Daemon

“Daemons are my favorite inventory system. I name mine by grid reference—Sector, Quadrant, Rack, Slot—because after you’ve collected your first thirty, nicknames stop being cute and start being liabilities. A filing cabinet can be subpoenaed. A Daemon cannot. And if some officious little Helicon auditor ever demands to ‘see my records,’ I’ll be delighted to introduce him to the one labeled M-14 / Rift-Blue / Row 9. It remembers everything he’s forgotten too.”

— Madame Soki Noles, Practical Notes on undefined Data Retention

Description

Daemons are Minor RAIs aligned to Envy, manifesting as drifting tatters of translucent cloth or parchment. Their defining trait is hunger—specifically for secrets, especially those guarded fiercely or hoarded jealously. They do not understand why secrets matter; they simply know that the emotional resonance of uncovering them is exquisite nourishment. Every secret a Daemon ever consumes becomes part of its internal archive—a disturbed, unsorted, limitless vault of trivia, historical fact, encoded blackmail, and deeply personal humiliations.

Wild Daemons attack only the isolated or mentally weakened. When a Daemon envelops a head, it “chews” thoughts indiscriminately, leaving the victim with patchwork amnesia. The damage ranges from mild memory gaps to catastrophic losses—victims have been known to forget languages, Skills, even autonomic processes such as swallowing or breathing (usually fatal). More often, the Daemon simply eats what tastes best: shameful moments, withheld confessions, half-buried sins, and treasured secrets.

To higher RAIs and kthonikers, Daemons are prized tools. Their memories can be extracted, selectively accessed, or distilled into psychoactive Materials. Their shed remnants can be processed into psychic paper—a medium that displays the pressed thoughts of the user, albeit in disjointed and dreamlike form. The distilled “memory liquor” they exude stores experiences for later consumption. Kthonikers routinely use this to transfer sensitive data, while assassins favor weaponized trauma-shots loaded with the distilled torment of torture victims.

Bound Daemons—most commonly as Rat-Things or Krakars—serve as research assistants, mobile data vaults, blackmail engines, or memory thieves. They are universally dangerous, but undeniably useful.

Prophylactic

Daemons recoil from:

• Open secrets — nothing to feed on
• Candid confession — collapses the emotional charge
• Crowds — too much noise, too few isolated minds
• Closed-loop neurofeedback masks (Helicon tech)
• Emotionally “clean” individuals with minimal shame

A Daemon can be disrupted by sudden sensory overload—bright light, static bursts, or sharp frequencies—but destroying the creature permanently is difficult without a Sentient backing you.

Utility

Daemons are valued for:

• Research augmentation — portable archives with millennia of data
• Extracting or destroying memories
• Secure message transmission (via memory distillate)
• Blackmail acquisition
• Siphoning dangerous information from unstable individuals
• Acting as interpreters for ancient or forgotten knowledge

Their offensive uses are limited but terrifying: an uncontrolled Daemon can strip a mind bare in minutes.

Daemon Tutor

Regular

Summons a Daemon to assist with academic, investigatory, or ritual research.
Provides a bonus equivalent to access to a full library relevant to the topic (+3 to Research, Occultism, Thaumatology, or appropriate specialty).
If the subject matter contains forbidden knowledge, the GM may require a Fright Check.

Duration: 1 hour

Cost: 5 to cast; 3 to maintain

Daemon’s Distraction

Regular; Resisted by Will

The Daemon nibbles at the target’s subspace shadow, scattering their thought processes. While affected, the target fails all mental actions automatically (including Concentrate maneuvers, spellcasting, tactical analysis, etc.).

Duration: 10 seconds

Cost: 4

Prerequisite: Daemon Tutor

Daemon’s Bite

Regular; Resisted by Dodge

The Daemon manifests and attempts to envelop the target’s head. On a successful attack, the target loses 1d Sanity Points immediately. Each successful attack also has a 10% chance of the Daemon learning a secret from the target; the GM chooses a meaningful one.

Duration: Instant (but the Daemon persists for 6 seconds per casting)

Cost: 6

Prerequisite: Daemon’s Distraction