History TabletopGame / Infernum

* TimeyWimeyBall: Time in Hell is kinda fuzzy. As of the "present day," Hell is getting Newcomers from anywhere between the sixteenth and twenty-first centuries.

* AbusivePrecursors: The First Fallen count created, through an act that could seriously be considered rape and/or bestiality, an entire sapient species solely for the purpose of being disposable weapons and tools, ruthlessly mutilating, mutating and exterminating them in the process of "honing" them towards their desired purpose.

* SlaveLiberation: The Branded are an Early Tribe descended from escaped slaves.
%%* TheSpymaster: The other half of the Riethii hat.
%%* SuccubiAndIncubi: One half of the Riethii hat is to be this, as well as HoneyPot spies. Astyanath qualifies too, but they take it in a [[BondageIsBad somewhat more specialized direction]].
* TortureTechnician: The racial Hat of Slavers (though they lean more towards the "lowbrow, brutish, sadistic thug" version then the "self-professed artiste of pain" version), and the Hat of House Astyanath as a whole (who lean towards the latter). In a culture where torture is vital to everything from the economy to industry, there's plenty of these to go around, though.

%%* SacredHospitality: One of the three Laws (the others being the [[IGaveMyWord Law of the Covenant]] and the [[DuelToTheDeath Law of the Duel]]) that hold the Infernum together as a functional society (for certain values of functional).%%Is what?

* SuccubiAndIncubi: Malcubi and, really, any demon with the Chain of Lust mutation. Also see PlanetOfHats.

* AbusivePrecursors: you could make a serious argument that the First Fallen count. They created, through an act that could seriously be considered rape and/or bestiality, an entire sentient species solely for the purpose of being disposable weapons and tools, ruthlessly mutilating, mutating and exterminating them in the process of 'honing' them towards their desired purpose.

* BodyHorror: where to start? Asyanath's surgery, House Glabretch's... everything, all demons mutate as they grow stronger and more powerful, the tortures inflicted upon damned souls...
* BrainBleach: the waters of the River Lethe can erase memories, from any duration from "only while exposed" (the mists that cling the river's surface) to "permanently" (submerged in the water). One of the oldest industries in Hell is boiling the Lethe and pumping its fumes up the sky above the crater, as the Mists cloak Hell from external scrying and wipe the memories from damned souls and fallen angels as they plunge into Hell.

* CannotTellALie: inverted. The mutation "What You Want To Be True" from the Chain of Lies, and likewise the mutation "All Secrets Revealed" from House Riethii's Chain of Whispers, cause the demon to be ''physically harmed'' if they say something that ''is not'' a lie.

* CirclesOfHell: Invoked by name, and they serve as the equivalent of countries. The Pit is a 2400 mile deep crater basically divided into nine bands of terrain that roughly equate to countries. We start with Emptiness, the rim of barren ash wastes around the mouth of the crater. Next comes the eternally storm-wracked mountains of Tempest. The mudflats and swamps of Tears comes between Tempest and the volcanic badlands and slagheaps of Toil. After that, one passes through the battlefields of Slaughter to the urbanized nightmare of Industry. For the final stretch, you go down through the demonic "paradise" of Delight, through passes in the volcanic mountains of Malebolge, and finish in Pandemonium, the city of chaos on the crater's floor. Yes, you are walking on the walls of a roughly conical crater for the seven intermediate Circles between the outside and the crater floor. Gravity works differently in the Pit.
* ColdBloodedTorture: '''everywhere''' in Hell. Demons need to torture souls to extract iliaster from them; the more pain they induce, the more iliaster a soul generates.
* TheCorruption: Downplayed with Corruption - the ambient sin of Hell will eventually force even innocent Early's souls to be stuck there, and will mutate humans into more demonic forms, but it doesn't actually corrupt their morality in and of itself; it ''does'' render humans vulnerable to [[MysticallyBindingOath Covenants]], however, so Early distrust obviously corrupted humans for fear they have been unwillingly drafted as demon servants, not to mention Corruption is just as often the product of being a genuine JerkAss by your own free will.

