Dharma: Devil Tigers, Skin and Claws

Devil Tigers
Some souls scream when they reach Yomi. Others enjoy the trip and bring the torment back with them when they return. To these souls, the Howl of the Devil-Tiger is a mantra of hope. Pain is a cleansing thing to these vampires; it roots out imperfections and applies the healing torch. In the shriek that follows, a higher Truth appears. According to The Blood Sutras, Xue discovered the Mantra of Pain after the destruction of Mount Meru. Weeping, he lashed himself with nettles and tore gashes in his sides. As his blood poured to the ground, it burst into flames. Xue ripped off his own face and threw it into the flames. It was then that he became enlightened.

Despite misconceptions, the followers of this path are not demon-worshippers. Oh, they appear to be, to the unenlightened observer: Devil-Tiger temples crawl with atrocities—from skewered babies to maimed slaves—and ring with obscene chants and discordant music. Unclean spirits frequent such places, and the Chi that boils in Devil-Tiger dragon nests is corrosive and foul. The outsiders miss the point, however: Devil-Tigers do not worship devils, they want to become devils. And that is a far greater purpose than servitude.

To the Searing Wind (another name for the Devil-Tiger sect), pain is instructive and purifying. A devil, in the grand scheme of things, is the doctor with the cauter-knife and bone-saw. By cutting off the rotting limbs and burning out infections, a devil makes creation healthy. It is Heaven’s wish that the Devil-Tigers fulfill this task on Earth—both on others and upon themselves.

These vampires epitomize sadomasochism; they enjoy tormenting other creatures mentally, emotionally and physically, but revel in the same treatment too. Each tear is a new lesson, each cry a vision of truth. Just as a sudden flash of light leaves a deeper darkness, so the lash of pain creates a greater calm. Restraint comes from the fear of pain; hense, welcome pain and banish restraint. Agony should be savored for the insights that it brings—insights that turn to higher joys, if you understand their meaning.

The Searing Wind tries to help others find those joys; paradoxically, it also seeks to destroy people who understand the truth too well. These devils are surgeons too, after all, and destined by Heaven to cauterize disease. Like the goddess Tien Mu, Devil-Tigers are the lightning that illuminates the wicked; like Le Kung, they are the thunderbolt, which strikes down sinners. The Sixth Age, so they say, will be the brightest strike, the flash that will burn a wicked creation to ashes. Like the lightning, the Devil-Tigers will fade when their task is done, and a new, wiser creation will rise from the embers of the old.

It will be a grand game! And it has already begun…

Training: Like tigers, the vampires of the Searing Wind prefer magnificence to brutality. Such evil has a grace and power that simple carnage cannot match. Their lessons cut like razors—literally!—and their mantras flay one’s ears. Skill is a virtue, brutishness a waste. A Master abducts her future disciplines, imposes horrific lessons on them, then has them meditate on the essence of their pain.

The students themselves come from bilent backgrounds. In their lives, they learned to live with pain. In time, they drew strength from it and often died gruesome deaths. During their stay in Yomi, these souls had their weaknesses sliced away. Now, with the Second Breath in their lungs, they strive to continue their training and to pass on the lesson to individuals who might appreciate it.

Modern Devil-Tigers find the world a fascinating playground. Never before has pain been so acceptable, so mass-produced. At the same time, many people seem numb to exquisite anguish. The challenge of the modern world is to make it feel again—to apply the hot iron until creation’s eyes fly open and behold the sight of Heaven.

# Weaknesses: Even the wisest Devil-Tigers seem impulsive, a bit too quick to provoke a scream. The younger ones are clumsy tempters or raging killers, and their elders aren’t much better. Subtlety is not this Dharma’s strong point. In the dawning of the Sixth Age, Devil-Tigers stand ready to claim the world and are none to humble about that privilege. They cultivate Bane-spirits in their gardens, but cannot quite hide the hunger in their eyes.
# Auspicious Opens and Symbols: Tigers, thunderstorms, lightning strikes, huge fires, burning lotuses (often represented by floating flower-candles).
# Affiliations: Fire, the number 2, the color red and the south direction.

