Stygian

**Stygians** are a race of creatures that are the main enemy in the second season of *Radiant Force*.

## Overview

The Stygians are a race of sentient consciousnesses born from concentrated Chaotic energy forming from Stygian Trees, left behind after the sealing of the Chaos Realm. These trees grow small, egg shaped, gelatinous objects called Stygian Seeds, which then possess either humans, living organisms or everyday objects.

When possessing humans, the consciousness corrupts the human’s mind and personality. They become much crueler, and depending on the host personality, a worse version of themselves, without any limitation.

The hosts’ bodies are transformed into corrupted versions of themselves. For example, the angel themed Nora becomes a dark, black-winged seraphim with pale skin, sprouting multiple eyes that drip blackened ooze from these eyes.

Possessing non-human living organisms allows for the creature to permanently mutate into a humanoid being, even if the seed is removed/destroyed.

And all living creatures possessed by daemon seeds such as humans, plants, and animals can reproduce, with offspring forming daemon seeds of their own.

## Physiology

The Stygians were molded after the human race after Ethan imprinted his memories of them.

When possessing objects, the daemonic consciousness inside the seed permanently transforms the object into a humanoid creature. Then, this uplifted object learns more about the world, and is functionally the same as humans. The reason why these seeds take after human shape was because Ethan Cross' memories of the human form was imprinted into the Dark Force, which spread to the trees that birthed the daemon seeds.

When implanted into plants and animals, they take humanoid form, gaining human consciousnesses, and humanoid bodies and organs, allowing them to evolve into humanoids with the sapience of human beings.

## Personality

Personality-wise, they lean towards mischievous to malicious, but some daemons can be taught right from wrong and moderate the excesses of their chaotic instincts flowing through their bodies.

That said, contrary to popular belief, despite being born of chaotic energy, Stygians can know love, friendship, and camaraderie. These emotions cannot be learned through the Light Force or Nora’s Light of Hope technique (which harms them), but through being treated with kindness and taught by experience.

When posessing human hosts, the Seed instinctively amplifies human emotions, being the embodiment of chaos and darkness. Particularly, it amplifies human negativity the greatest, as the host's insecurities go out of control and so do the host. As a result, the human host is corrupted, becoming much crueller and insane in the process. The Seeds in these humans model themselves after their human hosts, becoming a dark version of themselves.

This is averted with human hosts with strong wills, or have special training to master the Stygian Seeds implanted within their bodies. This way, they gain access to the Seed's power, without bearing the mental burden, with a few exceptions.

When implanted into animals and plants, they will receive human intelligence but start off acting like instinctive animals. However, they are less likely to lose control due to being simpler-minded organisms with no complex concept of emotions or love at first.

And when implanted into inanimate objects, these inanimate Stygians start off relatively innocent, depending what kind of inanimate matter the Seed imprints itself on. As their source material starts off as inanimate objects, they have absolutely no concept of emotions at first, and have to be taught what these instinctive feelings are.

This is because either they adopt traces of the host object, or because the fact that there is no consciousness to corrupt with the negative thoughts of the organic host, so the daemons are born relatively innocent.

## Abilities

The Stygian Seeds grant their hosts a plethora of powers.

First, it enhances their physical capabilities, granting above average strength and speed.

The hosts have upgraded versions of their capabilities, especially if they happen to be superpowered individuals with extraordinary capabilities pre-corruption.

Second, the Stygians possess an incredible healing factor. Blackened ooze-like blood will drip from their bodies as they regrow new appendages or sew back their skin. This ooze is generated by their Stygian Seed, which provides a nigh-unlimited supply. This makes them nigh immortal and functionally ageless due to their regeneration and self-sustaining power, save for neutralizing the Stygian Seed.

Additionally, when the hosts are attacked, they can regenerate their wounds, albeit under pain.

They possess powers and weapons based on the properties of their host object’s body (e.g., a daemon possessing a drum kit can produce sound-based shockwaves, a daemon possessing a motorcycle can hurl tires, and move at high speeds, etc.)

