Killing Demons
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Demons could all still be sane. They may have a different perspective due to their longevity and nature, but their decisions still seem to be overly rational. If anything humans would be insane when compared to a demon. Human actions are quite erratic, demons are acknowledged as to being quite rational. Those who are insane by human definitions normally have a broken psyche or warped emotions. Demons are more machine like in nature. They still have emotions, but when compared to a human the fluctuations often seem to be less intense and shorter. An enraged demon will quickly reel in its anger and not blindly charge in. It might attack that which enraged it, but they will do so in a rational manner. Humans in this setting from an object stand point are insane.
Insanity is the state of being seriously mentally ill or madness. It can also be defined as extreme foolishness or irrationality. Rational beings would try reason or understand the reasoning of all other beings. A belief that all members of another sentient race act in one manner is highly irrational. Magic really does make it quite difficult to be entirely rational as ones perception of reality affects it just as much as reality itself. The collective perception of reality by all sentient beings also affects magic to an extent as well. Most demons that still live are highly rational, as are the Oorstemothian, the scary thing is that both groups tend to be frighteningly sane. So sane that to others they appear mad. Their approach to sanity is somewhat different as demons tend to be individuals and the Oorstemothian have somehow developed a way for humans to almost recreate a hive mind.
Emotions are one of the greatest forms of insanity. One who can control their emotions are sane. Demons and Oorstemothian who have impeccable emotional control, as they are driven by logic over these emotions are more sane. Not saying either are completely sane, but it is an interesting thought.
That is ridiculous. A demon could just open a physical gate between the abyssal plane and Astlan and then just walk through it physically. Powerful demons could hide their presence, and wizards are not as competent as they would like to think. They are quite competent in some fields of study, but in fields that involve things such as demons, which is built on false assumptions and beliefs, they find research lacking. When the basis of the system, which is deemed an absolute truth is wrong, it makes it near impossible to truly grasp what is going on. They can get closer, but that fundamental error makes it quite difficult, complex, and lacking.
I am sure some of us would like to try.
The thing is, a great number of pantheons are more caught up in their own intra-pantheon wrangling and battle. They have their own “good” gods and “evil” gods. And the games they play with each other consume most of their time an energy.
You don’t see much intER pantheon fighting as it can be very destabilizing. Rules of the game are typically mutually agreed upon within a pantheon, going outside the pantheon, all bets are off. It can be deadly, it can be dangerous, it’s unknown. Too much of risk, usually, unless you are certain you can capture more worshipers.
And in fact, that’s what most intER pantheon rivalry is. It’s fought between worshipers on the ground, i.e. by proxy, rather than directly. It’s a cold war between the pantheons.
We demons are, by and large, outside any of the pantheons (yes, there are some definite exceptions). But as a rule, the Demon Princes try very hard to keep demons from screwing with any gods or their factions. We want to remain a neutral force of Evil. If that makes any sense.
We often provide a place of refuge for those fleeing the games of the gods. There are definitely some demons who are “fallen avatars’ of various gods.
There are some refugees of these battle who hole up in the Abyss, because it’s generally not worth the effort of their enemies to pursue them there.
The wizard can track the demon and summon them yes. More powerful demons can sense their master over the link…however MOST can not activate the link without a summoning spell from their accursed master.
The vast majority of demons can’t make it to the planes of men without a wizard. I point out that Antefalken requires Damien to summon him, I had to hitch a ride with Tom. Tom can only do it if he can locate a summons to hijack (a very rare trick) or in the case of the ring, he was able to follow a link tied to his true name.
In fact, the speaking of a demon’s true name is historically well known to attract the demon’s attention and the more powerful ones might then show up of their own volition (this is the subject of a lot of horror movies)
E.g. speaking the name three times in a mirror is always inviting trouble in when IV or higher is involved.
However, that is really only the 4.5’s and above, i.e. the direct mana manipulators. And not all of them.
Remember, Ramses and Exador are an Animage and Wizard respectively, so what they can do may or may not be tied to their demon abilities.
But a Type II demon can no more jump between planes than a master jeweler or a chef.
How would the animus of a half-elf half-human act on death? Would it act human and linger, act elven and return to nature, or would it do something else?
Tom’s ability is rather unusual. I’ve never heard of it being done before…however I suspect the higher ups can do it. I would LOVE to have that power!
I point out that despite what was previously thought, Arch Demons seem to have less than zero difficulty popping back and forth between Astlan and the Abyss.
