October Horror Movie Challenge: Demons (1985)

Again, this October Horror Movie Challenge, I am going "themeless." Well, not entirely themeless, I am going to hit some movies I have been wanting to see for a while. I am going to hit some movies with a strong occult themes to help with my Occult D&D ideas. And a lot of movies that are random picks. 

Tonight's movie is a bit of all the above. It was on my list, so when flipping through Tubi (Tubi is a GOLD MINE of old horror!) I figure, let's give it a go. 

Demons (1985)

One of the things about my Occult D&D project that I keep coming back too is I want it to feel like a book I would have been able to by in 1986. So in addition to reading all the Appendix N books, I am filling my brain full of events from the mid-1980s and horror movies that would have had an enfluence on my writing. Demons for 1985 seems to fit the bill well.

Some movies are subtle. "Demons" is not one of them. This Italian splatterfest from Lamberto Bava (with Dario Argento producing) is pure, unfiltered 1980s horror excess: neon lights, heavy metal, gore by the bucket, and a “plot” that’s basically just a vehicle to get from one outrageous set-piece to another. And you know what? It’s great. I love it. 

The story is simple: a group of people are invited to a special screening at a mysterious Berlin movie theater. During the film, a cursed mask displayed in the lobby starts turning viewers into ravenous demons. Soon, the audience is fighting for their lives as the theater itself becomes a trap, sealing them in with the growing horde. From there, it’s a descent into chaos, blood sprays, limbs fly, and at least one person rides a motorcycle through the aisles swinging a samurai sword while a metal soundtrack blasts in the background. It’s that kind of movie.

Gods, I love the 80s.

What I love about Demons is how it feels like watching someone’s horror RPG campaign go entirely off the rails in the best way. You start with a spooky hook (a cursed mask, a haunted theater), then unleash wave after wave of enemies until the players stop caring about logic and just lean into survival mode. It’s less about character development and more about whether you’re going to get your head ripped off before the next guitar riff kicks in. It FEELS like the Nightlife RPG or the way I like playing NIGHT SHIFT.

The effects are gloriously practical. The transformations are gooey, gross, and wonderful, faces bulge, teeth sprout, and eyes ooze in ways that would make even David Cronenberg nod in approval. The demons themselves are nasty, feral things, closer to zombies than elegant vampires, but with enough supernatural menace to keep them distinct. 

Of course, none of this makes a bit of sense if you think too hard about it. Why is the theater cursed? Who set it up? How does the mask work? Don’t worry about it. Demons isn’t here to answer questions. It’s here to drench the screen in gore while Claudio Simonetti’s score and a soundtrack full of 80s metal make sure your head keeps banging as the blood keeps flowing.

It has been years since I have seen this and I admit I got it all mixed up in my memories with other, similar movies, from the time.  Still, it was nice to come back to this one after so long. 

NIGHT SHIFT

If I were to drop this into a NIGHT SHIFT game, the Metropol Theater would be a perfect one-shot dungeon: a closed environment with escalating waves of monsters, random NPC allies turning into enemies, and no real “solution” except trying to survive until dawn (or until you blow the place to pieces). It’s survival horror at its most distilled.

Occult D&D & NIGHT SHIFT

Demons is not high art. It is not even low art. But I do love the 1980s, Lamberto Bava, and Dario Argento movies. Argento gave me a lot with his Mothers Trilogy, so I am not looking for a lot here except for atmosphere. 

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 3
First Time Views: 2

October Horror Movie Challenge: Jennifer (1978)

Tonight's movie is a complete attack of opportunity, but I am glad I found it.

If the Exorcist spawned hundreds of imitators, then Carrie (1976) spawned at least a dozen or so as well. 

Marketed at the time as a kind of Carrie knock-off (and yeah, the comparisons are impossible to avoid), this one has a twist: instead of telekinesis, the outcast girl at the center of it all has the ability to control snakes. This comes seven years before Jennifer Connelly's bug-controlling powers in Phenomena (1985).

Lisa Pelikan stars as Jennifer, a poor girl from West Virginia who earns a scholarship to an elite girls’ school. She doesn’t fit in, wrong background, wrong accent, and, well, she has that weird “snake thing.” The wealthy students torment her endlessly, and like in Carrie, the cruelty builds until it finally explodes in a climax where Jennifer unleashes her reptilian powers in full. The bullies learn the hard way that mocking the psychic girl is always a very bad idea.

