Demon

The original infernal beings.

Basics

• Taxonomic Order: Illittum

• Alignment: Infernal

• Energy: Infernum

• Lifespan: 2,000 years

• Diet: Souls and meat

• Habitat: Infernal Realms

Origins

The souls of the wicked dead who choose to become demons as a chance to gain inmortal power.

Description

Demons vary drastically in appearance. Individual demons may appear human or like some amalgamation of mortal, animal, and other living things, or as raw energy, empty vessels of armor, angelic figures, clouds of energy, invisible, and more.

Form is often determined by the role they take, the number of souls they have consumed, their rank in a court, and their individual preferences.

Procreation

Demons either procreate sexually with each other, with other infernal illittum, or with mortals whom they contract to be able to reproduce. The offspring are always demons, though with mortals, the offspring are specific half-demons. New demons may also form when someone dies and goes to the Infernal Realms then chooses to become a demon by infusing their inmortal souls with infernum. Hellborn demons may stop being demons if they act unselfishly, but they never do. If they ever do, they will become the species their original demonic ancestors were before transformation or angels.

Half-Demons

There are three kinds of half-demons:

• Cambion: a cambion begins life as a stillbirth, with no breath or pulse, and exists this way for about seven years until such time as they begin to become indistinguishable from normal children, other than their supernatural beauty.A cambion begins life as a stillbirth, with no breath or pulse, and exists this way for about seven years until such time as they begin to become indistinguishable from mortal children, other than their supernatural beauty.

• Nephil: (pl. nephilim) nephilim generally appear to be beautiful versions of their non-demonic parents' species. They are born as if they were normal mortals, but they grow up with strange infernal powers that manifest uncontrollably.

• Salpsanian: Salpsanians are born from extremely powerful demons and have the ability to control the minds of others. They appear to be the same species as their mortal parent, but with horns and red eyes.

Powers

Demons can have almost any infernal power. Depending on how many souls they have consumed and what kind, they may have anything from one to 666 powers.

Some examples of powers include the following:

• Infernal flames that damage the soul as a breath weapon, something they can ignite in their palms, unleash from their eyes, etc.

• Soul-poisoning weaponry such as claws, spines, fangs, or held weapons like spears and swords.

• Soulstealing gaze or bites.

• Paralyzing touch or a touch that causes other effects.

• Physical alterations of their own form.

• Control or influence over others.

• Infernal reflections of the elements - infernal waters that are poisonous, infernal lightning or fire, infernal winds, etc.

• Illusions or glamours or other forms of deception.

And so on. Consult the GM with ideas.

Contracts

All demons are capable of making a contract wherein they can offer almost anything in exchange for souls. The contracts they create always have loopholes, outright lies, and other deceptions designed to favor the demon. The requirements for summoning demons or contracting with them can be found on the demonologer page.

Though demons create byzantine contracts in the hopes of stealing the contractee’s soul, they are still bound to the contract. They must fulfill it or risk losing a great deal of power. However, if they find a way to get out of it within their own complex rules, they gain even more power. As such, they are always looking for an advantage. If the demonologer wins, they may even end up enslaved.

Souls

Some souls, when devoured, give demons specific powers or forms. This can be based on many, many factors, including the species, occupation, faith, or experiences of the soul.

Some examples include the following:

• Beings with infernal powers, faith, or from infernal species give demons greater infernal powers.

• Beings with celestial powers, faith, or from celestial species who have been corrupted or who have taken a path of the damned give demons immense powers which sometimes mimic celestial powers - i.e., an evil version of healing.

• Beings with celestial powers, faith, or from celestial species who are pure might be protected from being consumed by demons. If the demon succeeds in consuming them, however, they gain greater infernal powers that sometimes directly combat celestial powers - i.e., powers that harm angels or coeligians.

• Beings with aetherial powers, faith, or from aetherial species who have been corrupted or who have taken a path of the damned give demons immense powers which sometimes mimic aetherial powers - i.e., an evil version of flame.