What am I?
There is a reason that the Devil-Tiger Dharma is never without inductees, the pure surrealness of the entire situation that the Second Breath puts a being into. You’ve just returned from Hell, fresh from what ever grave you were buried in or from your cremation urn, and you’re told that you are not only a blood-sucking begin, devoid of chi, but also that you must pick a road to follow you’re way back into the graces of the celestial circle of life.

Now, what thoughts would you have. Anger for those that killed you and for those that are trying to force you into certain way of life? Anger for your classmates and teachers during your Fire and Water tests? Anger for your P’o, constantly in the back of your mind, taunting you and fueling the anger you possess? If this is so, what Dharma are you going to choose? You’d choose the one that actually encourages the rage building up inside you, allowing you free reign to express your most devious emotions. You would become a Devil-Tiger.

As a follower of the Howl, you are responsible for many things. The wicked must be punished and the innocent protected, but how to do this? Become a demon yourself. The Yama Kings have stepped down from their sacred duty of reprimanding the souls of the wicked, instead seeking only to control them for more power to become the Demon Emperor in the Sixth Age. The Devil-Tigers have taken that role in the Middle Kingdom, hunting down those fiendish mortals and making sure they are ‘taken care of’.

Many new Kuei-jin take on this Dharma because of the above reasons, but then after all their rage is gone and their killers destroyed, they must change. By many of the Hungry Dead, the Devil-Tigers are a phase that everyone goes through, but only a few actually stick around.

Passions
The Devil-Tigers are truly passionate beings. Everything in life is done to its fullest and usually only one at a time. While fighting, winning is all that matters. While screwing, they think of nothing but the joy of the sex. While killing, the pleasure of disemboweling their victim is all that matters. This is what fuels the Devil-Tigers and why they are feared. For if you are the pointy end of a Devil-Tiger’s vengeful sword, you won’t die then and there, they will make you suffer for a long time.

Pain
The giving and receiving of pain is another large portion of what it is to be a Devil-Tiger. They revel in combat, battle scars being cherished as keepsakes, but self mutilation is quite common among them as well. Physical pain, however, is just the beginning. Emotional pain and anguish is what this Dharma strives for when torturing their victims. Making sure they suffer in tangible and intangible ways is very important to the role of a judger of the wicked. Killing their families to make them suffer, arranging for them to go bankrupt or to be violated in less pleasant ways, it all equates into the same thing.

Evil for Evil’s Sake?
By no means is the Devil-Tiger Dharma just a bunch of rowdy youngsters, seeking an excuse to break windows and pick fights. They do not walk down the street popping the tires of the cars they pass or make hand puppets out of small animals. This is not EEVILLL! That is stupid and isn’t any fun for the other players who are trying to role-play well! Every action that the Devil-Tiger takes, must have meaning and a specific purpose, even if they themselves don’t know what the outcome of that action with be. STs, don’t let your players be bumbling fools, disgracing the name Devil-Tiger in all other players minds.

Dhampyr vs. Ban Ren Guei
One of the creative aspects of this Dharma is their access to Demonic Spirits as servants and tools. They actually have created a way to use this in the most ingenious of ways: to create children. So, not only do they have the Dhampyr, the Half-Damned, at their disposal, but also the Ban Ren Guei, Half Demon Children. By summoning a demon to mate with a sleeping victim, the resulting infant will be part Demon. They are just like normal people in ageing and appearance, but have at least 1 or 2 special powers (you can check out Freak Legion for powers or just pick physical characteristics from the Demon Shintai list). They are also born with an undying devotion and loyalty to the Devil-Tiger who created it, which is always good.

The Sixth Age
The Devil-Tigers are the only Dharma who actually embrace the coming Sixth Age (except for the Scorpion Eaters, but we won’t go there). They claim that their hunting down of the wicked and all the killing and fighting are in preparation for the upcoming Sixth Age where the Demon Emperor will take over the August Personage of Jade’s throne. They do not even believe that the Devil-Tigers will survive the Sixth Age, but neither will the Demon Emperor. He he. Such dreams are noble, if not suicidal.