The movie sits in an interesting middle ground. On one hand, it wants to be a serious supernatural thriller, and there are moments where it almost works, Pelikan does a great job selling Jennifer as fragile but simmering with potential rage. On the other hand, it’s also a 70s exploitation horror film, which means you get plenty of lurid bullying sequences, nudity, sexual assault, melodramatic overacting, and snakes crawling across every possible surface. The tone veers from tragic to campy to horror, sometimes in the same scene.

Star Lisa Pelikan was quite good in this. Better than the movie actually deserves to be honest. I can't help but think I have seen this one already; something about her performance was so familiar to me. I may have seen a lot of 70s/80s horror featuring a redhead outcast girl with psychic powers.  I am going to say "First Time View."

Occult D&D & NIGHT SHIFT

One of the big bads of the various Appendix N books are Snake Men and Serpent Men. Jennifer could very well be the offspring of these serpent men surviving into modern times. Or at least the 1970s.   

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 2
First Time Views: 1

The Enchanted World: Tales of Terror

Wow. Has it really been about a year since I did one of these? That is fairly inexcusable.  But it is October and tales of terror abound. So lets jump back into these. 

Tales of Terror

by Editors of Time-LIFE Books, 1987 (144 pages)
ISBN 0809452774, 0809452782  (US Editions)

This one moves away from the established format and gives us 13 chapters of tales. 

Chapter One: The Walking Dead of Brittany 

A tale of two lovers and an not-so-dead, dead man.

Brittany has always been a land caught between the Mortal realm and the Lands of the Dead, and this chapter dives right into the Ankou, the skeletal cart-driver of souls. The imagery is dripping with fog and grave dirt, and you can practically hear the creak of his wagon on the cobbled paths. As a first chapter, it sets the tone perfectly: folklore that is not quaint, but deeply unsettling. 

Chapter Two: An Implacable Army 

This short German tale begins with a mass-murder and ends with the invasion of an army of vengeful rats. I can't help but think of the movies "Willard," "Ben," and "Food of the Gods."

Chapter Three: In the Body of the Beast

This one’s all about possession, the unsettling idea of losing one’s body to another spirit or force. Unlike Hollywood exorcisms, the folkloric accounts here are more ambiguous: sometimes it’s a demon, sometimes a restless ancestor, sometimes something nameless. The takeaway is the horror of being a passenger in your own flesh.

Chapter Four: Harvest of Horrors

Iceland's horror tales are often as bleak as their landscape. Few things feel more old-world than the fear of crops failing or harvests being tainted. This chapter ties together famine, curses, and a time when the Old Gods still ruled. Reading it, I’m reminded that “horror” doesn’t have to be gothic castles, it can be watching your children starve because something inhuman blighted your barley.

Chapter Five: The Goblin's Guest 

Japan has some wonderful tales of terror and these goblins are not the mischievous faerie creatures of lore, nor are they even the dreadful orc-like creatures of Tolkien. These goblins are more akin to demons, and even having their heads cut off is not a stop to their evil. 

Chapter Six: An Unfinished Death

A dead husband seeks revenge on his widow after death, but a stranger intervenes.

Chapter Seven: Furies of the Far North

Cold lands and bitter winds bring tales of vengeful spirits who stalk the snow. The terror here, though, is not freezing to death, but the insatiable craving for human flesh due to starvation. 

This one treats us to the lore of the Angiak, monstrous children left to die in the cold and now craving their mother's flesh. 

Chapter Eight: Bloodguilt of a Royal House 

This chapter plunges into Greek tragedy at its rawest: the cursed House of Atreus and the cycle of blood that no god nor mortal could halt. We see Agamemnon sacrificing his daughter, Iphigenia, for favorable winds to Troy, and Clytemnestra’s smoldering hatred that blooms into bloody revenge. The narrative is lushly violent, brimming with betrayal, murder, and the grim reminder that no war ends when the armies return home.

As a horror tale, it’s less about ghosts and more about inevitability—the horror of family doom written in blood. For a gaming table, this is the blueprint of the “accursed bloodline” trope. A campaign built around such a house isn’t about who wins or loses, but whether anyone can break the curse before the next ax falls.

Chapter Nine: A Stormy Reckoning

The killing a seal is the beginning of tale of woe of Elias and his family. 