Third, the Stygians also have nigh-endless stamina and endurance. Again, this is all provided by the Stygian Seed.

Fourth, the Stygians also has the ability to shape their own excess matter into anything for their own choosing. They can summon ooze from their bodies to shape into weapons or attacks or clothes - anything. However, as most Stygian Seeds are imprinted from a preset inanimate object or living host, they are mostly stuck to a mentality where they generate items based on their hosts.

## Weaknesses

While the Stygian race, they are still vulnerable, and are not unkillable.

Their major weakness is having their Stygian Seed attacked.

The daemon seed can recover from shallow wounds and grazes given enough time to heal. This is achieved by the seed sealing up its walls, stopping the flow of bleeding essence and letting the remaining energy flow back into the fully healed seed. But if the seed is fully penetrated, causing it to swell up and explode, the essence or left to bleed out, the daemon seed, and by extension, the daemon itself will die, leaving behind an empty husk, should the body remain intact.

However, regeneration of the demon's body is halted until the seed is fully healed first.

If the daemon seed possessing a living organism is destroyed in a non-vital area, then the host will survive, but remain vulnerable, as in their ordinary selves. If the daemon seed destroyed was in a vital area, such as the heart and brain, they die instantaneously, due to the attack penetrating that vital organ as well.

To save them from the corruption, the seed needs to be sealed or extracted from their bodies, helping them remove the corrupting effect of the seed and restoring their sanity.

The Luminous and Aurum Gems are most effective, though well executed conventional attacks work just as well. Daemons can be taken down with well-placed shots and attacks, and even ordinary warriors not empowered by the Gems have been known to either destroy or tear out the daemon seeds from their bodies.

Should the daemon seeds be extracted from their bodies, the bodies are left in a permanent coma until the original or new seed is implanted in the body.

The extracted daemon seeds can be placed in ordinary mannequins, allowing them to be alive and conscious, but the mannequins are so bland that they are powerless and akin to ordinary, naked humans, albeit retaining the daemon’s skin and hair.

While there is the possibility of committing crime in their mannequin bodies, the daemons are not only proud of their powers, but they are also relatively inexperienced without them. Additionally, the trauma of having your mind and soul extracted from your body and having to see your own lifeless body is horrifying to some daemons.

Other times, the extracted seeds are sealed in containers to prevent this, or both bodies are captured simultaneously. Or the gem empowered heroes are willing to restrict their powers by the original body by sealing away the cores inside their original bodies.

One exception is when multiple daemon seeds are in the mannequin, so that the daemon can use primordial chaotic powers and model itself from its own darkness. This new organism can also adapt itself on the fly by observing the situation and concentrating on molding the darkness that exists in their bodies to a certain shape or attack.

However, Daemons can also be stopped non-lethally via different methods. Extracting the seeds from their bodies preserves their consciousnesses, and can transfer them into different vessels, rendering their original bodies comatose as empty shells. They can also be sealed, putting them in stasis, or restricting their powers by forcing their essence deep inside as far as possible.

When a daemon seed is destroyed, the daemon’s consciousness dies, but the body remains intact and transformed. This allows new, freshly replaced consciousnesses from different individual daemons to be implanted in the same body, but the result is a different individual.

Additionally, because the concentration of chaos energy is so high within each Daemon Seed, the death of a Daemon, barring total annihilation, will leak chaos everywhere and cause the chaos to spread even further. It’s imperative that the daemons be stopped non-lethally through extracting or sealing away the seed that contains their essence and consciousness.

Another weakness of being a Stygian is that they are susceptible to Nora's Light of Hope attack; while it removes conflict from humans, it causes pain for the Stygians as negative, chaotic feelings are concentrated. While it doesn't kill them, it gives them a form of agonizing pain.

Additionally, what also harms a Stygian is concentrated energy from their polar opposite, the Light Force. As their bodies and consciousnesses are predisposed to chaos and emotional energy, the essence of the Light Force actively hurts their Dark Force - derived essences.