Greater Sects (80% Belong to One, 60% Belong to Both)

* The August Body of Sagacious Devils: The Ruling body of the Devil-Tiger Dharma, the Sagacious Devils are the entire reason why countless wars between the Devil-Tigers themselves and with other Dharmas have not begun. It is a society that stresses simple Twighlight Wars in place of battles. They provide the basic training and plan to bring down the Demon Emperor in the Sixth Age.
* The Thousand Embers Righteousness Societies: Very similar to Sagacious Devils, however, the Thousand Embers have a slightly different plan on how to take out the Demon Emperor. The plan on using the Devil-Tiger army only as a distraction and to weaken the forces of Yomi, only to drop a massive bomb on them to finish it all.

Lesser Sects

* The Black Iron Talons: This sect’s entire reason for being is to fight the forces of Yomi at every turn. They fight it every night of their existence. If there are none to battle, they will summon more up to kill those as well.
* Brilliant Coals:
* This sect is found almost only in the Golden Courts and is set up just like them. They are grouped into family units who follow a single, charismatic female leader. The Electric Monkey Wickedness Club: A modern sect who uses financial influence and power to fight Yomi and to gain more influence and power over their city of choice.
* The Searing Wind: Pretty much, these guys are the pinnacle of the bad stereotype that is placed upon Devil-Tigers. They are combatant and powerful and will start a fight at the slightest wrong word.
* The Righteous Earth-Prison Smiting Fist: A sect of those Devil-Tigers who fight against Yu Huang, Lord of the Dark Kingdom of Jade, disagreeing with his rule.
* The Distinguished Sinner-Punishing Society: Not only do they choose to punish the wicked, they use those victims as examples, often executing them in public. Other bad things can come from this as well.

Tenets (A Brief Overview)

1. Ride the Demon, do not let it ride you: Take the power of the demon and use it to you own ends, but never let the Demon control you. This is the most important Tenet and the reason why Shadow Soul is even an Act of Blindness for Devil-Tigers.
2. Glory in the fires of the flesh and passions of the soul: see Passions above.
3. Teach others to live joyfully through pain: see Pain above.
4. Throw fear into the flames and encourage others to do likewise: The Devil-Tiger must never show fear, no matter the opponent or situation he faces. While advancing in Dharma, the entire concept of fear slowly fades from the character’s psyche.
5. Do not hesitate — Act!: Reaction! This lesson is one of the hardest for players to understand. Reaction is the most important part of Dharma. Knowing how to respond and in a quick way is great, use your instinctual impulses instead of your rational ones. But of course, if you have time to plan, use it.
6. Seek out the brightest embers and feed them until they become bonfires: This Tenet represents the excuse for having wicked people under your command. The Devil-Tigers are encouraged to seek out wicked beings and build them up into a wicked underling. When their usefulness is done, destroy them with the same wickedness you helped them to achieve. By the way, the wicked person need not even know they are being manipulated.
7. Meditate upon the flash of passion, the dazzle of its afterglow and the darkness that follows: when you take an action out of passion (Tenet 2), without hesitation (Tenet 5) and without fear (Tenet 4), you must meditate on the impulse that lead to the action, the action itself and the result to get the full effect of the lesson learned.
8. Be cultured in your passions and magnificent in your evil. Any imbecile can act like a madman; it takes true wisdom to become a devil: see ‘Evil for the Sake of Evil?’ above.

Suggested Disciplines

* Any Demon Art, Especially Demon Shintai
* Chi’iu Muh
* Cultivation
* Ghost-Flame Shintai
* Tapestry

Portraying the Dharma
I know there are a lot of people who don’t like spawn. I know there are a lot of people who don’t like the Punisher. But these are examples of, in my opinion, pretty good Devil-Tigers. They should be played as Antiheroes. They punish the wicked and yet they themselves are exactly that. They do not bring evil doers before the courts to the police, they will eventually kill them. Doing good things in a bad way. And this is what I’m talking about.


