Guide on Novels and Games - FANTASY - RACES - DEMONS

Demons as race is quite difficult given the various types of demons that are present in all the mythologies, for this reason here I'll try to make a single race more generic as possible.

Depending on the mythology we see their origin can change but if we start from the origin of the word then I can begin with say that the word "Demon" come fom the greek word "daimon" (the latin word for it is "daemon")

One of the reason that demons are powerfull come from the fact that depending on the word (if latin or greek) demons were considered very powerfull and smart and is for this main reason that they are usually described as dangerous foes that own great magical powers.

For what concern their origin we have various ones:

* Evolution, they are original beings that evolve into one after their magical power reach certain negative apex
* Falling, in certain cultures demons are fallen low level gods or holy beings.
* Divine Birth, in various myth certain monsters and demons are born as sons and daughters of gods, goddesses or other divine beings, be aware that this don't mean that only monsters born from their unions.
* Corruption, in this case some sacred/good being/thing is corrupted by negative energy and then "fall" becoming a demon/monster, this differe from the "falling" I named before because in that case we had high level beings like lesser gods while here we have humans, items, etc.
* Supernatural Birth, basically they are monsters that can birth from the collection of negative energy of the same type, like a demon can born from the negative energy released from the people that lived in a village and that were killed by monsters, bandits or whoever.

Said this I can start with a generalized Demon Race

APPEARANCE:

As race we can mainly divide demons into two categories:

* Not Humanoid, they have a not human appearance and can be anything from animal to blobs without any definitive shape.
* Humanoid, they have humanoid traits like humans.

Given this I can start with the other traits:

* Hair, they can be of the classical human color plus other colors like blue, purple or green.
* Skin, their skin can be of various colors like pink, blue, red, grey/pale and violet. Beast-like demons can have fur and/or scales other than "normal" skin.
* Wings, not all the demons have wings but can happen that they can be bat like or even dragon like... if we consider fallen angels demons than feathered wings are included... I almost forgot about beast-like demons and insect like demons, if they take their traits from animal or insect that have wings than they can have that type of wings.
* Tail, not a fixed rule but demons can have a tail or an animal like one is the demon is a beast-like one.
* Horns, they can have horns too, the type and number can change, we can start with the classic pair that point straight to the single one that grow from the forehead

BIOLOGY:

This type of biology is never easy to understand or explain expecially because it change based on the type of demon... plus in certain works beastmen and werebeasts are variations of demon races, for example I know there is a work, but I forgot its name, where there were werewolves that were demons under the demon lord... now this is an example and if you think enough you can found other examples... given all of this I can't give a real panoramic about a demon's biology but only say that if the demon have some animal trait than is normal that their biology is influenced by that

LIFESPAN:

This race is a long lived one that can live from various centuries to thousands years, some of their variation can be even immortal and unable to die of old age.

REPRODUCTION:

The theory say that demons as race can reproduce the same way humans do... more or less, since we need to keep into consideration other things so here what I think:

* Natural, mean that they can have an offspring like humans.
* Conversion, a demon use its magical power/abilities/artifact for convert the member of another race.
* Transformation, the member of another race transform into a demon, the main difference from the conversion is that in the transformation's case the one that become a demon do that without the help of a demon.
* Awakening, in this case the one that become a demon is the descendant of one and that have its own demon traits "sleeping" inside him/her... for example, a normal human awaken as demon and discover that its great great great grandfather is a still alive demon... I made a "long" example but the generation can be different for example even the son/daughter of a demon can appear as the race of the partner but awaken as demon once certain conditions are met.

VARIATIONS:

Here I'll limit myself on list only the name of the races avoiding as more details are possible... the reason of this is because the traits can be found before in the appearance section

* Succubus, a female type of demon, the male version is called Incubus
* Any type of youkai
* Vampires
* Orcs
* Devils

This are the most common and know types.

POWERS & ABILITIES:

Their powers and abilities change from type to type but in general we can say that they have high physical and/or magical abilities

SOCIETY:

We usually see demons with a demon lord that rule them but not always we have other information about their society since most of the time we have the hero that go against the demon lord and so on.

Given all the type of government that are usually used with them I believe their government can be found with at least two of the following features:

* Demon lord, is basically the role of king/queen/emperor/emperess, fun fact is that in certain works I saw that the a female was the ruler but instead be called Demon Queen she was called Demon Lord, probably this come from the fact to use a "primitive" way of think where men are superior to women and so have a leader that use a female title would make appear that race weak... stupid way of think, especially since usually fairies have a queen as leader... aside this I don't understand really well why do that... is possible that they use "lord" as generic term but personally I don't know that.
* Generals, usually a demon ruler is despicted as someone that have directly under him/her four or more people that mainly work with the army but in a couple of works I saw that the generals basically can do other administration work too.
* Noble houses, if we take a look to the "lesser key of solomon" the various demons have noble ranks, for example Zepar is a great duke while Forneus is a marquis... given this have a demon society that use noble ranks is not that impossible.
* Clan, demons can be divided into clans and their government is basically some kind of parliament where the chief of each clan join a meeting where the decisions are take.

In certain works demons may have something similar to a modernized society that have noble titles, in that case the demons have titles but they don't really mean something and that their position is covered by how powerfull they really are and not from how high their title is.