The lower planes are a vast and complicated labyrinth of nit-picking and stupidity. I have to say that before your comment, I have never heard of demons seeking to corrupt souls to add to their ranks.
If I went into the particulars, we'd be here all week, but basically:
Devil from the Nine Hells: Under no circumstances do you make deals with these. Methodical, terrifyingly patient, true to their word as written if not as intended. They seek to corrupt mortal souls and add them to their swelling armies.
Demon from the Abyss: Don't bother with deals. They're every primal, bestial urge for cruelty in a terrifying package, so they basically just seek to destroy. They will corrupt souls and places on the Material Plane, but not to any real end other than to see the beauty of their carnage.
Of course, if you're an utter messy bastard or worship a demon or god of the lower planes, you could end up in the Abyss anyway.
The two sides hate each other and have been locked in an eternal struggle for millennia. Lord Asmodeus of the Nine Hells wants to conquer all of creation and remake it in his image, but the Abyss is entropy itself; always expanding, always consuming, always destroying. If the world is swallowed by it, then there's nowhere for his iron fist to rule.
Hence, the Blood War.
The Daemons that inhabit the other lower planes - usually Hades, but there's also quite a few on Gehenna and Tartarus - act as mercenaries for both sides, doing favors for whoever gives them the best offer. They'll also occasionally do particularly depraved or obscure acts for mortals, if you have something interesting to offer in return or simply enough gold to get them to agree.
I understand that this just got very wordy, but the upshot of all of this is that there's an entire economy and politics and complex society in the lower planes built around the different sorts of fiend you can encounter.
no subject
If I went into the particulars, we'd be here all week, but basically:
Devil from the Nine Hells: Under no circumstances do you make deals with these. Methodical, terrifyingly patient, true to their word as written if not as intended. They seek to corrupt mortal souls and add them to their swelling armies.
Demon from the Abyss: Don't bother with deals. They're every primal, bestial urge for cruelty in a terrifying package, so they basically just seek to destroy. They will corrupt souls and places on the Material Plane, but not to any real end other than to see the beauty of their carnage.
Of course, if you're an utter messy bastard or worship a demon or god of the lower planes, you could end up in the Abyss anyway.
The two sides hate each other and have been locked in an eternal struggle for millennia. Lord Asmodeus of the Nine Hells wants to conquer all of creation and remake it in his image, but the Abyss is entropy itself; always expanding, always consuming, always destroying. If the world is swallowed by it, then there's nowhere for his iron fist to rule.
Hence, the Blood War.
The Daemons that inhabit the other lower planes - usually Hades, but there's also quite a few on Gehenna and Tartarus - act as mercenaries for both sides, doing favors for whoever gives them the best offer. They'll also occasionally do particularly depraved or obscure acts for mortals, if you have something interesting to offer in return or simply enough gold to get them to agree.
I understand that this just got very wordy, but the upshot of all of this is that there's an entire economy and politics and complex society in the lower planes built around the different sorts of fiend you can encounter.