Overview
The Innate-Speaker Demon is the heavy, low, slightly-too-broad shape — thick-limbed, broad-shouldered, with the head that sits a little too low on the body, like a word that is waiting to be spoken in the wrong direction. It is the truest voice of the demon line: the fiend that speaks its dark magic without preparation, with its hands, at any time, and the speaking is not a choice. There is no will in it beyond the fire and no hunger beyond the bargain, but the speaking arrives anyway, and the speaking is not a choice.
Habitat
It lives in The Infernal Pits, in the black fire at the bottom of the world, where the broken stone keeps the bargain and the hunger is the only light there is. It keeps the ash-line, because that is where the bargain is thinnest and the speaking earns its keep, and because a fiend that leaves the ash-line is a fiend that has forgotten the fire. The deeper fiends keep the black fire and the pit-mouth keep the ledger, but the Innate-Speaker keeps the ash-line and does not stop speaking. It is settled in the pit, and the settling is the whole of the territory, because the fire does not leave the pit.
Appearance
The silhouette is the heavy, low, slightly-too-broad shape — thick-limbed, broad-shouldered, with the head that sits a little too low on the body. An Innate-Speaker reads 1.88 m tall and carries 147 kg of dense, low flesh, built broad across the shoulder and thick through the neck. The skin is a deep, muddy umber to a true, quiet black at the jaw, with a faint, almost imperceptible warmth to the cheekbones. The mark is the network of fine, pale red veins at the temples, which glow faintly when the demon is roused or speaking a dark word — the glow is the whole of the warning, and the not-glowing is the whole of the peace.
Behaviour
It moves at 2.4 m/s across the broken stone, deliberate, because the fire does the waiting and the fiend has nothing to do but speak. It does not hunt by the mouth; it hunts by the word — the dark word lands across the ash-line, and the debt is taken the way a word is taken, letter by letter. When the bargain thins — a day before it breaks, never a moment after — the pale red veins run bright and the fiend speaks the word a degree harder, the way a hand holds a blade. It heals by the fire: a wound of a type the pit does not recognize simply stops being a wound, and the not-recognition is the whole of the healing.
Natural Weapons & Defenses
The hand is the whole of the weapon — a dark word spoken without preparation that lands across the ash-line and keeps the pit's faith for a century. There is no strike beyond the word and no defense beyond the fire: the skin is a deep, muddy umber to a true, quiet black, as hard as the fire that keeps it, and the pale red veins hold the word the way the stone holds the debt. An Innate-Speaker that is harmed does not bleed in the way the pit does not recognize — the harm simply stops being a harm, and the stopping is the whole of the healing.
Magic Alignment
Its line belongs to chaos, the fire, the patient, precise holding of the dark word across the pit. The Innate-Speaker carries the line's truest named inborn, Innate Spellcasting — it can cast dark magic without preparation, with its hands, at any time, and the casting is not a choice. It also carries Fiendish Nature, the line's first inborn, which is not a choice either, because a fiend that were not immune to poison and disease would not be a fiend of the pit. Its signature power is the Dark Word: a word spoken across a century, and the word keeps the pit's faith.
Society
There is no society in it, and the not-having is the whole of the shape. The fiends of the pit speak in parallel the way fire speaks — each one its own word, all of them the same hunger. The deeper fiends keep the black fire, the pit-mouth keep the ledger, and the ash-line keep the speaking, and the three have learned that a word that is not spoken is a word that is not a bargain, and the not-speaking is the whole of the peace.
Culture & Lore
The bargain is the only honest conversation the pit has ever trusted, and the lore of the line is the bargain. A fiend that speaks its word without preparation is a fiend that has read the fire, and the reading is the whole of its reputation. The pale red veins are the mark the line keeps — the fine, deliberate glow that shows when the dark word is spoken — and an Innate-Speaker whose glow runs true is a fiend the pit will trust with the ash-line. The The Forgotten are the only ones who have ever kept a bargain the fire had already forgotten, and the keeping is the whole of the legend.
Home
It lives in The Infernal Pits, a pit of black fire and broken stone at the bottom of the world, where the demons keep their bargains and their hunger. The fiend keeps the ash-line, and the ash-line is the whole of its home, because the home is the fire and the fire is the home. The Angel of The Sanctum does not come down, and the not-coming is the whole of the enmity. The pit gives the line its fire, its hunger, its one honest conversation, and its one true voice, and the line keeps all four the way it keeps the word — until the bargain is done.
Relations
The Angel of The Sanctum is the enemy the pit counts, and the counting is the whole of the law, because the fire measures the light the way the dark measures the depth: the light is the only thing the fire cannot keep, and the not-keeping is the whole of the enmity. The The Forgotten are the banished the pit takes in, and the taking in is the whole of the promise, because the forgotten are the ones the fire keeps burning for.
In the Story
The six who arrived through the The Threshold never came down to the pit, but the pit has been louder since the oaths were sworn above, and the ash-line's fiends have been speaking a day earlier than they should. This season a demon came up the fire with a word that was not in the ledger — a word that is not in the hunger, and the not-listing is the whole of the warning. The Innate-Speaker keeps the word the fire is keeping, and the word is the whole of the story's edge.