Demon Possession

[Xar]

Demon Possession: It seems like such a standard trope in the genre.

I was wanting to make my own Minion War tie in, so I started researching possibilities, and outside of The Possessing Entity, Alien Intelligences and their demon familiar and Greater Beings, I couldn't find much in the way of anything that can possesses a person. There is one new demon in Hades that can possess a soulless person, so that's a possibility...if one can work out how to make the victim soulless first.

It seems to me that thematically, it shouldn't be a greater being that is possessing a little girl in the suburbs that a group of investigators needs to save. This strikes me as the actions an infernal lieutenant of some kind.

Maybe it's just my take that's different, but it seems like we're missing a standard tool here.

Am I missing something?

[jaymz]

Are you meaning similar what happens in the TV show Supernatural?

[Xar]

To be honest, I haven't ever seen that one. I don't do cable tv, and we didn't have that over the air until recently...It looks like something that I would like and will check out.

EDIT: looks a little too dawson's creek meets the supernatural to me.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Supernatural

Think The Exorcist. The little girl wasn't possessed by Satan, if I remember correctly...It was a lesser demon, right?

[jaymz]

To be honest, I haven't ever seen that one. I don't do cable tv, and we didn't have that over the air until recently...It looks like something that I would like and will check out.

EDIT: looks a little too dawson's creek meets the supernatural to me.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Supernatural

Think The Exorcist. The little girl wasn't possessed by Satan, if I remember correctly...It was a lesser demon, right?

While yes due to the 2 main characters of the show can make it seem to be a girls eye candy show, it is actually more along the lines of a more serious Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel, with way more than just vampires to deal with and while the guys are girl eye candy the show itself is actually quite good in my opinion. One of the VERY few TV shows I watch.

After getting hooked I actually liken it to a weekly beyond the Supernatural campaign, every episode being the next adventure.

In it they deal with demon possessed humans pretty frequently along with a whole slew of other horror type creatures and myths etc. Here is the wiki entry on demons. http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/index.php?title=Demons

As for the Excorsist i believe it was Satan.

[Xar]

I'm a little unclear on why the possessing entity won't provide what you're looking for here? It's a lesser creature (compared to alien intelligences or true demons) which is readily available as a tool of greater powers to cause mayhem or whatever is needed in the living world.

Mostly because I didn't consider making the entity a tool of a demon. That's an excellent suggestion, and I think I can make that work. This way, I can set up what seems to be the finale, getting the victim free of the possession, and then, there can still be a physical confrontation as well.

By the way, it was the demon Pazuzu in the The Exorcist

[Lord Z]

I have seen Mentally Possess Others presented as a superpower and again as a psychic power. Since most demons rely own magic in the form of magic powers or spells, it seems feasible to me that someone in the Minion Wars would have developed a magic-equivalency spell. The spell could be demon-exclusive since it might depend on the subject's ability to discorporate as a condition of the effect. Anyway, that is one way to go. Then you could give any demon you wanted the ability to possess simply by teaching the spell to that demon.

The movie Constantine also had a short but interesting possession scene early. That is another theamatic example which comes to mind. One of the best examples is in the sci-fi medical thriller, Infection by Scott Sigler; the protagonist becomes infected with a thinking disease which is gaining more and more control over him through bullying tactics and control of emotional hormones.

[Xar]

I'll check that out too. Thanks a bunch.

[mrloucifer]

The movie "The Last Exorcism" played a good hand as far as possession goes, albeit it had an unexpected and odd ending.

[Xar]

In the new book, Armageddon Unlimited, there is a new power, Complete Possession. It let's the possessor of this power the ability to possess a human for 5 minutes per level of experience. Add in discorporation as Z-bomb mentioned above and we're getting close.

As I've been thinking about this, I keep seeing lots of classes and creatures that get bonuses to possession. That's ironic given how few creatures actually can possess.