And, since it turns out I hit the maximum character limit when everything was contained in a single post...<br/><br/><div class="floatright">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/a/a6/Siegfried.jpg)</div><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">A Sword to Surpass the Gods</div><div class="spoiler_body">Long ago, there once lived a man named Sar'resh who held the dubious honor of being the only man in history to be both accepted into and kicked out of all nine of the illustrious Schools of the Sublime Way.  It wasn't due to a lack of dedication, for he loved the martial arts more than anything else in life, nor a lack of talent or ability, for if he had been lacking in those, he would never have been accepted as a student to begin with.  No, his problems were of a more... disciplinary nature.<br/><br/>Almost as much as the martial arts themselves, Sar'resh loved a good fight.  While diligently training in the ways of each school, he would regularly test his skill and progress by challenging his fellow students and even his teachers to battle.  Whether he won or lost didn't matter, whether fighting between pupils at the school was allowed or not didn't matter, and whether or not anyone was injured or even killed as a result of his love of combat especially didn't matter.  All that truly mattered to him were the thrill of the fight, and the chance to gauge his skills against other worthy students of the Sublime Way.  Regardless of the philosophies on personal combat espoused at each school, eventually Sar'resh's teachers would grow wary of this behavior, and sooner or later, he would cross the line and be banished from the school in disgrace.<br/><br/>Tossed out into the world with little more than the clothes on his back, the sword at his waist, a working knowledge of the fundamentals and basic techniques of each of the nine disciplines of the Sublime Way, and a burning desire to know more, Sar'resh hit upon a novel method of completing his training.  Rather than seeking scrolls detailing secret techniques or other disgraced students who would be willing to teach him in exchange for coin, Sar'resh began seeking out proper initiates in the Sublime Way, warriors who knew the more advanced techniques he sought.  And when he found them, he would challenge them to a fight, and try to use his own breadth of knowledge in the Sublime Way to push them into demonstrating their martial skill for him by using their advanced techniques against him.  He would push them again and again, challenging them to multiple fights if need be, until he had seen their techniques enough to absorb every detail, and would then test his newfound knowledge against the very warriors from whom he had learned his new moves, often killing them in the process.<br/><br/>Within five years, he had learned enough to begin skipping initiates and start hunting after masters, a process that was sped along when the initiates and masters began hunting him down in turn.  And when his martial skill had grown great enough that even the masters were coming at him in groups, he returned to each temple in turn, causing mayhem at each and killing students, initiates and masters until the grandmaster of each temple, the greatest master of each individual discipline of the Sublime Way, each wielding one of the legendary Nine Swords in battle, accepted his challenge for a fight.<br/><br/>And when each of the nine temples, each of the illustrious Schools of the Sublime Way, were broken before him, when all Nine Swords were in his possession, when the people of his world were openly lamenting that the greatest warrior in history since the legendary Reshar himself was also the greatest villain that had ever plagued their world...  That was when he first attracted the attention of a greater gathering of cosmic villains.<br/><br/>That said, Sar'resh was no fool.  Unsurpassed skill with the sword had carried him far in life, it was true, but even though his world was poor in magic, he recognized that on a battlefield where epic spells were being employed, being gifted at swinging around a sharpened piece of metal simply paled in comparison.  A warrior who wished to do battle with wizards would need powerful magical items of his own, and especially a powerful magic weapon, and sadly, even the legendary Nine Swords were not up to the task.  Thus, when he joined that gathering of legendary villains, he swore to them an oath.<br/><br/>"If you can make me a sword to surpass the Gods themselves, then I'll become a warrior to match it."<br/><br/>And when they held up to their end of the bargain, he became like unto a god himself on the battlefield, a demon god of bloodlust and carnage...<br/><br/>...And in turn, when the end came, it came when that very same sword was destroyed, shattering in his hands right before its twin pierced his heart.  And thus ended the life of Sar'resh, cosmic swordsman and terrifying villain.