* CrapsackWorld: it's blisteringly hot and dry (except where it's freezing cold and dry), rivers are more likely to be full of magma or molten metal then water, there's ''no sun'' (though there's a reasonable facsimile), it's several types of barren wasteland, it's crawling with inhuman creatures that literally need to rip your soul apart in order to both feed themselves and sustain their society... how much more crapsack can you get?
* DarkIsNotEvil:
** Averted for hellkin. There can be relatively good natured and honorable demons, but they're still monstrous and most of the race is, indeed, evil.
** Played straight for some human sorcerers, especially those who are aligned with the Early. While Zethu, the Founder, created sorcery as a degenerate version of angelic magic, and is meant to gradually wear open portals to the Pit in the mortal world...operative term, ''in the mortal world.'' In Hell, it's completely harmless to the dimensional fabric as well as being more powerful, but while it invokes BlackMagic thematics and especially enslaving demons through forced Covenants, it's ''also'' the only way to reliably cure Corruption and when it comes down to it, forcing demons to ''not'' enslave humans and fight to protect them [[PayEvilUntoEvil isn't exactly the worst action]]. In fact, human-friendly faustians are probably the reason there is any free humans that aren't servants of demons at all.

* DemonLordsAndArchdevils: the rulership of Hell comes in a distinctly feudal fashion, authority being handed down from the nine Heads of Houses through a system of Grand Dukes, Dukes, Earls, Viscounts, Barons and Captains. There's no actual difference between "demon" and "devil" (racially; devil is a higher social rank, below daemon). The overall authority of/law in Hell is a selection of three councils, primarily the Assembly of Grand Hierarchs of the Infernum, a council comprised of one representative for each House and a number of other representatives of various powers, such as the Independent Demons, the lords of Pandemonium, and the Faustians. It's sort of like the UN... only disputes are much more violent. It's an uneventful meeting if only two or three members are vaporised in mid-speech.
* DevilButNoGod: one possible interpretation of the setting is this. Lucifer and a number of other Fallen Angels named by Christianity were exiled from a place called "Heaven", but there's no evidence that Heaven is anything like the Christian depiction of the place (even the Fallen Angels player race don't remember anything about it, and of course the demons and humans haven't ever seen it), and there's nothing that implies there's some kind of supreme entity running the place.
* DuelToTheDeath / DuelsDecideEverything: One of the three lynchpins of Infernal society is the Law of the Duel, which allows demons with a grudge against each other to sort things out by killing each other in person or through officially appointed proxies. It's seen as far more practical than allowing vendettas to just suck whole tribes of demons into rampant war against each other.

* EvilVersusEvil: often what a given Infernum game boils down to.
* {{Expy}} The Free Cities, are such, of Revolutionary France.
* FallenAngel: a playable character race. Between their exile and their passage through the Mists of Lethe that cloak Hell, they don't remember the slightest thing about Heaven, or even ''why'' they Fell in the first place.
* FantasticCasteSystem: The nine breeds of demonkind represent this, as they were bred for specific roles in the army of the First Fallen. Whilst it hasn't been officially supported since the demons went independent, in practice, most demons tend to gravitate towards positions based on their racial role.

* FisherKing: any demon who follows the Chain of the Screaming Sky can determine the general weather patterns and terrain of their land, eventually causing it to become a frozen tundra, volcanic wasteland, misty swamps, or shrouded under eternal night. In spirit, at least, the Chain of the Burning Land, which binds a demon closely to their territory, also fits.

* GodIsEvil: ''Heavily'' implied, at least from the perspective of those in Hell. At the very best, he's a [[NeglectfulPrecursors Neglectful Precursor]].
* {{Greed}}: the "Avarice" version is the defining trait of the demons of House Carthenay, to the point where one of their powers is the ability to have SolidGoldPoop.

** NonHumanHumanoidHybrid: Demons can also breed with ''other demons'' and create half-demons who are handled identically to those with human blood. Given a HandWave in-canon about such hybrids only being possible because one (or both) of the parent demons will have human blood "somewhere" in their lineage.

* HermeticMagic: the default magic system of the game closely follows this idea, which really stands out compared to the [[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons typical D20 setting]].
* HeroicWillpower: Humans can use this to power their limited magical abilities.

* NobleDemon: About as nice as a demon can realistically get.

* PathOfInspiration: The Church of the Morningstar is an inversion; it ''claims'' to be a ScamReligion, but you will find more and more sincere believers in Lucifer as you climb up the ranks - the "scam" is to come off as just more cynical hellkin with a neat trick.

