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How would you make demons really dark?
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6465059" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>One example.</p><p></p><p>"I'm such a poor boy, I need no sympathy..."</p><p></p><p>Demon of Self-Loathing: This demon has the power to suggest that one is so abominable of a person, that they justly ought to be destroyed. They have powers related to obsession, suggestion, and deceit as well as limited ability to manipulate the world through telekinesis and teleportation - these later powers being chiefly used to convey physical evidence to places where it will be unavoidably noticed. They are able to magnify any failing a person has and pierce any veils of hubris and vanity the person may have erected to conceal from themselves their own depravity and weaknesses, wielding both pitiless truth and lies to their nefarious ends. Those that heed their suggestions berate themselves, become despondent, mutilate their own bodies, inflict pain on themselves, claw out there own eyes in despair, and ultimately commit suicide. Ironically, heeding any of these suggestions makes it all the easier to convince the person that they are indeed abominable and worthy of such tortures, allowing suggestions of further self directed violence to be more and more reasonable. Their powers are opposed when one person can hold another in legitimate esteem and respect and convey this respect to the victim, breaking the cycle and making the demon vulnerable since when it sees another worthy of esteem and value it is forced to reflect on its own lack of value and the loathing it ought to properly feels for itself. Because the demon knows this is its weakness, it also acts to encourage its victims to commit truly detestable acts and betrayals, and then exposes these acts, in the hopes of eliminating all possibility of pity for the victim. Observers of the victim often believe that the victim has acted so because they've experienced remorse regarding their evil deeds and so have committed suicide as is just and appropriate and see the fate of the victim as well deserved. (True remorse would be marked by a desire to set things right, and when such was done would make self-loathing harder, and so is the last thing such a being wishes to encourage.) Simply exposing this pitilessness for what it is, can often be a first gateway for educing feelings of self-loathing in the next victim. Though incorporeal and immune to physical damage from non-blessed weapons, demons of self-loathing are relatively vulnerable to attacks. However, each time they are attacked physically for any reason except to protect someone that the attacker legitimately loves and values, the attacker becomes vulnerable to their retribution and they are able to respond with a physical attack which - if it strikes the target - can approximate the violence of the worst attack the attacker has ever suffered through before OR the worst attack the attacker has ever unjustly inflicted on another whichever is worse. Attackers that have never before suffered or given serious physical injury are immune to this power. Note, that demons of self-loathing are thus particularly vulnerable to their potential victims, as any victim that breaks through their deceits and acts to protect themselves out of simple self esteem is as dangerous as even a saint with the greatest sense of compassion and mercy. As such, they will take great pains to avoid placing themselves in a position where their potential victims can fight back, but will instead whisper out of the shadows and delude their victims into believing they are only hearing the voice of their own consciousness. However, they further exploit their vulnerability by secretly promoting the belief in dark lore that the purist narcissism or megalomania is sufficient defense against their taunts, when in fact such beliefs only make those that hold them easier to show as ridiculous and increase the horror and discomfort these unwelcome revelations cause. The greater your pride, the more unendurable even the slightest failing seems. Thus, many of those that might be able to resist them are deprived of their defenses. </p><p></p><p>The true form of such creatures is often as a cloud-like net of shredded flesh burning and smoking from burning coals of self-hatred contained within, although many similar variations on such themes are known. They prefer never to show this form which both revolts them and reveals their true self-loathed nature to others. Instead they prefer to remain invisible and incorporeal and appear only as subtly wrong versions of their victims in mirrors and like reflections. Strong men appear weaker than they remember themselves being. Beautiful persons appear fatter than they remember themselves being. The more power they gain over their victims, the more horrific these images become (and the more closely the true person comes to match the mutilated horror). They are kindred to the demons of despair, disgust, guilt, and fear and may have powers and appearance which overlap these creatures, making the exact form difficult to identify. Each demon takes an identity from the statement of some crime or betrayal, and is attracted particularly to those who have committed that crime. For example, demons named Forsook-One-Who-Loved-Me-Truly, I-Wish-I-Was-Skinny, and Smothered-My-Child-With-A-Pillow are recorded in works of dark lore.