That doesn't involve getting bumped on the head or having a master who's *waves hands* over there somewhere or dead.

I'm not sure how it would work, but what if someone's sorcerous mentor never actually summoned a demon. He's studied the **** out of them and knows how to do it* -- he's just a bit too sane to do it himself. The character is basically a patsy who gets in way over his head and becomes a kind of "enforcer" type for the mentor. Sure, he knows sorcery now, but he's got this guy pulling the strings.

* He's not above banishing a demon, he just doesn't want to do the dirty work of summoning/binding...just in case. Perhaps HIS mentor went out in a bad way...

Hi Jared,

Neat idea ... let's work out some of the possible variants.

I especially like the idea that the mentor doesn't have to be an active sorcerer. This keeps the demon-issue squarely in the player's hands, and ensures that we don't have Professor X around to save our asses all the time.

What you're describing sounds a bit to me like an Apprentice premise. All sorts of good issues can be explored at different angles.

1) Power
2) Loyalty and obligations
3) Exploitation vs. ambition
4) Demon agendas
5) Mentoring

Being a prof myself, these are so relevant to my day-to-day that I've never put the effort into developing a role-playing premise about them. (Demon Cops is a [playful] example of the sort of stuff I come up with.)

I wonder whether this works better or worse if all the player-characters share a mentor? Or if they all have different ones? Or a combination?

Best,
Ron