Demons Kim Harrison style

[potestas]

so what kind of stats/abilities would we give Kim Harrison's demons, Say al, or newt even rachel: supernatural strength speed and toughness since they should be able to outmatch a vamp, having created them. Lore, conviction and discipline at least a 6 maybe a 7 more for the top of the line ones. Evocation and thaumaturgy for all of them. Shape shifting many forms including gas. Any number of abilities depending on the form they take.A number of stunts to represent their vast knowledge of the arcane and the mundane. damn there gonna be strong

[Sanctaphrax]

I'm not familiar with Kim Harrison...what can her demons do?

[potestas]

I'm not familiar with Kim Harrison...what can her demons do?

short answer anything short of true resurrection. (and they keep trying )You would need to read the series to get a grasp of what they can do. The only limit is their lore and they are all over 5000 years old (cept rachel) they have a lot of lore. They have used magic to give themselves lots of powers including immortality.

[wyvern]

Sounds like, for most games, they should be in the same category as the fae Queens - they can do whatever is thematically appropriate for them to do, and tend to challenge the PCs to work around them instead of directly besting them.

Of course, I'm also aware that this doesn't really answer your question - and Sanctaphrax likes statting things that shouldn't normally have stats, so I'm sure he can help you there better than I could.

[Sanctaphrax]

When you say that demons can do anything, what exactly do you mean? Could one snap its fingers and retroactively edit the universe so that nothing other than itself ever existed?

And what are their passive abilities like? If shot in the head from behind, would one be die/be hurt?

[potestas]

their true form isn't necessarily physical, but they can be killed generally by other demons. They invest their spells into there bodies and the collective, you cant simply kill them with a shot to the head, to many contingency magics in place. But if you strip them of their magic they can die. Average life span of a demon before magic is like 180 years, each time the shape shift they reset their cellular clocks, and they can shift at will into anything. none of them remember their true form and or have their true dna any longer. Though the original samples are stored in the collective.

They destroyed the everafter in a magic war with the elves and now they are stuck in it unless they are summoned out in some fashion. If they can devise the spell and can gather the energy they can do it. Females hold more energy then males since they get pregnant, only two females left. The rest are male. They use souls of other creatures as energy as well so they collect them.

Extremely fast strong and resistant to damage. In the last book we learned there original forms were not good at combat, so when the elves betrayed them they altered there forms into what they call warforms and kind of just left it that way for thousands of years. Think contingency magic, they probably can do thaumatugy on the fly, like it was evocation,  I think someone mentioned like fey queens, maybe the youngest one.

 Thats what rachel did early on she worked around them found ways t o bind them. They cant remain in the world when the sun is up. As or own abilities progressed she has been able to fight them but shes not 5000 years old, and though she can by far hold more energy then any of them her skill just isn't up to par and she doesn't store  magic in her body. When they do that they can call up the spell with a thought instead of a cast.( she doesn't have a war form like they do i suspect the warform is why they are faster and stronger.) I think that is the source of the extreme power, Investing magic into there own bodies like a movable ward with lots of stuff weaved into it to cover things that could happen. And they have had 5k years to think of things that could happen.

 And they make enchanted items up the wazo forgot about that.

[Sanctaphrax]

So...True Shapeshifting, Modular Abilities with the points generally invested in Speed and Strength and Toughness, and very powerful Thaumaturgy. Maybe some kind of Sponsored Magic-type-thing for fast casting, contingent spells, and investing magic in their own bodies.

The rest can be handled with Aspects.

How does that sound to you?

[potestas]

So...True Shapeshifting, Modular Abilities with the points generally invested in Speed and Strength and Toughness, and very powerful Thaumaturgy. Maybe some kind of Sponsored Magic-type-thing for fast casting, contingent spells, and investing magic in their own bodies.

The rest can be handled with Aspects.

How does that sound to you?

i dont understand aspects very well how could we use that to simulate their abilities.

[Mrmdubois]

Basically you describe a thing with Aspects, and if it isn't already mechanically expressed somehow then the Aspect can cover for it by having it invoked.

For instance, say you have a prism and it's really not important but it has the nifty ability to glow spontaneously.  You can just cover that with the Aspect:  Glows Spontaneously, and you're good.  When the GM wants it to glow it glows, and PC's might be able to Invoke it to glow by spending a FP.

[Richard_Chilton]

Here's an example:
A fairy from English folklore turns to someone and speaks Russian.  The fairy doesn't actually have any language skills but his player invokes the character's high concept, saying that fairies are universal and thus can speak any language if that culture has fairies in its folklore.

When asked how it is that the fairy can speak Russian the fairy can't really understand the question - because that's one of the things you just do without thinking about.

Another example:
The Queens of Winter and Summer are getting ready for war.  A local wildfae fairy knows it and he'll soon know a rally point to go to.  Which rallying point he goes to will be determined by if his recent acts are Summer or Winter based.  No one needs to tell the PC anything - when the time is right his player will invoke his High Concept and the PC will just know.  And if the player keeps putting off learning where to go then the Queens will compel his High Concept to get him to join an army.

Third example:
A character with Good Investigation and the Aspect "Rising Star At the Crime Lab" is at a crime scene.  He could either roll Investigation to learn things or if he wanted to he could invoke his aspect to correctly process the scene .  If he invokes his aspect he may learn more things than a Detective with Great Investigations who doesn't invoke an aspect while checking the scene.

Fourth example:
If you want to do minor magic that will have an effect on the scene (i.e. do something that gives you more than cosmetic effects) then you pay a FATE chip to do so - effectively invoking the part of your High Concept that says you can do magic.

Hope this helps
Richard

[Sanctaphrax]

That covers Invokes pretty well. There's also Compels.

In a Compel, an Aspect makes something happen that's bad for someone. That someone can spend a FP to prevent that thing from happening or take a FP in exchange for letting that thing happen.

For example, a demon's inability to leave the "everafter" while the sun is up could be a Compel. The GM could say to the demon's player "I'm compelling your DEMON Aspect to say that you need to try and wrap this fight up in two exchanges because in 20 seconds you'll get sent back to the everafter as the sun rises...do you accept?".

[potestas]

aspects are nice then cause we can use them to cover a lot of the abilities they have without giving them so many powers, they might need some fate points to pull some of it off but sure beats a critter with so much power it could never be played. Its like writing the story as you play