• Beings with aetherial powers, faith, or from aetherial species who are pure might be protected from being consumed by demons. If the demon succeeds in consuming them, however, they gain greater infernal powers that sometimes directly combat celestial powers - i.e., powers that harm viridianites or ka’ar.

• Beings with poioumenonic powers, faith, or from poioumenonic species who have been corrupted or who have taken a path of the damned give demons immense powers which sometimes mimic poioumenonic powers - i.e., an evil version of fate.

• Beings with poioumenonic powers, faith, or from poioumenonic species who are pure might be protected from being consumed by demons. If the demon succeeds in consuming them, however, they gain greater infernal powers that sometimes directly combat poioumenonic powers - i.e., powers that harm fairies or jinn.

• Beings with unaligned powers, faith, or from unaligned species have no protections against demons, whether they are damned or not. The damned give demons more power, but the non-damned still give demons power. They are considered, however, generally neutral - they just give raw power rather than anything specific unless the being is exceptionally powerful. Then and only then they might give a specific unaligned power to the demon.

Note that demons can survive entirely on meat. They choose to eat souls for power.

Weaknesses

Celeste water douses their infernal essence. Celestial and aetherial energies can harm them. Poioumenonic energies may bind them.

Nations

There are hundreds of nations of demons existing within different courts (some nations exist across multiple courts). Some common nations include the following:

• Alal: ancient incubus nation commonly part of the Seventh Court.

• Avaritan: the fourth circle dwellers (greed). Commonly part of the Second Court.

• Bies: a demon nation that emigrated from the Infernal Realms to Vesturia and most of northern Ranu. Commonly part of the Fourth Court.

• Blood demon: a demonic nation with a cultural preference for devouring blood along with souls, often found in Endruin. Commonly part of the Second Court.

• Catademon: dwellers in the Catacombs. Commonly part of the First or Fifth Court.

• Cocytian: the ninth circle demons (treachery). Often in the First, Third, or Ninth Court.

• Dysian: an elite nation in the fifth circle. Often in the First Court.

• Elioud: the Elioud are a nation of nephilim living on Shem.

• Everfellians: dwellers in Everfell. Always in the Third Court.

• Goetian: the original nation of demons. They are in every Court, but most are First Court.

• Grey demon: dwellers in the Grey Lands. Always in the Sixth Court.

• Infernian: the third circle dwellers (gluttony). Commonly in the Second or Fourth Court.

• Jahanni: dwellers throughout the Infernal Realms who are hated in Mahadi religions.

• Laceran: dwellers in the Rending. Always in the Twelfth Court.

• Malebolgean: the eighth circle demons (fraud). Commonly in the Second or Third Court.

• Mazzikim: invisible demons wandering the world.

• Null demon: dwellers in the Void. Always in the Eleventh Court.

• Obeliskian: dwellers in the Broken Obelisk. Often in the Fourth, Fifth, Tenth, and Twelfth Courts.

• Octallon: an elite nation in the eighth circle, in the deepest trench. Always in the Fifth Court.

• Pandemonian: dwellers in the Abyss. Always in the Tenth Court.

• Phlegethonian: the seventh circle demons (violence). Often in the Fifth Court.

• Pit demon: dwellers in The Pit or of the sixth circle (heresy). Always in the Ninth Court.

• Tartaran: punishers of the wicked. Often in the First or Fifth Court.

• Tentigan: the second circle dwellers (lust). Often in the Seventh Court.

• Styxian: the fifth circle demons (wrath). Often in the Fifth Court.

• Udug: (pl. utukku) ancient demons of great power dwelling in a separate Infernal Realm, common in Srisia. Always in the Third Court.

• Vile demon: dwellers in the Infernal bogs. Always in the Seventh Court.

No demons dwell in Limbo, the first circle of the Infernal Realms.

