Literature paints the picture of the demonic bargain like this: The horned figure with cloven hooves, a forked tongue, and glowing red eyes stands expectantly, a smile on its face. A desperate, foolish, or wicked human sits on the other side of the table, hunched over a thick contract filled with incomprehensible legal language meant to ensnare him forever. The quill quivers in his shaking hand, sending drops of blood onto the page like the perspiration dripping down his face. The human receives earthly wealth, fame, glory, and all the other transient joys of life at the price of his eternal soul.
And yet not all pacts are soul pacts, nor are they necessarily sinister — or even permanent. Patch jobs and even temporary pacts play important roles in Unchained society and in the commerce of its Agencies. Not only are they cheaper and less morally awkward than soul pacts, they are often exactly the right tool for the job.
Philosophers and scientists have long debated what makes the self. What is the nature and source of human sapience? To what degree do people possess free will? Does something survive after the death of the body, or do humans use the hope of Heaven to deny the existential dread that would come of accepting their mortality? Some demons entertain these questions — both in regards to the mortals they live among and as concerns the ultimate fates of the Unchained.
As far as pacts are concerned, however, the soul exists only insofar as other beings recognize the unique identity of the human who possesses it. The greater the familiarity of the observer with the observed, therefore, the more valuable the relationship is when incorporated into a patch job. Some demons speculate that the strength of the observer’s existing knowledge of the observed interferes with the God-Machine’s ability to identify the outcast as something other than the person her friends and family believe her to be in the same way Concealment Infrastructure obscures the gears and facilities from mortal eyes. In essence, if the demon acquires a marriage that has lasted for twenty-five years, his spouse has a quarter century of memories and familiarity that practically shouts, “I know this person,” while an acquaintance the pactbound met at a few parties can only subconsciously whisper, “He seemed like a pretty ordinary guy to me. Likes stinky cheeses and Breaking Bad.”
A signed and binding pact hijacks that connection perfectly, transferring all the observer’s familiarity and sense of connection to the pactbound to the demon, instead. This includes emotional context, as the purchased observer’s memories quietly rewrite themselves to involve the demon’s patchwork Cover instead of the pactbound. The reverse is not true. The pactbound remembers the connection he has lost (or rid himself of). Furthermore, while the human subject of a bargain who has exhaustively studied and obsessed over the pactbound provides more Cover Experiences, one who has no interest in her connection to the human making the bargain offers the demon very little even if the pactbound has been stalking her for years.
Here are some broad categories and ideas as to what can be approached for patch jobs in a pact.
Man’s Best Friend
Humans provide the most obvious source of connections, but they are not uniquely capable in this respect. Animals commonly kept as pets learn to distinguish their owners from other humans, whether by scent, by voice, or by the daily routine of living together. The family dog has no deep insight into its master’s hopes and dreams, so the familiarity this connection grants will never be as powerful as that of the pactbound’s parents, children, and closest friends, but it can round out an outcast’s Cover and also provide his home with a loyal guardian.
Not every animal kept as a pet has the capacity to recognize the unique personhood of its keeper. Bargaining for a connection to such a creature does not grant Cover Experiences to the demon in itself. However, exotic pets often bolster Cover for the same reason that jobs and family heirlooms might (more on that in a moment). Even though the pactbound’s piranha has no emotional attachment to her, anyone who knows about it recognizes her as “the woman with the pet piranha.” The association of the woman with her toothy fish sets her apart enough in the minds of those whose emotional connection to the pactbound would otherwise be too weak to increase the pact’s potency in any meaningful way, and so it can provide a small but measurable improvement in the demon’s Cover.
You Are Your Job
A demon can bargain for a mortal’s position within an organization for the same reason she can gain Cover Experiences by pacting for a pet tarantula. In many work environments, people recognize each other literally by their jobs and how well they do them. In a large office, only a few people outside of the sales team will know the Vice President of Sales except through her cheerful weekly sales reports and maybe her name, but they recognize her as “the Sales VP who emails the entire office every week.” The more people recognize her through this weak connection, the more potent her position becomes in a demonic pact (more Cover Experiences). On the other hand, one mediocre sales representative on a team of thirty barely registers as a unique individual even in his own department, much less to those outside of it, and so it only provides a small boost to a pact (fewer Cover Experiences).
A unique occupation can be a double-edged sword, however. Legend makes it easy to blend in among a staff of dozens of nurses, but the demon might have trouble convincingly living up to her new reputation as the best heart surgeon in the state. However, an award-winning surgeon is also likely to have access to places a nurse’s assistant does not. Other hospital staff members are more likely to take her seriously and obey her instructions rather than reporting her suspicious behavior at the slightest provocation. After all, she’s been a surgeon for twenty years, so how can anyone believe she had anything to do with the death of that patient on the fourth floor who was going to testify against a local crime boss next week? In short, in bargaining for a job, a demon must weigh the advantages and disadvantages of being one face in a crowd (limited influence but less likely to draw attention) against those of having a built-in reputation (harder to stay in Cover but greater influence over the organization).
