Demon

Demons were chaotic evil fiends native to the Abyss, ever-evolving engines of destruction spawned in its infinite depths to act as living instruments of oblivion. They were personifications of ferocity, vile perversion, and elemental devastation, existing to further the tendency of all things to slide into entropy and ruin. Barely contained by their monstrous forms, demons were creatures of raw physicality and rage, the embodiment of everything malign about chaos.

"The demons of the Abyss cannot be said to be bold. To be bold implies comprehension of what meekness is. They are force. They are chaos. They are will and hunger embodied."

- Azuth.

Personality
Beings of utterly wanton wickedness, demons were cruel and savage, without compassion or empathy and unfamiliar with concepts like fear or mercy. Every thought that crossed their minds was tainted by hate and malice, each believing that only its own desires were important. They despisted benevolence and sought to tear down order, because first and foremost, demons existed to spread chaos and evil, and all other activities served this ultimate goal of sowing strife and disorder. They craved the opportunity to be unleashed upon the cosmos, always searching for ways out of the Abyss, and would open more purely to expand the influence of chaos and evil in the multiverse.

To demonkind, the Abyss was more than just their world. It was the Abyss that gave them life and within its power to permanently take it away, or to see them reborn anew. At once creator, destroyer, and renewer, the Abyss was the nexus of every demon's existence, and most who planned to be away for long either found or created places that reminded them of home. The nature they existed to spread was that of the Abyss itself, and that meant that demons existed purely to destroy, an imperative above even their own survival.

Despite this, it would be reductive to simply brush demons off as no more than killers. While demons generally loved death, most found killing on its own boring, their innate desire to destroy coupled with the wish to cause as much pain as possible in the process. For the majority of demons, murder was simply one aspect of destruction, the climax to be prolonged in the hopes of enhancing the suffering caused along the way. Indeed, there were seemingly endless ways to destroy; all understood the cravings for carnage and consumption, for absolute ruination and the end all things, but this led to different actions. When left to their own devices in a world they ripped apart nature, hunted down wildlife and tore down civilizations. On a grander scale, they undid the works of the divine and brought despair to the cosmos.

Despite being driven to destroy all other creatures, demons could temper this desire when presented with those willing to help them ascend to further power, though where destruction was untenable, absolute dominance was demanded. They made for mercurial masters and infamously oppressive overlords, struggling to engender loyalty due to their love of chaos and commitment to cruelty. Demons were utterly self-centered and respected only power, possessing no special affinity even for each other and as a result seldom cooperating unless forced to. However, while their caprice did mean they regularly devoured unwanted servants in bloody-minded frenzies, they also mostly followed through on their promises of vast rewards, gifting great boons disproportionate to the servant if they favored them.

All demons sought to use others to serve their will and satisfy their whims, the specific motivations often varying greatly both between and within individuals, but demonic egocentrism went beyond mere pride. Every demon viewed itself as the rightful ruler of all reality, the perfect being for which even the laws of the multiverse would one day bend and shift, the end of their manifest destiny being their envisioned, perfect world with them at the center. All demons had an instinctive sense of their own relative power however, and the less powerful or intelligent ones had correspondingly modest ideas about what being the center of the universe meant and how to get there. For some this merely meant being free to run rampant spreading mayhem as they so desired, while other, more ambitious fiends had intentions on a wider scale.

Though demons possessed a primal impulse to kill and destroy, these instincts were exacerbated by the Abyss itself, which was possessed of a strange semi-sentience by which it communed. All demons heard its whispers in their visions and dreams, potent murmurings offering insight and greatness. In this sense the Abyss was also a temptress, seducing even the demons themselves with its own hunger for destruction, urging them to dominate it utterly and promising ultimate power to the demon who could. The madness of the Abyss was what demons knew; it was the muse that inspired the horrid acts of violence and depravity that epitomized their kind and the endless slaughter and rebellion they inflicted on each other was their answer to its call.

Intelligence
Demonic behaviors were less philosophically motivated and more following through on instinct, a manifested tendency towards arbitrary mischief and malice. Some acted entirely on instinct with no plan at all, but all demons had some aspect of a brute in them, enjoying overt expressions of power, and they disliked hiding their own. Few demons made good manipulators, as chaos was a poor basis for careful plans and patience, which combined with their wickedness stopped them from fulfilling all of their long-term bargains. Even if those in power didn't kill their own servants for their amusement, they might sacrifice them in service to bizarre and nonsensical plans, and they could be almost absurdly poor strategists.

Even those demons who specialized in plots could not be expected to show extreme levels of subtlety and restraint. Demons liked immediate gratification and were known for their impulsiveness, many times abandoning their schemes in favor of immediate rewards of blood and souls, and even those with long-term ambitions could be easily distracted with them. For all their narcissism, even powerful demons in command of their kin could be embarrassed if a situation where they should dominate was turned against them, and in the heat of the moment might become so enraged that they attacked or even so agitated that they retreated entirely, regardless of the impact on their overall plans. Furthermore, it was not impossible for them to have insecurities, and despite their often-alien view of fear, some used their rage to hide what did scare them.

