The Sisters Market; or, making the succubus more trouble

[Douglas Muir 406]

What makes the succubus different? No, no, besides the obvious.

I'd say it's this: succubi are, by their vary nature, social creatures. Other demons are solitary top predators, or slithering connivers, or rampaging monsters of pure destruction. But succubi need a social context to work.

So: succubi have a network. You could almost say an organization. Oh, it's a very chaotic organization, full of lies, jealousy, plots and treachery. Succubi don't actually *like* each other. But they have a lot in common, and as noted above they're social creatures, and also they can find mutual profit in working together.

How? Why, through the Sisters Market.

The Market is an informal network of succubi. It reaches all across the Abyss, and well beyond. Think of it as a Craigslist for demons. Though the current incarnation of the Market is fairly recent, something like it has existed for millenia. Because demons are demons, the network regularly gets crashed by cheating and abuse; but because it's so damn useful, it keeps getting recreated.

Succubi trade some physical stuff -- magic items and the like, and of course dominated slaves -- but mostly they trade information, roles, and hooks. Roles are identities that they've taken over. A "hook" is a Suggestion or Domination that a succubus has placed on a victim. (Yeah, it turns out that these things can be traded between two willing demons.)

So, say Candi has infiltrated a small mortal kingdom, dominating the queen and planting suggestions in the King's mind, and is driving the kingdom towards war and utter ruin. But suddenly she has to to away. Maybe she has a better job offer somewhere else; maybe she's suddenly become bored (this is the eighth kingdom she's ruined, frankly she'd like to try something different now); maybe she just got the news that the Shining Crusade is about to come to town and the palace will be crawling with good clerics and paladins. Whatever the reason, she contacts the Sisters Market and offers her role and her hooks -- the suggestions on the King, the domination on the Queen -- for sale. Tanya, who's been hanging around the Abyss torturing the same damned souls over and over, jumps at the chance; she offers an interesting magic item and, oh, the true name of a minor devil. An agreement is reached and, boom.

(Context: my PCs recently defeated a succubus; she got a Suggestion into one of them but then flew off because they were obviously too powerful. She's now traded the suggestion-hook to a more powerful demoness, who has just joined the party undercover.)

The Sisters Market also trades information. Much as they dislike each other, succubi tend to be gossips, and they love nothing better than a good, juicy secret. And they trade tactical information: I serve this demon lord, but I've noticed a weakness in his defenses. I'll trade it for information about the powerful good party that's rumored to be preparing an expedition to my plane of the Abyss. From a PC's point of view, this means that once you've encountered a single succubus, any subsequent one you meet may suddenly know much, much more about you. (This is especially true for characters who have embarked on a career of fiend-hunting, demon-binding, or anything else that seems likely to bring them into conflict with the sisters more than once. Demons are chaotic, but intelligent; they're not going to sit in rooms waiting for you to show up and kill them.)

The Sisters Market isn't only for succubi. Other fiends, and even high-level characters, can occasionally try buying or selling something. Just making contact would be a minor challenge in and of itself, and then of course you're dealing with a bunch of millenia-old chaotic evil outsiders with high Wis, very high Int, and very high Cha indeed. Good luck negotiating with the gal who can read thoughts, cast suggestions all day long, and -- oh, you have Protection From Evil up? -- talk rings around you anyway, because she has +27 Bluff.

Anyway, the Sisters Market. Thoughts?

Doug M.

[Icyshadow]

Very darn interesting, though part of me worries that some high-level wizard who is readily prepared, or a Calistrian cleric, will want to buy "other services" from the succubi instead of really focusing on the more subtle machinations :D

Joking aside (though I would LOVE to see the look on my Cleric's face when she sees LOTS of them creepy things running around, since she's all nice, clean and pure), this is a very neat idea and actually makes use of Chaotic Evil organizations that appear all so rare. And suddenly I imagined a Succubus Cleric of Norgorber being one of the main information brokers out there, and maybe a temporary leader of some incarnation of the organization itself.

[Lathiira]

I like it! It's well thought out, shows understanding of the nature of succubi, and makes sense. I'll have to keep this idea handy for the future :)

[Sharoth]

Awesome idea. I love it.

[Son of the Veterinarian]

I like it. I could see a bunch of older Succubi who get together to gossip and interfere in their daughter's lives acting as points of contact for the entire network.

[Tom S 820]

"golf clap" very nice.
I like it and I am stelaing it.

[Nicos]

It seems that your succubus sorceress survive :) .

This is a very interesting organization, mybe I steal it too

[sunbeam]

Good idea.

But an Erinyes organization like this would boggle my mind.

They probably run the succubus one behind the scenes as a pet project.

[ShadowcatX]

I love it. Totally stolen for every game I run from pretty much now on (assuming they have succubi in them).

[W E Ray]

This is pretty much how I work "The 9 Hells" in my Homebrew -- introducing this Craigslist kinda gimmick will be an easy and beneficial addition.

[DeathQuaker]

It's great -- I had something very similar going on in the background of my universe; while the PCs never fully ran into it, it still contributed to how some of the politics were working behind the scenes in the region. Indeed, they did so well, Faith, Hope, and Charity ended the game as advisors to the new king (one of the campaign's PCs; he's fully aware of who they are, too). I am sure that influence shall be up for sale at some point.

Plus it's really fun to come up with a more subtle group like that rather than ye old standard army of demons (granted I had one of those too, but still).

[karkon]

Great idea. Well thought out. Love it.

[Black_Lantern]

Nudity is required while in the market.

[SwnyNerdgasm]

Actually like the idea, I'd love to steal it, but this is nowhere near how succubi work in my homebrew. :(

[sunbeam]

Hmmm the group dynamic would kind of be like that "Mean Girls" movie.

That might be a better name than Sister' Market. "Mean Girls."