<br/><br/>In death, Sar'resh's chaotic evil soul was drawn almost magnetically to the raw chaos and evil of the Abyss, and even reduced to a pale, fleshy soul maggot, his bloodlust and talent for combat served him well.  Hunting down other lost souls like himself, killing them and feasting on their flesh, he gradually grew, his form twisting and bloating until he had transformed into a Mane, the lowest form of demonic life yet found in the Abyss.  Subsumed in the constant pain and hatred that such wretched beings experience, he gradually lost himself.  Only when the last remaining shreds of Sar'resh's consciousness were gone, when nothing of him was left behind but his bloodlust and his gift for for battle, did his body transform further from there, leading to the creation of a particularly determined and bloodthirsty young Quasit.<br/><br/>Whatever plans the Abyss may have had for Sar'resh's soul from that point on were cut short, however, when this nameless Quasit was then summoned to the Material Plane to act as the familiar to a rather chaotic and evil wizard.  And when his master tired of him and wished for a familiar with more direct combat ability, the Quasit was sold off to an odd old dwarf whose beard reached down to his ankles and whose eyes glinted with the light of madness.  From there... a swift and painful death soon followed, with the Quasit's skull and much of its life energies worked into the creation of a magic sword.  Strangely enough, however, Sar'resh's bloodlust and his love for battle still endured, and as the sword passed from owner to owner over the centuries, being wielded in conflict after conflict and soaking in the blood of fiends and mortals alike, the weapon itself began to awaken.<br/><br/>The dwarf who had killed the Quasit and worked what was left of Sar'resh's soul into the blade was named Muramasa, and the sword itself was simply one of many such blades that he had created.  A cursed blade, the Muramasa sword was used by many warriors in the Blood War, binding itself inexorably to any who carried the blade for more than a week, making itself the only weapon they were capable of wielding by magically appearing in their hands any time they tried to grab any weapon, yet also faithfully serving any who earned its respect by killing its previous wielder.  And then, one day, it was taken as a trophy by a Vrock who had managed to kill the Bone Devil that had previously wielded it, and was carried back into the Abyss.  Though its wielder had promised to let it penetrate the sweet, soft forms of succubi, the sword was surprised when that wielder was instead himself beheaded by a succubus, and with only a single strike, at that.<br/><br/>The display of such transcendent swordsmanship stirred something within the blade, called out faintly to memories long forgotten, and that calling only grew as the succubus, who would later come to be known as Torahime, took him for herself.  When his curse bound her to him, she performed a ritual that bound him to her, binding their power together.  She impressed the Muramasa sword further by taking his curse, the bane of many of his previous wielders, and developing a fighting style that turned it into a boon.  And the more she trained with him, the more her skill and power grew, the stronger the calling became.  Eventually, it grew strong enough that she began to feel it, as well, and that led them to travel to Hades, to the City at the Center of that gloomy plane, and from there, to exit the gates that led out onto the fog-shrouded forests of Niflheim...</div></div><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">The Tale of Torahime</div><div class="spoiler_body">Once upon a time, there lived a Succubus who was a descendant of Lynkhab, the Lady of Regrets.  A gifted manipulator of mortal men and women, she excelled at inspiring feelings of emptiness in the hearts of those around her, and was quite skilled at encouraging them to act upon those feelings in a variety of self-destructive ways.  One day, however, she set out to sow chaos in an empire located in an obscure world on the Prime Material Plane.  Her plan was to infiltrate that empire's most prominent school of swordsmanship and destroy it from within, and while she succeeded at her task after a few months of work, exposure to the philosophies behind that school's particular style of swordsmanship left her with a great many thoughts to go over when she eventually returned to the Abyss.  She meditated on the true nature of emptiness, contemplated her own innermost nature and, eventually, in order to put into practice the principles she had absorbed from the masters of the school while she had first infiltrated it as a student, she took up a sword and began to practice with it.<br/><br/>The Succubus trained diligently with her sword for many years, but eventually her inner chaotic nature began to manifest and she began to grow bored of the constant routine.  