Demons

MissUtilis

So yeah, demons! How do you write them?

Fanfic, I know, but in my take on One Hundred and One Dalmatians, demons call the underworld home. Their bodies are wholly black (maybe subconsciously inspired by the Changelings from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic) and come in all shapes and sizes. They may assume earthly forms of these bodies when on Earth. One such demon, Polydamas Hesperos, can assume the form of a black Labrador Retriever, and is Cadpig's true father. He left the underworld to live on Earth permanently because his more intellectual nature made him an outcast among more aggressive demon males. Alas I have not fleshed out the demons enough.

Calica

did one hundred and one dalmatians actually have demons

MissUtilis

It would if I were in charge of it. The appeal is that the world of dogs just seems so much richer than the world of humans...and of course the humans don't know that demons are real! Neither do most dogs but still.

MissUtilis

Look, if it can have a chicken who wants to be a dog and a medieval town that reappears once every century, it can have demons

MissUtilis

I do seem to have turned it into a sort of fantasy kitchen sink though

One-Winged Eagle

It's not that bad.

MissUtilis

well what is your idea of what demons are like?

Salix Babylonika

Demons take many forms, but abide by a short trio of traits in the stories I've been writing lately:

• demons are beings of chaos but bound by law, though they will try to disrupt the social order, they cannot break contracts and things of that nature
• demons are beings of great power, and can generally lend that power out should they be given a reason to do so
• in appearance, a demon can look like almost anything.

Alduin

Important to note that Islamic "jinn" are neither angels nor demons: they're more like spirits of other mythologies than anything contained in Christianity.

Like...the closest analogue would be the faeries of European myth (if you take the explanation that they're a "third order" of spirits) in folk Christianity, and even then that's a bad comparison.

Calica

i think i may have first heard the word "djinn" from, embarrassingly enough, that kazaam movie with shaq

One-Winged Eagle

I meant that it wasn't that bad a kitchen sink. I've seen much worse.

I don't really have much to add about demons. Although Yaoguai are like animal, skeleton, or inanimate object spirits that gain supernatural powers.

Calica

1. Demons do not exist
2. You have just summoned a demon

One-Winged Eagle

I do how like Mercenary-Tributary handles demons: they're microbe arcane lifeforms that form solid colonies when interacting with certain types of matter.