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>>98138027
In Christianity, they don't "want" souls per se IIRC, they just want humans to be damned out of spite to mankind and God. You'd need to double-check that with a priest though. In most western fantasy, souls (usually defined as a person's life-force rather than what gives free will and responsibility like in Christianity, and again double-check that with a priest) is seen as having potent spiritual power that can be twisted and manipulated to the demon's own ends.
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>>98138041
And since I forgot to specify this in my post: I'm talking about DnD and Pathfinder, since those are the games OP mentioned. If no game was specified, this'd be a "depends on the setting" kind of question.
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>>98138027
Iirc its the standard currency in the hells, at least in 5e. A soul coin is about $300 gold or a day of car fuel, but its hard to find anyone in hell willing to trade souls they cant get for gold they cant use. If you know you're from the hells or know you're going to them eventually you might be wise to plan some seed money
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>>98138200
That makes sense, since souls are unique and you can't print more of a specific soul without weird magic. They're kind of like NFTs with a personality component, so it makes sense they're popular among ontologically evil abominations.
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>>98138027
On top of what >>98138041 mentions about souls and quintessence, souls in Pathfinder are literally profitable, they have prices and everything. An ooze is basically worthless, while some king or great wyrm soul sells for a ton more. https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Soul has an exception page that just lists all the ways to blend or pulp or floss with someone's soul in the outer planes. If your average character can't make coins off this they are either Good or dumb.
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>>98139911
>>98140062
What do you actually want souls for?
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>>98138027
Taking souls away from the other cosmically aligned forces is how they amass power which they intend to use to destroy the other forces that control the other aspects of the planes and various realities.
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>>98138041
>>98138048
>I'm talking about DnD and Pathfinder
An issue here is that Pathfinder has different nitty-gritty, in-the-weeds metaphysics than any edition of D&D. (They are similar in the broad, broad strokes, but "What do fiends do with souls?" is a nitty-gritty, in-the-weeds matter.)
Even then, Pathfinder 1e has different nitty-gritty, in-the-weeds metaphysics than Pathfinder 2e; and AD&D 2e, D&D 3.X, D&D 4e, and D&D 5e all have different nitty-gritty, in-the-weeds metaphysics from one another.
This is to say nothing of different published settings for D&D.
So it depends on the edition and setting, ultimately.
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>>98138027
Loophole.
Devils are cursed to be cut off from the divine and are consequentially quite magically impotent, especially when compared to their pre-fall selves.
Each human soul contains a miniscule mote of divine potential.
The rub is that the devils cannot simply tear the divine spark out of the soul, as their curse would cause it to wither and evaporate in their grasp.
So they have to do things by proxy, collecting souls and binding them with ownership contracts allows for the divine sparks to be exploited indirectly - the soul draws upon the power at the Devil's behest
This is not a great solution, as even bound in this manner, the souls tend to strain and chafe slight against the Devil's will.
Not a huge problem when you only have one or two souls, but when that number balloons into the thousands trying to exert precise control can be intensely exhausting.
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>>98138027
>>98138027
In palladium souls are a source of PPE, which is basically mana by another name. They also can be used to infuse objects to become animated. Keep in mind the average human souls is like 12 ppe at the moment of death so you are going to have to slaughter tons of people for enough of a charge. Conversely, a mages soul has a ton of ppe. Although it should be noted that demons feed on malice and suffering. Their interest in souls is less for the power and more on the horror that is afflicted on people on the way to get that soul. They are also assholes that like corrupting souls just for fun.
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>>98138027
In my setting, souls are used by demons to establish a contractual hierarchy among their ranks. When a person goes to hell, they are nothing - a common Sinner. Demons are the ones who are natively born in Hell (think Dante's Inferno imagery, but full of debauchery on every level), they have no innate souls of their own and are essentially slaves. When Sinners, against all odds and adversity from conservative locals, collect enough souls, they can liberate themselves into a status of Overlords. Everyone in Hell hoards souls for leverage and status, not wealth, they are not traded, just accumulated.
Above the lowest castes is Ars Goetia, essentially the equivalent of nobility in my world, and above those are the Seven Deadly Sins, which are the cops, lawmakers, judges, and executioners. And on the top of the chain is Lucifer himself.
The main struggle of Hell comes from the idea that Sinners - those who still have a soul and aren't yet absorbed into the caste system fully, can be rehabilitated and absolved. Demons - the locals - want their souls to make it impossible. Angels want Sinners to fail also, to maintain the oppressive status quo.