But remember, at low levels of Dharma the character is still very much human. They won’t be too sure in themselves, especially when it comes to killing someone’s wife or arranging other evil assortments of things. I’ve had my Devil-Tigers, after brutally killing their victims, roll a Stamina check to keep their lunch down.
Suggested Auspicious Occasions

* If a problem is solved through quick-thinking instead of any actual strategy
* The total crippling of a target (physically, financially and emotionally)
* Building up someone to be a supreme wicked being
* The first Demon of Yomi that you kill
* Experiencing a strange or exotic form of Pain
* Self-mutilation/Meditation Combination
* Torture/Meditation Combination

Original P’o Archetype
Glut
The Kuei-jin holds true to his duty to the universe and the Way, however the Glut has only one obsession: to eat. Devouring anything near to him: food, flesh, chi, whatever. It doesn’t matter. It have an insatiable hunger that cannot be staved for anything. It is not, however, a retard. It’s hunger reaches not only for simple consumption, but also for power. The devouring of a business venture is just as great. It has a special connection to the Demon Art, Intemperance, as it does not require a Shadow Soul roll to use this power if you possess the Glut P’o archetype. The power is a way to devour and the Glut enjoys it too much to try and impede it.

Conditions for Takeover: Whenever the Character has 4 or less Chi in his Chi reservoirs, the Glut will attempt a Shadow Soul roll and its first impulse is to do nothing but eat for the rest of the scene. If no actual food is in sight, animals or even the Hun’s wu-mates make a nice snack. But occasionally, the Glut will also choose to further his dark whims, making shrewd business decisions to use against the Hun when the time is right.

Original Discipline
Intemperance

• Gorge
The Glutton teaches, first, the lesson of how to sustain oneself in as little time as possible. This is a convenient Demon Art, as it allows for advanced fangs (maw) without having to ask the P’o permission.
System: With the expenditure of 1 Demon Chi, the Kuei-jin grows a maw capable of Strength + 2 Aggravated damage and can drink Chi at a rate of 2 per turn. This does not change the amount of the Chi available from the victim however, so the victim will simply die twice as fast.

•• Chi Leak
The working of the Devil-Tiger’s mind is interesting indeed. Using this power, the Devil of Heaven is able to make his target slowly become free of chi. Kuei-jin who are affected by this power often seek revenge on the Devil who cursed them, if only for a short while.
System: After touching the victim’s skin, the Kuei-jin spends 2 Demon Chi and rolls P’o (difficulty Willpower + 1, to a maximum of 10). If successful, the victim’s hold over his Chi reservoirs (Gnosis, Chi, Quintessence, Glamour, etc… are all included) will lose 2 additional Chi with every expenditure for one day per success on the above roll.

••• Touch of Weakness
The next lesson learned is how to steal energy from others to use for yourself. With this, the Devil-Tiger can power his statistics up without the need for Shintai, but instead of using Chi, he uses the very essence of her victim. Fighting someone who wields this power can be deadly for even the greatest of fighters.
System: The Kuei-jin must touch the target’s skin, expend 2 Demon Chi and choose a physical stat he chooses to steal. A roll of P’o vs. Target’s Stamina (difficulty 7 for both) must be made, with every success resulting in the movement of 1 dot from the target’s stat to the character. The target’s stat, however, cannot be dropped beyond one.
Example: Feng has 2 Dexterity and wants to steal Wang’s, who has 4. Feng, after touching Wang, rolls his 6 P’o and receives 7, 7, 8, 0, 2, 5 (4 successes), while Wang, who has 3 Stamina, rolls a resisted check and gets 2, 3, 6 (No successes. Feng now has Dexterity 5 (2 + 3 gained from Wang) and Wang has been reduced to Dexterity 1 (4 - 3 transferred to Feng).

