The Forge Archives

Can you bind a bound demon?

Jake

Nope.

But you can command someone else's Demon. Which is fun. My personal favorite is Banishing other character's Demons. That's really upsetting. :-)

Mike

You can also convince a demon to break their binding (or try to) and then subsequently bind them.

But... can you COMMAND a demon to break their binding?

How does a demon go about breaking their own binding?

Jake

It gets pissy over unfulfilled needs or excessive nose slaps.  

Seriously, there is a rule for the demon to break its binding in the book.  (I don't have it in front of me, so I can't cite a page number.)

Julie

I didn't realize that. The core book is actually pretty hard to find a lot of things in.

Jake

Quote from: LxndrBut... can you COMMAND a demon to break their binding?

I think it would depend somewhat on definition. But I don't think that breaking a binding is a voluntary thing, really, more of something psychological that happens over time. So, consider a situation in which you were the commander of a soldier with a wife. You could tell him to get angry with his wife, but that's not really a voluntary decision.

So, just as you can't command a demon to Jump to the moon (assuming it doesn't have the appropriate Travel ability), you can't command it to break it's binding. It's just not a voluntary thing, I don't think in most cases.

OTOH, you can certainly command a demon to do something that will end up pissing it off with regards to it's master. Probably have to be creative, but it couold be done. Like commanding it to do something bad, and then commanding it not to tell it's master that it had been commanded?

Mike

Jake,

In Sorcerer, see chapter 5, Rules for Sorcery, subheading, Binding Subtleties, pp. 93-95.

Julie

Hello,

See Sorcerer: breaking the Binding and the binding strength.

Best,
Ron

Hello,

To clarify a bit, imagine this series of interactions.

1. A demon doesn't get along with its Binder, but hasn't rebelled.

2. Another sorcerer comes along and says, "Hey, check it out, rebel against that poofter and I'm your new Binder after."

3. H'm, goes the demon, and attempts to break the Binding with a Will vs. Will roll.

4. Once free, the demon and the second sorcerer carry out a Binding.

Nuance #1: can the second sorcerer order the demon to try to break the Binding? The answer is yes, but there are some problems. First, the Binding strength will serve as a bonus for the demon in resisting the command (we're presuming it resists; otherwise the situation is as outlined above). Second, and this is interesting, the very same Binding strength also acts as a modifier in favor of the Binding if and when the demon rebels, no matter which way said strength swings. Third, if the demon unwillingly does succeed in breaking the Binding, the second sorcerer's position is tricky - either he goes for a snap-shot, one-die Binding roll, or he has to get the demon to sit still and behave for the hours-long full-dice roll.

Nuance #2: it depends on the game, but many different Sorcerer applications share the notion that demons aren't real happy with over-exploitative sorcerers. The newly-Bound demon might be quite a handful, and even other demons might be irked with the sorcerer as well.

Nuance #3: it also occurs to me that some games would require a "break the Binding" roll to follow Binding rules, such that the demon is limited to a one-die roll unless it takes several hours. I fully admit that this just occurred to me one minute ago, rather than being a rule of any kind, but it does seem to make sense.

Best,
Ron