## History

When the primordial chaos, the Dark Force was unsealed from its dimension by Ethan Cross in his major scheme to rule the world, he imprinted his memories of the human genome onto the consciousness, molding the Dark Force to spawn individual consciousnesses formed in smaller, gelatinous blobs called Stygian Seeds. These were borne from Stygian Trees summoned and molded onto Earth by Ethan himself, with the intent to create powerful foot soldiers loyal to him.

After Ethan was defeated, the trees remained in Lumina City, where a cult worshipping the Dark Force was established, recruiting many of the Stygians for its cause to serve as foot soldiers.
Soon after their leadership betrayed them, many of the remaining Stygians worked together with the Radiant Force to overthrow them, before being integrated into Lumina's society.
After the daemon leader is defeated, the Aurum Gems purify the trees, allowing daemon seeds to be transformed into a new kind of organism with more moderated emotions, and their corrupting influence negated. Every subsequent seed grown from the trees are now a more friendly, superpowered kind of human, creating new residents of Lumina City.

## Notable Members

The Stygian members are divided into three main groups: Inanimate Stygians, who are formed from inanimate objects, Organic Stygians who possess humans and animals, and possessed hosts who lost control of their Stygian Seeds.

The Organic Stygians are living hosts who are perfectly synchronized with their Seeds, while the possessed hosts have lost control of them, and have gone berserker.

## The Stygian Army

### Inanimate Stygians

* Vesuvia
* Kagami
* Deadeye
* "Marion"
* Aphrodite
* Decker
* Eight-Ball
* "Double Bass"/"Blast Beat"
* "Six String"
* Screwball
* Limelight
* "Patriot"
* Technis
* "Heart"
* "Bankshot"
* Chandelara
* "Fantasia"
* "Yoroi"
* "Samus"
* "Slasher"
* "PC"
* "Folllicle"
* "Kunoichi"

### Organic Stygians

* Queen Bee
* "Umbra"
* "Raven Wing"
* Shelley
* "Gashadokuro"
* "Meltdown"
* "Candy Stygian"
* "Leech"
* "Gematria"
* "Commander"
* "Fritillary"

### Possessed Hosts

* Feral Kaitlin
* Pixie Emmeryn
* Fallen Nora
* Malware Cerina
* Tainted Rosa

## Ars Goetia

* Baelle
* Kimaris
* Andras
* Barbatos
* Baphomet
* Belial
* Asmodeae
* Astaroth
* Aamonne

## Notes

I liked the concept of Monsters of the Week as corrupted foot soldiers. However, I wanted to give each of them more importance and screentime than just simply being blasted to smithereens by the good guys.

I was inspired by anime like Sailor Moon, which provided a more humanoid presence to their monsters, especially the Daimons in Sailor Moon S, in how they were created. I also wanted to focus on them immediately after the first season as a natural consequence to what eventually happened. The Stygians are chaotic, yes, but not by default malicious, or ill-intentioned. They're a race of humanoid beings with their own emotions, thoughts and personalities, just like the regular humans of the cast and the universe.

Eventually, I will be exploring the social, ethical, and political . Not every Stygian is a monster to be destroyed, and their unique circumstances are something to really explore.

And especially the powers, and how they interact with the world.

## Trivia

* The Stygians were inspired by Monsters of the Week in the anime ''Sailor Moon''. They resemble the Daimons in *Sailor Moon S* the most, though they also borrow from the Youmas in Sailor Moon, Cardians and Droids in Sailor Moon R, Lemures in Sailor Moon SuperS, and Phages in Stars, alongside any humanoid, inorganic villain in media.
* Ironically, using the Gems to extract the Stygian Seeds is the polar opposite to what the Daimons did to ordinary humans in Sailor Moon S, who instead extracted the souls of humans with their powers.

* The name Stygian refers to ''belonging to the River Styx'' in Ancient Greek, hinting in the archetype of hellish demons that they represent.