However, just as she was considering abandoning her new-found philosophy and returning to the sex and souls lifestyle she had previously enjoyed, a fortuitous event occurred.  A Vrock appeared before her, carrying a sword crafted by a skilled swordsmith named Muramasa, and challenged her to battle.  The Vrock sought to test the sharpness of the blade, which was a recent and highly-prized acquisition, and thought that the soft, pale flesh of the Succubus would yield excellent results.  Seconds later, his head fell from his shoulders, separated by a single, clean slash, and the Succubus found herself marveling at the results of her training.<br/><br/>In the chaotic and evil realms of the Abyss, power is what matters above all else.  However, power comes in many forms, and the form of power that comes most naturally to succubi is what is commonly known as soft power, the ability to attract and co-opt, rather than rather than dominate and destroy.  The Succubus had her first taste of hard, physical power on that day, and she took the Muramasa sword to serve as both a trophy and a constant reminder of the power she had already attained, in order to help spur herself to remain on the path that she had chosen, and to truly explore this new avenue of power that revealed itself to her.  She retreated from the realms inhabited by her fellow succubi and retired to a far-flung abyssal wilderness, training among the bone trees and meditating beneath waterfalls of boiling, electrically-charged blood in order to hone her body and spirit to an even finer edge than those of the twin blades she now carried.<br/><br/>After nearly a century of living a life of constant diligence and devotion to a single goal, the Succubus' persistence was rewarded when another fortuitous event occurred.  A great fiendish beast, an enormous tiger with the blood of a deceased demon lord running through its veins, appeared before her and, as with the Vrock, sought to rend and tear at her soft flesh with its razor-sharp fangs.  History repeated itself, but this time, since the great beast's head was too far up to reach, the Succubus had to settle with splitting its body open from throat to tail.  She took the tiger's pelt as her trophy this time, but skinning such a great beast was very bloody work, bloody enough to leave her dripping crimson ichor from head to toe.<br/><br/>As she cleaned herself off, she discovered to her shock that she had actually absorbed some of the tiger's essence by bathing in its blood as she had, granting her some of the great beast's power.  Contemplating these new abilities, it hit her for the first time just how far she had come from the simple Succubus she used to be, and just how much of her old nature she had turned her back on to acquire the skills that had granted her victory over her enemies.  As far as she was concerned, that Succubus was no more, and so she renamed herself Torahime, Tiger Princess, in honor of both her new power and her latest feat of martial skill.</div></div><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Notes on Muramasa</div><div class="spoiler_body">Sengo Muramasa is the name of a dwarven swordsmith of some infamy on the outer planes.  A dwarven swordsmith originally hailing from an obscure world on the material plane where the society of the dwarves of that world took on a distinctly japanese air, he quickly migrated to the eternal battlefield of Ysgard to pursue his craft.  His devotion to the art of crafting swords was so intense that he was actually a Cleric, with the swords he made as his sole faith and pantheon of worship, and his odd obsessions and ill-balanced mind are often said to have imprinted themselves directly into work.  It is certainly true that the majority of his swords are cursed in some fashion, and those that become intelligent magical items often develop a distinct taste for blood, to the point that their edges actually dull over time unless they are regularly bathed in it.<br/><br/>Naturally, a swordsmith with such an infamous reputation was eventually drawn into the Blood War, coming down on the side of chaos and making a variety of vicious and bloodthirsty weapons for the various officers in the Demonic hordes.  He has since disappeared, however, and various rumors occasionally make the rounds about his fate.  Some say that he has left the lower planes and finally begun to seek help for his many mental problems in some idyllic locale, while others say that he was assassinated by yugoloths or enslaved by devils, or his soul taken directly by one of the major demon lords in the Abyss, possibly even the legendary Prince of Demons himself, who wished to make personal use of his skills.<br/></div></div><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">On Abyssal Politics</div><div class="spoiler_body">In terms of enemies and allies, it can be said that every Demon in the Abyss is Torahime's enemy.  