Fiend

Fiends are the arcane classification for the spirits and emanations of Purgatory. These are torturer spirits and monsters built to terrify, torment, and oppress the souls trapped on that wretched plane.   Fiends are shaped by the fear, guilt, shame, anxiety, grief, trauma, and rage a person felt in life. They often take personalized forms that play on elements of their prey's experiences - though sometimes, there are so many layers of abstraction between person and Fiend that the Fiend's shape seems abstract and random.   Fiends can mimic people by temporarily taking shapes and behaviors from a target's memory, but these shapes are always a little uncanny. Most imitator Fiends use a combination of their target's expectations and memories for speech and behavior, leading to them acting in wild contrast with the context around them. The point of such a performance is to create fear, uncertainty, alienation, and confusion, and to separate people from safety or companionship - an extension of their hunting and punishment behaviors. Fiends fundamentally lack an independent self and exist as animated impulses of the Plane itself rather than full individuals. Fiends that accumulate enough attention and terror on their own can create personalities and personas, but remain linked to Purgatory's Will. These are known as Greater Fiends and can become powerful entities in their own right.   Fiends only rarely escape Purgatory but it has been known to happen when people experiment with planar magic. In such instances, Fiends become more clever and autonomous - but still seem to act as hunters and tormenters.   Fiends that originally target one person can begin hunting others, meaning that not all Fiends are likely to be entirely personalized. Fiends of a specific shape often manifest as multiple entities; a weak fiend may spawn in large numbers with a shared shape.