On Demons
From Aparsus
Demons
Demons dwell in the realm of Makh'Kahal, a name which means “Evernight” in the ancient tongue. Terrible creatures born from the chaotic flux of magic, they are thankfully rare in the mortal world as they may only manifest with great difficulty except under the command of a mortal summoner.
True to their natures, demons war with one another constantly, whether for personal power or amusement none can be sure, but they value cunning over brute force – any demon has within it the power to lay waste to an army of foes, but only a true lord of demonkind can destroy their enemies with a single word. They have no real ill will toward mortals and even recognize a certain amount of usefulness in the mortal races – as servants, worshippers and playthings – but demons lack personal empathy. Concepts like love and honour are alien to them, replaced in their hearts by pride, avarice and obedience. When a demon interferes with mortal affairs in Aparsus, especially of its own free will, its sadistic, self-absorbed nature all but ensures that things will not end well for the mortal.
The Hierarchy of the Demon Races
As can be expected, demons are not on friendly terms with the divine, and recognize only one deity – the Nameless God, who sits at the top of the demonic hierarchy and dwells in the center of Makh'Kahal, in a dark, brooding tower known as the Heart of the Void. There, in his spire, the Nameless God sleeps eternally, tended by a few faithful demons known as the Silent Ones. Demons, as a whole, believe that they are dreams of the Nameless God, and fear that, one day, he will awaken, destroying their entire existence. Scholars of demon lore known of a prophecy known as the words of pnakotos, spoken by a demon prophet to a young sorcerer many centuries ago. According to the prophecy, the Nameless God will awaken should his name ever be spoken aloud in Makh'Kahal. It's said that the Silent Ones know the name of the Nameless God, but each of them has its mouth stitched shut when it joins the order, making this belief impossible to verify. It is known that when a demon dies within the Evernight, it emerges from the Heart of the Void alive and well. Demons are immortal so long as they remain within their own domain.
The Silent Ones are the religious authority of demonkind – if such a thing can be said to exist. They dwell beneath the Heart of the Void, in a fortress-citadel known to demons as the Citadel of Whispers. Most of the inhabitants of the Citadel are not themselves Silent Ones, having not attained the personal power necessary to be elevated above their rank as the high priests have been. Instead, the majority of the demon's living inside the Citadel of Whispers are mere faithful, belonging to the Cult of the Long Dream as “laity”. The Silent Ones themselves form the Citadel's “nobility”, constantly scheming and fighting to rise in the ranks in service to the Nameless God and the twin Demon Princes that rule the Citadel and the Cult – Azadgorath, the Emissary of the Iron Fist, and Kamabrat, the Queen of Smoke and Darkness. Only Azadgorath communicates with the laity regularly, as it is his duty and purpose to issue the edicts and laws which govern demonic society – such as it is – laws which are based on the interpretations of the Nameless God's mutterings by the prophets of the Silent Ones.
Outside of the Citadel of Whispers lie the Domains of the Demon Princes. Azadgorath and Kamabrat are merely two of 22 Demon Princes who rule the demons of Makh'Kahal. Each Demon Prince is the god of his own Domain, which – according to the strange laws of the Evernight – is a world unto itself, connected to the Domains of the other Princes, to the Citadel of Whispers and to the mortal world by a series of gates. The Demon Princes control every aspect of their Domains, including what other Domains it connects to. The only limits on their power are threefold: There most always be a connection between their Domain and the Citadel of Whispers, gates to the mortal world can only be created and opened in the mortal world (see “Demons in the mortal world below”), and a Demon Prince must willingly accept any challenge to his station. The Princes possess sufficient power that this last rule is rarely invoked, but those demons that they rule constantly scheme and plan, grabbing power from one another and from the mortal world, in the hope of one day ascending to the rank of Prince on the back of their once-great ruler.