•••• Defiled Earth
After gaining the abilities to effect mortals, themselves and other shen, the Kuei-jin turns to his next target: his environment. This power has gained many Devil-Tigers their putrid reputation among the Beast Courts of the Emerald Mother, as it destroys plant-life without blinking.
System: By expending 3 Demon Chi into the earth beneath his feet, the Kuei-jin can defile all the land in a 1-yard radius per level of P’o (someone with 4 P’o will expand 4 yards). Grass, crops and bushes die instantaneously, while trees in a matter of (10 - P’o rating) minutes. Any small animals in the contact with the earth during the activation contract a strange spiritual disease that kills them within (8 - P’o rating) days. Shen are unaffected by this power, however mortals receive 3 automatic levels of Lethal damage (this includes those in human shells: Hsien, Demons, Changelings, Hunters, and Mages). This also taints the area and is a sure way to get spirits to notice you, but not in a good way.

••••• Famine Cloud
All the powers of Intemperance lead up to one great big finally of starvation and famine. The Kuei-jin exudes a rancid cloud of pure Demon Chi which drains the life force all beings around him in such a way to cause very bad things to happen.
System: The Kuei-jin expends 3 Demon Chi and creates a cloud of Demon smoke that expands 2-yards per point of P’o (someone with 4 P’o will expand 8-yards). Everyone caught in the cloud must make an immediate Willpower roll (Difficulty and score at least 3 successes or suffer the following:

* Kuei-jin: Lose 1 Chi / Victim cannot ingest any Chi for the rest of the night / Immediate Fire Soul check at a +3 difficulty.
* Kin-jin: Lose 2 Vitae / Victim cannot ingest Blood for the rest of the night / Immediate Frenzy check at +2 difficulty
* Hengeyokai: Lose 2 Temporary Gnosis / Victim cannot shift forms until the next Dawn, stuck in whatever form they were in during activation, unless knocked out / Immediate Frenzy check at +3 difficulty.
* Humans (includes shen in mortal shells, see above): Lose 3 Chi (Yugen, Glamour, Conviction, Quintessence) / Lose 1 Temporary Willpower / Automatically faints due to intense hunger.

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03 June 2010 09:20 AM
yanamari
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Commentaries on the Devil Tiger
by Iatsu Akoto, recorded by Mujuro Ututsu The path of the Devil Tiger is a sword of righteousness wielded by two hands. One, the hand of wickedness, the other, the hand of pain. Pain, more than anything, gives us our purpose. It is only in pain that we can understand why what we do must be done. Our suffering makes us hate, which drives us to action. If we did not hurt we would be made complacent...lazy...useless. When we hurt, we must overcome, and so our pain forces us to always act.
The punishment for the wicked is painted in the pain we have suffered. Through our own suffering we gain the motivation and reason for punishment, and the colors from which to draw from when painting a canvass of pain. After all, who better to punish the rapist than the raped? Who better to punish the murderer than the murdered? Suffer, and let your suffering fuel your passion. Be stabbed, cut, shot, burned, raped, tortured, murdered. Learn from the punishment that you inflict upon yourself, and use that knowledge as a tool to punish others.
Wickedness is our engine of righteousness. Know thy enemy, for to beat the devil, you must be a devil yourself. Anyone can suffer. Everyone does, in one way or another, but not everyone can be wicked. The raped may not have enough hatred to hurt their rapist, or perhaps they are too sloppy. The murdered are redeemed by a justice that has no concept of how the murdered suffered, and can not truly hate their prisoner. When you are wicked there is no cry for mercy, no tear of sorrow, no voice of redemption that can stay your hand from meting out the justice which must be inflicted.
Pain is your teacher, your drive, your need, which drives your wickedness to act. When they are in harmony, you are a magnificent devil.