So long as the Blood War rages on, those Demons who explore Lawful philosophies far enough to abandon their Chaotic alignments will be considered the vilest of traitors by all the rest of their kin, the majority of whom will pursue them to the ends of existence in order to slay them.  Fortunately for Torahime, she retains enough raw Chaos in her nature that the Chaotic subtype she has largely masks her Lawful Evil alignment, but she is well aware that she is playing a very dangerous game.<br/><br/>In terms of specific enemies, Malcanthet is one that worries her, though the wayward succubus is fairly certain that she has managed to avoid drawing the attention of the Queen of the Succubi to herself thus far.  Ordinarily, the Queen of the Succubi gives little thought to those of her sisters and daughters that strike out on their own and seek to plot and scheme against her.  In her view, so long as they hold true to their natures as Succubi, they will ultimately serve her goals in the end, and so they are not worth worrying about.  Those Succubi who deny their natures, however, manage to evoke both sorrow and anger within Malcanthet, rare emotions deserving of special attention from the Queen of the Succubi, and usually not the good kind of attention.  And by abandoning the path of lust in favor of that of the sword and living a life of strict discipline and self-mastery, Torahime has certainly done enough to earn herself a place in that particular category.<br/><br/>She is not without allies, however.  Though none of her former sisters or lovers will answer her call, now that she has adopted a new identity for herself, she did come across a breed of Loumara Demons known as Caligrostos in her travels.  On an abyssal layer that took the form of an endless plain of enchanted swords (https://deluscar.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/utw-fate-stay-night-unlimited-blade-works-bdh264-720p-ac370764ba9-mkv_snapshot_01-04-41_2012-01-29_12-01-24.jpg), she challenged the greatest champions of one particular pack of these Loumaras and bested them in combat, and they have sworn to serve her and have faithfully answered her summons ever since.</div></div><hr/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Torahime's Domain</div><div class="spoiler_body"><strong>Torahime's Domain</strong> is a portion of the castle where the architectural style changes drastically, retaining the same construction materials as the rest of the castle, but changing aesthetically to reflect the traditional Japanese aesthetic that Torahime herself once encountered.  Sliding paper doors, wooden 'nightingale floors' in the hallways that provide a -5 circumstance penalty to Move Silently checks due to the creaking noises they make with each step, tatami mats as flooring in many rooms, and so on.<br/>   All evil creatures within Torahime's Domain are constantly under the effect of an <em>unholy aura</em> spell, and every room within save the Labyrinth are Chambers of Comfort, kept at a constant temperature of 70 degrees Fahrenheit and with fresh air constantly flowing through as if by a gentle breeze (something of a necessity for refreshing the air supply in certain rooms).<br/><ul class="bbc_list"><li><em>Audience Chamber</em> (1 ss)<br/>As a Fancy Throne Room, save that Torahime's 'throne' is a simple raised wooden platform with comfortable cushions placed upon it that can be separated from the rest of the room via sliding doors.  Visitors seeking an audience with her are also provided comfortable cushions upon which to sit or kneel, and four intelligent construct servants stand ready at the sides to provide aid to guests.<br/>   Clever use of the space's natural advantages provides Torahime with a +2 circumstance bonus on Diplomacy checks.</li><li><em>Common Area</em> (1 ss)<br/>A simple general-purpose room with tatami flooring and a number of attractive murals on the walls, most commonly used as a waiting area for guests.</li><li><em>Labyrinth</em> (1 ss)<br/>While the Audience Chamber and Common Area are easily accessible close to the entrance of Torahime's domain, attempting to go further in leads to a confusing labyrinth of sliding paper doors and wooden walls and stairwells, warded by permanent <em>forbiddance</em> and <em>guards and wards</em> effects.<br/>   There are no entrances to any further rooms within this labyrinth, as it is nothing more than a trap meant to waste the time of intruders.</li><li><em>Astral Projection Room</em> (1 ss)<br/>A room with no entrances or exits, accessible only via teleportation magic, and walls consisting of three feet of solid obdurium, coated in an inch of iron.  The walls and floor of the room are etched with Inscriptions of Concealment and Falsehood that render all objects and creatures in the room invisible to all divination spells and even to sight, as well as blasphemous arcane markings arranged in circular patterns on the walls and floor.  