Chapter Ten: Bride of the Ghost-Chief

A promised bride to the Chief of the dead leads to a strange bargaining between two worlds. But unlike Persephone, the Bride had to stay in the land of Ghosts. When she breaks this contract, the land of the ghosts is forever sealed off from the land of the living. 

Chapter Eleven: The Kiss of Evil 

Seduction, corruption, and deals with devils. This chapter reads like the dark sibling to old fairy tales, where the kiss isn’t salvation but damnation. Folklore doesn’t shy from the sexual undertones here, and neither should horror gaming. There’s room for succubi, but also more subtle lures: the temptation of comfort in exchange for corruption. Here, an evil djinn tempts a man with riches and sex, only to lose everything. 

Chapter Twelve: Demons of the Dreamtime

The book goes global with Australian Aboriginal myths and monsters, exploring spirits of the Dreamtime that slip into nightmares. The imagery is stark and strange, very different from European hauntings, and it adds real weight to the “Enchanted World” premise. 

In a campaign, this is where planar adventures meet primal myth. Bring dream-demons into play when players think they’re safe at rest.

Chapter Thirteen: The Healer's Secret 

Death offers to become the Godmother to man's child. The father was given gold, and Death would return when the child turned 20. On his 20th birthday Death gives the man a plant that cures all ills, but conditions are given. Of course these conditions are broken and Death comes for his new bride. When he tries to rescue his Bride from the land of the dead, Death gives him the only gift she has. 

--

This one is less on the mythology or the ever present theme of the "Dying of the Enchanted World" and instead just gives us 13 (well 12 and so) stories of death and the spectre of dying. No surprise really, we are no closer today to understanding death or what happens after. 

Each one can act as inspiration for an adventure or side-quest. 

October Horror Movie Challenge: Witchcraft (1988)

This October Horror Movie Challenge, I am going "themeless." Well, not entirely themeless, I am going to hit some movies I have been wanting to see for a while. I am going to hit some movies with a strong occult themes to help with my Occult D&D ideas. And a lot of movies that are random picks. 

So, lets get in a Witchcraft Wednesday special!

Some horror movies become classics because they’re great. Others become classics because they’re terrible. And then there are the ones like Witchcraft (1988)—movies that sit in that odd middle space where you can’t really call them good, but you also can’t quite look away. This was the beginning of what would inexplicably become the longest-running horror franchise of all time, with over a dozen sequels. Yep, this little direct-to-video oddity outlasted Friday the 13th.

Witchcraft has always been out there, taunting me. The later direct-to-video offerings are essentially cheesy, low-grade horror with soft-core porn. There is a time and place for that, but not often in the Horror Movie Challenge. Still, I am not going to rule out more of these for the simple reasons that A.) this one wasn't so bad (ok it is, but) and B.) maybe there is something to extract here.

The setup is Gothic in all the right ways. The film opens with a young woman, Grace Churchill, giving birth to a child in a spooky old mansion, watched over by ominous figures who may or may not be part of a Satanic coven. The baby, William, grows up haunted by strange powers and a dark inheritance. That’s about as coherent as the plot gets. The rest is a mix of supernatural brooding, awkward family drama, softcore sex, and a finale where witchcraft and devil-worship clash in melodramatic fashion.

It’s the kind of movie that promises “occult terror” on the box but delivers more soap opera than sorcery. The budget clearly wasn’t there, and it shows—cheap sets, stilted acting, and special effects that would’ve been laughed off Tales from the Darkside. But there’s something about the sheer earnestness of it that makes it oddly watchable. You get the sense that everyone involved thought they were making something serious, maybe even artistic. Instead, they accidentally launched the trashiest franchise in horror history.

What stands out, though, is the vibe. Witchcraft is soaked in late-80s VHS energy, grainy lighting, synth score, and a sleazy Gothic tone that feels like it belongs in a tattered paperback you’d find in a used bookstore. It’s not scary, not really, but it is atmospheric in that “midnight cable TV/Cinemax” way.

Witchcraft (1988) isn’t good. But it’s important. It’s the seed from which a whole weird forest of bargain-bin horror would grow, a franchise that leaned more and more into sleaze and supernatural soap opera. I can't help but think that this series promises a better movie. 

Maybe I'll watch them all one day. But not this month. 

Occult D&D and NIGHT SHIFT

Yeah, there is a NIGHT SHIFT campaign here, but it is likely a silly one.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 1
First Time Views: 0

Witches of Appendix N: Poul Anderson

 It is the start of October and time for another foundational author for D&D from Gary's Appendix N. As always with this feature I am focusing on the witches presented in these tales.

