Aschen

The aschen are tiny bad luck demons. They look like ugly lumpy creatures with an oily charcoal sheen to their skin which is where their name comes from. They were initially devils and have an affinity for contracts, but their abilities rendered them too chaotic by far for Hell to accept, but the Abyss didn’t want them. They were stuck in between for a long time before they were found by Ephebe when she was a child. They have a contract binding them into her service for what started as a fixed amount of time, but has become servitude in perpetuity once they discovered they could extend the contract through minor failures and misbehavior. They are disappointed that their mistress is no longer working in the service of evil, but she still lets them break stuff and it’s better than being stuck and unwanted. The aschen are referred to in many cultures as gremlins and are legendary for their abilities to break devices of all types. They also have an unholy love of coffee and you can usually find a small group of them in the cafeteria staring hopefully and worshipfully at the coffeemaker. They have been known to liberate coffee beans from the storeroom if not watched carefully. While they are mostly harmless in small groups, if you get twelve or more together they start to resonate with each other in a particular way that forms one of the most feared creatures in the underworld: the Infernal Engine. The strength of the Infernal Engine varies depending on the number of aschen who make it up, but even the weakest version is incredibly difficult to defeat.