This is the first episode I’ve written where I decided to build it around a real life concept that most folks deal with when growing up and going to college – debt. I originally got the idea when Hillary (Ileana’s player) mentioned that she wanted to see about getting some funds to reopen the local magic shop. As I thought about credit and my own struggle to be debt free I started expanding on the idea on how evil credit lenders can be regarding how they prey on college students. After graduation, students find themselves with such a heap of debt that it’s almost as if they sold their souls for the privilege of living outside of their means.
That’s when the idea hit me to have a demon banker who specializes in giving out money in exchange for a person’s soul. Of course, such a contract would have to be mired in legalese to hide such a deal but that shouldn’t be hard. Who actually takes the time to read all that complicated lingo, anyways? Since most binding contracts with demon supposedly require blood I contrived a special pen that nicks the signer causing a drop to fall upon the paper when it’s signed. It’s hokey I know but it’s also very Buffyesque.
As for how souls are collected, I decided to go with the classic grim reaper figure. It wouldn’t really be a demon that would be summoned, more of an entity since the grim reaper should be able to appear nearly anywhere. It was also fun expanding the Grim Reaper lore as a creature that is key to retrieving souls when a person’s “time is up” due to some demonic contract. However, in case it came down to the gang having to deal mano y reaper, I decided to borrow a page from Supernatural (the TV series) and say that they can be warded off with special herbs but it was a temporary solution to put off the inevitable if one’s time was truly up.
This was also one of the first episodes where I personally did not have a plan on how the gang would save the day and deal with the tricky contracts that the demon banker possessed. I had them worded where souls would be lost if the issuer of the contracts (the demon) was killed so they couldn’t just knock him off. Of course the contracts were safely secured “somewhere” and he had no incentive to just hand them over. So, after a run in with the banker they decided to go to mommy dearest for assistance. I hadn’t really considered the option but after thinking about it for a bit I came up with a great idea that I don’t want to spoil. Needless to say, mom came through for her boys and their friends but it came with a price that may have them wondering if they came out ahead in the end!
