Succubi

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Succubi are female demons with the appearance of women adorned with various demonic features such as a tail, bat-like wings and horns. There is no single definitive depiction of them, as their appearance can varies widely from one specimen to another, however, there is one fact about succubi that is universally agreed upon: they are extraordinary beautiful. Their features look perfect and their alluring body seem created to make mortals, both males and females, fall under their charms.

As demons, succubi are spiritual beings. They can exist in physical realms, although maintaining their forms in that unnatural state takes a great deal of energy and is a constant drain on them. Physical worlds naturally reject the presence of spiritual beings to varying degree, thus most succubi will typically visit physical worlds only for limited period of time. This time varies widely from one succubus to another though. Generally speaking, the more powerful the succubus is and the more adept she is at managing her energy, the longer she will be able to remain on a physical world. There are succubi who have become very good at that exercise, being able to remain virtually indefinitely in a physical world and rarely coming back to Hell anymore. The opposite is also true with succubi who seldom left Hell in their existence, feel very uncomfortable in physical worlds and would only manage to stay there for one hour at most.

==Corruption==
Many succubi use their attractive appearance to seduce, manipulate and corrupt mortals, in order to eventually draw their souls to Hell when they die. A succubus of that type will usually act as a normal woman to establish herself in a community, seducing her way to a high profile. Little by little her influence will start to be felt in various ways depending on the succubus' personality. this can manifest itself in people's inhibitions for sex, lust and desire being lowered and them competing to win the succubus's attention and favors, slowly becoming her slaves. More ruthless succubi prefer to sow discord and poison the mind of their victims with lies and deceit in order to push them to violence, turning neighbors against neighbors, eventually ending in tragedy and sometimes large scale slaughters. If left unchecked, some succubi can corrupt whole cities, countries or even entire worlds.

If some hero comes and manage to find the exact source of the corruption to confront it, they soon discover another interesting fact about succubi: their true size. When they appear in physical worlds, succubi usually show themselves human-sized. However, on average succubi measure actually about 110 feet tall. This fact remains little known because few people come back alive from a live encounter with one of those giant demoness in their true form to tell the tale. Succubi are very dangerous and deadly beings that should never be taken lightly under any circumstances. Most of them are good warriors and excellent spell casters. Even an average succubus is a master of her element and knows the basics of dimensional magic. Succubi are also usually very voracious, rarely vegetarians and their large magic-proof stomachs can digest just about everything.

Moreover, like most demons, succubi are very difficult to kill under normal circumstances on a physical world. Most of the time, destroying a demon's body in a physical world will only result in the demon being sent back to hell to its native realm, albeit in a permanently weakened state. A demon "killed" in that fashion may still return to the physical plane to seek revenge after it recovers and gathers enough power. An unwise move though, as the demon will most likely be weaker than during the first encounter and more prone to suffer even greater damages. but demons in general are not known for their wisdom. If you really want to kill a demon once and for all, the surest way to do so is in its home in Hell which is, needless to say, very dangerous.

The motives of a succubus in a physical world can vary widely however. Some succubi are not at all interested in that corruption business and just grow fascinated and attached to a particular world, living relatively normal lives undetected for centuries.

==Soul devourers==
Succubi love to feed on damned souls in Hell. Souls in spiritual realm becomes just as solid and tangible as a person of flesh in a physical world. The darker the soul is, the better. The succubus Menyssan once declared that ruthless rulers and brutal warlords were her personal favorite, with their "tangy, spicy aftertaste". On the other hand, most succubi will disregard and avoid pure souls which simply resonate badly with them and are distasteful and somewhat dangerous. The taste -or distaste- of a soul is greatly increased if the succubus herself is in her natural form and in a spiritual world at the time she eats it.

However, things are not as clear cut on a physical world. For example, if a succubus eats a human in Felarya, after she digest the body of her prey, their soul will attempt to go either to Hell or Heaven. Since the succubus is neither in a completely physical nor spiritual state, it makes the retention of the soul somewhat difficult. With some training most succubi are able to eat and consume both the body and soul of their victims in one go, but young or unexperienced ones might not. This confront a man-eating succubus with a couple dilemmas:

* A succubus loyal to Hell will mostly eat evil or corrupted individuals and let their dark souls find their ways in hell where they are needed. She might or not attempt to eat and digest pure souls in the purpose of weakening Heaven but it's a very unpleasant experience. Moreover, since the end of the Tenebris War, peace accords have been signed between Hell and Heaven and deliberately digesting a particularly pure soul in order to harm Heaven could cause some diplomatic incident and even an official scolding back to Hell. There has been some rare cases of offending succubi being handed to Heaven for punishment, a perspective that make most succubi shiver. Succubi are sometimes known to try and corrupt mortals into committing evil acts in order to darken their souls, before eating them. That's because eating a creature with a pure soul basically means strengthening Heaven a little, as, unless eaten, the soul of the prey would most likely find its way there. Many succubi aren't *that* loyal to Hell though, and simply don't bother with that lengthy and troublesome step, not caring which soul goes where, as long as they can fill their stomachs.

* On the other hand, a succubus who feel little loyalty to her realm would gobble any evil humans whose soul she finds appetizing enough, and digest body and soul for her own enjoyment, weakening her camp in the process. Hell may look the other way if it's done just from time to time but if the succubus start to devour entire enemy armies aided by her followers and digest their souls, she could find herself in serious troubles at home. The same if she devours a very dark, high caliber soul without any sort of permission. As a result, it's generally frowned upon for a succubus to not let the souls of her prey pass on.

==Summoning and banishment==
Succubi are formidable opponents and fearsome creatures but like all Demons or Ceiciels, they suffer a big weakness: banishment. Because they are not physical beings, physical worlds reject them. They can maintain themselves but only at the cost of energy and some efforts. "Banishing" a demon is basically a matter of making it too difficult for them to maintain a physical form, which results in them being ejected back to their natural realm, dizzy and out of commission for a while. Some demons describe the sensation of being banished as being "a little less pleasant than being punched repeatedly in the face". While successfully banishing a demon largely depends on the power of the banisher and that of their target, banishing is *much* easier for the banisher to perform than for the demon to resist. Most common demon banishment spells are cast either with Holy or Dimensional magic.

==Succubi in Felarya==
Succubi are a pretty rare sight on Felarya. They tend to be rather uneasy when surrounded by too much nature, and prefer more mineral places, such as caverns, underground tunnels, dungeons, and temples. Most of them don't actually live in those places though, only visiting Felarya as it offers great hunting grounds and possesses many hidden wonders. Like most demons, succubi show little mercy to their enemies or to their prey. They are deceptive, prone to anger and they have a temperament that can only be described as chaotic.  But contrary to Heaven's propaganda, not all succubi are innately evil, nor are all demons for that matter. Indeed, it is not that difficult to find some friendly and amiable succubi among them and, while It's very difficult to fully earn a succubi's trust, once you truly do, they can make excellent friends, loyal to the death.

* A theory on the nature of Hell and Heaven by the archmage Talbeln Veridimus.

## Culture

=== Known Succubi ===
\*Menyssan

* Alice

* Faldhatée

* Chalyssea

* Zycra

* Iridan

* Arale

==Succubi Sub-species ==
\***Fire Succubi**

* **Frost Succubi**

* **Silver Succubi**

* **Mexolimes**

* **Obrazyns**

* Credits to Timing for the corruption idea and to Vaderaz for ideas about the soul devouring.