All this in mind, demons were not stupid, and in fact most types were very mentally competent, those that followed the ways of manipulation doing so well. Only especially brutish demons would sacrifice more safe and certain victories just to revel in bloodshed, and even they would not necessarily surrender their many advantages simply to cause more direct damage. Selfish as they were, demons also had some degree of social skills, and some had a pack mentality or willingness to work with non-demons. Demons were not always against running away either, not just because it was smart, but because it could be fun. Leaving before a conflict was over was an act that could cause suffering in its own way, and could be more profitable or amusing than staying around, and though they usually returned, unpredictability was perhaps the most insidious of demonic traits.

Subcategories of demons
There were three main subcategories of demons, widely known and distinguished between among scholars and sages.

Obyriths
The oldest of the demonic races, obyriths were ancient creatures of chaos and insanity said to have come from an entirely different reality. They ruled the Abyss for eons and were responsible for creating the tanar'ri, before an ill-fated war broke their armies and a subsequent slave revolt drove most of them into hiding or to extinction.

Tanar'ri
The most numerous of the demonic races and the rulers of the Abyss in the modern times. The tanar'ri were born spontaneously of the Abyss, although some bore signs of being altered by sibriexes or other creatures. Tanar'ri occurred when evil mortal souls enter the Abyss; the first tanar'ri was Demogorgon.

Loumara
Loumara demons were the youngest demonic race, consisting of immaterial beings that possessed people, creatures, or objects to spread evil. They were theorized to be born from the dreams of dead gods killed by the Abyss.

Other demons
Not all demons belonged to one of the three main subcategories of demons. These other demons were divided by the Demonomicon of Iggwilv into three other groups.

Some creatures produced by the Abyss acted like what would, in saner places, be called wildlife. They were generally unintelligent.
 * Beasts:
 * Abyssal chickens, small creatures that did not actually resemble chickens.
 * Abyssal scavengers, verminous demons that hunted in packs.
 * Kazrith, aquatic demons that poisoned their prey.
 * Maw demons, also called Abyssal maws, were horrible looking, constantly hungry demons.
 * Nashrous, animalistic predators that hunted in packs.
 * Skulvyn, bestial aquatic demons with a slowing aura.

Demonic creatures created by some powerful entity, such as a demon lord or, more rarely, some other powerful entity like a night hag or very powerful mortal spellcaster. These creatures were made either from other demons or from the raw material of the Abyss itself, but were not spontaneously created by the Abyss. Interestingly, Iggwilv included quasits in the created category, despite the fact that they were known to spontaneously arise from the Abyss. She also theorized that in time various Created demons would be "accepted" by the Abyss and begin to spontaneously arise as well. Created demons could be undead, constructs, or even truly living outsiders.
 * The Created:

Undead demons:
 * Blood fiends, huge, four-armed creatures that fed on the blood of other demons.
 * Haures, bizarre demons created by Orcus.

Demonic constructs:
 * Retriever, mindless, spider-like constructs that were created to serve stronger demons of the Abyss.

Living creations:


 * Bonegouge assassins, stealthy creatures said to be created by Orcus.
 * Ghazneth, humanoid, winged demons with differing magical abilities.
 * Ghour, demons that took the appearance of monstrous minotaurs, ghour demons served (and were likely created by) the demon prince Baphomet.
 * Ferroliths, demons created from succubi that had been thrown into molten iron by Graz'zt.
 * Quasit, the demonic equivalent of the imp, were small, insidious winged demons with paralyzing claws.
 * Shoosuva, large, hyena-like demons that were created by and served the demon lord Yeenoghu.
 * Tomb demon

Similar to the Created, servitor demons were the least populous group. They were created by deities as servants, proxies, and agents. Some servitor races were abandoned to the Abyss when their creator moved on or died.
 * Servitors:
 * Deathdrinkers, egocentric demons that collected dead souls.
 * Yochlol, shapechanging demons that were created by and served Lolth.
 * Zovvut, winged demons that had outlived their creator.

Even with the six categories described by Iggwilv, many demons defied categorization, either due to lack of sufficient knowledge or the sheer chaos of the Abyss itself.
 * Other demons:
 * Abyssal wurms, two-headed, many-legged demons.
 * Bebelith, massive, highly aggressive spider-like demons.
 * Demon spawn
 * Immolith
 * Jarrlak
 * Mahataa
 * Rageborn
 * Shadow demon, mysterious demons with a wraith-like appearance.
 * Voracalith
 * Whisper demons, incorporeal demons of insanity that drove mortals to suicide.

Demon Lords
Demon lords, or Abyssal lords, were powerful demons that commanded many other demons and ruled a layer of the Abyss. Each demon lord had a unique appearance and set of abilities. The most powerful demons lords were called demon princes. Since demons had no set hierarchy, both titles were self-proclaimed, and the demon lords and princes fought against each other constantly. Demon lords were also considered archfiends.

Demons had no true rulers, though powerful demon lords and deities were able to gain enough power and influence to gain control over sizable armies of demonic creatures.

Relationships
Demons surpassed other fiends in sheer fickleness, depravity and violence. They were also the sworn enemies of the devils, though their ageless Blood War came to a cool upon Asmodeus' ascendance to godhood.

Appearances

 * Novels
 * The Fanged Crown
 * The Fanged Crown

Connections
Dämonen