Tormentor

Though all demons have a lust for torture, the wretched tormentor was practically born to bring suffering onto its enemies. These scrawny little pests possess knowledge of pain unlike any mortal and they show great delight in hearing the screams of their enemies. Like a spider monkey in the canopy of the Amazon, nimble tormentors climb and swing about their dungeon environments with a practiced ease. Do not underestimate them because of their small size, they are master trappers.

— Patrick Graham, Demonologist

Sadism in all its forms is inevitable when encountering a demon, being found in even the simplest of such creatures. Lesser demons such as the Ungroth show a bare minimum in awareness, but even they fully engage themselves into torturing other creatures. However, none of these simple demons seem to find the level of pleasure in the act as the scrappy tormentor. These creatures, like all other demons, are hideous and cruel in nature. The tormentor possesses a body somewhere between a chameleon and a gibbon with a long prehensile tail and a reptilian head with a broad flat head crest. Though this species possesses a thick layer of scaly skin, many also have a pudgy body type.

The tormentor is a very simple creature with equally simple needs. Their small lanky forms and specialized eyesight make tormentors are expert climbers that swing about any environment with ease. The independent movement of their eyes allows these insidious beasts to scan a wider area which lets them watch several targets at once. All of these traits allow the tormentor to hang from their strong tail to make good use of their dexterous hands.

Natural Torture Experts

From the moment it is brought into the world, the tormentor possesses a wealth of knowledge about physical pain and the ways to inflict it on both mortal creatures and other demons. Because of this, tormentors spend a significant amount of time building lairs filled with elaborate traps. Another notable portion of time spent by a tormentor is dedicated to the hunt for victims around their nests. If a more powerful demon hasn't claimed these creatures, they will gather into groups of around five individuals and live together in a single nest.

If a group has gathered in a mortal world to form a lair, the nests of these demons can be identified by a prominence of rusty scrap metal and chains. Though they tend to remain silent, a tormentor can be identified by the sound of raspy snickering which can faintly echo throughout their lairs. When these nests are in the demon world, however, they become much harder to identify. The elements that make their lairs more distinct from their surroundings in a mortal world are more common among demons and a tormentor nest can blend in far better as a result.

Tormentors utilize a number of poisons, sedatives and hallucinogenic chemicals for their traps and torture methods. They tend to use such chemicals on traps laid outside of their lairs. When an unsuspecting mortal or demon happens upon one, powerful sedatives will knock them out within minutes. Once the victim is unconscious, the tormentors will retrieve them and transport any victim they can carry back to their lair. Their victims are held in cages either scavenged by the demons or improvised cages they constructed.

Once they have another captive creature, they will get to work.

A Precious Pet

It is very fortunate for all other creatures that tormentors don't gravitate towards isolation. A less fortunate consequence of that is their frequent presence among more powerful demons. Such a vast wealth of cruel knowledge makes the tormentor a valued creature for demons who are too busy to torture their extensive collections of prisoners. Any demonic manor or palace worth mentioning has a prison, and the best of these locales uses many hanging cages to allow easy movement for any number of tormentors. The domestic tormentor, unlike the sophisticated hunters in the wild, allow themselves to fully delight in their work, filling their air with shrieking and cackling.

Because they're held to such high regard, many noble demons will actively provide supplies and tools for their tormentors. Because of this, tormentors under the watch of a lord are capable of significantly more brutal methods of torture and interrogation than their wild counterparts. Demons who are especially fond of their precious little pets will construct small structures where these little demons can store their toys.

When not at work, a domestic tormentor can spend hours at a time turning its fancy mansion home into a jungle gym or sleeping among other tormentors in high places. These activities are rare, however, as tormentors cannot go long without torturing other pathetic creatures.