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Crossroads Demon

Crossroads Demon

AX.GHW.13.06.03

A Shadow compact broker: an entity that operates at the margins of the compact system, offering deals to desperate or ambitious humans in exchange for service, obligation, or future claim. Crossroads Demons are not primarily combatants. They are negotiators. They become dangerous when negotiations fail or when they decide the party represents a threat to their operational area.

Type: Shadow Entity (Compact Broker)

Threat Power Package: Standard

Size: Medium (inhabits a human form)

Attributes

  • Body: 2D
  • Speed: 3D
  • Wit: 5D

Talents

  • Persuade: 4D
  • Deceive: 4D
  • Notice: 2D
  • Resolve: 3D
  • Supernatural Power (Compact): 3D
  • Brawl: 1D

Combat Statistics

  • Health: 32 (20 + Body 2 + Standard modifier 10)
  • Defense: 2 (Speed 3 + Armor 0 = 3 ÷ 3 = 1, +1 base = 2)
  • Armor: None

Saves

  • Body Save: 2D (Body 2D)
  • Speed Save: 3D (Speed 3D)
  • Wit Save: 8D (Wit 5D + Resolve 3D)

Attacks

  • Shadow Touch: Body 2D + Brawl 1D = 3D vs Defense (Touch range), 1–2 Shadow damage + target must make Wit Save vs Threshold 3 or become Shaken for 1D3 Turns
  • Compact Compulsion: Wit 5D + Supernatural Power 3D = 8D vs target's Wit + Resolve (contested); if the target has previously made any agreement with the entity (verbal, signed, or implied by accepting any gift), this compulsion operates at +2D

Shadow Traits

  • Shadow Immunity: Immune to Shadow damage
  • Radiant Vulnerability: As standard; the entity's human form does not visually react to sunlight, but Sacred Fire applications affect it normally
  • True Form: The Crossroads Demon inhabits a human vessel — the vessel is a willing or unwillingly possessed individual. Destroying the vessel does not destroy the entity; it returns to its origin. To address the entity, the vessel must be exorcised.

Special Abilities

  • Binding Word: Any verbal agreement made with a Crossroads Demon in its presence becomes a compact obligation. The target does not need to sign anything. The entity knows if the obligation is being honored. If it is not, the entity can deploy enforcement (Hellhounds, other Shadow entities) against the defaulting party.
  • Negotiation Aura: All Persuade and Deceive rolls made against the Crossroads Demon are at −1D. The entity's supernatural perception of motivated reasoning makes it difficult to mislead. Shadow-Bound Marked characters with Hollow Pact 3D+ are immune to this effect (the compact relationship creates a kind of professional peer awareness).
  • Compact Knowledge: The Crossroads Demon knows the terms of every compact active within Far range. It knows if a character is Marked. It knows if a character has any existing compact obligations.

Tactics

A Crossroads Demon prefers not to fight. It presents itself as a solution to problems: smooth, unhurried, apparently reasonable. In situations where combat becomes unavoidable it uses Compact Compulsion against any character with prior dealings or any character who has accepted anything from it, and Shadow Touch to impose the Shaken condition on aggressive characters. Its primary defense is its vessel: characters who recognize the vessel is an innocent person will hesitate to attack, which the entity exploits for escape.

Lore & Ecology

Crossroads Demons operate in the hidden world's commercial margins. They find people in desperate circumstances and offer terms. The terms always look favorable at the moment of agreement and reveal their actual cost over time. The deals are real: Crossroads Demons deliver what they promise. What they collect in return is also real. The compact system that Shadow-Bound Marked PCs participate in shares structural logic with what Crossroads Demons broker; understanding Crossroads Demon operations is part of understanding what the Marked's own compacts actually are.

Banishment

Expulsion removes the entity from its vessel (Governing Attribute + Occult vs Threshold 3, Extended Work, 10 minutes minimum). The vessel survives if the expulsion is completed before the entity damages it from within (the entity takes 1D3 Radiant damage per Turn of expulsion work; if it reaches 0 HP from this damage, it leaves but damages the vessel — Body Save vs Threshold 3 or the vessel takes 2D6 damage). Permanently addressing the entity requires expulsion followed by voiding the specific compact structure it operates under. That's campaign-level work.

Scene Materials

  • Compact documentation (if any was produced, significant legal and research value)
  • Vessel's personal effects and records (evidence of the entity's operational area)
  • Compact residue (Blood Sense readable; indicates the broader compact network the entity serves)