Daemonology

Daemon Binding

  • A daemon bound within a permanent Pentagrammic Ward cannot be freed unless an external force willingly disrupts the ward.
  • If a daemon is bound within a daemonhost through Pentagrammic Wards, it cannot escape unless its host body is destroyed. However, the daemon itself cannot directly commit suicide, meaning a summoner must always prepare contingencies to rebind a vengeful entity if the host fails.
  • The stronger the binding, the more restricted the daemon’s power. A carefully controlled daemonhost is less powerful but more stable, immune to the instability checks that typically afflict daemonic entities. (Degree of Success (DoS) overbleed may provide additional control at the cost of weakening Malefic Powers?)
  • Rituals
  • Daemonhost, The Radical’s Handsbook page 184
  • “Once the pieces are in place, there are two steps to creating a daemonhost. First, the actual bindings detailed in the instruction tome must be applied to the victim’s body. This is done by inscribing the pentagrammic wards and phrases of containment directly onto the skin. The inscribing can be done in simple ink—although considering the terrible consequences should the wards have even the slightest flaw, most prefer a medium that cannot be carelessly smeared or altered, such as tattoos or scarification. Once this is done, additional bindings such as sanctified chains and locks, purity needles, and sigils of authority are added to the victim as well.”
  • True Names, Dark Heresy 2. edit, page 432
  • A Daemon might be known by hundreds of names and titles on thousands of worlds, but it can have only one True Name. These originate within the madness of the Warp, not from any human language. As such, they are extraordinarily difficult to speak, both for the odd sound and structure of the syllables, and for the otherworldly power contained therein.
  • Daemons jealously guard them, for to know a Daemon’s True Name is to have power over it. The discovery of even a minor Daemon’s True Name is a monumental feat for a practitioner of the dark arts, one that he may work many lifetimes to achieve. In the creation and control of a Daemonhost, knowing the Daemon’s True Name is a great advantage, and the knowledge of its True Name is often what marks a Daemon out for binding. Certain dark tomes, heavy with the evil they contain, record rituals and rites specific to a single Daemon, including its True Name. As these tainted manuals pass through the hands of different occultists through the centuries, a Daemonhost might be bound again
  • and again. Though it inhabits a different host body each time, it contains the same malefic intellect, and the same dark changes mark its appearance.
  • The Daemonhost Dark Heresy 2. edit, page 433
  • “Unutterably profane and terrible, a Daemonhost is created when a Daemon is bound into the body of a human being, resulting in an unholy and devastatingly powerful abomination. Daemonhosts can only be created through complex rites and ceremony. The host for the Daemon must be a living human, ritually prepared; this is distinct from possession, and exorcism is not possible. When the Daemonhost is created, the host body’s soul is consigned to eternal torment, and the Daemon is permanently bound within its flesh. The host body alters to reflect the unholy entity within, with these changes becoming more and more apparent the longer the Daemon inhabits this form. Though incredibly rare, there are numerous reasons for the creation of a Daemonhost. Malefic cults sometimes bind Daemonhosts, but despite providing a means to more permanently inhabit the material universe, for most Daemons to be bound in such a way is a hateful imprisonment from which they long to escape. The binding rituals, when performed correctly, ensure obedience to the Daemonhost’s creator, though this does not stop the Daemon from plotting its revenge. Radical Inquisitors sometimes create them, to allow for the interrogation of the Warp entity, or in the most extreme cases, to be used as a weapon against the Inquisitor’s enemies. In the eyes of Inquisitors of a puritan, or even moderate, bent, the creation of a Daemonhost crosses a line from which there is no return, irreversibly damning the creator.
  • Daemonhosts are not only terrifying for their profane nature—they are appallingly powerful. Most exhibit a number of devastating Warp-spawned powers, which they manifest with an ease no human psyker can match. “
  • The Dybuk, Disciples of the Dark Gods, page 129
  • “The binding of Daemonhosts is an arcane and dangerous practice far beyond the reach of all but the most malign and knowledgeable sorcerers, and a single error along the way will lead to disaster. So, rather than risk an untried or unperfected ritual, many summoners attempt to master their craft by binding far lesser and more easily controlled entities first, condemning
  • the soul and flesh of some unfortunate victim or even animal to become the corrupt vessel of the warp. This process creates a form of lesser daemonhost slaved to the summoner’s will, a being known in some proscribed texts as a Dybuk—literally “a vessel of the unclean.” The creation of a Dybuk is still extremely dangerous and usually a rare occurrence. However, many False Prophets and their inner circle of disciples seem to revel in making these horrific monsters, and the cult favours them as guardians and shock troops.
  • A Dybuk is a grotesque fusion of living flesh and daemon bound together in a bloody and depraved ritual summoning. This takes many hours of sustained observance by the sorcerer
  • and torment inflicted on the living victim. If the ritual fails or the victim dies through simple stress, the summoning misfires and the daemon may be loosed uncontrolled or the subject’s flesh devolved into a ravening and mindless Chaos Spawn. If it succeeds and the bindings carved into the flesh hold, the result is a living vessel for a daemon’s malignant hungers and a portion of its unnatural power.
  • As time passes the body will writhe and warp under the strain of the vile presence within, ultimately destroying itself.
  • Most of the Dybuk created by the Pilgrims of Hayte are human, victims of the False Prophets’ attempts to perfect their dark arts or  to fulfil their desire for disposable and horrific shock troops. Many are cultists themselves, and some are even insane enough to have volunteered for such a dreadful union. Most do not. Indeed, the ritual is a favoured “blessing” for captured agents of the Golden Throne. This profile uses the Cult Fanatic from Dark Heresy as a base.”
  • -Pentagrammic prison created to contain an essence of daemon.
  • -Human sacrifice, ritual, duration: permanent.
  • -Pentagrammic ritual to create Daemonhost requires Scholastic lore: Occult and Forbiddem lore: Daemonology +10.

