Situation: Party has been captured by the cruel tiefling pirates they tried to double cross. Only one got away and is trying to mount a rescue. The party is to be interrogated, tortured and executed at sunrise. They are going to try to stall for time using Bond-banter.

Their torturer is a vrock demon they loathe from previous encounters. I need a method of torture that will really make their jaws drop. Obviously supernatural effects are possible.

Any suggestions?

Victim is manacled, with enough space to move around a bit, to something between a massive magical crystal and a pyre.

The crystal starts emanating more and more cold. At first it provides relief from the flames' heat, but as the cold becomes relentlessly more and more acute, it turns into an altogether different torture until the victim is straining against his manacles to be as close to the fire as possible. The manacles are not long enough to let him jump into the flames, but will still let him get close enough to slowly roast himself alive through heat transfer - or he can keep away from the fire and die as the liquids in his body turn into ice shards, puncturing his blood vessels and other organs.

The demon grabs one of them and shoves him head first up his (the demon's) ass... regardless of how the guy obviously shouldn't be able to fit up there.
He is plunged into the midst of the digested remains of souls the demon has eaten... soul shit... phantasmagoric sorrows and desires and fears.
While he's up there his friends can hear his panicked screams and see his feet flailing out the demon's backside.
After a bit the demon pulls out the (now insane and demon-shit covered) victim and asks, "Who's next?"

An eternity of this.

Quote from: The Butcher;866712An eternity of this.

Oh fuck! Anything but THAT!!! "Yeah, I'll talk, I'll tell you everything!!! You wanna fuck my mom and my sister? Here's their address..."

Go with all the traditional fire and pitchforks stuff, but make it a powerful illusion.  They'll still be lucid enough to bluff and banter, but there's no actual, physical damage.  You can't have anyone accidentally dying before execution time.

Quote from: Simlasa;866715Oh fuck! Anything but THAT!!! "Yeah, I'll talk, I'll tell you everything!!! You wanna fuck my mom and my sister? Here's their address..."

On a more serious note, Dante's Inferno has hellish tortures aplenty (Ugolino Della Gherardesca's torment in particular has left a powerful mark in Western art, being frequently portrayed), as does Clive Barker's Hellraiser series, and (for a more Earthly and sadly recent historical episode) just about any documentary on that little thing called Operation Condor.

This description from A Measure of Faith seems gruesome enough for this, if a little more straightforward.

QuoteA human hangs upside down from a crude wooden frame 3 yards high, legs splayed apart by ropes attached to opposite corners of the frame. The room contains 10 fomors, two of which are shoving a long saw slowly back and forth, bisecting the human’s body at the crotch, while the others look on. The thrashing victim gurgles under the flow of its own blood and viscera. Dismembered body parts lay on the floor, sorted neatly into piles.

Quote from: Skywalker;866736This description from A Measure of Faith seems gruesome enough for this, if a little more straightforward.

Reminds me of that scene in Bone Tomahawk.

Quote from: Skywalker;866736This description from A Measure of Faith seems gruesome enough for this, if a little more straightforward.

Reminds me of that scene in Bone Tomahawk (link to MoviePilot).

Quote from: Simlasa;866741Reminds me of that scene in Bone Tomahawk (link to MoviePilot).

I hear good things about that movie.

The fun thing about demons is they have an eternity to hate you very personally. But to really make them shine find out their motivating principle, their prime reason for being. This will color how they choose to torment their victims. Patience and precision make them frightening; the accuracy depends on how good they can read their victim.

So what type of demons are these? What ideas propel them? Fire, lust, hunger, greed, madness, popularity, war, sloth, superiority?  A motivating idea can color  faster than a list of torments. From there we can give you details on specific tortures in theme.

(A vrock looks like a large vulture that sheds spores. It dances a dance of ruin that explodes energy. OK. But who does this vrock demon serve? What colors its malice?

If you want an easy idea, have the vrock vomit a bit upon the prisoners, with the acids eating at their flesh. Just a little to ease the tearing off of their flesh in ribbony strips, but nowhere enough to damage their bindings. Have it eat the torn little ribbons off a character before it chooses to vomit its new morsel upon another PC and continue the process slowly upon each. The smell, burns, and flesh tears should be plenty to scar the PCs into revulsion and possibly unconsciousness.)

How much does this Tiefling control this Vrock? Also, how smart is the Vrock? Since the Tiefling is just executing them in the morning, perhaps the Vrock sets up soul gems for the PCs - so the torture isn't for hours, but centuries.

Quote from: Simlasa;866708The demon grabs one of them and shoves him head first up his (the demon's) ass...

That's....awesomely horrific!

Strip the PCs naked. Tie them up upside-down, legs spread. Dull toothed saw straight down the middle, slowly. They'll see their blood and intestines dangling in front of their faces as they pass away.

(Saw a picture of that from some medieval book.)

Edit: Oh, almost forgot. Have the tiefling boss say "I drink your milkshake, I drink it right up!" as he smokes one of the PC's cigars.

Maybe I am a musical fiend, but try this method.  Cut off a tiny piece of muscle from one of the victims.  Just a tiny sliver that should make a fine fiddle string.  Let that vrock play that fiddle till a string snaps.  Well the vrock needs more fiddle string and guess who is providing.