How to destroy a Demonground?

[Zvezda]

I always wonder if it is possible to destroy a demonground. What do you think? Is it possible at all? If so what do you think is needed to turn it into a normal area of earth again. Closing all gates won’t do the trick I am afraid. That would be too easy.

[ReHerakhte]

I think you would need somebody with good Empathic skills to 'cleanse' the area after all the gates into the Demonground have been destroyed.
It would have to be something like Empathic Healing but used to 'heal the Earth'.
And it would have to be very difficult or time consuming. Perhaps they can only cleanse a few metres at a time or perhaps it needs a group of people to do it?

[Morthrai]

Well now, something that even I have never thought of in all the time I have been into DC!

Ideas off the top of my head after reading the previous posts:

1 - Obviously, all gates must be closed before the process can begin. I think we can all agree on that.

2 - Anything in the affected area that is particularly nasty ought to be dealt with, by whatever means necessary

3 - For the actual cleansing process, why not keep it simple and say (for example) that one empath can cleanse a spherical area with a radius equal to their Empathy score in metres. The sphere shape allows the tainted ground and atmosphere to be cleansed, not just the surface. If you can gather a group of empaths together, total their combined Empathy scores and use that figure as the total radius. Then let us say that an empath can only perform the process once every so many hours...once every 8 hours maybe?

4 - Remember, non-empathic PCs need to keep an eye out for Darklings during the process because some of them are attracted to empathic vibrations

How does that sound so far?

[ReHerakhte]

Nice expansion on the concept Lee. I think this is well on the way to being a workable method of destroying a Demonground.
Not too hard but certainly not too easy either and it gives humanity a sliver of hope that they can indeed confront and push back the Dark.

And hope is always a good tool for manipulating the PCs

[Zvezda]

My apologies, somehow I haven’t managed to thank you for your great ideas. I have however already incorporated them into my campaign. I decided to follow Lee’s ideas while using the Empathic Healing skill to cleanse the tainted reality. It was very, very time consuming for the PCs but turned out to have a great effect on their moral.

[Morthrai]

My apologies, somehow I haven’t managed to thank you for your great ideas. I have however already incorporated them into my campaign. I decided to follow Lee’s ideas while using the Empathic Healing skill to cleanse the tainted reality. It was very, very time consuming for the PCs but turned out to have a great effect on their moral.

Glad as ever to have been of help

[Zvezda]

You have been indeed. The idea worked very well. I havn't used any time limit for the cleaning process but I used the standard fatigue rules from T2K. The PCs also needed to establish empathic links between each other before they could conduct the cleansing.

[AkDragoon]

I think that it would have to be a combination of a LOT of things - Demonground is, afterall, supposed to be mysterious and extremely dangerous to just be in, let alone trying to restore it.

First: Close all the gates (or THE gate, if there's just one big one).
Second: Kill all the darklings there, including extra-dimensionals, daemons, etc.
Third: Empathically PURGE the entire area until all that remains is the trace of the purging.

A (long) note on Empathic Purging: We've been using this one for a while to throw off the empaths in the groups and has a number of fun side-effects to it. Since it's an empathic skill, it gives off an empathic "resonance" that shows up only to people with Empathic Purging and really high forms of Psychometry. In areas reciently Purged Mystics will have a harder time using clairvoiyance to view things from the planes, a total blot on the radar (like a person having 0 empathy) will happen for Psionicists and Psionic Scanning, and Sorcerers will have no clue anything is different, because their skills wont be affected by it.
We also consider there to be two different kinds of Empathic Purging - Purging and Absorbing. Purging is nice for badguys to have access to because it allows them to purge any presense of a portal having been opened (see also: Empathic Stealth), any use of Psychometry (on a Success Stage vs Success Stage level), or some aspects of Psionic Scanning - which only determines that something is WRONG with there being no empathy there at all.
Absorbing, on the other hand is dangerous and crazy. Instead of just blocking out the empathic traces, the user actually absorbs the essence of the empathy, which can cause massive empathy problems not limited to, but including: empathic lay-lines, neuropathy, headaches that last years, cutting of the mystic's silver cord, insanity, future-clairvoyance, past-clairvoyance, super-clairaudience (fun), permanent telepathy, and incontinance (also fun).
Sufice it to say, if Empathic Purging is used enough on an area, over time, the only trace of empathy left is that of the purging itself.

[Zvezda]

Great seeing you post again dragoon! I stay with empathic healing for the Deamonground but the new skill is very nice. Just what I was missing in my game. How does the Empathic Purging work against other Empaths? Can I have more info on this skill. What does stage 1, 2...do? And how long do the effects last?

[Phulish]

Doesn't the Earth have an assimilation rate? My Protodimension Sourcebook isn't nearby. The above methods would speed the process up and explain in game what happened in the past when the dark was defeated.

[ReHerakhte]

Doesn't the Earth have an assimilation rate? My Protodimension Sourcebook isn't nearby. The above methods would speed the process up and explain in game what happened in the past when the dark was defeated.

Hmm, hadn't thought of that.
So we are looking at a situation where the Minions locate a suitable place, make it a demonground and their continued activity keeps it a demonground and with more aggressive activity actually expand it?
If they neglect it then the Earth would slowly diminish the demonground (Hundreds of years depending on size? Would give the opportunity for local legends to spring up about the place - monster infested, haunted, generally spooky etc. etc.) Or the demonground can be reduced significantly faster by empaths 'cleaning' the location.

Sounds good to me

[groovydave]

If you want to give this system a little bleaker outlook, consider: Dark One opens a portal in an area. Beasties come through, all manner of horrors take place. The human inhabitants are either killed outright or driven away. This area becomes a Demonground.
Now, all the methods above are fine for the time being, but eventually, humans must be convinced to repopulate the area, without a sense of dread in their hearts, for the area to TRULY begin to heal. Otherwise, it will remain a haunted, desolate ruin, very likely to be reinfested.
And that, my friends, is the real task.

[Morthrai]

That's a great idea to add to the mix Dave...the empathic memory of the apparently cleansed demonground still keeps people away. The place just doesn't feel right any more.