Ride the Demon, do not let it ride you.
The first tenet, like a first step, is the beginning of your metamorphosis. Most who pursue the path of the Devil Tiger quickly realize it's more obvious meaning...that is, do not fall to the P'o. This simple realization is necessary before taking any further steps, though there is more to it than such simplicity. The P'o may very well be magnificent in it's evil, but when you are controlled by it, everything it does is merely an excuse. When you are controlled by the P'o, you do not make decisions, you do not influence it, you simply sleep and the demon acts upon it's own desires. Even if your desires coincide, you are still the slave, and it the master.
To truly be a devil one must embrace deviltry. This can be difficult for the young. We still remember our days of being alive. As wicked as we might have been, there were still things that made us human. To be a Devil Tiger is to cast off your humanity, and embrace the full glory of being a true demon. To do this, one must decide to do it. You cannot let your P'o have control and say that is being evil. That is no more useful than giving the leash to someone else, and saying you are evil when you act as nothing more than a vicious dog. To truly embrace evil, one must, without influence, without illusion, consciously and willingly give up everything that made you human, everything that you used to justify yourself. Most importantly, you must have no illusions about what it is you will be doing. There are many who simply play at being devils. They murder, rape, maim and they think this is being evil. Evil is not found just in what you do, but also why. Humans do all of those things, and more, but they are still driven by humanity...greed, lust, anger, hate. Humans feel all these things, and are guided by them. You, too, feel these things, but be careful about being guided by them. Do not let them cloud your vision, or distract you from your purpose. Passion is important, otherwise torture would simply become rote, and you could not throw yourself fully into the task set before you, but if it becomes the sole purpose around which you revolve, one might as well be a rutting prostitute. Be evil to be evil, not because you are hungry.
Remember to also guard yourself against slavery. The Yama Kings look for servants, and newly risen devils who wish to learn the ways of evil make willing servants, whether they know it or not. There are many who are willing to "teach" and do nothing more than bend a servant to their own purpose, the way a smith bends steel to a purpose. You will find many teachers along your road back who can teach you many things, but always be aware of what you're doing. Take whatever lessons you are given and apply them, to yourself and the world around you, so that you know what is truth, and what is true for you. Do not accept someone's word that the branding iron is hot. Grasp it and let it sear your flesh, and you will carry that lesson all the rest of your days.
Do not forget that you carry a great teacher within yourself. Remember your P'o. It is the demon forged from your own chains of sin which dragged you to hell. It knows your secret desires, your wants, and more than anything else, what you are capable of to accomplish those desires. Ride the demon. Let it speak to you of what you can and cannot do, what you've done, and what you haven't. It is your own evil that was given voice from the screaming winds of Yomi. To ignore such a teacher would be simple foolishness. But remember, do not accept it's lessons on it's word. To simply listen and not act is laziness. To act and not listen is slavery.

Glory in the fires of the flesh and the passions of the soul.
Ah, the means and the end in one sentence. The soul is our concern, the flesh is the medium through which we influence it.
It is the passions of the soul which bound us to Yomi in the first place. When we were human we indulged for the sake of indulgence. Now that we have taken the second breath, our passion serves a new purpose. Sex no longer satisfies, food has lost it's taste, and drugs are all too often simply a waste of time. With these revelations it is easy for one to slip into boredom and complacency. The point of this tenet is not to. Certainly a Devil Tiger can be accused of many things. Laziness should never be one of them. Do not forget your passion or let it grow stagnant. Broaden your palate, and learn to taste things that your humanity would never let you conceive of before. There is no substitute for experience, and one must have the passion to set aside complacency, and safety, to pursue it.
Flesh is the medium through which you gain experience. Everything you experience is filtered through your senses. There are many who would muffle sounds, and close their eyes to deny what they experience. You must never do this. You must face the world in all it's glory and it's horror. To do otherwise is simply denial. There are few better ways of casting away these crutches than through pain. Pain awakens you, it reminds you that you're still alive, and no matter what else you deny yourself, you cannot ignore your own suffering.

