran local to Escane once claimed that, after his daughter fled his abode to escape an arranged marriage, her curses (which rued God) were screamed to the very sky during a storm: by dawn the next day, puddles of rainwater began to gelatinise into imps no bigger than one’s’ palm. This information was released to the public, after the daughter was put to pyre for her witchcraft, and after the Ordo Vitae was certain that such a ritual would be impossible to repeat.

Still, demons are known to feed off of the profane and evil: a desecrated basilica could become a haven for demonic activity, even allowing a greater demon - a Maiusculus - to be brought into the world. The Diabolicals gorge off of the irony of Man’s potential for villainy, and will send their servants to aid those who so “humour” such a notion.

Basilicas, Cathedrals, whatever, are so favoured - as demons allege, before destruction - because they, too, are the servants of God. These illusions are refuted quite heavily in both the civilian and initiated versions of the Scriptura Solis, and thus should be paid no heed.

Purposeful manifestations of devilry come in multiple facets, dependent on each demon – be it complex rituals for the Ward of Obsession, violent acts for the First Daimon, or even social isolation for the Self-Loyal. Whatever one's’ sin, the Wards will be well aware… imprisonment, or otherwise. Such is God’s mercy, and the challenge he gives to Man.