Psionic Fiend

Lore

Not all demons announce themselves with fire and fang. Some come quietly, unseen and untouched, slipping through cracks in thought rather than through summoned gates. These are the Psionic Fiends — demonic entities that manipulate the mind, not the body, and whose influence is felt long before it is understood.

Categorized broadly under the demon archetype, Psionic Fiends differ in both behavior and physiology from their more physical kin. They are rarely larger a tall human, though accounts vary — some are described as glimmering crustaceans of smoke and glass, others as cloaked, eyeless creatures with too many fingers. Whatever form they assume, they do not attack with claws or flame. Their weapon is doubt. Their domain is thought.

The first sign of a Psionic Fiend's presence is often brushed aside — a sense of being watched, a forgotten task, a misplaced word. Over time, the symptoms deepen: invasive thoughts, waking hallucinations, déjà vu loops, or false memories inserted with such subtlety that the victim cannot distinguish real from unreal. Unlike Temptor Demons, which manipulate desire, Psyonic Fiends manipulate cognition — disrupting language, reason, perception, or will.

What they want is unclear. Some scholars believe they feed on neural chaos, drawing power from dissonance. Others argue they do not feed at all, but act out of some alien compulsion — a need to fracture understanding as a form of expression or territory-marking. There are even treatises proposing that Psyonic Fiends do not know they are doing harm — they simply do not perceive the world in the way mortals do.

What makes these demons especially dangerous is that they are difficult to isolate and even harder to verify. Victims are often dismissed as ill, cursed, or mad. Exorcisms fail not because they are ineffective, but because the Fiend cannot be properly targeted — it does not possess the victim in the traditional sense. It merely “fogs the mind,” like a parasite that confuses the nervous system rather than destroying it.

In some cases, the Psionic Fiend will manifest briefly — usually at the moment of full unraveling. Survivors (rare as they are) describe this as a moment of absolute clarity. The Fiend’s form becomes visible, even if only for a breath, as though the brain can finally translate what it has been resisting. These descriptions vary wildly, further complicating classification. What is consistent is the moment’s intensity — victims describe the creature as terrifying and beautiful, grotesque and magnetic, like seeing the logic behind a nightmare.

There are several known variants among the Psionic Fiends, typically defined by their method of interference:

Among the known variants, the Ripplekin are said to distort the perception of linear time, leaving victims uncertain whether they are remembering, experiencing, or foreseeing events. The Blanksoul severs emotional resonance entirely, reducing once-vibrant individuals to detached husks, drifting through life without fear, love, or purpose. The Latchling, perhaps the most intimate of the three, embeds itself within a single thought or person, warping only that thread until obsession, paranoia, or fixation take hold. Though Psyonic Fiends are solitary by nature, some researchers believe they manifest in clusters — particularly in sites of extreme trauma, forgotten libraries, or arcane observatories. Others theorize that they are drawn to certain abstract symbols or languages, patterns that “resonate” in ways the Fiends perceive as invitations.

Magical defenses against Psyonic Fiends are notoriously unreliable. Wards of flame, salt, and silver often have no effect, as these demons bypass the body entirely. However, clarity of thought is a natural barrier. Meditation, personal rituals of grounding, or strong identity structures can create temporary resistance. Several arcane schools recommend using music, poetry, or geometric logic puzzles to “anchor” the mind, making it harder for the Fiend to create fissures.

More radical theories propose that Psyonic Fiends do not exist at all, and are merely theoretical constructs used to explain collective trauma or unexplainable events. These theories, however, are often authored by individuals who later disappear or suffer sudden psychological collapse — incidents that only deepen the Fiend’s mythos.

The Collegium Obscura maintains a restricted volume titled The Index Fractured, containing names and sketches of suspected Psyonic Fiends across centuries. Most pages are intentionally blurred or missing, replaced with marginalia in erratic handwriting: notes written by scholars who claim the Fiends rewrote their memories of the entries even as they studied them.