History Literature / Pact

* CanadaEh: Pact takes place in wildbow's native Canada within the fictional town of Jacob's Bell and in the real life city of Toronto.

* BigBadDuumvirate: Mann, Levin, and Lewis are an OccultLawFirm of diabolists who work to provide demons with a greater foothold on reality. The firm's partners--represented primarily by Ms. Lewis--have a special interest in ensuring that the Thorburn line joins them, which spurred Rose Sr. to concoct a complex scheme [[spoiler:to posthumously deny the lawyers more power by eliminating her bloodline. Barbatorem, the demon that she used to create Blake and Rose Jr. for this plot, is a passive but equally important threat whose infernal powers twist the pair into incessantly fighting and mistrusting one another, and his mere presence in Jacob's Bell is what motivates Faysal to plunge the town into the Abyss. Once the demon possesses Johannes and Rose refuses to join the firm, Ms. Lewis allies with Barbatorem so that the latter can claim ruinous Lordship over Jacob's Bell.]]

There exists a short story spinoff, ''[[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bPsZs1iPqHAcsJr4N7UgW-W7Ne4OCTtUjfvcxIoBmdI/edit?usp=sharing Poke]]'', which takes place afterwards. On May 5, 2020, Wildbow released a new full web novel set in the same universe, ''Literature/{{Pale}}''. In February 2022, Wilbow released another Pact short story spinoff, ''Literature/{{Pate}}''.

* BigBadDuumvirate: Mann, Levin, and Lewis are an OccultLawFirm of diabolists who work to provide demons with a greater foothold on reality. The firm's partners--represented primarily by Ms. Lewis--have a special interest in ensuring that the Thorburn line joins them, which spurned Rose Sr. to concoct a complex scheme [[spoiler:to posthumously deny the lawyers more power by eliminating her bloodline. Barbatorem, the demon that she used to create Blake and Rose Jr. for this plot, is a passive but equally important threat whose infernal powers twist the pair into incessantly fighting and mistrusting one another, and his mere presence in Jacob's Bell is what motivates Faysal to plunge the town into the Abyss. Once the demon possesses Johannes and Rose refuses to join the firm, Ms. Lewis allies with Barbatorem so that the latter can claim ruinous Lordship over Jacob's Bell.]]

* BigBadDuumvirate: Mann, Levin, and Lewis are an OccultLawFirm of diabolists who sold their souls to demons and now work to provide them a greater foothold on reality, with a special interest in ensuring the Thorburn diabolist line joins them. [[spoiler:Once the Thorburns firmly reject the lawyers' offer in the climax, Ms. Lewis joins forces with Barbatorem--the demon that Rose Sr. used to create Blake and Rose Jr.--and aids him as he possesses Johannes in an attempt to claim Lordship over Jacob's Bell, intent on seeing the town plunged into ruin.]]

* OurDemonsAreDifferent: Demons and Devils come in seven different choirs: Choir of Dark, Choir of Chaos, Choir of Ruin, Choir of Madness, Choir of the Feral (Pauz, and his sire, Marquis Andras), Choir of Sin ([[SuccubiAndIncubi Succubus from Black Lamb's Blood interlude]]), and Choir of Unrest ([[Literature/ArsGoetia Agares]]). All of them act to damage and diminish the world in one way or another-to summon one is to damage the world itself.

** Ghosts are [[LivingMemory Psychic impression]] left on the world, with traumas being the key ones that remain, although moments of sheer brilliance can be there, too. They tend to be single-minded, repeat actions or sentences in loops and whatever sensation gripped them spreads around, such as June Burlison's death by hypothermia giving her a cold aura in death. There are the odd exceptions to the "stuck record" rule, though. If somebody passes without having their soul moved along by the usual means ''and'' leaves an imprint at the same time, occurrences like Evan happen where the ghost is quite a bit less on-script than the average and capable of acquiring some updates on their routine. [[spoiler: And whatever is happening with Molly is also decidedly off-script.]]

* OurGiantsAreDifferent: The creations of gods, few are left in the modern age, though Johannes has managed to get one under his thumb.
* OurGoblinsAreDifferent:

* BigBadDuumvirate: Mann, Levin, and Lewis are an OccultLawFirm of diabolists who sold their souls to demons and now work to provide them a greater foothold on reality, with a special interest in ensuring the Thorburn diabolist line joins them. [[spoiler:Once the Thorburns firmly reject the lawyers' offer in the climax, Ms. Lewis joins forces with Barbatorem--the demon that Rose Sr. used to create Blake and Rose Jr.--who possesses Johannes and attempts to plunge Jacob's Bell into ruin by claiming Lordship over the town.]]

* BigBadDuumvirate: Mann, Levin, and Lewis are an OccultLawFirm of diabolists who sold their souls to demons and now work to provide them a greater foothold on reality, with a special interest in ensuring the Thorburn diabolist line joins them. [[spoiler:Once the Thorburns firmly reject the lawyers' offer in the climax, Ms. Lewis joins forces with Barbatorem, the demon Rose Sr. used to create Blake and Rose Jr., who possesses Johannes and attempts to claim Lordship over Jacob's Bell.]]

* RulesLawyer: Sometimes the rules regarding truth and lies can be fudged a bit if you're clever. When we first see someone declared forsworn, he is told that he has the opporunity to defend himself against that accusation, implying that if he was able to spin things a certain way, he could get out of it. Unfortunately, he cannot. Frequently, we see our protagonists try to argue the logic of the rules one way or another to get out of possible trouble.

''Pact'' is a [[UrbanFantasy modern supernatural]] {{horror}} story by Creator/{{Wildbow}}, centered on Blake Thorburn, a young man who returns after a long absence from his dysfunctional family when his wealthy, terminally-ill grandmother calls the family together to appoint an heir. After her death, Blake discovers that she has been keeping a secret that puts him and the rest of his family in grave danger. Started on December 17th, 2013, this WebSerialNovel is the author's second, following the popular superhero serial ''Literature/{{Worm}}''. It can be found [[http://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/ here.]]

* BigBadDuumvirate: Mann, Levin, and Lewis is an OccultLawFirm of diabolists who sold their souls to demons and now work to provide them a greater foothold on reality, with a special interest in ensuring the Thorburn diabolist line joins them. [[spoiler:Once the Thorburns firmly reject the lawyers' offer in the climax, Ms. Lewis joins forces with Barbatorem, the demon Rose Sr. used to create Blake and Rose Jr., who possesses Johannes and attempts to claim Lordship over Jacob's Bell.]]

* HornyDevils: One of these appeared in ''Gathered Pages: 4'', a member from the sixth choir that ran a BreedingCult that promoted incest of all kinds. The number of HillbillyHorrors rose in the country because of its presence.

* OurDemonsAreDifferent: Demons and Devils come in seven different choirs: Choir of Dark, Choir of Chaos, Choir of Ruin, Choir of Madness, Choir of the Feral (Pauz, and his sire, Marquis Andras), Choir of Sin ([[HornyDevils Succubus from Black Lamb's Blood interlude]]), and Choir of Unrest ([[Literature/ArsGoetia Agares]]). All of them act to damage and diminish the world in one way or another-to summon one is to damage the world itself.

* WeaponOfChoice: A Practitioner's implement, though it is less of a weapon and more of their tool-of-the-trade. The choice of implement can tell you a lot about what a Practitioner does; if they in fact choose an ''actual'' weapon, that makes a statement to the world that they intend to use their powers for violence.

*** A third mentioned in the story, [[TheLostWoods The Forest]], manages to scare the bogeyman that spawned it on mention. And she's so terrifying on her own everything else usually runs from her. Make of that what you will.