Courts

There are twelve infernal courts, each one centered on a different set of infernal energies, which represent the political factions of the Infernal Realms:

• First Infernal Court: the original demons, purely made from infernum.

• Second Infernal Court: the parasitic rulers who wield quaestus and drenante.

• Third Infernal Court: the manipulative and deceptive rulers who wield gossamer light, bedrog, and stravomenos.

• Fourth Infernal Court: the tyrannical rulers who wield tandh, hollow energy, razdavit’, imperium, fusei, feirua, and corrogatio.

• Fifth Infernal Court: the tormentors who wield arnum, mollesse, cacophony, baleblood, and uafas.

• Sixth Infernal Court: the corrupters who wield msawhat and pravum.

• Seventh Infernal Court: the arrogant and prideful rulers who wield thorn energy, desumane, and peccatum.

• Eighth Infernal Court: the foul wielders of brown aether and vile energy.

• Ninth Infernal Court: the oathbreakers who wield blasphemy.

• Tenth Infernal Court: the disastrous wielders of misfortune, ibbissu, and sterisi.

• Eleventh Infernal Court: the negative wielders of the void.

• Twelfth Infernal Court: the eschatonic wielders of slitna and Eldritch energy.

Culture

The main culture of demons comes from Goetians. They dwell throughout the circles of the Hells, but their center of power is the city-state that spans the second through ninth circles in Malumacus, a massive needle-like spire.

Goetians, like most demons, are toxically individualistic. As beings formed from mortals who chose demonhood for power, they use their demonhood for the same. “Every demon for themself” is the law of the nation. However, those who are weaker either ally themselves with more powerful demons to survive or are enslaved by them, and therefore, groupings do occur.

The hierarchy of Malumacus is based on ancient feudal hierarchies:

• Regum: the kings.

• Duces: the dukes.

• Principes: the princes.

• Marchiones: the marquises.

• Comitum: the counts.

• Milites: the knights.

• Praesides: the presidents (equivalent to the dean of a university).

These ranks are determined not by role (see below), but by the individual power of the demon. No demons are willingly subservient to others, however, so most demons will alter their role before they take a higher rank within Malumacus - i.e., a slave will become a warrior so as to not be a slave and a king at the same time. If a demon has no rank in this hierarchy, they are a slave or a commoner.

Most kings are archdemons, except for the rare few who are fallen angels.

When a new Goetian is birthed or formed, they are immediately conscious and aware, capable of violence, and having powers they can wield. If they are formed, they have mortal instincts to guide them as well; if they are birthed, they are born with an instinct to preserve themselves. Either way, they are cast out into the streets and expected to fight to survive. If they survive long enough to seem capable of anything useful, they are usually captured and made into a slave. If they live longer and gain more power, they may find a way to survive as an imp or even join the military.

Competition for survival is ruthless. Demons will steal food from each other, eat each other outright (gaining all the souls the demon they ate had), or trick each other for power. They rarely band together, using every trick in the book not to work together, and if they do, they betray each other quickly. “Do as thou wilt” is taken to its extreme. Nothing is considered wrong, but kindness or selflessness are seen as weakness.

If they gain enough power, they use it to take slaves of their own. They control others through fear and violence. They seek constantly to gain rank and power. If they gain enough power, they attempt to take over all of Malumacus. There is constant warfare within the city.

Art is unknown except as a means to spread misinformation, lies, and terror. The powerful create distractions and vices to control the weak. The only work to do is tormenting souls, building things for the powerful, or servitude. Some are tasked with caring for infernal beasts or plants, and others are tasked with trade. Most end up in the military or doing bizarre tasks for the powerful. Entertainments usually focus on cruelty to others, exploitative promises never fulfilled for comedy, or divisive messaging.

Demons who cannot find souls to eat subsist on meat. Gathering, hunting, or finding meat is a major part of the survival of weaker demons; more powerful demons eat a few souls and do not have to eat for years (though they often glut themselves to gain power more quickly).