Ways to subdue or banish the daemon

There are many ways to banish a Daemon, almost as many as there are Daemons themselves. So it is that delvers of the forbidden lore of the daemons possess a myriad means for vanquishing the denizens of the Warp, though not every method works on every Daemon, or even twice on the same creature. The daemonologist is therefore always adapting to reveal and subdue the ever-changing face of their foe and unique weaknesses carried by these incarnations of the Warp. It is a constant war of escalation that has been waged across the Materium and Immaterium since the inception of the Warp. For every weapon and tactic the daemonologists develop and employ, the Daemons counter with Warp-sorcery and trickery and vice versa.

TRUE NAMES

Chief amongst the daemonologists strategies concerning the subduing of a Daemon is obtaining knowledge of the it’s true name. Knowledge of a Daemon’s true name grants great power, which is why many Daemons adopt misleading pseudonyms or titles and seldom use their true names save in their most secretive of dealings. In the hands of a psyker or sorcerer, a true name can be invoked to bind or even banish a Daemon, regardless of its power. Ordinarily, these complex incantations take long hours, or even days. Each word must be carefully enunciated and each gesture precise, lest the sorcerer become corrupted by the magicks of the Warp. Invoking a true name is a daemonic pact of sorts – albeit one in which the Daemon is at a severe disadvantage. For a daemonologist, however, a true name is a weapon as reliable and immediate as any mundane weapon. Lesser daemonologists can invoke a true name with practice, disorienting and weakening his foe, and leaving it open for a advantage. In the hands of an accomplished daemonologist, a true name becomes even more deadly, able to bind or destroy the Daemon’s physical form and imprison it or cast it back into the Warp, leaving only a lingering sulfurous stench and ectoplasmic residue or pentagrammic prison of unimaginable power and danger. To subdue a Daemon in those manners are the closest that the daemonologist can come to a lasting victory – a Daemon bodily slain will return to the mortal realm far sooner than one banished body and soul. Alas, if true names are a daemonologist’s surest tool against the Daemon, they are also the hardest of all to acquire. As with all things daemonic, a true name is born of the Warp, and its reflection in the minds and tongues of mortal men is as shifting and mutable as the beast to whom it relates.