* PlanetOfHats: The Houses, which function as a second splat alongside a demon's Breed.
** BarbarianTribe: The Early Tribes, especially the Bori.
** BloodKnight: Basically House Sturrach's schtick; the most militant and warlike of all the Houses, their explicit goal is to conquer Hell, then invade and conquer Earth, then crush Heaven, then sweep out into TheMultiverse to find an infinite array of worlds to conquer. War without end, an eternal battle, is their idea of paradise. Naturally, full of {{Sociopathic Soldier}}s and {{Colonel Kilgore}}s.
** CorruptCorporateExecutive: Carthenay's hat.
** FatBastard: Oblurott's hat. Demons of House Oblurott invariably are massively obese, partially because of their eating habits, partially because their House Chain actually revolves around them mutating into being so fleshy it's hard for them to move, but also hard for them to be hurt. Oblurotts consider this a sign of dignity and respect, however; as they know they were created to be warrior-slaves, being as unfit for that duty as possible is considered a sign of good breeding. Laziness is also highly admired; an admired Oblurott will have a hundred slaves to do something rather then lift a finger itself. When they do bestir themselves, they are notoriously direct and can be surprisingly energetic and effective, but that's only because they want to get it over with so they can go back to feasting and lazing around.
** ForScience: mixed with some elements of MachineWorship, the basic hat of House Zethu, though they apply it to both actual science and to sorcery. Progress and development are the closest thing they have to a personal religion, to the extent that they are defined as embodiments of "The Sin Against The Holy Ghost".
** {{Necromancer}}: The House Haimon hat.
** {{Plaguemaster}}: The House Glabretch hat.
** ProudWarriorRaceGuy: The Bori. ''Not'' House Sturrach, who seek neither glory nor honor in battle.
** RoyalBlood[=/=]LowerClassLout: House Lictat's hat is in claiming both of these simultaneously, and seeing no contradiction whatsoever between them.
** SlaveLiberation: The Branded are an Early Tribe descended from escaped slaves.
** TheSpymaster: The other half of the Riethii hat.
** SuccubiAndIncubi: One half of the Riethii hat is to be this, as well as HoneyPot spies. Astyanath qualifies too, but they take it in a [[BondageIsBad somewhat more specialized direction]].
** TortureTechnician: The racial Hat of Slavers (though they lean more towards the "lowbrow, brutish, sadistic thug" version then the "self-professed artiste of pain" version), and the Hat of House Astyanath as a whole (who lean towards the latter). In a culture where torture is vital to everything from the economy to industry, there's plenty of these to go around, though.

* SacredHospitality: one of the three Laws (the others being the [[IGaveMyWord Law of the Covenant]] and the [[DuelToTheDeath Law of the Duel]]) that hold the Infernum together as a functional society (for certain values of functional).

* ShoutOut: Quite a few.
** The Book of the Tormentor has, as a sample mortal, a "Newcomer Marine", who represents a survivor of one of the "many military bases and mercenary encampments prone to being dragged into Hell". Between his quote, and his primary weapons being a shotgun and a chainsaw, he's pretty obviously supposed to be a {{VideoGame/Doom}}guy expy. [[Film/TheyLive He also comes with a packet of bubblegum.]]

* WingedHumanoid: Fallen Angels, Malcubi and Fiends.
* WrittenByTheWinners: According to the official history, demons came into being when the First Fallen were corrupted. They absolutely were not the result of bestiality by the First Fallen, Lucifer never existed, and more importantly, demons certainly did ''not'' [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters rebel against the Fallen]] - such rumors are heresy. Note that every demon knows the Luciferine Heresy and nearly all believe it - but admitting that would undermine the Law of the Covenant and put Infernal society (and the positions of the nobility) in peril.

* AntiMagicalFaction: Completely averted. There is no coherent group that dislikes sorcerers - and in fact, every Early faction has [[TheMagocracy magocratic]] elements, as sorcery is one of the only ways to purge Corruption (and thus Covenants) from humans, and provides a force equalizer by forcing some demons to heel and creating magical weapons.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: With very few exceptions, every holder of a noble fiefdom ''earned'' that fief by politics, assassination and brute force, and they only hold it until one of their subordinates becomes stronger than they are.
* BadassArmy: Well, most Houses in Hell aspire to having this, but there are still some military formations that stand out from the pack.

