Qlippoth or creatures from the Dark Tapestry ?
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-Whatever it is that can turn them into Nightshades... that unknowable force that exists in the void between stars that represents an End that even Demons fear.
-Losing power (being destroyed on their home plane)
-(for some demons) Remembering their mortal life.
-Becoming a Bygone with no power (if somehow a material plane eradicated all form of one type of sin)
A very large and well-organized army of archons.
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I believe that beings from the Dark Tapestry would be more frightening to Demons. The Qlippoth are more organically familiar to Demons and are simply hate-filled and destructive. They are essentially the progenitors of the Demon race having been combined by Daemons with mortal sin.
Creatures of destruction, perversity and hatred? Demons can understand that perfectly, as they are born from mortal sin. They can deal with the most violent, the most vile and the most perverse of creatures and minds.
But the beings from the Dark Tapestry? They are alien creatures whose minds demons cannot really wrap their heads around. Their motivations are so far removed from mortal pleasures and concerns that fuel the lives of demons, that while a Demon would definitely grant that most of the beings of the dark tapestry are evil, it is an evil born not from mortal malice and sadism, but an alien indifference.
That incomprehensible thought process would be far more worrying to a Demon than the roiling, raging violence of the Qlippoth, and more likely to fill a demon with a sense of dread. The demons could not comprehend the Great Old Ones anymore than the ants could comprehend the bulldozer.
I have a difficult time seeing Hell actually torturing demons. At least in Hell, "embassies" for it might be okay. The reason is that bringing a demon into Hell means bringing with it some amount of taint of chaos. Sure, a single demon won't matter... but these guys have been at one another's throats for untold millennia. It adds up. better to kill the demon as quickly as possible.
Comparing Qlippoths and the Dark Tapestry of fear factors, I guess it'd just depend on what factors you'd likely consider most important.
The Dark Tapestry has the "fear of the unknown" element more than the qlippoth. While the Dark Tapestry is likely less known to demons than qlippoths, it's probably also less relevant (appears in out of the way locations on the material plane rather than competed for territory in the Abyss). I doubt if demons would care about the philosophical underpinnings of a bug-eyed monster that wants to kill you out of malice/hatred vs. a bug-eyed monster that wanted to kill you because of sheer alien nature.
As an aside, Bestiary 4 depicts Dagon as a fairly unique demon lord in that his temples/clergies are often on good terms with the Great Old Ones/creatures of the Dark Tapestry.
It sounds like a good argument has been made for creatures of the Dark Tapestry.
I really hadn't considered the familiarity angle in regards to qipploth...just thought demons would find something even more "wierd" than themselves, and eager to see them dead would be frightining enough.
But I think the whole angle of creatures they can't understand any better than anyone else would probably be even more frightining for them.
Now to build a Summoner focused on the Dark Tapestry ;)