Beneath the Demon Princes sit the Lords of Evernight, who number in the hundreds. The Lords of Evernight are further divided into the ranks of Duke, Count, Baron, and Knight in mockery (or mimicry) of mortal hierarchical traditions. If the Demon Princes are the gods of their Domains, then the Lords of Evernight are the rulers of those domains by divine right – in theory at least. In practice, every Lord of Evernight earned its position by carving it out of the demon that held it before – either literally, or (preferably) by subtly out-maneuvering him in the complex and byzantine world of demonic politics and law. The scheming doesn't stop when one achieves one's rank – demonkind thrives on the law that those who rule should be the fittest to do so, and fitness – for demons – comes only from possessing more power and influence than one's peers, crushing one's sub-ordinates into obedience, and planning for the day when they can climb even higher in the hierarchy.
At the bottom rung of the ladder sits the rank and file of demonkind. These lesser demons, the ones most commonly seen and easily recognizable in the mortal world, come in a variety of shapes, reflecting the personality and desires of the demon nobles that rule them. Many lesser demons are unintelligent, or at least seem so – like the Zyrgwyrms of the Domain of Akhavesh, the Lord of the Broken Pillar, while others are beings of infinite cunning and substantial power, such as the Khadesh demon sorcerers who serve the Dath the Ever-Changing.
Demons in the Mortal World
Demons are rarely seen in the mortal world – though some would say that they aren't seen rarely enough. Though they often turn a jealous eye on mortal-kind – seeking them out for sport or as part of a personal power play, or out of service to their Lord or for any number of other reasons – there are very few means by which a demon may enter the mortal world. The first, and most distressingly common, of these is by being summoned. Often, there are those who worship the Demon Princes rather than distant, if more acceptable, gods. The power of the Princes is great, and they reward those who follow them richly – for the emotions of mortals – their worship, their awe, their fear – are tangible things in Makh'kahal, and the Demon Princes take the substance of mortal worship and forge it into currency. In exchange for this wealth and power, and for service as agents in the world above, these cultists are often given the names of lesser demons and Lords under the Prince's command. Furthermore, intrepid sorcerers will often seek these names out – haunting ancient ruins and lost tombs for scraps of knowledge, for the name of a demon gives one the power to call it across the Bright Gulf – the source of all magic – which lies between Makh'kahal and the mortal realm.
Calling out the name of a demon brings that demon to the summoner, a great boon in and of itself as the demon is bound against doing harm to the summoner until the sun rises and sets again. More importantly, a demon so bound can be controlled, if it is weak-willed enough – released against the summoner's enemies in an orgy of terrible destruction – or bargained with, granting the summoner a measure of its power in exchange for some boon or task in the mortal world. Though many Lords and lesser demons loathe these tasks, they undertake them willingly, for to do otherwise would invite the wrath of their Prince, a fate that they fear worse than nearly anything.
The only other way by which a demon may cross the Bright Gulf is at a permanent gate between a Prince's Domain and the mortal world. There are relatively few such places – they are almost exclusively places where the Prince of the Domain so connected was worshipped or places where an event occurred that resonates with the Prince's personality and nature – such as the Gate to the Domain of Akhavesh in the bay over the submerged neighbourhoods of the port-city of Sunken Lund which occasionally troubles sailors by releasing Zyrgwyrms into the waters around the city. These gates are prized by the Princes, for they are the only way that a Prince may actually enter the mortal world, and they are also a way for the Prince to move large forces into the world without the need of a mortal summoner, though such a thing is an incredibly rare occurrence – something which is precipitated only by the most dire of circumstances. Princes will often send their emissaries through these gates on missions of revenge, to lay the seeds of a new cult, or to secure some item or place of power, such as a magical artifact or tome.
Though demons have many reasons – if few ways – to come to the mortal world, there is one thing they fear – death. When a demon crosses the Bright Gulf, its connection to the Nameless God is severed temporarily – the mechanics of this are known only imperfectly by mortals, but its effects are well-documented. If a demon is slain while in the mortal world (a difficult task to be sure, but not impossible), that demon dissolves into greasy black soot and is no more, its essence fled into the Bright Gulf never to return as a whole being in the Evernight again. Demons fear and hate those who bring a permanent end to their kind, and the slaughter of too many servants will even raise the ire of the Demon Princes themselves – for they are as bound to this immutable law as any of their subjects.
