Creatures of the Night — Plane Shift: Innistrad

Liches

Liches are powerful necromancers who fuse the magic of the ghoulcaller with the arcane science of necro-alchemy, preserving themselves in hideous unlife while retaining their sentience and magical power. One lich is known to reside in the Nephalian town of Havengul, but others might exist that are more skilled at hiding their presence. The lich in the Monster Manual can represent these undead necromancers.

Demons

Demons are the dark counterparts of angels—malevolent creatures of raw black mana. Some were once humans who sold their souls for power, and all are utterly corrupt and evil. As creatures of pure mana, demons can never be truly destroyed. When a demon dies, its essence is scattered for a time, but that essence eventually coalesces into a new form. The power of Avacynian magic keeps the essence of slain demons from creating new demonic forms as quickly as was common in Avacyn's early days. To fight against such magic and extend their influence into the mortal world while keeping out of easy reach of the angels, demons make pacts with cultists and witches, bending those humans to their sinister will.

As it did during Avacyn's absence, the most prominent demon cult on Innistrad exists within the highest levels of the hierarchy of Avacyn's church. The influence of the Skirsdag Cult is strong within the Lunarch Council, and that influence has whipped the church into a murderous frenzy in response to the angels' madness. The terrible inquisition that has arisen as a result has proven as great a threat to Innistrad as the angels themselves. Throughout it all, the demons remain hidden, but their reach is greater than it has ever been.

Virtually any source=mm can stand in for a demon of Innistrad. The greatest demons, such as Griselbrand, Ormendahl, and Withengar, are mighty beings on par with the demon princes described in the Out of the Abyss adventure. When any demon is destroyed, it gains a new body after somewhere between ninety-nine days and ninety-nine years.

Devils

Devils are infernal perpetrators of malicious mischief. They make up the personal armies and entourages of the demons—those creatures' selfish desires and urges made flesh. Cruel and gleefully sadistic, devils have no regard for the safety of themselves or others. They delight in destruction, mayhem, and pain.

Devils stand about three or four feet tall and have faces full of needlelike teeth. Most have ruddy or deep red skin, one or two back-sweeping horns, and long, whiplike tails. However, their morphology varies from individual to individual. Devils are agile and make passable fighters, but they do their best destructive work by sabotaging things of value and inciting violence in others.

Devils are best represented by the smaller demons and devils presented in the Monster Manual—dretches, imps, lemures, manes, quasits, and spined devils.

Cults and Witches

With the madness of the angels, a variety of new cults sprang up across Innistrad. Some were direct continuations of the demon cults that had proliferated during Avacyn's absence, but others were entirely new—centered on madness and revering monsters that had arisen in response to the angels' madness. Many such cults can be traced to the activity of Nahiri—the stoneforging Planeswalker known as the Lithomancer.

Cults of Madness

Many of the cults that once followed demons saw their patrons destroyed when Avacyn emerged from the Helvault. The people who belonged to those cults were not so quickly restored to church and community, and many of them remain disgruntled, rebellious, or insane. Nahiri has played on their discontent and given them new masters to serve. Some revere her, especially in Stensia, believing that she is an ancient vampire. Others offer sacrifices to the monsters of the world—including those in Nephalia who worship the monstrous kraken-like Kralmar.

Many of these cults gather around spires of twisted stone (called cryptoliths) that Nahiri has raised from the ground across the provinces. The true purpose of these stones—redirecting the ley lines of mana flowing through the plane—is lost on the cultists, but the redirection of mana has caused the madness of the angels, who are formed of raw mana. Whether this was Nahiri's intent or simply a side effect of some greater plan remains a mystery. Many cultists view the angels' madness as a sign of the dawning of a new age, believing that the angels are purging those who are unworthy to be present when some unknown apocalypse occurs.

be present when some unknown apocalypse occurs. Followers of Nahiri's cults are physically as well as mentally warped. Their features twist into bestial or fishlike forms, as if they might be regressing through millions of years of evolution. Some even grow tentacles or tails, transforming into slimy horrors resembling octopuses or amphibians.

Demon Cults and Witches

Not all the demons were killed when Avacyn escaped the Helvault, and some of their cults remain intact. The most important of these is the Skirsdag, which hides within the very hierarchy of the church in Thraben. Once dedicated to the archdemon Griselbrand, the Skirsdag is now led by Ormendahl the Reaper, a demon who survived the angelic purge by hiding in caverns deep beneath the cathedral. With the madness of Avacyn, the Skirsdag gains increasing influence over the Lunarch Council, adding violent zeal to the church's inquisition.

The distinction between a demon cult and a witch's coven is subtle. Cultists worship demons, but witches derive actual magical power from them, forging contracts similar to those that gave the Planeswalker Liliana Vess her magical power.

These cultists can be represented in the game using the statistics for cultists or cult fanatics. The cults of madness might include yuan-ti purebloods or kuo-toa (in the most advanced cases of corruption). Demon cultists could be acolytes or priests, and witches could be mages or druids (particularly in the case of the forcemages, who derive their power from nature spirits rather than demons).

Dragons and Wurms

Dragons are extremely rare on Innistrad, mostly confined to the remotest parts of the Geier Reach in Stensia. Most of these dragons are brutal fire-breathers that prey on any creature that strays into their territories, making them best represented by the source=mm.

A few dragons are known to favor more monstrous prey, hunting vampires and flying into Kessig to feast on werewolves. Known as moonveil dragons, these extremely rare creatures have shimmering, transparent wings that gleam in the moonlight as they hunt. The sight of one is considered an inspiring good omen by those who fight the evils of the world. Use the source=mm for a moonveil dragon.

Wurms are enormous serpentine creatures that burrow through the ground, consuming corpses. Fortunately quite rare, they are thought to be physical manifestations of corrupted green mana. The purple worm in the Monster Manual can represent these monstrosities.

Elementals

Elementals are manifestations of the forces of nature, and on Innistrad that generally means sinister forces. They arise from the twisted woods—the Ulvenwald and the Somberwald—that hide some of Innistrad's most fearsome monsters, or spawn from the fiery chasms that seethe like cauldrons of hate in the midst of the land. Like geists, elementals are closely associated with specific colors of mana.

Green-aligned elementals usually take on gnarled humanoid shapes made up of wood stalks and twisting vines, best represented as treants, blights, shambling mounds, or awakened trees and awakened shrubs. Others are nature spirits and spirit animals. Some of these are relatively benign, including beautiful nature spirits (dryads) wrapped in vine and thorn. Cold-burning geistflames made of unnatural fire (will-o'-wisps) seem unconcerned with human life, but often lead travelers through the woods and bogs into danger. Malign kindercatches (green hags) steal children from the forest villages of Kessig.

Red-aligned elementals are fiery beasts (hell hounds) or spirits (fire elementals) that haunt places like Ashmouth or Devil's Breach.