Out: Selling your soul to a demon for immense power or to have a wish granted, but being bound to their service afterwards.
In:Partitioning your soul among many demons, with a significant stake retained for personal use. (Ideally 51% or higher, but most “investors” would balk at such a brazen display of You Won’t Send Me To Hell-ness, so 35~40% is generally more practical.)
The modern warlock will find that this “joint-stock corporation” model provides some significant benefits. First, it is of far less risk to one’s morals and personality; a thousand imps and erinyes may all wish to corrupt you or have you perform various tasks that are of no benefit to you or any other mortal, but the chances of them uniting into a voting bloc that can agree on how is essentially nil.
The risk of losing one’s powers altogether should your patron be killed is also removed. A single powerful demon can still be slain in an instant by a motivated hero or desperate lover; dozens upon dozens of infernal bureaucrats and cannon fodder can easily scatter, assuming they have any reason to gather in one place to begin with.
Lastly, this method is unlike a joint-stock corporation in that “dividends” flow both ways. As your mystical might and mundane influence increase, your luckier or more clever “investors” will find ways to increase their power in turn, creating a feedback loop that benefits everyone involved.
- Modern Developments in Forbidden Magic, January 1924 issue