Demons aren’t restricted to bargaining only for paid positions. A mortal can sell her connection to any organization for which she holds a position. The demon can become the treasurer of a charity, a respected member of the pactbound’s church, or even an active member of the local community theater.
Your Possessions Own Your
Similar principles apply to some of the pactbound’s possessions. As with a job and notable pets, if people who barely know her can still reliably identify her by her customized car, creepy house, or the brooch that has been in her family since before the Civil War, her possessions can bolster a demon’s Cover. Near-strangers must automatically associate the person with her signature item, which means it needs to be something unusual enough to be noteworthy and that she is seldom seen without.
Few inanimate objects ever become intertwined enough with their owners’ identity to grant Cover Experiences at all; barely any grant more than one Cover Experience. The exceptions to this are usually objects of mystical or supernatural significance — the locket that has brought good luck to the family for eight generations, the urn filled with the ashes of vampires collected by a famous vampire hunter, or the cursed car whose previous ten owners (before the pactbound) met violent deaths soon after buying it.
Esoteric Pacts
The same principle can apply to conditions as well as possessions, although that is very rare. A pact that gives the demon the mortal’s terminal cancer might be good for the pactbound, but “that guy with cancer” is not nearly specific enough to generate Cover Experiences. Only virtually unique illnesses have the potential to increase a demon’s Cover. That said, bargaining for certain physical conditions on a temporary basis can drive a mortal into a soul pact — such as an old man who trades away the physical infirmities of age. It can also provide social benefits for the demon even if it doesn’t improve Cover. For example, the demon could buy old age for one of her Covers to reduce the likelihood that she will be perceived as a physical threat.
When a demon uses a pact to create a patch job or improve an existing Cover, she is bargaining for connections to observers whose familiarity with that part of her identity strengthen the illusion that the outcast is the person people think she is. If that observer dies, the outcast suffers a compromise. The stronger the connection, the greater the danger to the demon’s Cover. The compromise roll enjoys a +1 bonus for relationships that provide only one Cover Experience and suffers a –1 penalty for relationships that provide three Cover Experiences.
The same applies to other sources of patchwork Cover. If the demon’s beloved pet dies, if he is fired from the job he bought from a human, if he loses a Cover-sustaining signature possession, or if he recovers from the rare illness that made him a medical curiosity, he suffers a compromise with an appropriate bonus or penalty depending on the number of Cover Experiences the connection provided. This roll is at no bonus for circumstances that provide only one Cover Experience, a –1 penalty for connections that provide two Cover Experiences, and a –2 penalty for anything that provides three Cover Experiences.
Depending on the circumstances, the Storyteller may award additional bonuses or levy higher penalties. The more the loss allows the outcast to remain in-Cover, the less serious the compromise. A demon whose husband is killed in an accident with no connection to her secret life as one of the Unchained may reduce the risk of compromise (or even avoid the compromise entirely) simply by reacting to the tragedy the way any bereaved widow would, for example. Family members and friends at the husband’s funeral see the demon as a woman who has lost her partner, and the collective strength of their perception of her as a widow helps make up for the loss of the stronger individual connection.
An outcast whose best friend is tortured and murdered by a hunter angel while helping him on a mission, on the other hand, will have a harder time avoiding questions. Wasn’t he with you that night? He never talked about what you did when you were together, so what’s the big secret? And so forth. The demon’s player would therefore suffer a penalty on the compromise roll even if no one actually accused the character of murder.
Soul pacts have a reputation in mortal literature as something purely evil. In truth, most demons who deal in them are unsavory, desperate, or at least driven enough by their goals to commit heinous acts to achieve them. Some few, however, attempt to use soul pacts to dispense justice, or at the least do so in hopes of granting a reprieve to those wronged by the pactbound. “Is it immoral to track down a serial killer and convince him to sign a soul pact?” such demons ask. After all, with some careful management by a demon using that twisted soul as Cover, the former murderer might gradually become a model citizen. Certainly, he will live with the risk that his new life will become connected with his pre-pact history, but it still means one less killer slaughtering innocent people.
What of the addict whose substance abuse hurts everyone around her? If she refuses treatment, what recourse remains but to replace her soul with the consciousness of a being who will take better care of her body and relationships? Is that not a mercy?
