Saccharomyces Demonica

Saccharomyces Demonica, of which a colony is known as a demon, is a type of yeast endemic to the Lightbringer Moon.
== Biology ==
The yeast acts like raw genetic material, as certain configurations and combinations will give certain individual demons. As yeast colonies, demons seek to grow in greater numbers. Their two objectives are to feed and to multiply, in doing so, a yeast colony can achieve sentience.
=== Hosts ===
Until reaching a certain mass, the colony requires a host in order to survive, so the combination the yeast colony takes in a host will create a demon. Although extremely rare, some demons are composed of enough of the yeast to be an entity all to itself. These demons have the ability to not be bound to the moon and are unaffected by banishment.
The yeast creates the personality of a demon according to the composition of yeast and its overall quantity. The easiest analogy for demon composing is thinking of yeast as notes that go on a sheet of music. The notes used, the rhythm, the interpretation and the instruments used will give a certain demon. This makes each demon unique in its own right. 
Saccharomyces Demonica is responsible for the creation of the various monstrous races.
Demons are born from conscious colonies of Saccharomyces Demonica on the moon. Yeast colonies will form naturally and have a near animalistic mindset, seeking to feed on a host and reproduce. Yeast colonies that grow large enough to attain sentience will seek to find hosts. Since there is little to no local biology on the moon, demons seek to manifest on other worlds. In order for them to manifest on Welt or other realms, they must be summoned. 
=== Possessing a host ===
The Sachharomyces demonica works by adding a supplementary gene to a phenotype, which constitutes parts of a demon. When a certain colony infects an individual, the personality of the demon can arise. However, there is an element of randomness to the yeasts configuration when inside a host organism, sometimes an entirely different demon will emerge from the strain. 
Some variants of saccharomyces choose their hosts based on unknown genetic factors. some hosts are chosen for their violent, melancholic, affable, cheery or even psychotic affinities, some are chosen for their possession of the sports gene or unbreakable bones genes. Whether a yeast strain chooses these traits intelligently or even willingly is debated, however it has been confirmed by demons that they can somehow detect personality traits down to the sub-genetic level, how this is achieved is unknown. 
== Magic ==
Main Article: Yeast magic
Saccharomyces Demonica has the particularity of being particularly energy dense, and as such a power source that can fuel magical abilities, the most common being enhanced senses and telekinesis. 
The usage of saccharomyces reduces the demons energy and damages its genetic structure, leading to a poorer gene pool.
==Characteristics==
Usage of yeast powers or demonic influence sometimes translates as the acquisition of specific character traits. The more common traits include horns, scales, bat wings, hooves, fangs, red skin and/or a cloak of flames. Individuals displaying these traits are considered to no longer be their original host as an entity, but an entirely different entity altogether.
=== Supposed Immortality ===
This tethering of a Demon to the Moon signifies that Demons aren’t immortal but are not mortals either as living beings die. They're merely mortals organisms who cheat death, which means that they cannot become undead as long as their death-cheating continues. Demons can die, they are however hard to kill, as upon death the yeast consumes the body and creates a portal back to the Nether realm it came from, as such the yeast survives to fight another day. They are however susceptible to most antifungals.  
The reason demons seemingly cheat death is because of their tether to the realm where they are summoned. This tethering manifests when a demonic creature is “killed”. The body suffers from immediate entropy, the yeast within a dead or dying organisms reverts to a primal urge to feed ad reproduce, combusting the host body. The combustion fuels a warp tunnel that sends the yeast back to the moon from where it came. From this it can be assumed that fire, acid and other entropic solutions are effective at stopping the warp tunnel from forming.
=== Horns of Power ===
Demon horns are specialized in order to siphon sentiment energy, this fuels their powers.
=== Heat Seekers ===
Demons are, due to their heritage as a yeast, more fertile in hotter temperatures than most anthropomorphs are used to. The moon realms from where they come are generally hotter than Welt. Demons also tend to go into stasis when temperatures are too cold, much like yeasts.
=== Power of belief ===
Belief translates as allowing an entity to use the believers mind as a processor for its power, which is why more belief translates with more power for the entity believed in.
=== Residual Sulfur ===
Demons leave behind Sulfur. Demonic possession and usage of saccharomyces demonica fueled abilities also leaves behind sulfur.
==Feeding==
Demons feed on biological matter, on the moon they mainly feed on each other due to lack of a biosphere. When on other realms they will diversify their diet in order to replenish their numbers. 
=== Sentiment ===
Main Article: Sentiment
Demons are fond of a volatile aura called sentiment, which is a pheromone animates exude when feeling certain emotions, that invigorates demons for battle. Sentiment is by no means a necessary part of a demons diet, is slightly addictive to them and works as a stimulant enzyme, reducing the energy cost of cellular division in the colony.
==Origins==
Before Powers even began Welting the Moon to support life, a species of sugar yeast existed on the moon and expanded, somehow it gained powers of levitation, aided by the low gravity of the moon. 
=== The wave ===
In the absence of competition, a new power coalesced and came to be. This power was the origins of the Saccharomyces Demonica, also known as Demons. The yeast expanded like a dark and vampiric force across the moon, driven by a desire to to devour and multiply. The yeast quickly grew and spread its influence, moving against the precious few endemic lifeforms the moon possessed. Before long, the yeasts food sources were exhausted, and they retreated into underground pockets, in a degenerating cycle of feeding and reproducing amongst themselves.
=== A new beginning ===
As power Welted the moon and brought life to it, the yeast now had a more diverse food source to feed upon. The energized yeasts coalesced into sapient colonies within these pockets. The yeast merged together with the new creatures of the surface, creating an entirely new species. Before long, creatures on the surface known as demons appeared, and spread wildly across the lands.
=== The Underworld ===
The biological tension from the demons' feeding habits ignited a series of extinction events, rupturing the natural ecosystem and forcing the intervention of Power, who created a new realm specifically to contain the yeast. In that moment, the underworld was born. The energies released by the gargantuan energies used by Power raged across the moon, matter merging and creating habitable pockets without number in the moon itself.
The unstable energies also affected the yeast. The imprisoned demons embraced their furious passions and reveled in pushing the boundaries of their power, heedless of the consequences. Many of these aberrations indulged in the energy that pervaded their pocket realms, that they called Hell, Underworld, the Nether, and other unflattering terms. Some learned to wield the all-consuming powers of telekinesis and of the existence of Powers former home, Welt. Before long, the thirsting demons clawed their way to Welt, teaching the other races the infernal rituals necessary to bring them to their world. The demons then continued to arrive on Welt, some seducing entire civilizations and bringing them to ruin to further their plans, others simply living in this new world, others reverting to an animal state.
Category:Yeast
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Category:Flora and Fungi of Welt
Category:Demons