While inscrutable eldricht abominations of the Lovecraftian kind are all the rage these days, good old-fashioned demons (and devils, daemons, infernals, hellions, etc.) have a certain cachet that makes them very interesting and distinctive adversaries as well. I like to play them as agents of sin, entropy and deliberate evil. And I like them to look like we'd expect the denizens of Hell to look like.

I'm not quite fond of the traditional D&D (starting with AD&D 1e) demonology.

I have Tékumel's stat-free Book of Ebon Bindings and the demon lords are badass, but there's not a lot on rank-and-file demons.

I'm also a fan of WFRP's Chaos hordes, Palladium's clearly D&D-inspired but IMHO more interesting take (I just like the monster writeups better. Demon Locusts FTW!), and Kult's Clive Barkeresque horrors.

What about y'all?

I was just using The Mutant Chronicles as a dark future in a Heroes Unlimited game yesterday.  While they aren't all great and a few are derivative (Demnogonis = Nurgle) I like that many of the Dark Soul's minons were once human.  Nepharites and Templars of Illan and Callistonian Intruders and Ezoghouls.   I really like Ezoghouls, cyberzombie centauriod killing machines.  All told though I think it's better to go with which demons from which games are best as they've all got some good ones and some dreadfully embarrassing ones.

Legions of Steel gave us robots that looked like demons and the dreaded MK III Fiend.  They also had an rpg where you played demons fighting in the wars of the abyss.  I've always thought the concept for the miniatures game was fun.  You had stands of six millimeter minions, 28mm lieutenants, and 54mm lords of hell.  The sense of scale was great.

Really, I like D&D's very well.  Orcus and Jubelix are both nice and gribbly.

I like Nyarlahotep and Nightgaunts better than C'thulhu or Mi Go.

Palladium had a bit too much of the everything is a demon thing going on but I do like the demon locusts.

Warhammer gave us Nurgle.  The others are okay but only Nurgle strikes me as particularly original or twisted.  It's the loving uncle aspect that makes him particularly nasty.

Rolemaster has Black Reavers (undead class VI demons) and Demons Beyond the pale.

IIRC there's a bit of crossover between the demons of Kult and The Mutant Chronicles... being as they at one time were put out by the same company.

I was fond of the demons in the Arduin Grimoire... they were so disco! Totally over the top of course... not really of use in the games we played that never got much past 5th level.

Rafael Chandler's demons are original and extremely nasty.

I got HUGE gameplay out of Mayfair's Demon books - most especially Denizens of Vecheron. Damn my soul I loved that book!

http://darkcornersofrpging.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-many-hells-of-mayfair-games-closer.html

Quote from: languagegeek;770851Rafael Chandler's demons are original and extremely nasty.

Are they? Usually they are just _____ with tentacles. The same thing over and over.

DragonQuest (the SPI version) had an amazing section on demons.

In Nomine has fun demons. They can all pass for human though (or in once case possess humans) so they don't have the traditional demonic 'look' to them.

And they're not really evil as such. I mean yeah, some of them are complete bastards. But some of them would be nice people if you met them in a pub for a drink. In Nomine's struggle of angels versus demons is much more of an order versus chaos struggle than a good versus evil one, and angels can be nastier and more unpleasant than demons at times.

It's just that the angels are trying to keep the universe running to God's plan and demons are trying to disrupt that plan as much as possible.

And it sucks to be a human who gets in the way of that conflict.

Back in the day of Runequest belonging to Chaosium and White Dwarf magazine wasn't a mouthpiece for Games Workshop, there was a series of articles in White Dwarf from the early 80's that dealt with summoning and binding demons along with stats for those demons and demon lords. That series of articles set the standard for me.

Quote from: JeremyR;770853Are they? Usually they are just _____ with tentacles. The same thing over and over.

Funny, I'm not familiar with Books of Pandemonium games but I have the Teratic Tome PDF. And while the illustrations and descriptions are pretty damn horrific, and the modus operandi for each monster is fairly specific, it all still feels kind of samey. I can't quite articulate why. I'm not crazy about the book, which is a crying shame because I've interacted with Rafael Chandler via Google+ and he seems like such a great guy.

Quote from: David Johansen;770828I was just using The Mutant Chronicles as a dark future in a Heroes Unlimited game yesterday.  While they aren't all great and a few are derivative (Demnogonis = Nurgle) I like that many of the Dark Soul's minons were once human.  Nepharites and Templars of Illan and Callistonian Intruders and Ezoghouls.   I really like Ezoghouls, cyberzombie centauriod killing machines.  All told though I think it's better to go with which demons from which games are best as they've all got some good ones and some dreadfully embarrassing ones.

I should really look into this game some day. I mean, I need a new game like I need a gallstone, but that's never stopped me before.

Quote from: David Johansen;770828I like Nyarlahotep and Nightgaunts better than C'thulhu or Mi Go.

Good point. Nightgaunts look and feel very traditionally diabolic to me, and Nyarlathotep = Satan is a classic.

Quote from: David Johansen;770828Rolemaster has Black Reavers (undead class VI demons) and Demons Beyond the pale.

Sounds cool. Where can I find descriptions and/or stats for these?

I always thought Fighting Fantasy had a pretty decent collections in 'Out of the Pit'.

A good mix of traditional concepts combined with weirdness like the demonic focus on mushroom farming.

Quote from: Spinachcat;770852I got HUGE gameplay out of Mayfair's Demon books - most especially Denizens of Vecheron. Damn my soul I loved that book!

http://darkcornersofrpging.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-many-hells-of-mayfair-games-closer.html

This is what I was going to recommend. Fantastic supplements.

In Rolemaster demons come from the seven pales and get stronger as you go but there are these demons from beyond those planes that are less tied to human ideas.  It's mostly the idea of alien demons beyond the constructs of human understanding.

Anyhow, a Black Reaver is a demon lord that's been brought back to life as an undead, unstoppable killing machine.  They look like twenty foot tall chaos warriors with an axe but they are a point in a direction and watch the slaughter kind of monster.  And they can fly so lots of your funny drop them down a pit type tricks don't work on them.  IRRC they're Level 50 monsters with OB200 AT 20, DB 100, Hits500 and armed with a +50 (x3 damage) battle axe.  But just imagine this black, monster slowly treading forward destroying whatever gets in its path, walking on air over cliffs.

I ain't claiming that these are the "best" nor are they explicitly demons, per se, but I find that these supernatural infernals are probably some of the creepiest and disturbing that I've ever come across:

Book of Unremitting Horror

Some images: http://www.dyingearth.com/bouh/index.html

Yeah I know that GUMSHOE isn't popular in these parts, but this book has wonderful ideas to mine and is actually pretty system-agnostic.