S.T.A.R.

School of Theoretical Alchemical Research

No one takes STAR seriously at first. They are often billed as a student organization on par with the anime club or the chess team. In truth, they are much more like the ROTC in that they have active recruiters, and you can find them on many college campuses. STAR specifically seeks out souls that it feels it can manage and twist to its objectives. Examples of such people include Ivan (demon) and Meluvia.

Where STAR has an office, it always has deep ties into the power structure of the campus that help to conceal its true nature, hide the actions of its members, and make it seem welcoming and sheltering to students with troubled lives.

Students that take classes at STAR often start out slow, and they do their assignments as additional work knowing that if they keep up with their STAR requirements, then any other classes on the mundane side will be taken care of for them. This makes it easier for STAR students to progress down the dark path. Students that manage both sides of their courses are often given opportunities to put their hard work to task.

Like many programs, STAR requires students to develop and execute their own malicious plans as proof of their skill and readiness to torture the mortal plane.

Those that try to drop out of STAR should have known better, and they get what is expected.

Dimensional Linkages

There is only one STAR, but each college where it manifests is linked by a series of well guarded portals. These passages are often well hidden, and students generally have at least one semester worth of the mild side of the training before they are taken deeper inside. This allows STAR to have a branch ins almost any college or university, but they often favor some of the state colleges over large universities as the input to those colleges is often a little more likely to be lured in. However, the biggest and best known universities are not immune, and when students are desperate to perform, STAR helps them reach their goals, for a price.

Motives

Angels and demons can wield incredible powers that would send the mortal world cowering in fear. However, angels were never really meant for war, and while they can follow orders, they don't have the maliciousness built into them for engaging in horrific acts on their own.

Demons, some of which are fallen angels, have a similar problem. While they can be terrible, they are also often predictable and narrow minded.

While exceptions on both sides can occur, there is no more horrible a thing than a mortal soul. Angels an demons have fought over them with the intent of having them lead legions against their enemies. They say there is nothing more cruel than a child, but that is just original sin and ignorance. True warlords come from mortal beings, and controlling those souls is paramount to winning the way between heaven and hell, and between the two, Hell has a much better recruitment strategy.

Soulful Demons and other Monstrosities

In an effort to develop a superior weapon that exceeds the limits of older demons and the templates they follow, a new form of corruption was developed by Lilith, the first woman and mortal, mother of many old demons. IN this case, a soul is not taken or bound but instead conditioned carefully to purify out redeeming contaminants and instill an intrinsic desire to perform terrible acts.

Because these agents have their own souls, they are resistant to some means of exclusion such as modest wards and holy ground. They are creative, free-thinking entities, more like Lilith than Lucifer, and that allows them to better challenge other mortal countermeasures and divine interventions. However, they are experimental, they have a risk of being redeemed because they still have a soul to redeem, and they are young.

Demons

Demons like Ivan are corrupted completely at the time of graduation. They have no redeeming values at the time they are created, and they represent some of the worst things Hell can potentially manufacture. They are often trained in one or more mystic arts, and they always have some specialization with regard to the type of damage they can do. Well trained and unrelenting, these are the best STAR has.

These demons can move across holy ground and could even chug a bottle of sacramental wine without harm, but they are young and less powerful than older demons. They make up for this with guile and special training. However, there is a risk for these demons to start to slip due to their mortal souls, and they may need occasional reconditioning. To prevent needing this, demonic conversion is often offered only to souls that probably already want to see the world or some part of it burn before they joined.

The Corrupted

Agents like Meluvia represent the greater bulk of the STAR student population. Feeling socially outcast for one reason or another, they find belonging and comfort at STAR among others like them. They are trained similarly to demonic candidates, but their higher chance for reversion means they aren't brought to the inner circle. However, they are trained in arts ranging from assassination, espionage, to outright mad science and occult leadership roles.

Corrupted are what they sound like: souls tainted but not completely lost. Many have a trigger they haven't been able to get past such as Meluvia's obsession with her childhood friend, Bev. These agents often serve in secondary command positions where someone less likely to balk at an order can take the lead and allow the corrupted to treat it like a job.

Gremlins

Gremlins represent a specific subset of nasty creatures that live to do nothing but interfere with and destroy machines and electronics, especially when it puts life on the line. While STAR does produce some gremlins, they are a minority. The gremlin instructors, however, often teach courses to all students once they reach their second year and are held in STAR tightly enough that they won't escape it.

On occasion, demons may work with gremlins, and some, like Ivan, specialized in such arts. With the advent of more advanced technology, gremlin arts are seeing a rise in usefulness, and dual majors like Ivan are likely to become more common.