While within this room, any Archfiend may sit or kneel in the center and meditate in order to project into the Astral Plane, as the spell <em>astral projection</em>.</li><li><em>Torahime's Quarters</em> (1 ss)<br/>A master bedroom that contains no entrances or exits, and can therefore only be accessed via teleportation magic.  Inscriptions of Concealment and Falsehood render all objects and creatures in the room invisible to all divination spells and even to sight, while reversed gravity within the room itself ensures that those entering it via magical teleportation are in for a short fall and a brief moment of disorientation.<br/>   The room itself contains a simple bed made of comfortable, high-quality materials, a sitting area containing a table that can provide a <em>heroes' feast</em> three times per day and a constant <em>purify food and drink</em> effect and soft cushions to sit or kneel upon, and a walk-in closet containing various minor magical items intended for entertaining guests, including Blindfolds of True Darkness for navigation, Everfull Mugs for tea or other beverages, and an Everfull Larder for snacks.<br/>   The room is kept clean by a continuous <em>prestidigitation</em> effect.  Etched into one wall (and made invisible by the Inscription of Concealment, though it can be read with blindsight) is a Map of Guidance, showing a full map of the castle in exacting detail, though it does not depict any traps, nor does it convey knowledge of any means of bypassing the security measures put in place by either Torahime or the other Archfiends.</li><li><em>Torahime's Vault</em> (2 ss)<br/>As a Luxury Vault, staffed by an <em>unseen servant</em> and filled with a truly staggering amount of gems, jewels, art objects, valuable coin, and enchanted items.  The room contains no entrances or exits and so must be accessed via teleportation abilities, and upon teleporting in, a <em>magic mouth</em> is programmed to ask for a password.  The <em>unseen servant</em> is programmed to ring a Warding Bell set on a table in the middle of the vault six seconds after the <em>magic mouth</em> speaks, filling the room with a <em>guards and wards</em> effect.<br/>   In truth, the enchanted items are worthless trinkets made to appear magical with permanent <em>magic aura</em> effects, the valuable gems and jewels will corrode away into worthless dust if removed from the confines of the castle, and the true vault is hidden within a Hole of Hiding set into the ceiling, essentially a permanent <em>rope trick</em> with the rope pulled in, disguised to appear non-magical by a permanent <em>magic aura</em> effect.<br/>   The false vault takes up one stronghold space, and the true vault hidden within the Hole of Hiding takes up the other.  All storage containers set within the true vault are locked as by an <em>arcane lock</em> spell, set to allow only Torahime to personally remove anything from within them, and the entire room is a Secure Chamber, protected by a permanent <em>mind blank</em> effect.<br/>   Currently, the true vault contains nothing of value.</li><li><em>Training Dojo</em> (1 ss)<br/>A simple training area with no entrances or exits, that can only be entered via teleportation abilities.  Features wooden walls and floors, eight <em>sparring dummies of the master</em>, and other assorted equipment, training dummies and targets necessary for general combat training.  A construct servant with an at-will item of <em>prestidigitation</em> keeps the room clean between training sessions, and the entire Dojo is under a constant <em>mind blank</em> effect, as a Secure Chamber.</li><li><em>Onsen</em> (12 ss)<br/>A sizable indoor bath with pools of varying size, capable of comfortably accommodating up to 18 Medium or Small creatures.  Hot water is provided by a magical hot spring, kept continually clean by filters of <em>purify food and drink</em>, while magical showers and changing rooms off to one side allow those who wish to enjoy the water to divest themselves of their clothing and clean themselves off before entering the spring.  The bath is a chamber of comfort, kept at a constant 70 degrees Fahrenheit and with fresh air magically cycled through the room.<br/>   Possessing magical healing properties, the hot spring subjects those who spend at least three rounds soaking in it to <em>remove blindness/deafness, remove curse</em> and <em>remove disease</em> effects, as well as causing bathers to <em>regenerate</em> (as the spell) on every round spent soaking in the water after the third.<br/>   The Onsen is staffed by 12 intelligent construct servants, six to keep the baths clean and six to assist the bathers, and allows mixed bathing only, with no separate baths for men and women.  The bath is not actually attached to Torahime's Domain, but is instead placed in a central location within the castle itself, easily accessible to all.</li></ul></div></div>