Inspired by Dimension 20's season Never Stop Blowing Up, I felt it'd be fun to try to take NSBU's big mashup of everything in a genre and apply it to battle manga. But especially Yu Yu Hakusho because I'd just finished reading that. It takes place in 2024 in an alternate history: in 2008, Barack Obama sold Ohio to the devil to clear the national debt and prevent the 2008 housing crisis. It actually succeeded. The rest of the world is better off than ever. Proof that the Devil is real, but also just like, a guy, that provably improved everyone's lives, stopped christofascism dead in its tracks. Yadda yadda, "proof defies faith and without faith I am nothing." And, furthermore, "hey man, don't say that about the devil, he bailed us out!" Brexit and Covid also didn't happen.
Anyway though, inside of Ohio, demons are running the show. There is a hellmouth over the capital, Columbus, and demons and monsters are running like, police forces and gangs and big companies fucking everyone over. Humans do have some access to magic now though too--secret societies coming out of hiding and demonologists and occultists tapping into Hell Energy for their powers. The only bastion of resistance is the Ohio River Valley and the greater Cincinnati Metropolitan Area, where proximity to the border keeps stronger demons from living there full time. The PCs are martial artists, magical girls, wizards, and half-demons living in Cincinnati. Good guys, working at least in alliance with The Society of The Cincinnati, a group of exorcists and demon hunters trying to drive out the demons. This year is going to have the world's first tournament-based mayoral election--everyone's getting ready for it to sabotage one another and recruit team members and figure out new weapons and techniques.
Much credit to Sean Foer / Scene Four on Tiktok and youtube, who has a great video laying out this structure for designing factions of characters for TTRPGs--a premise or structure, a long term goal, a short term plan to achieve that goal, assets, an MO, quirks, a leader, an "average follower," and a character that represents a complicating dimension to the faction.
A gang of demons run by a one time duke of hell, a giant owl named Stolas. The largest criminal faction in Cincinnati. Their long term goal is to sieze control of the governorship through the election in November. The short term plan to accomplish this is that they are going to go find local Cincinnati mascot Fiona the Hippo to "recruit" her to their team (capturing her). Fiona fled the zoo and took refuge in the sewers when the Hellmouth opened up and she's just been living down there, getting stronger, absorbing demonic runoff.
Their leader is Stolas, a giant owl a little bit taller than a person and much larger than that with his wings extended. He's a master martial artist, but he's mostly a horrible brute. He's a former Duke of Hell though--he is on Earth because the humans are easy to exploit and easy to bully. He's deferntial, servile, and nervous around any demons bigger than him but around humans he revels in the power he has over them--and in fact gloats about how they are the smallest fish in a small pond and that nobody cares about them. Being proven wrong immediately freaks him out though.
Mezzeron is an average follower of theirs, a magically gifted demon who likes to throw around fireballs. Wears big baggy suits and has a stupid pompadour and mostly just looks like a red human with little horns. He does work for Stolas when some heads need bustesd, but he spends all his free time throwing his weight around as a magician, bullying local businesses and throwing Stolas's name around. He's stupid and short-sighted, but he's driven towards what short-term goals he has. It results in disproportionate responses towards things like not being able to get his favorite high-price whiskey. The kind of guy to blow up a restaurant with a fireball if they say he needs to make a reservation.
Choke is a minor imp who sees Stolas as his meal ticket. A character like Kuze in Yakuza, driven to try to fight his way to the top of a bad guy hierarchy in a very distinctly protagonistic manner, just doing so on the other team. So a recurring boss that can move up from Little Guy With Wings to like, a Cyberdemon from Doom eventually.
In the way the NSBU is a big genre mashup I imagine these guys to be most like Yu Yu Hakusho--combining street punk hijinx with supernatural brawling. Also like Yu Yu Hakusho, despite the fact that they're demons they're only dicks, not monsters. Rarely killing, with only Stolas aiming higher than petty robberies and shakedowns. Probably also used as patsies for other bigger factions, and absolutely the characters who are the most open to being brought around to the players' side. Like, demons regularly folding quickly, being easy to intimidate, and applauding characters who beat their asses. Setting up Choke to rise the ranks is a big thing--like an orc captain in the Middle Earth games or something.