Poul Anderson (1926-2001) is much better known for his Science Fiction tales, but he does have three (well, 2.5) fantasy stories on the Appendix N list, and two of these feature witches rather prominently: "Three Hearts and Three Lions" and "The Broken Sword."

I will take each in turn and also expand a little from "just witches" with these.

Three Hearts and Three Lions (1953)

Anderson’s Three Hearts and Three Lions is already famous in D&D circles for giving us Law vs Chaos, the Swanmay, regenerating trolls, and even the proto-paladin in Holger Carlsen. But nestled amid the elves, trolls, and Moorcock-before-Moorcock cosmology is one of the first proper "witches" of Appendix N.

The unnamed witch of the forest hut is classic fairy-tale witchcraft: ugly, corrupt, but wielding real power. She brews potions, dabbles in deviltry, and represents the Chaos side of Anderson’s moral spectrum. Anderson clearly has one foot in the folkloric hag tradition; this witch could have walked right out of the Brothers Grimm, but her function in the story is thematic as much as narrative. She exists as a living symbol of the Chaos that Holger is pitted against, an incarnation of superstition and malice. While her interactions with Holger are not long, she is his first clue that magic, chaos, and evil are real, tangible things in the world/time.

Then there is Morgan Le Fey. She is Holger's former lover in a past life, and she is the main antagonist. She is a representative of the "Old Ways," the paganism of Europe, dying out in the face of rising Christianity. She is also representative of chaos, evil, and magic. Where the old hag is evil and ugly, Morgan Le Fey is evil and beautiful. Representing that evil does come in many guises and our hero needs to recognize that.

The battle is a parallel of the one Holger left in his time, World War II.

Both witches represent the two types of witches most often seen: the old Satanic Hag and the beautiful Pagan. Both, however, represent evil and mostly Chaos. 

The notion of Paganism/Old Ways versus Christianity is a recurring theme in Anderson's other significant Appendix N book.

The Broken Sword (1954/1971)

The Broken Sword gives us a much darker, more primal vision of witchcraft. 

Here we get another hag-witch who is close enough to the elves and trolls to have dealings with them, but is also very explicitly Satanic. She lives in a run-down cottage/hut, deals with the dark forces of evil, and has a talking rat familiar. Honestly, she could even be the same witch if so many years were not between them.

She also tempts our main antagonist, the Changeling Valgard, by glamouring herself into a beautiful woman. It is her desire for vengeance that sets the plot into motion. 

Like Three Hearts, the Witch, and she never is given a proper name, is a force of evil and chaos. Also like Three Hearts, the story centers around the battle between Pagans and Christianity, which Anderson casts here as Evil/Chaos vs Good/Law, respectively.

The elves and trolls of The Broken Sword are more similar to each other; both are forces of Chaos, for example, and an elf/troll child is a Changeling. Their magic is also described as akin to witchcraft ("witchsight" allows humans to see the world of faerie) and to the witchcraft the old hag employs. Many elves and trolls have "Warlocks" in their ranks.

Here, also, the big Pagans vs. Christians war takes a back seat to two warring factions of Pagans, the Elves/Faerie and the Trolls/Giants. The interaction our protagonist Valgard has with the displaced Faun is very telling. This area of England/British Isles is one of the last holdouts of the Pagan ways. 

The mixing of the various mythologies, Norse, Irish, Welsh, British, and Greek, is very D&D. 

That Last Half

I joked above, 2.5 books in Appendix N. The ".5" is "The High Crusade" which is more appropriately a Science Fiction or Science Fantasy novel. I didn't include it here because, simply, I have not read it. 

A Note About Trolls

Three Hearts and Three Lions is notable for giving us the "D&D Troll," but the ones in The Broken Sword are much more interesting. Yes, they are ugly and brutish, but they are also smarter, and while they have enough similarities to elves to produce offspring (with the help of magic), they are explicitly related to the Jotun of Norse myth. 

Closing Thoughts

Anderson gives us some compelling stories. While not explicitly set in the same world, they are also not not the same world. His epic war of Good vs. Evil, Law vs. Chaos, is something that rings loudly even today in all editions of D&D. His wars of Christians vs. Pagans ring loudly to me.

His witches are less characters and more caricatures at times, but this fits into the world view these books have: the witches are just pawns and tools. Even when they have agency, their fate is already predetermined.

