The Daemones

In Indratera, put simply, a daemon (plural daemones) was any being that was immortal, and not necessarily malevolent. No one ever truly knew the nature of the daemonic homeland, or even if there was one! Daemons were the counterparts of the evasanktaran Sanktara; the angels, saints, and gods. The daemons were ruled by the Devil. Finally, note that daemons are not intrinsically evil, even if most of them are. Some are more like inevitable forces of nature, mindless beasts, or haunted outcasts. 
== Hierarchy ==
The daemonic hierarchy went The Devil > the unknowable god-like Axioms > the powerful Profane Saints > the once-mortal Fugues > the animal Savages.
=== The Devil ===
The Devil was the ruler of all daemons (though they were a varied and unruly bunch, so it was not an absolute position, but one where tracing your way up a messy nonlinear hierarchy would always come to them). They had to be powerful to seize and hold this power, which was often done by scheming and causing pain, suffering, and chaos to feed upon. Again, as aforementioned, few mortals knew even a sliver of this absolute truth, so there is little information available about much of Indrateran daemonology, but one thing is sure; that is, that the Devil has been Devil-King Ormander for time immemorial. He has presented himself as a lowly daemon vying for power, or in a thousand and one forms and names, but he has ever been the Devil of the daemons since studies of daemonology began. He personally seems to have a penchant for capitalising upon mortal hubris, ambition, avarice, greed, envy, and lust primarily, and his personal ruling style of to tempt powerful mortals to alter history through their actions.
=== Axioms ===
The Axioms were ancient and unknowable daemones who transcended most laws of reality. Their identities and origins were confusing, they rarely strove for control or to take over, and they were immensely powerful. They very rarely appeared to mortals. Some key Axioms included:
* Hinan-ihaki - the judge of one's morality, a woman with twelve heads (stag, goat, cobra, crocodile, phoenix, shark, bear, dragon, hawk, ibex, owl, and coyote)
* Azimuth - A pale drowned woman's corpse with floating hair as though underwater who sang an eerie dirge lament to drag sailors to their doom
* The Keeper of the Rushes - a rotting old hunched crone covered in a thick layer of moths and butterflies, carrying farming tools, who tended to the crops that were wandering souls (neither good nor bad).
* Sickle Smile - a woman made of magma wearing barbed metal wire, chains, and collars, who tortured evildoers for all eternity
* Coyote Mother - the daemon patron of wolves and coyotes and of heat-mirages, dehydration, and thirst.
* Whisper - a daemon who appeared as a massive corvid (usually a raven) with one singular white weather on his left wing, manifestation of cunning and ambition
* The Wish Mother - a huge coiled serpent of scales not black, but of the absence of anything at all. Granter of twisted wishes. Vanquished by the Naysayers in 1502 and only reformed some centuries later
* Ynas - daemonic personification of the icy waters
* Phthisia - the daemonic personification of pestilence and plague. Responsible for the Wasting Blight.
* Oukrana - daemonic ideal of the most far-flung depths of the sea. Worshipped briefly by the Agents of Chaos.
* The Tree of Death - a red tentacle with yellow eyes within eyes within eyes, which held daemonic power over memories. Vanquished by the West Marchers for a while.
* Hidrax - an androgynous goat-figure who as a daemon represented hedonism, sexuality, and lust
* Selim, an entirely benevolent and happy-go-lucky axiom daemon who devoted his existence to running the greatest shops in the world.
* The Wings of Ormander, daemones who served the Devil as his eyes and his hands.
* Coinelius Swindleworth
* Sephnet the Îfrit
=== Profane Saints ===
Profane Saints are a blurry category that aren't easy to define, but generally they are those more powerful than mere fugues but not ancient and unknowable like the Axioms. Here you might find liches who were worshipped by many mortals, fallen angels, and minor daemones. Notable examples include:
* Heinrich the Mad Lich, probably the most powerful of all profane saints. Once a mortal who used mass death to propel him to daemonhood. As a fugue daemon who rose to profanity, he lorded over insanity and madness, and had quite the cult following. 
* Crow Woman, a fallen angel, an entirely ambivalent or even benevolent wandering spirit
* Coinelius D.B. Swindleworth, a very minor elephantine banking daemon 
=== Fugues ===
Fugues were daemons of the lower order. The main qualifier was that fugues were born mortal. Within them, there were wanderlings, who were immortals cursed forever to wander the world, and wraiths, who were undead souls with unfinished business (ghosts, revenants, etc). Notable fugues included:
* Sedna, a banshee ghost and cultist who remained in the mortal world after death for a time
* Rychárd Dread, an Old Rakki raider who became an immortal daemon cursed to subsist on drinking the blood of others
* Even technically the swordsman Nael rem Arvus was a fugue daemon of the quite lowest order, because he became immortal upon acquiring the Shroud.
=== Savages ===
Finally, the savage daemones were those incapable of reason. Here you would find beasts, monsters, and other things like that. For example, the Cacophonoi and the Chiropteroi were them.
== Other Information ==
Many, but not all daemons spoke Glossolalia, a fiendish tongue with a high information density, little inflection, harsh unusual consonants (like spitting and gnashing teeth) and no vowels.
The Euluska term for daemones was vekarri (uncountable noun). Notably this word was later inflected to form vekarriny, which in modern times meant "magic" (literally: devilry). Devil-worship itself was known as Evadaemonism (Euluska: Euavekarra), the grammatical opposite to Evasanktaranism (Euasanktara)
Given that daemones were immortal, they could not be killed. After being vanquished if physical, they would come back. However, this took time depending on their power. If the Devil's avatar was vanquished he might reappear in moments; if a powerful profane saint was vanquished, they might reappear in a hundred years; but if a particularly weak fugue spirit like a ghost was vanquished, they might only return in ten thousand years. Till then, daemones became dust, or starlight, or something else.
Mortal souls were daemones' currency. Usually, they only had access to the souls of evildoers, but those who were good were worth more. (Imagine the currency being virtue of a soul). Daemons could only acquire good souls by tricking them into bargains, rituals, cults, or sacrifices - so some daemons tried to trick people into signing a contract, others tried to get worshippers to lay down their lives for them, et cetera.
Category:Lore
Category:Good Articles
Category:Beings
Category:Gods