Demons

A **demon** is an immortal, infinite shapeshifter. The only way it can be created is via an obscure, now lost necromantic rite.

## History

There was once a thin pamphlet, only a few pages long, that detailed how to create a demon (in coarse, slobbish handwriting with poor spelling and grammar. The author, to this day, remains anonymous.) A few dozen copies were handed out to the passing fare in a scummy Cyenevian city, and most copies were tossed. Some, however, attempted to perform the spell. Others kept the pamphlet without quite knowing why, and from there copies were lost, misplaced, destroyed, or flopped into the hands of the unsuspecting.

Of the five successful occasions a demon was created, one maker was given a pamphlet directly. Another found it amongst their deceased great-uncle's belongings. The third, many generations after the pamphlet was first distributed, heard about it from a peer's best friend's aunt's husband's brother, found a transcription of the pamphlet, and attempted it in a basement. The fourth had acquired the information through some mysterious means. The fifth sold it to an intelligence agency, and from there it found itself into the hands of a military organization.

Some time after the creation of the fourth, all the packets, all notes, and all transcriptions of anything potentially meaningful at all concerning demon creation were strangely lost.

## Creation

First, there must be a murder.

Then, as soon as the body has become a corpse, the soul must be swiftly extracted. Only a necromancer can properly sink themselves into Death and return to the land of the living, but waste too much time and the soul will be lost. The despoiling process is next. A soul must be stripped and stripped and stripped and stripped of anything that made the deceased themselves. The further a soul is robbed of its original qualities, the stronger the demon that is made out of it.

The soul is then converted and then gives boundaries: it cannot be everything at once, it must pick; it cannot have unchecked power, it now has limits; it is not meant to be free, it now can be bound as a servant; it cannot die, it is immortal.

Upon completion of the spell the demon is awake and active. From there, it is a good idea to bind it immediately to the magician that made it, as it may be angry and murderous.

## Appearance

Changeable in response to the demon's desires, there is no pre-determined or "natural" physical form for a demon to take.

A demon without a body, however, looks like a translucent wispy film, usually taking on a shifting series of colors. As they move, the edges of their soul shift, fade, and blur, even fall off (though the soul never truly loses any mass). They are capable of visibly stretching to vast lengths, or shrinking to near invisible points. What characteristics they take on from there are due to conscious effort.

## Abilities

* **Physical Regeneration** (the ability to heal, mend, and recover from any illness or injury)
* **Infinite Power Supply** (an internal, always regenerating power supply that can sustain anything and everything, barring any finite capabilities of the physical body or any corruption to the soul)
* **Bottom-Up Shapeshifting** (the ability to shift form into anything and everything, taking on any quality or characteristic ... with a twist. Whatever physical form is taken, it must be meticulously created again and again from the most meaningless detail to the largest overarching concept)
* **Magic** (the ability to use, conduct, perform, and manipulate magic)
* **Soul Searching** (the ability to not only sense souls around them within a certain proximity, but a fine-tuned sensitivity to the souls of other demons that allows them to track each other down, regardless of distance)
* **Bodyless** (the ability to exist without a physical form to contain the soul)
* **Inescapable Immortality** (an inability to die)
* **Selective** **Dormancy** (the ability to go dormant)
* **Coma Clock** (the awareness of how long dormancy has been going on and the ability to wake up from it)

## Known Demons

* Kennel
* Mogget
* Boggart
* Popper
* Rammoth