Teach others to live joyfully through pain.
It is easy to sit. It is easy to sigh, and cry and complain. It is easy to hide, and easy to be afraid. It is difficult to grow, to reach, to evolve. Difficult to even move. Why should one ever seek to do what is difficult? Pain. Pain is the greatest motivating force in history. It is suffering which drove humanity to crawl out of their caves and build cities. Otherwise, why evolve? Society's ultimate goal is to surround itself with so much comfort that it will never hurt. Our goal is to never let that happen. It is with agony that the man drives the oxen, and so it is with agony that we drive humanity. By causing suffering we force people to move, to grow, to evolve. And when they have grown, they can look back on how far they have come and say that they are better.
Parents heap misery upon their children with nothing more than the excuse of "you'll thank me when you're older." Only when the child is an adult do they realize the truth. And so it is that we must heap misery on others, and make them understand that when we are finished with them they will be greater. This is how the lump of iron is forged into the steel sword, how the very earth and sky are bent to a person's will.

Throw fear into the flames and encourage others to do likewise.
Fear is your enemy. It is as much as your enemy as the Yama Kings, or Akuma. Fear paralyzes. In that way it can stop you from your heavenly duty, or even reverse the lessons you have taught others. As you grow and learn you will face many terrors. Terror of the horrors which you must face, but also the terror of loss, the terror of accomplishing nothing. If you are not careful, this terror will stop you. It will make you question what you do, and wonder why you bother. If you fall victim to this, you will give up. You will surrender, and become lazy, or worse, a slave. You might as well die. Only when you give up your fear will you be able to accomplish anything. When you give up fear, you cannot be stopped, cannot be dissuaded.
Encourage others to give up fear, for only then can they act on the lessons that you teach them. When they become fearless, they too will understand that they are no longer limited, nothing exceeds their grasp. Without fear, all gain the drive to accomplish whatever they wish.

Do not hesitate--act!
Hesitation is the result of fear. Hesitation is the moment someone else needs to take all you've made and accomplished and smash like so much brittle glass. Once you have decided on a course of action, hesitation is merely stalling...often a result of being afraid.
One must be careful though. Do not confuse hesitation with lack of preparation. There are many young devils who never grow old because they threw themselves into a fire they could not quench. Knowing what to do and doing nothing about it is laziness. Not knowing what do do and acting on it is foolishness. It's a fine line, and one many have trouble surviving.

Seek out the brightest embers and feed them until they become bonfires.
The world is sick. It is our task to burn it to ash so that, like the phoenix, a new one may rise, fresh, clean and healthy. But you are just one devil, and one devil cannot punish the whole world. Besides that, there are more than just devils in the world. Find those who could be useful. Find those who can help you, whether they know it or not. Cultivate them, and soon they can be as your own hands, applying the torch.
Realize that there are others who can understand your passions, but do not understand what to do about it. Open the door for them. Show them the way, and they will become their own whirlwinds, pushing the boundaries of the world, forcing people out of their complacency. Remember, as a devil, your duty is not to yourself, but everyone.

Meditate upon the flash of passion, the dazzle of its afterglow and the darkness that follows.
Wash the world in a single color and that color will disappear. Likewise, put the world in constant pain, and pain will cease to exist. So it is with you. Do not forget that there is no pain without pleasure, no suffering without joy. Both are your tools, one used to illustrate the other. Do not forget them for yourself or others. Never forget that there are two sides to the coin.

Be cultured in your passions and magnificent in your evil. Any imbecile can act like a madman; it takes true wisdom to become a devil.
Many young devils think that murder and mayhem are evil. Point to any human and you can find those very things in every human heart, whether they act upon it or not. What does murder and mayhem teach? Nothing. Every lesson you give, every punishment you dole out should be appropriate, and unique. Kill someone and they will be forgotten. Heap tragedy upon someone and they will recover. The torments you inflict must be so dire, so terrible that they will never forget, they will never recover. Remember your time in Yomi? It was not your flesh that was flayed, but your very soul. What dream have you had that you forgot the burning touch of hell? What night has gone by that you did not pause to try and leave such memories behind only to find that they will never leave you? Like hell, so must you punish. This is the magnificence of evil. This is what you must strive to become.