There you go, solved it for you OP. Feel free to use this for your own worldbuilding.
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>>98138027
Pretty sure super evil souls become soul larvae or something. You can use them for making more evil fiends if you are one. I figure it's like smashing a bunch of cells together to form whatever fiend you want depending on if you have enough souls. You can also use them for currency/barter. I think hags can make a perfume out of them.
Not sure if Pathfinder has soul larvae, but I think it has something similar that is basically the same thing.
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>>98138027
Typically by obtaining a soul, you merge consciousness with it. Being possessed by a demon is a partial or full merger of consciousness. Since humans are much younger than demons, demons usually end up as the dominant personality emerging, but it is really a blend, often with the good traits of the human being suppressed.
More souls converging = more spiritual power.
It is also possible for more positive unions of will. For example, giving your soul to a god and becoming one with them or being conglomerated into an angel (usually as an intermediary step towards joining with the god, for a soul that is unready). Being one with another soul means you have a complete union of wills. You want what they want and they want what you want, it is a complete harmony. However, the process irrevocably changes your perspectives so often you no longer want the same things you wanted before. There is a lot of inertia in the personalities of very old souls who have experienced many things.
The ultimate goal is omniscience, being one with everyrhing, but it is not certain if this is a goal which can be achieved or only approached asymptotically.
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>>98156059
You say it like it's a binary question, hahaha. "Is this (X) or not?"
Worldbuilding is inherently system-agnostic and can be slotted into whatever features more classic depictions of hell and fiends lol. Currently we're running casual D&D 5e since the building blocks are already in place in Forgotten Realms' Baator and there's less friction.
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>>98138027
"I am for obvious reasons slightly biased on the matter of the nature of demons, but the fact remains that demon summoning is one of the most dangerous forms of magic a magician can do. This is because the nature of the task means that you are calling attention from a force that is capable of doing something you cannot and attempting to enlist their aid. Often demon summoning involves dealing with an entity much more powerful than you are, and whats worse something older and stranger than you in perspective and mind. A demon will have a degree of freedom to interpret any request you make of it, and differences in understanding of what you asked it for vs the service you actually receive in return are inevitable.
Demons are not, counter to many religious beliefs, evil. We are however contract oriented and subject to different priorities than humans. For example, I was contracted to impart eldritch knowledge to apprentice magicians and teach children like you secrets that just a few hundred years ago the greatest humans minds would have been puzzled by. The druids that first called me to this world offered me the blood and flesh of a creature of the forest to inhabit. This suited me, because a price was paid.
However I just as easily would have been satisfied by being offered a blueberry pie. The fact that a payment was offered is more important to my kind than what that payment actually is. A lot of novice demonologists summon something vast and powerful and immediately assume they have to offer their immortal soul, which the demon will happily take in return for their services even if they do not actually have any use for it.
Souls are not nearly so in demand as humans tend to assume. You just keep giving them away."
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>>98139911
>>98140062
>Like there always a fuckload of evil people in 3.5 and Pathfinder who keep wanting souls for some reason, but they never actually seem profitable or something the PCs can engage in.
>Is there something your average character can viably use them for, as loot?
>3.5 and Pathfinder
>PCs
>character
>loot
How is this not related to traditional games? Characters in 3.5 and pathfinder selling the souls of NPCs is a thing that can easily happen in a game, and is the kind of thing you'd want to think about BEFORE it happens so you don't have to suddenly introduce some ill-thought idea in the middle of the game.
So yes, knowing what the demons need souls for in a game of D&D3.5e is traditional games you fucking retard.
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>>98138027
Outsiders require sustenance to survive the same way mortals require food to survive. The only difference is how they go about it.
Celestials will slowly drain their petitioners over a long period of time effectively eating them in a "humane" way while demons and devils show no such consideration.
In either case, a soul that has been drained then becomes part of the associated plane of existence acting as a sort of fertilizer that helps to grow new Outsiders.
Souls that can avoid being devoured can, in turn, devour other souls and grow into power themselves becoming Outsiders.
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>>98138027
In real esoterism they both feed on your energy, and then use your body and material resources through your emptied casket the better, the more % of your soul has left your body.
People like epstein, Hillary, etc are completelly posessed by Demons and their original human soul is a 0,01% cornered somewhere, even though if they mantain their human identity to themselves. We all have Demons on us at some level
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