These arguments do not always convince demons, much less mortals who believe soul pacts truly destroy the pactbound’s soul. It does not prevent outcasts from justifying soul pacts by choosing their victims from among the least savory elements of society. In addition to the moral greyness of such vigilante soul pacts, demons who undertake these projects must be very careful not to erode their new Cover too much in the process of reforming it.
The rules for pacts in Chapter Four of Demon: The Descent are based around the demon making the pact immediately gaining the benefits, but many demons make deals with a view to future investment rather than immediate gain. Many more make pacts they have no intention of ever collecting themselves, instead trading them to other demons for use in building their own Covers. Even after a pact has been used to create or enhance a Cover, a demon isn’t wholly stuck with it if she has no further use for it — demons can sign pacts between one another to transfer whole or partial Covers from demon to demon.
Promissory Pacts
Pacts usually come into immediate effect, but like a banknote containing a promise by a treasury to pay the owner, demons can write activation clauses into their agreements to delay the pact’s onset. These delays add more flexibility in how a demon uses a pact, making them more useful in trade with other demons.
The promissory delay can apply to either or both sides of the pact — some demons provide the benefits of a pact to the signatory up-front and collect their part of the reward later, as in the classic soul pact. Others agree to several small rewards delivered on intervals.
Immediate or At-Will (0): The rewards enshrined in this half of the pact either come into effect immediately or when the two signatories touch. This level of delay is built into the Soul (demon only) reward listed on p. 193 of Demon.
Specified date (1): The rewards enshrined in this half of the pact are delayed until a date and time specified in the pact’s wording. If the recipient dies before the date arrives, the pact does not count as being broken.
Conditional (2): The rewards are delayed until an event specified in the pact’s wording takes place. Some demons list several possible conditions for a pact’s activation, with the fulfillment of any one bringing the pact into effect. Each additional condition adds (1) to this side of the pact. If the recipient dies before any condition takes place, the pact does not count as being broken.
Some demons use promissory pacts to bargain for speculative rewards; agreements to take the signatory’s firstborn child, or ownership of a business they don’t yet own, for example. These kinds of pacts are difficult to enforce with Primum and require especially intricate wording. Speculative pacts require an additional point of Willpower, and are usually formed around a Conditional or At-Will activation. If the pact activates when the agreed-on rewards do not exist, the pact does not count as being broken. Expert pact-makers sometimes arrange different speculative benefits, linked to different conditions. In these cases, the Willpower cost for the pact is calculated at the highest possible outcome plus one.
Example: Ms. Echo is developing a robust Cover as a side project and is willing to take her time about it. Having decided that she needs a family for the new identity, she searches local hospitals in the guise of a nurse until she finds the right sort of desperation. She approaches the mother of a critically, incurably ill boy and makes her proposition: she will heal the child, giving his parents years they wouldn’t have with him, but after three years the boy will belong to her.
Mother: Asset (Stamina) +2, Duration: Permanent +3
Echo: Cover (Greater) +3, Duration : Permanent +3, Promissory Delay (Specified Date) +1
The total cost for Echo is three points of Willpower.
Transfer Pacts
The backbone of the pact markets, transfer pacts specify “the bearer” instead of an individual and leave space for the bearer to sign their name on the agreement. A transfer pact requires an extra Willpower point, and adds 2 to the side left open. Despite repeated attempts by Tempters, no demon can enforce a pact without at least one named beneficiary — some demons use transfer pacts granting riches to whoever signs them in blood at the cost of
their soul, and the usual use of a transfer pact is to grant benefits to whichever demon owns it rather than whoever fist agreed it, but one side must be set at the time of writing.
Example: A ring of Saboteurs in Mr. Gaunt’s agency are planning an offensive against a facility being constructed by pawns of the God-Machine, and require cheap Covers with a reason to be in the area. Mr. Gaunt’s research has revealed a struggling cab driver named Yuri who lives in the area.
Gaunt pays Yuri a visit and promises to save his business by improving Yuri’s skill and injecting cash, in exchange for borrowing it for a week at an unspecified future date. Gaunt makes it clear that it won’t be him taking the cab over himself.
Yuri: Asset (Resources 2) +2, Asset (Professional Training: Cab Driver 4) +2
Gaunt: Duration (Week) 0, Cover (Medial) 2, Transfer Pact 2
The total cost to Gaunt is two points of Willpower — the pact balances, but he must still pay one base and one for leaving the demonic side of the bargain unnamed.
Bills of Sale
Sometimes, demons decide they no longer need the benefits of a pact and sell it on, despite it not being defied as a transfer pact. Some define pacts between themselves and another demon, with the original pact as the benefit, or even a transfer pact promising to give up the benefits of the original to whoever buys the pact, but these only work for direct transfer — the demon selling has to know the demon buying.