The entire time I was reading The Broken Sword, I could not help but wonder why witches didn't play a more prominent role in the game. Of course, the reason is simple. I was reading this looking for witches and not the larger themes. Gary, I assume, read these and saw the cosmic battle of Law vs. Chaos.  

None of the witches in these two tales would make for good Player Characters. They would, however, make for great NPCs using the Dragon Magazine witch class. 

In the AD&D Player's Handbook, it is mentioned that the Druid class is the same as the pre-Christian (not Gary's words) druid that has survived to Medieval times. If this is the case then certainly other "pagans" have survived. The witches of Poul Anderson certainly could be among those numbers.  

October Horror Movie Marathon 2025

 It's October-eve, and that means big things here at The Other Side. I'm starting my Horror Movie Marathon here in a bit. And my theme this year is ... no theme at all! That's right, I am just going to watch horror movies as I find them, as they come to me, or however they get here. I plan to watch all the movies in The Conjuring universe and the movies in the Insidious series, too. 

Really looking forward to this month.

Monstrous Mondays: Archangels

 I was looking for an idea to post today and saw that it was Michaelmas. Now I am not Catholic (I am not even a Christian, or a believer) but I thought this was a good excuse to round out my hierarchies of angels both for my Occult D&D project and for my Basic Bestiary.

A Word About My Basic Bestiary

This one is taking a bit. I am climbing the dual mountains of editing close to 400 monsters AND finding good art for them. I am funding the art myself, as I don't want to rely on crowdfunding for this. 

Angels

I have talked about the various angels and related creatures in my games before. 

• Monstrous Mondays: Angels
• Monstrous Mondays: The Agathós (and other Angels)
• Monstrous Mondays: Starchild (Occult D&D)

What I want to do is create groupings of various good-aligned outsiders (Celestials) and assign them hierarchies similar to those found in the lower planes. Angels, then, are the Lawful Good-aligned Celestials. 

The trick has been finding the right way to group them all, figure out the hierarchies as the Medieval scholars would have classified them, AND (and maybe the most important) find something that works well for the games I play.

The Archangels

The generals of Heaven's armies are the seven Archangels. While some scholars equate an archangel to a particular layer of the Seven Heavens, this is not really the case.  Of these seven, St. Michael is considered to be their leader and the most powerful. 

ARCHANGEL MICHAEL
General of the Heavenly Hosts

FREQUENCY: Unique
NO. APPEARING: 1
ARMOR CLASS: –6
MOVE: 24”/36” (flying)
HIT DICE: 22 (231 hp)
% IN LAIR: Nil
TREASURE TYPE: Special (holy relics only)
NO. OF ATTACKS: 3 (flaming Holy Avenger sword +6)
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1d12 + 12 (STR and magic bonuses) + 1d8 fire per hit +6d6 damage to the "unholy."
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Holy Word at will; spell-like abilities as a 22nd-level cleric; Voice of Authority (as Command on all evil within 60’, no save vs. 6 HD or less); Haste 3/day; may summon 2–20 angels once per day.
SPECIAL DEFENSES: +2 or better weapon to hit; immune to fire, lightning, charm, petrification, poison, death magic; regenerates 3 hp/round; 90% magic resistance.
MAGIC RESISTANCE: 90%
INTELLIGENCE: Supra-genius (25)
ALIGNMENT: Lawful Good
SIZE: Huge (9’–10’ tall)
PSIONIC ABILITY: 350
— Attack/Defense Modes: All/All

“I have seen demons in their true forms, nightmare creatures born in dreams of madmen, and even sat in the galleries of a diabolic auction to bid back a mortal soul from the clutches of a Duke of Hell. I have faced things that should have unmade me, yet I walked away with laughter still on my lips.

But when Michael appeared, when the sky split as if dawn had come at midnight, my laughter died. I had thought devils horrific, but they are at least comprehensible: greedy, ambitious, vile. The Archangel is none of these things, and that is what made him terrifying. His presence was like a storm that judged the worth of every breath I had ever drawn. His eyes pierced every spell, every secret and lie I had cloaked myself in, and for a moment, I was naked in truth before the heavens. And he saw all. 

I confess, the most dreadful creature I have ever faced was not a demon or a devil or some abomination from beyond the veils of reality, but the Archangel himself. Not because he is cruel, but because he is absolute and just.”