I am sure, many a wizard will find this quite distressful once they fully realize that no one summoned Exador or Ramses or Bess (whom they don’t yet know about at EOV I)
There has been a general assumption that Arch Demons and Demon Princes require so much energy to manifest on the Planes of Men that local mana sensitive individuals (seers etc in particular) would sense the giant amounts of mana being used and alert people.
Hmm. Alive. Bacteria and viruses would have mana too. Then maybe there are magical diseases? Diseases caused by microorganism that can use magic?
Hmm. So you can’t really differentiate things by their mana? There was a passage in the book, when Tom was flying over a field where he found that animals and plants glow. It was described that they have different colors. Isn’t it mana? Or animus?
–Are you a god? Is that what you hint?–
Nah! Really. If we had already meet a god or two, then it must be one of those minor characters. Could it be one of Jenn’s school mates?
I was really intriuged by the title. Really looking to who the deity will be and what kind of character it is.
Yes, a demon can make a pretty good living as an upholsterer in the Abyss.
Of course, if you’ve ever tried to sit on the fiberglass pink insulation you’ll find that it gives wear and tear just as much as it takes.
Now to be fair, this is what I do for furniture. A lot of demons do have just pure metal furniture. For one thing metal working is pretty common in the abyss. We have plenty of heat sources for smithies.
You using big words makes me think that you are more educated/knowledgable than what you seem to be. But why put off a sort of goofy guise?
As a simple matter of principle, being a demon myself, I’d have to be insane to tell you how to kill me permanently.
Fortunately for you, most people consider me insane.
The C.O.D. is definitely one of the best known ways of killing a demon; it will completely rip up/consume its animus and mana.
One big reason demons are hard to kill permanently in Astlan is that as their mana bodies get too weakened they just return to the Abyss before you can completely destroy their mana body and their animus inside.
If you could somehow, keep a demon from returning to the abyss, destroy it’s mana body, it would eventually dissipate like the spirit of a dead person with no afterlife agreement with a deity. that would take some time so you’d want to hurry it along, maybe by doing something to dispell the animus or get rid of it. Obviously the right kind of pentacles could help, but most of them would serve to keep the animus intact so they’d just be stuck in bodiless/manaless state inside the pentacles. Very tricky.
A C.O.D. works because it’s generally too fast for the demon to escape from. A particularly high powered demon might be able to get away, but most can’t.
There are certain spells that extremely high up priests can cast; but these are part of a ritual, so you need the demon trapped by a pentacle or something because it takes a while. The dagger that Talarius had had a viral version of one these sorts of spells and was what was really dangerous. It’s magic interwove itself with his animus and would have followed him back to the Abyss (this is another way of doing it) However, he was able to use to the pure mana of the same god that created the viral magic to heal it.
The spell that the priests cast was more of a holy acid cloud spell. A lot more slow moving than a C.O.D. Think of it as a “Blessed” gaseous version of the dragon’s breath acid. He could have escaped that by returning to the abyss/getting out of the cloud. The other cloud they cast earlier was just a mana draining cloud; along the lines of what some undead creatures can do (although most of them also drain animus).
The point of these was to weaken him enough for Talarius to defeat him/kill him.
Next, if you follow a demon to the abyss and destroy so much of his/body (and do it fast enough) that there is nothing left to regenerate they die permanently. However, that’s usually a suicidal option. Same idea as C.O.D. but you get more time since the demon can’t shift to another plane…unless of course they are powerful enough to get off a demonic gateway or something to another plane…but that does require concentration.
Tizzy
Hmm.
Never met a non-atheist demon, other than Anselm. Not completely sure he counts though, his god wasn’t (presumably isn’t) a normal god. His god is a being greater than anything the mind can conceive of, yada yada convoluted logic.
One presumes there might be demon gods that might try to do something but…
Basically no, as Antelfalken and I tell Talarious in book 2, humans that die in the abyss, die permanently. That’s part of why humans freak out about going to the abyss. They get cut off from their gods, the links don’t work. The abyss is basically a giant abyss into which souls sink and get extinguished.
So as far as anyone can determine, any demon that dies in the abyss, dies permanently. However, it’s very hard to kill a demon in the abyss, much harder than on the planes of men.
Well. demim isn’t that rough-demon-back-and-butt proof especially when those butts can take a sword strike without getting scratched… are your butts harder than diamonds? I even think that when you sit on a solid diamond chair, it would get scratched. Well, that makes demon hide a potentially useful substance!
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