To facilitate more organized sale and resale, Agencies use bills of sale. A bill of sale is a magical-legal framework, a quasi-pact enshrining an existing pact, that gives up the demon’s side of a pact to any demon who signs it to mark herself as the new owner. The process of making a bill of sale has more in common with creating a gadget than signing a pact — the demon giving up a pact writes the bill of sale (this requires the expenditure of one point of Aether and an extended Intelligence + Academics + Primum roll, each roll taking an hour, with a target number of successes equal to the sum of both sides of the pact). If she succeeds, the demon must spend a dot of Willpower, after which she immediately loses the benefis of her side of the pact. If she has already spent Cover Experiences or applied an extra dot of Cover from holding the pact, a bill of sale won’t work — transfers of “used” Cover elements require Cover Trading, below. Any demon can then mark herself as the new owner of the pact within a bill of sale by signing her name in blood onto the bill (the player spends a point of Aether), after which the bill of sale disintegrates and the name in the pact changes to that of the new owner.
Bills of sale cause aetheric resonance like gadgets, so they are usually locked away in secure locations when not being sold. They do not have to stay near the pact they modify, and some demons attempt to con others by providing a bill of sale and then destroying the pact. Prudent buyers demand both halves of the paperwork before supplying whatever price has been agreed. Because bills of sale are gadgets, not pacts, they also don’t force the buyer to play fair — whatever goods or services a purchasing demon agrees to give up in exchange for the pact aren’t magically enforced. If the pact within the bill lists anything the demon has to give up in exchange for the benefis that haven’t already been provided, the buyer is held to those agreements.
Example: Ms. Summer made a Soul pact with a cultist, but has since discovered her mark to be a murderer. Worse, he used the resources he gained from the pact to get away with his crime. She doesn’t want the Cover any more, but she’s feeling vindictive enough to sell the pact rather than destroy it.
Cultist Assets: (Resources 3) +3 Asset (Striking Looks) +1
Ms. Summer: Soul +3, Duration: Permanent +3
The target number of successes for Ms. Summer’s attempt to write a Bill of Sale is 10.
Cover Trading
Most Cover trades are performed at the pact level — the recipient receives parts of a mortal’s life as Cover Experiences, and then assembles them into a Cover herself.
Some demons make a business of Cover design, building intricate Covers and then selling them to demons without the skill or time to develop them for themselves. Other agencies keep bills of sale containing quick “burner” identities for use in emergencies. In both cases, it’s a real Cover that’s being transferred, not simply the potential to make one. More often, demons who have no further use for developed Covers sell them on to interested parties, looking to recoup some of the effort that went to in building the Cover.
Cover Trading works in the pact systems by making a pact between two demons rather than a demon and a human. Once an element of Cover has been incorporated by a demon, that demon may only trade it in whole elements — the fine details seen in Lesser or Medial pacts are too delicate to remove once bound to a demon’s Primum. If a demon agrees to give up part of a Cover to another demon, they lose Cover depending on the benefit to the recipient, as follows:
Lesser/Medial Cover -- 1 or 2 Cover Experience is lost..
Greater Cover -- The donor automatically loses a dot of Cover
Soul -- The donor loses the entire Cover
The main restriction in a pact between two demons is that only mortal signatories may be granted Assets by a pact, and demons can’t serve as cultists. This leaves Cover trades as either being extremely one-sided (and therefore draining), or as Cover-for-Cover swaps.
Cover trades may use promissory pacts, transfer pacts, and bills of sale like any other pact. Transfer pacts for Cover are the most common, allowing demons to trade identities on a one-to-one basis. Only especially desperate demons agree to pacts leaving their Covers for sale at any time, and for good reason — if a demon’s last Cover is transferred via pact, she is Burned (without the usual benefits of going loud).
Cover trades do not have to be permanent, any more than any other pact. Some demons hand off elements of their Covers to trusted colleagues, secure in the knowledge that the Cover will revert to them once the pact’s term is up.
The demon gaining the Cover must pay the Willpower to activate the pact and pay for the pact’s Duration. In the case of a balanced Pact between two demons, one of the signatories must agree to be the one enforcing the pact’s magic.
Example: Mr. Book is leaving town on an extended journey, seeking a facility he believes is linked to his Cipher. He doesn’t want to abandon the career he has built up, but Mr.Clock, a demon in the same ring, has the spare time needed to perform Mr. Book’s duties.
The demons agree to transfer the job from Book to Clock for a month.
Book: Nothing! This deal is one-sided.
Clock: Cover: Greater (+3), Duration: Month (+2)
The cost to Clock is six points of Willpower. Mr. Book will owe him a considerable favor once he returns.