- From the Journal of Larina Nix

Michael is one of the seven archangels and the greatest warrior among them. He appears as a towering, armored figure of radiant fire, bearing a great Holy Avenger that burns with divine light. His voice alone can turn entire legions of fiends.

When encountered, Michael is always on a mission of cosmic import, never idly wandering the planes. He may be summoned only by direct decree of the highest divine power. In battle, Michael is the equal and opposite of the greatest demon princes and arch-devils, such as Demogorgon or Asmodeus.

Michael is the war-leader of Heaven, the one who cast down Lucifer in the First Rebellion, and who wields the flaming sword at the threshold of Paradise. He is invoked in exorcisms, called upon as protector of the dying, and hailed as the angel of judgment. In many myths, Michael weighs the souls of the dead upon golden scales, determining whether they ascend or fall.

Unlike other celestials who guide, heal, or inspire, Michael exists to fight. His presence is a living reminder that the heavens themselves are not pacifistic, but hold a sword against the darkness. He embodies both the mercy of the divine and the implacable wrath of cosmic law.

The sword borne by Michael is no ordinary weapon, but a Holy Avenger of such potency that it channels his immense strength and divine fire together. Each strike inflicts 1d12 damage, to which both his +6 Strength bonus and +6 enchantment bonus are added, followed by an additional 1d8 points of searing flame. Against demons, devils, undead, and those faerie creatures which are inimical to Law and Good, the sword delivers an additional 6d6 points of radiant destruction. Few beings can withstand even a single blow.

Michael’s arsenal of powers extends beyond his martial prowess. He may utter a Holy Word at will, casting down evil beings as if by the decree of heaven itself. His Voice of Authority compels obedience in all creatures of non-good alignment within 60 feet, with no saving throw allowed for those of 6 hit dice or less. In battle, he moves with preternatural swiftness, able to Haste himself and his allies thrice per day, and once per day, he may summon an entire host of angels (2–20, of any order) to his side.

In defense, Michael is nearly unassailable. Only enchanted weapons of +2 or better may harm him. He is wholly immune to fire, lightning, charm, petrification, poison, and all death-dealing magics. His body regenerates 3 hit points per round even if dismembered or disintegrated, so long as a spark of his divine essence remains. In addition, he possesses a 90% magic resistance, rendering most spells against him useless.

To mortals, the sight of Michael is awe beyond bearing. His radiance is said to blind the unworthy, and even those of good heart find their voices stolen in his presence. Against him, demon princes falter, and arch-devils bow in bitter hatred.

Michael as a Patron of Celestial Warlocks

Unlike the dark bargains made with demons and devils, pacts with Archangel Michael are covenants rather than contracts. The warlock does not “steal” or “bind” power from him; instead, Michael bestows divine might upon the worthy as part of their service to the Cause of Law and Good. Such warlocks are sometimes called Knights of the Flame or Champions of the Dawn.

The requirements and duties of the Warlock of St. Michael are so strict that few can adhere to them. 

Requirements

Alignment: Lawful Good. Any deviation severs the pact.

Vows: The warlock must swear oaths of courage, protection of the innocent, and resistance to evil in all its forms. They may never knowingly ally with demons, devils, or the unseelie fae.

Service: At least once per year, the warlock must undertake a holy quest of Michael’s choosing (via vision, angelic messenger, or dream).

Gifts of Michael

Warlocks in covenant with Michael receive invocations suited to battle and the banishment of evil:

(Minimum level in parentheses.)

Radiant Smite (1st): Once per day per level, the warlock’s weapon shines with holy fire, dealing +1d6 radiant damage to undead, demons, devils, or evil faerie creatures.

Shield of the Host (3rd): The warlock may call upon angelic warding, granting them protection from evil 10’ radius for 1 turn once per day.

Voice of Command (5th): Once per day, the warlock may issue a single-word command (as the spell Command), affecting all evil creatures of 6 HD or less within 30’.

Flame of Michael (7th): The warlock may invoke Michael’s light, striking a foe with 3d6 holy fire (save vs. spells for half). Usable once per week.

Summon the Dawn (9th+): Once per month, the warlock may summon a single Agathós (Aurora, Astral, or Lunar) to aid them for 1 turn per caster level.

Drawbacks

Michael is implacable in judgment. Warlocks who deviate from his vows may find their powers withdrawn instantly. Should they betray their covenant or consort with the unholy, Michael himself may appear, not as a teacher, but as an executioner.