Illustrious Castle: Eliazu

The castle is built on an old Karuat burial ground. It is a place of power, evil, level two. This is the power that the Illustrators tapped to summon the demon Eliazu. Eliazu is an emotional demon. It feeds off of fear. It has the demonic powers of surface telepathy, summon unnamed demon, raise skeleton corpse, influence, and burn. Eliazu has twenty demonic power points saved and it is looking to gain more by feeding on the goblins’ fear.

Eliazu has a charisma of 16, an intelligence of 15, and a wisdom of 14.

Certain things can alert Eliazu to the characters’ presence. If they pass within sight of Eliazu’s skeletons (see The Basement on page ), Eliazu will happen to be watching on a d20 roll of 8 or less. Once Eliazu is aware of their presence, it will always see them when they’re in the sight of its skeletons.

Since Eliazu isn’t paying a lot of attention to the upper levels, it will take a few days to notice that a summoned creature is gone. Once Eliazu notices a missing demon it will pay more attention. Every time the characters kill a summoned creature or creatures, or if the characters completely chase off the goblins, roll 2d4 for the number of days it takes Eliazu to notice. Once Eliazu notices one thing wrong, it will check everything else.

Once Eliazu becomes aware of the characters’ presence, it will try to influence them to do what it wants. Usually, “what it wants” is either for them to get out and never come back (death is the preferred way of doing this), or go down to the bottom and set Eliazu free. But Eliazu will need to be pretty sure of their ability and will before it influences them toward the latter. They must be powerful enough to perform the ritual, and weak-willed enough to be influenced. Eliazu does not want them to discover his existence and then leave. If they discover his existence, he wants them to stay, and to keep it a secret.

Eliazu doesn’t know everything that goes on if it can’t be seen through the skeletons, but can get a good idea by skimming the surface of their thoughts. Anything they say out loud, Eliazu can hear. Eliazu’s “influence” is usually limited to new thoughts popping into their heads. These will be extremely subtle: they’ll come from you as things their character would have known. “Oh, I didn’t realize that, but of course I knew that.” This influence can give the characters a penalty of two on any rolls to do things that they aren’t so sure about, such as looking for secret doors (there might not be any at all). If the character recognizes that such influence is happening, the penalty will not apply.

Remember that if Eliazu is willing to spend the necessary demonic power points, Eliazu can try to more actively influence its opponents. They are allowed a willpower roll to resist. This roll will be at a bonus of six on the path below the castle, and at a bonus of two on the castle grounds but outside of the castle itself. The act being influenced must be somewhat reasonable. The influence will manifest itself as a strong desire.

Eliazu can, once aware of a character’s presence, carry on conversations with them via telepathy, but is unlikely to do so. This would arouse unnecessary suspicions. The demon will stick to giving them ideas that result in (a) their death, (b) Eliazu’s freedom, or (c) their leaving, ignorant, and never returning.