Pitfiends

These horrors number among the most terrifying of the greaterfiends. What makes them particularly alarming is that pitfiends show up in polite reality, albeit way underground. Their attack strategy involves hibernating deep below the earth near precious minerals and waiting for unsuspecting miners. It's this that makes mining so dangerous (that and the poorly enforced labour laws, obviously).

Pitfiend by Zuza Gruzlewska

In the old days, miners used to take canaries down into the mines with them. Partially this served as an early warning sign for poisonous gases, but they also distracted fiends when released en masse. To get the maximum benefit, your average miner would have several cages strapped to his body at all times.

If you wonder why the miners specifically used canaries, it's because they hated them. This sounds ridiculous, but in the old days people had a lot less to do, and forging nonsensical beefs with birds whiled away the hours.

Owing to the fact that they show up in polite reality, pitfiends feature heavily in the public consciousness. They also serve as a great excuse not to garden - unlikely as it is that you'll unearth one while uprooting some weeds. 

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Pitfiend Facts

Your average pitfiend can travel a good mile a day underground. By using the right illusions, wizards can actually trick them into digging tunnels. If a pitfiend gets loose in a mine, the only way of getting rid of it is to banish it. The process of doing so is made difficult because a: pitfiends can permakill people, and b: mining companies would rather lose a few employees than spend money hiring a good fiend-fighter.

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Creation Notes

I referenced 'pitfiends' in a few books before I put one in Game of Plagues. I used the name specifically because it's a generic devil name, and when a character says something like:

"You've got all the grace of a pitfiend, you damp clown!"

It's clearer than using a unique name like a 'bastcruxer', because the reader might think:

"Wait - what's a 'bastcruxer'?"

'Bastcruxer' might not be the best example, actually, because I'd have a pretty clear image from that name (*scribbles it down in my notepad of beast names*).

When you google 'pit fiend', most of the images look exactly like how you'd imagine. I think most of these are from Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder:

When it came time to design the not-a-bastcruxer, I drew this:

"You work out, bro?" (see more at Instagram)

My image is closer to the description of them being underground digger-fiends, although Zuza's is a much better design overall, obviously!

As I'd mentioned pitfiends a few times already, using one when I needed a mega-fiend in Game of Plagues seemed like a good idea. It was that or come up with something original, and who has the time, right?

Doing things this way also means those older books now reference something substantial - kind of like fan service in reverse, I guess? Or maybe that's just regular fan service? If you're a fan, please let me know if you feel serviced, and we'll clear this all up.

See Also

FiendsGame of Plagues

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