Sacristan

Sacristans are failures among the velstracs, creatures whose bodies and minds have been utterly broken by the velstracs' torments. These unfortunates are assembled from scrap metal, nerveless flesh, and bits of darkness into loyal agents who take ecstatic pleasure in serving other velstracs. Sacristans are empowered by a miniature gateway to the Netherworld deep in their mouths. By distending their jaws, they can howl with the shrieks and windstorms of that plane. Sacristans vary in appearance but are the size of average, if maimed, humans. Their features are redundant or absent, and barbed and rusted chains wrap around them.

The shadow-dwelling fiends known as velstracs all share a horrifying preoccupation with the search for ultimate sensation through self-mutilation. Velstracs transcend their stoic detachment only when inflicting pain and terror upon their victims, practicing new forms of torture, or turning their agonizing practices back on themselves. They consider themselves enlightened beings, transcending such limitations as morality or mortal taboos, but their victims know them as emotionless tormentors who inflict sadistic suffering. These fiends claim to seek perfection in thought, form, and action, although they don't recognize any refinement that doesn't require the painful excision of the flesh or spirit.

Velstracs manifest from the souls of the most extreme masochistic or sadistic mortals who are judged and sent on to the Netherworld. They take on forms that suit their vile predilections, ranging from the low-ranking augurs to the maestros of suffering and mutilation, the eremites. The process of transformation warps the soul step by step, with other velstracs conveying their new members through untold chambers of pain among the dark reaches of the Netherworld.