The goal of every demon is to become inmortal; some achieve a form of this by transferring their souls to new bodies once they become too old. Some actually ascend, but they are rare, archdemons whose power is unmatchable. Most die within a few years, some live to be old. In old age, they become victims.

Roles

Every court (not nation) has a hierarchy that includes the following:

• Vigilans: fallen angels, the most powerful demons, always Aeonians. Demons formed when angels fell. They are above all other demons. They are the original demons, angels who chose to betray Heaven. One may not become an fallen angel from below.

• Archdemons: royalty, the rulers of any court, always Aeonians. Demons with a million souls or more.

• Shaitani: nobles, highest ranking non-Aeonian demons, rulers and administrators. Demons who have worked their way up the chain through manipulation, violence, and cunning, putting combat behind them in favor of working the system. They are still capable of physical violence, however.

• Gladiodemons: elite warriors who head the military. Gladiodemons have enough physical and esoteric might to command weaker demons, win many battles, and devour other demons with many souls, thus gaining thousands of souls at once.

• Gallu: those who hunt souls, mortals, or beasts. Gallus are demons who have enough power to go into the mortal realm to directly hunt mortals, fully bodied and capable of violence.

• Incubi: tempters, those who seduce or tempt mortals with power, wealth, or pleasures. Demons who either skipped being cacodemons because seduction and temptation were better options for them or who rose from cacodemon to this role after gaining enough power. They have more power than torturers and thus have enough to go into the mortal realm in a weaker fashion wherein they have to rely on seduction or tempting offers rather than violence.

• Cacodemons: torturers, those who torment the wicked dead. Demons strong enough not to have to risk their lives in the military and strong enough to find a cushy job tormenting souls, thus gaining access to a lot of souls to gain power with. Usually fiends or infernaires who seek to retire.

• Infernaires: warriors in the infernal militaries who ride infernal beasts. Infernaires are elite in the military, the cavalry of the military. They are sometimes fiends who gained enough power to raise themselves up or made a deal. Sometimes an imp skips a step and gains enough power to take this rank.

• Fiends: infantry or foot-soldiers in the infernal militaries. Some imps or even misophaeses make deals to become fiends, seeing the military as a chance to gain access to more souls and thus more power. Stronger fiends are sometimes called “greater fiends” or “archfiends” and serve as middle-ranking officers.

• Imps: free demons with little power who seek power. These are commoners with little to no power; they seek to devour soils so they might become more powerful. Sometimes called “demifiends”.

• Misophaes: slaves, weak demons enslaved by more powerful demons. The only demons who are slaves are those too weak to be anything else.

• Beluas: infernal animals, plants, fungi, or other non-conscious beings. Beluas remain beluas no matter what - they are not self-aware and exist because someone did not devour enough souls to exist as anything else.

National Cultures

The other demonic nations’ cultures are similar, but have these variations:

• Alal: a nation almost entirely composed of incubi who wander and tempt mortals.

• Avaritan: Avaritans enjoy sports, especially hastiludium, a form of joust involving heavy weights pushed with their chests. The souls there are forced to do this for their entertainment. In the fourth circle, they are a capitalist empire of gold and diamonds just out of reach of the commoners and slaves. They live in splendor and exploit the weak.

• Bies: depending on the era, the bisy (plural form of bies) dwell in the forests and fringes of northern Ranic cultures, or they dwell as equals and part of the ruling class there.

• Blood demon: a powerful nation that dwells among the dreordomne of Endruin. They adopt the culture of that empire.

• Catademon: catademonic culture is focused on punishing souls for power. They are taught that the souls of the damned are there to be punished and that if they fail at it, they will be devoured by the horrors of the Catacombs. There is some truth to this, as this is how they derive power.

• Cocytian: the demons of the ninth circle live in an icy lake region wherein those whose sin of treachery is punished by being frozen in rings of the lake. The demons themselves live in complexes of splendor and attend to the politics of all infernal realms in the Stagnum Infernal, the parliament of all demons.