* MonsterLord: The Deceivers argue that they're this, as they were initially bred as a leadership caste. While they're the most humanoid of demons, and claim pre-eminence over all demonkind, nobody else really buys it. Since AsskickingEqualsAuthority, and Deceivers are not the strongest warriors by a long shot, they're forced to resort to guile and alliances to survive.

* {{Hellfire}}: An energy type native to the setting, alongside the "traditional" [[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons D20]] energies of Acid, Cold, Electric, Fire and Sonic. Described as greenish-black flames that are fuelled by hate, rage and misery, explicitly called the "anti-iliaster".

* DarkIsNotEvil: averted. There can be relatively good natured and honorable demons, but they're still monstrous and most of the race is, indeed, evil.

** HornyDevils: The Riethii hat. Astyanath qualifies too, but they take it in a [[BondageIsBad somewhat more specialized direction]].

* HornyDevils: Malcubi and, really, any demon with the Chain of Lust mutation. Also see PlanetOfHats below.

* CharmPerson: certain mutations basically have this effect. Most notably, Malcubi get Domination (basically CharmPerson's UpToEleven big brother) as a high-level racial ability.

* DumbMuscle: Hulks. Taken to the extreme, too.
** {{Subverted|Trope}}s of this tend to be ''extremely'' scary.

* {{Hell}}: Where the game is set.

* EvilIsDeathlyCold: the Circles of Tempest and Pandemonium, as well as anyplace ruled by a demon lord following the Glacier Lord branch of the Chain of the Screaming Sky. The DM's book mentions the possibly existence of a "Tenth Circle" below Pandemonium, composed of grinding ice and darkness.

* DemonicPossession: racial ability of the Deceivers (who do it psionically/spiritually) and the Imps (who do it physically by shrinking down so small they can squeeze in through your ear and turn your brain into a control panel). Also, any creature who takes the Chain of the Possessor gets this ability -- this includes not only other breeds of demon, but also fallen angels and even corrupted mortals.

* DeadlyDecadentCourt: The lower Circles of Hell are pleasurable to the point of sybaritic, but it's still Hell. Instead of the constant open warfare practiced in Upper Hell, you get backstabbing, seduction, possession and [[IGaveMyWord Covenant]] manipulation. It should be noted that these circles are the ''most'' dangerous part of Hell, not the least.

* MonsterLord: The Deceivers think that they're this. While they're the most humanoid of demons, and claim pre-eminence over all demonkind, nobody else really buys it. Since AsskickingEqualsAuthority, and Deceivers are not the strongest warriors by a long shot, they're forced to resort to guile and alliances to survive.

** HornyDevils: The Riethii hat. Astyanath qualifies too, but they take it in a [[TortureTechnician somewhat more specialized direction]].

* VillainousGlutton: House Oblurott -- even the other demons consider them disgusting, to the point their official nickname is "The Gross". Many of them are, indeed, {{Fat Bastard}}s (emphasis on ''fat''), but relatively few of them have JabbaTableManners -- they're far too hungry to waste food by spilling it on themselves. They actually need to have surgery to avoid killing themselves through being like this, as demons are only supposed to live off of iliaster and, consquently, have rudimentary stomachs and no excretory organs, and extra digestive organs are frequently implanted to help them eat even ''more''. And it '''still''' doesn't keep one of the two main causes of death amongst the Oblurott being ''exploding'' from eating too much. The other main cause, for the curious, is being eaten by a rival or a superior.

* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: most, if not all, demons will betray others for their own advantage. House Astyanath, however, has such a reputation for this that other demons think they're kind of nuts. The rampant cruelty and sheer viciousness of Astyanath "society" has totally bred out any semblence of loyalty amongst them, and their willingness to let rivals be overwhelmed in battle so they can take their position, or to lead mutinees against "weak" leaders in ''mid-combat'' has cost them more then a few battles.

* AlwaysChaoticEvil: demons are more like "Always NeutralEvil", although it is noted that A. demons are not inherently evil and can choose their own path like humans and B. despite that, no demon, out of millions of individuals over the centuries, has ever been better than PragmaticEvil or NobleDemon.