Editing Demon: The Fallen (section)

=== Faith & Pacts ===
God supplied his angels with the resources they needed to use their powers in the creation of the world. After the Fall, the rebel angels were cut off from this power. The ones who escape the Abyss find that human souls, made in his image, can substitute for the power of God. There are two ways that the Fallen can extract this power from humans: reaping it or making Pacts.
* Reaping souls requires the Fallen to reveal themselves as explicitly supernatural entities while interacting with the targets, such as intervening in a fight while wearing the Apocalyptic Form and tearing the skin from an attacker. This is a short-term quick fix of Faith that tends to cause hunters and other supernatural powers to start asking questions.
* Pacts are made with willing humans by exchanging a service for a continual trickle of Faith. It takes time to set up a Pact, which involves the demon fulfilling the mortal's wish and the mortal accepting the gift in return. Once established, only the demon can end a Pact and the mortal becomes a thrall.

Mortals generate anywhere from 0 to 5 Faith:

* 0 Faith means that the person is horribly deprived of something to believe in: they are the most jaded and empty people on the planet. Demons cannot make Pacts with people like them because there is no Faith to use.
* 1 Faith is reserved for hardcore skeptics to whom faith does not come easy.
* 2 Faith is the average for humanity: they'll believe, but don't go out of their way to engage in their belief.
* 3 Faith is for the hardcore believers who put large amounts of time and money into their Faith, for whom their belief is an integral part of their life. Hilariously, hardcore political activists with strong conviction in their cause are also here (yes, even radical atheists).
* 4 Faith is for the most intense and profound of believers: the kind that would live in a monastery, endure imprisonment or act in locations that are an active threat to their lives.
* 5 Faith is for those who ''are'' their belief. The most learned religious rulers, those who are truly willing to give everything for their faith and are capable of remaining true of faith when enduring the most difficult of trials.

You can also make pacts with some supernaturals, most notably Mages (and they usually have a crap ton of faith), but the link created between you two makes you vulnerable to those assholes sniffing out your True Name and reversing the deal, making YOU their slave. It is theoretically possible to form a pact with a Werewolf (if you manage to convince it to not rip you open on the spot), but it tends to fuck them up and turn them to the Dark Side rather rapidly, and once they're there they would turn on their demon master... so not recommended. Vampires due to being dead and thus having no spark of creation have no Faith, although Ghouls are free game, even though blood bonds would all but guarantee that they would be more loyal to their vampire masters than you.

A Faith Potential of 2 is the most common amongst Humanity. When heading in both directions the people with such a Faith Potential decrease in number, with there being only a handfull of people with a Faith Potential of 5. Note that this does not have to be a faith in God or another deity: aside from religion philosophy, ideology and science are all valid things to believe in. Hell, according to the book ''Damned and Deceived'' even the faith in a celebrity, which can be a religion in and of itself, can be sufficient to generate Faith.

The Faith Potential is how Faith a mortal generates to be used in Pacts. Half of the total amount of Faith Potential, rounded up, can be used by the Demon to fuel its powers. The other half ''has'' to be spent on the abilities granted as part of the Pact. These abilities are:

* Repair chronic injuries or impairments: let the cripple walk, heal the blind and so on. Also includes healing a terminal condition like cancer.
* Convert it into 10 freebie points that can be spent on Attributes, Abilities or Willpower: Attributes cost 5, Abilities cost 2 and Willpower costs 1. This can easily skyrocket a Thrall's Willpower, grant them a whole new Ability or increase an Attribute significantly. They cannot be raised above their regular maximums of 5 though.
* Grant one of the Demon's inherent powers such as immunity to mind control, see through illusions, detect the use of powers and so on. Using them requires a Willpower (difficulty 7) roll to use.
* Give a limited version of an Evocation the Demon can use. These costs more than usual: one point of Faith per dot the Evocation has. So a one-dot Evocation costs one point of Faith while a three-dot one costs three points of Faith. Using them requires a Willpower (difficulty 8) roll; this roll doubles as the roll for its effect.
* Bestow one of the enhancements from the Demon's Apocalyptic form. With a Willpower roll (Difficulty 6) a Thrall can use the power for one scene.

Mortals with a Faith Potential of 1 require the granting of a power without generating Faith, but a skilled Thrall with such a low potential can still be used for their skills. Those with a Faith Potential of 2 and 4 have a one-for-one trade: one point of Faith, one point for an ability. With a Faith Potential of 3 and the rare 5 you can go either way: you have a number that you ''have'' to spend on abilities but you have some leeway in whether you want to gain more Faith from this particular Thrall or want to give them more abilities to make them useful. After engaging in a Pact a Thrall gives its Demon master a number of the unused Faith it generates at sunrise, up to the Demon's maximum Faith amount. This means that a clever Demon who makes Pacts all over the world (or even better: with an astronaut right before they got to space) has access to a constant stream of Faith to fuel its abilities.

If a Demon manages to nuture the faith that one of its Thralls provides this Faith potential can grow, allowing for larger Pacts to form. In case a Thrall outgrows its Pact it has to be redefined to grant the Thrall more power. If this is ignored though a Demon can simply opt to reap more Faith, if the used-to-unused balance is not distrubed of course.