• Dysian: the demons tasked with guardian Dys, the city that encompasses the inner circles of the Hells, are an elite nation almost entirely made up of warriors.

• Elioud: a much-feared nation on Shem, dwelling throughout Ansulym, always members of the ruling class.

• Everfellians: Everfell is an Infernal Realm created by lies and deceptions, and the demons there practice these well.

• Grey demon: the Grey Lands are where the undead come from and go, and the demons from there wield necromantic arts. They are focused on creating new undead as their minions as much as for food.

• Infernian: the third circle is a land of slush created by icy rains wherein sinners are harmed constantly by three-headed worms. The demons of this realm are cruel, disgusting, and survivalists, relegated here because they are too weak to live better. The Infernian nation is a nation of outcasts and nomads.

• Jahanni: Jahannis once ruled all the Hells before being ousted by other demons, and thus, their nation is present everywhere. Their culture reflects certain Mahadi beliefs about demons for they most often interact with Mahadis.

• Laceran: the Lacerans are a demonic nation in the Rending devoted to making it spread. They often break morags and hexars free and send them hurtling through space.

• Malebolgean: Malebolge is a series of ditches where the damned are punished for frauds in the living realms. The Malebolgeans are often involved in punishing them, but they are more often involved in complex series of political games within the city around the ditches. They are power-players and manipulators.

• Mazzikim: demons who have entered the mortal realms and wander invisibly, causing harm.

• Null demon: the demons of the void are so alien their culture is inexplicable. They wander individually, absorbing other energies, and singing strange songs that cannot be heard.

• Obeliskian: in the Broken Obelisk, demons engage themselves in intense intra-Court warfare, games and sports, and torments. It is a place of extreme violence where only the most powerful survive. The Obeliskians play war games, challenge each other for power, and raise great armies.

• Octallon: the Octallons are massive demons of enormous power, eight-armed giants bound to the central well of the eighth circle, the entrance to the final circle, and punishers of the damned. They are devoted to building the great machine of perfect perdition and pay little heed to anything else.

• Pandemonian: the wildness and chaos of the Abyss defines Pandemonian demons, whose forms are unstable and whose minds follow suit. They are anarchic and intrusive, violent and unpredictable.

• Phlegethonian: Phlegethonians dwell within the seventh circle and are masters of violence, a great warrior nation of immense power.

• Pit demon: the demons of The Pit and the sixth circle are devotees of a faith so intense, one of hatred for the Divine, and they exist entirely as zealots ready to annihilate all beings of faith.

• Tartaran: a nation found anywhere the damned may be found, Tartarans serve as the primary punishers of the damned. They are a nation of dogmatists who believe in the rightness of their work.

• Tentigan: hedonistic demons who live in a realm of splendor in spite of the filth around them. They create the entertainments other demons so admire.

• Styxian: swamp-dwelling warrior nation devoted to ultraviolence.

• Udug: ancient demons of great power who are considered the most cunning. They work with the ruling class of Srisia on great schemes.

• Vile demon: a vile nation devoted to sludge and pestilence, creators of diseases, vectors of the same.

Politics

Each court has their own political agendas:

• First Infernal Court: the goal of the First Infernal Court is to destroy the Celestial Realms. They are prevented from this by the constant internal warfare that prevents them from uniting as a mass unit against heaven’s power.

• Second Infernal Court: the goal of the Second Eternal Court is the exploitation of infernal resources to gain power over mortality. They are prevented from this by their internal conflict and constant rivalry with other Courts.

• Third Infernal Court: the goal of the Third Infernal Court is a secret kept only by its fallen angels and archdemons.

• Fourth Infernal Court: the goal of the Fourth Infernal Court is conquest of the mortal realm through direct warfare, and onwards to all other realms. They fail at this because of the intracourt violence and the use of unstable governmental structures.

