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Ars Infernum

Ars Infernum. A hooded priest holding a grimoire and a chained, armored hell-hound stand beneath burning halos in a landscape of fire, either side of a glowing seal.

Act I · The Awakening · In development

Answer the summons Meet the demons

Liga eos.

Bind them.

You wake in Hell, inside a circle carved into black stone. Ash falls like snow. On a pedestal lies a grimoire with a single seal on its first page, and something is whispering.

You were a priest once. You are something else now.

Open the book

Prooemium · Folio I

A playable grimoire

Hell is not chaos. It is a bureaucracy: ancient, ranked, and bound by rules older than human memory. The Ars Goetia is its organizational chart. Seventy-two demons, each with an office, a seal and a weakness.

You play Igniferus, a former priest remade as a holy hell-hound. Divine authority still burns in him beside something infernal. He is not here to slay demons. He is here to study them, bind them, and put them to work.

You are not a hero. You may not be a villain. You are a scholar making choices that compound.

  • Killing demons for loot Studying demons to bind them
  • Collecting monsters Building an infernal institution
  • A power fantasy Knowledge as power
  • A hero’s journey A scholar’s descent

Not a demon-fighting RPG.
A demon-binding one.

Demons of the Goetia
72
Acts of descent
6
Demons in Act I
12
Disciplines
4
Ways it can end
4

Folio IIAct I

The Awakening

Twelve demons of mind and will keep the Ashen Labyrinth. They lie. They flatter. They offer knowledge that is almost true. At the far end, a King is waiting to make you an offer.

Hold a seal to the flame. Hover to burn it away. Hold a seal to the flame. Tap to burn it away.

  • Botis

    President & Earl · 60 legions

    A viper that becomes a man with a bright sword. He sees what was and what will be, and would rather settle this by negotiation. On his terms.

    Parley

  • Buer

    President · 50 legions

    A wheel of five limbs, patient as a held breath. Philosopher, herbalist, healer of every infirmity. He will not strike first, and he will not simply kneel.

    Your choice

  • Gusion

    Duke · 40 legions

    He discerns all things past, present and to come. He already knows you are on your way. He is curious whether you know that.

    Your choice

  • Naberius

    Marquis · 19 legions

    Arrives as a black crane and fights as a three-headed hound. He restores lost dignities by taking them from someone else. Every sentence he speaks is positioned.

    Combat

  • Glasya-Labolas

    President & Earl · 36 legions

    A hound with a griffin’s wings, author of bloodshed. He has no interest in conversation, and he hits harder with every blow that lands.

    Combat

  • Ronove

    Marquis & Earl · 19 legions

    A master of rhetoric who never fights a battle he can delegate. His lesser spirits come first. He arrives when the meeting has run long.

    Combat · Waves

  • Foras

    President · 29 legions

    Teacher of logic, finder of lost things, alone in a stone archive. Approach as a scholar and he will deal. Approach as a threat and he simply will not be there.

    Parley

  • Gaap

    President & Prince · 66 legions

    Guide to four kings, maker of love and of hatred. He does not attack what you expect. He adjusts how you feel about what is happening to you.

    Combat

  • Furcas

    Knight · 20 legions

    A cruel old knight on a pale horse, spear in hand. No tricks, no bargains, no mercy. The most honest fight in the Labyrinth.

    Combat

  • Marbas

    President · 36 legions

    A great lion who causes disease and cures it, and sees no difference between the two. Every exchange with him is a gamble.

    Combat

  • Valefor

    Duke · 10 legions

    A lion’s body, a thief’s head and a pleasant singing voice. Count your seals before you meet him. Count them again after.

    Combat

  • Paimon

    King · 200 legions

    A crowned king on a dromedary, heralded by two hundred legions. He prefers obedience to combat. When he makes his offer, do not answer too quickly.

    Boss

Seals after the Lesser Key of Solomon. Portraits are revealed as each demon manifests.

Folio IIIInvocatio

Every binding is a legal act, not a kill

Encounters are turn-based and fought from inside the circle. Your authority is a holy remnant: spend it to conjure, or hold it back to turn the next blow aside. You cannot do both forever.

  1. The First Conjuration. A measured demand. If you have studied the demon, it strikes at the one thing it cannot defend.
  2. The Second Conjuration. Solomon’s precedent. Stronger, costlier, and it lays the demon’s weakness bare.
  3. The Constraint. Everything you have left. A demon already brought low will submit to it outright.

Then choose the true sigil and speak the right invocation. How well the binding holds is written into the Grimoire, and it stays written.

A Solomonic circle, turning slowly

The circle is drawn. Naberius is watching.

Authority60 / 60

ResistanceUnbroken

Then grant it a station

The binding holds. What the demon becomes next is yours to decide, and two of these cannot be undone.

  • Companion

    “It goes where you go. For now.”

    One demon at your side in every fight, with a power of its own.

    Can be reassigned

  • Academy

    “It will work. Watch what it produces.”

    Give it an office and a room wakes: an infirmary, an archive, a vault.

    Can be reassigned

  • Extract knowledge

    “It will speak, if pressed.”

    Hold it in the Cells and question it. Whether it speaks truly is another matter.

    Can be reassigned

  • Bargain

    “What you offered is now owed.”

    Strike a pact and let it go, where it is willing. It will not come back.

    Cannot be undone

  • Destroy

    “Something remains. Inside you now.”

    Absorb its essence for a permanent gift. Its page is scorched forever.

    Cannot be undone

Folio IVThe Infernal Academy

You did not build it. You are reclaiming it.

Somewhere in the ash stands a half-collapsed institution, older than your arrival. Each demon you bind can be given an office within it, and each room that comes back to life is Hell yielding a little more of its structure to you.

“A demonologist. Formerly. I bound forty-eight of the seventy-two before something changed. I am still here. The forty-eight are not.”
Varek, who was here before you
The Grand Library
Research a demon before you face it. Preparation is not mandatory. It is rewarded.
Ritual Chambers
The circle you woke in. Every conjuration and every binding begins here.
Containment Cells
Hold a demon for questioning. Some of them lie. Learning which is the lesson.
Infernal Lecture Halls
Where Igniferus studies what he is becoming.

Folio VFour disciplines

Knowledge is the only power here

Invest freely across four schools of infernal mastery. Nothing tells you where your choices lean. Something is keeping count anyway, and there is more than one way for this to end.

Redeemer Warlock King Destroyer Scholar

Folio VIChronica

Seventy-two demons. Six acts.

Twelve demons to an act, each act a deeper stratum of Hell. Act I is a complete story in its own right. The rest follow as the descent continues.

  1. Act I Mind & Deception The Awakening · in development
  2. Act II Body & Flesh Sealed
  3. Act III War & Force Sealed
  4. Act IV Society & Power Sealed
  5. Act V Death & Thresholds Sealed
  6. Act VI Cosmic Entropy Sealed

Sigillum · Folio VII

Sign the register

Leave your name with the Academy. We will write when the Labyrinth opens, and now and then before, with what has been bound since.

News of Ars Infernum only. No more than the occasional letter, and you can leave the register whenever you like.