WORDS OF BANISHMENT

Daemons are beings of the Immaterium, and are made up of the very stuff of Chaos. This makes them creatures of nightmare, rage and fear, crafted from the base emotions and thoughts of Mankind. When fighting such a foe, strength of will and faith are as deadly as any weapon, flesh tearing and ichor spillings with but a word of power. There are words of banishment, each one a closely guarded secret and learned at great cost. Most men that look upon a word of banishment will lose their minds, its eye-searing symmetry and terrible definition breaking all but the strongest of wills. Just like the Warp, the words of banishment are always in flux, each one changing and mutating. The daemonologist must be ever vigilant for subtle variations within the words of banishment while they search for the true names of Daemons. The creatures of the Warp and even the Dark Gods themselves are constantly altering, as is the nature of the Immaterium, so that a word that once held power inevitably changes or loses its meaning entirely. An invocation against daemonic entity that could once enslave or bind is therefore robbed of its power. However, such is the fickle nature of Chaos that for every Daemon that unravels a word of banishment, another is creating more for its own amusement; and so the endless war continues.

Source: Codex Grey knights, edited for Ultima Tectum campaign

Pentagrammaic Wards, Disciples of the Dark Gods, page 120
“By use of certain occult rituals, holy symbols, and even non-Euclidian mathematical formula, wards can be inscribed on physical objects or areas to bar or constrain the presence of warp entities. The secrets and knowledge needed to create such wards are considered proscribed and dangerous, and aside from cultists and magi, they are the sole purview of the Ordo Malleus. The reason for this ban is simple—such wards can be easily altered to help a sorcerer or witch control and enslave rather than simply deny the daemon. This fact has led some in the Inquisition down the path of Radicalism and destruction in the past.

The Effects of a Ward
A ward creates a barrier that a daemon or warp entity finds difficult to breach. Areas, objects, and even people may be warded by inscribing the relevant occult formulae.
Daemons and warp entities wishing to interact with a ward (crossing a warded space, picking up a warded object, attacking a warded character, etc.) must pass a Willpower Test to do so. If the daemon or entity fails this Test by three or more degrees, it suffers Malediction. If it passes this Test, then it may act freely (cross the ward, attack the character normally, etc.) If it passes this Test by more than three degrees of success, the ward is completely overcome and destroyed.
Note: Even if it passes the Test, if the ward remains intact the daemon or warp entity must take the Test again if it wishes to cross the ward subsequently (i.e. make attacks against a warded character the following Round, cross back over the warded area, etc.)

  • Creating a Pentagrammic Ward: Creating wards requires access to time and ritual materials (sacred inks, blood, silver dust, etc.), as well as the knowledge of how to do so—which in game terms means that a character must possess the skill Forbidden Lore (Daemonology) at +10 or better.
  • Creating a ward requires passing a Hard (–20) Forbidden Lore (Daemonology) Test. Success indicates that the character has created a ward with a modifier of +0. For each two additional levels of success gained, the ward’s modifier is increased by –10. A failure by five degrees or more when trying to create a ward can have disastrous effects, requiring a roll on Table 6-2: Psychic Phenomena (see page 162 of Dark Heresy).
  • Temporary Wards: A temporary ward takes 1d10 minutes to create, although attempting to ward a large area (such as a house) takes considerably longer. Temporary wards last for 1d5 hours plus a number of hours equal to the number of successes achieved during creation. Temporary wards are also vulnerable to being physically damaged, which may diminish or destroy their effects.
  • Permanent Wards: These wards must be made a part of the very fabric of the area or object to be warded and effectively double the amount of time taken to create that object, building, etc. These wards, as their name suggests, are permanent until overcome, desecrated, or physically destroyed.
  • Warded Weapons: Close combat weapons (other than Power, Daemon or Force types) may also have wards inscribed onto them. Such weapons deal Holy damage, and any daemon suffering a Critical Hit also suffers Malediction (see page 118).
  • However, temporary wards on weapons quickly become eroded in heavy combat, typically failing after a single Combat encounter (the GM has the final say-so on this).

The Left Hand Path
Pentagramatic wards have other, darker uses in the summoning and binding of Daemons. Used in this way, the conjured warp entity may be bound within the ward (protecting the sorcerer somewhat). Aside from its defensive benefits should things get out of hand, the ward itself provides the summoner with a +10 bonus to Daemonic Mastery Tests for summoned entities. A ward of this nature may even be of aid in negotiating Dark Pacts if properly used in this way.
Those who have strayed to a clutch of one of the four Ruinous powers are not able to use Pentagrammic Ward but instead use Mark of Chaos of their patron to produce similar effect. Followers of Undivided Chaos do not have Mark of Chaos.