• Fifth Infernal Court: the goal of the Fifth Infernal Court is to achieve perfect perdition, to create a machine that punishes all souls for the crime of existing. They fail at this because they constantly punish themselves as well.

• Sixth Infernal Court: the goal of the Sixth Infernal Court is to spread the grey mist to all living realms, to corrupt all of existence into undying torment. They fail at this because their corruption exposes their weaknesses..

• Seventh Infernal Court: the goal of the Seventh Infernal Court is primacy among the Infernal Courts. They fail at this because of their arrogance.

• Eighth Infernal Court: the goal of the Eighth Infernal Court is to poison reality and spread themselves parasitically throughout reality. They fail because they underestimate the power of their enemies.

• Ninth Infernal Court: the goal of the Ninth Infernal Court is to kill all Divines. They fail at this because they betray each other constantly.

• Tenth Infernal Court: the goal of the Tenth Infernal Court is to return all reality to chaos, to wear away structure and law, and to deprive mortals of resource to stop them. They fail at this because they do not understand true chaos.

• Eleventh Infernal Court: the goal of the Eleventh Infernal Court is to nullify other esoteric power to give themselves primacy in magical might. They fail at this because the underestimate other magical powers.

• Twelfth Infernal Court: the goal of the Twelfth Infernal Court is the destruction of reality. They fail at this because they do not understand the power of creation.

Esoterica

Demons are beings of infernum. All infernal powers are theirs to wield. They cannot wield celestial, poioumenonic, or aetherial powers, and their use of nommic, shebvic, andparadoxical powers are rare. Very few of them wield ambrosia, as very few have real faith, but they are capable of it. Mortal will is outside their capability.

Religion

All demons are aware that they are beings of infernum and must answer to Diaboli, the Lord of Perdition, who has command of the souls of the damned. They are aware that they are kin to the Eldritch, whose infernal power makes the greatest of them seem meager. And they are aware that the first demons were fallen angels, servants of other deities. And they are aware of other deities whose domains include infernal energies. And as such, individually, demons sometimes ally themselves to one of these beings in exchange for power. Some run religions on Shem, pretending to be deities, and others take the guise of religious leaders on Shem, and still others have their own complex cults openly devoted to them.

Gender

Demons are very individualized and may take on any gender they please at any time. Some enforce a rigid gender binary; others enforce monogender; others still ignore the concept completely. It is meaningless. Gender is just another method for gaining power over others; they use it when it suits them.

Economy

The economies of the Hells are one of souls; they are ruthlessly exploited as slaves and currency alike.

Military

The Infernal Host is massive, sprawling, and spreads across every nation, court, and region. Every powerful demon has their own military. Every region has its own military. Every court has its own military. Sometimes, these overlap. Some common features of infernal militaries include the following:

• Most infernal militaries include fiends as the bulk of the infantry and infernaires as the bulk of the cavalry. Gladiodemons and gallus are often the elites of the military.

• Within the infantry and cavalry are ranks: greater fiends and archfiends lead the infantry, while greater infernaires and archinfernaires lead the cavalry.

• Militaries have their different divisions and purposes. There are infernal airforces, navies, esoteric corps, and so on, but these vary by demon, region, and court.

• All demons are capable of combat, even the weakest, so effectively every demon is a warrior.

• Beluas are often employed by infernal militaries.

Language

Many names of places, ranks, roles, etc, are in Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, or other “classical” languages.

Trade

Demons trade in souls and power.

Outside View

Demons are seen as the embodiments of evil, when they are known to be demons. But usually, most mortals are convinced that demons are not demons. They are told they are other beings, gods, angels, or other figures of goodness or kindness or some other misconception in order to allow the demons to gain power and influence.

Notables

• Hiriv, Demon Manifest, the Adversary
• See Demon Parliament.

Estimated Populations

Uncountable.

Sample Stats

The scores below are for a common imp. Scale down or up by four points for each rank or role up or down they go.

PRO 11
ATH 11
STR 11
AWA 11
WIL 11
PRS 11
STH 11