</p><p></p><p>Because no demon is completely immune to the demon of self-loathing depredations they inspire great terror even in their peers, so that greater demons often use these beings as enforcers compelling the subservience of others. They in turn resist their power solely by having sufficient self-will and scathing enough wit to turn the self-loathing back on its origin before it overwhelms even such mighty beings. They also tend to lurk in the train of demons of pride, treachery and vanity, like a pack of vultures or jackals awaiting a feast.</p><p></p><p>Even if banished, a demon of self-loathing, once it is invited into the world, can return to the scene of its previous crimes in one years time so long as at least one person who remembers it believes its actions were just and recalls no victims with pity. Thus, while few are so rash as to summon such dreadful beings, once summoned they are particular hard to unsummon and they have a tendency to slowly accumulate.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6465059, member: 4937"] One example. "I'm such a poor boy, I need no sympathy..." Demon of Self-Loathing: This demon has the power to suggest that one is so abominable of a person, that they justly ought to be destroyed. They have powers related to obsession, suggestion, and deceit as well as limited ability to manipulate the world through telekinesis and teleportation - these later powers being chiefly used to convey physical evidence to places where it will be unavoidably noticed. They are able to magnify any failing a person has and pierce any veils of hubris and vanity the person may have erected to conceal from themselves their own depravity and weaknesses, wielding both pitiless truth and lies to their nefarious ends. Those that heed their suggestions berate themselves, become despondent, mutilate their own bodies, inflict pain on themselves, claw out there own eyes in despair, and ultimately commit suicide. Ironically, heeding any of these suggestions makes it all the easier to convince the person that they are indeed abominable and worthy of such tortures, allowing suggestions of further self directed violence to be more and more reasonable. Their powers are opposed when one person can hold another in legitimate esteem and respect and convey this respect to the victim, breaking the cycle and making the demon vulnerable since when it sees another worthy of esteem and value it is forced to reflect on its own lack of value and the loathing it ought to properly feels for itself. Because the demon knows this is its weakness, it also acts to encourage its victims to commit truly detestable acts and betrayals, and then exposes these acts, in the hopes of eliminating all possibility of pity for the victim. Observers of the victim often believe that the victim has acted so because they've experienced remorse regarding their evil deeds and so have committed suicide as is just and appropriate and see the fate of the victim as well deserved. (True remorse would be marked by a desire to set things right, and when such was done would make self-loathing harder, and so is the last thing such a being wishes to encourage.) Simply exposing this pitilessness for what it is, can often be a first gateway for educing feelings of self-loathing in the next victim. Though incorporeal and immune to physical damage from non-blessed weapons, demons of self-loathing are relatively vulnerable to attacks. However, each time they are attacked physically for any reason except to protect someone that the attacker legitimately loves and values, the attacker becomes vulnerable to their retribution and they are able to respond with a physical attack which - if it strikes the target - can approximate the violence of the worst attack the attacker has ever suffered through before OR the worst attack the attacker has ever unjustly inflicted on another whichever is worse. Attackers that have never before suffered or given serious physical injury are immune to this power. Note, that demons of self-loathing are thus particularly vulnerable to their potential victims, as any victim that breaks through their deceits and acts to protect themselves out of simple self esteem is as dangerous as even a saint with the greatest sense of compassion and mercy. As such, they will take great pains to avoid placing themselves in a position where their potential victims can fight back, but will instead whisper out of the shadows and delude their victims into believing they are only hearing the voice of their own consciousness. However, they further exploit their vulnerability by secretly promoting the belief in dark lore that the purist narcissism or megalomania is sufficient defense against their taunts, when in fact such beliefs only make those that hold them easier to show as ridiculous and increase the horror and discomfort these unwelcome revelations cause. The greater your pride, the more unendurable even the slightest failing seems. Thus, many of those that might be able to resist them are deprived of their defenses. The true form of such creatures is often as a cloud-like net of shredded flesh burning and smoking from burning coals of self-hatred contained within, although many similar variations on such themes are known. They prefer never to show this form which both revolts them and reveals their true self-loathed nature to others. Instead they prefer to remain invisible and incorporeal and appear only as subtly wrong versions of their victims in mirrors and like reflections. Strong men appear weaker than they remember themselves being. Beautiful persons appear fatter than they remember themselves being. The more power they gain over their victims, the more horrific these images become (and the more closely the true person comes to match the mutilated horror). They are kindred to the demons of despair, disgust, guilt, and fear and may have powers and appearance which overlap these creatures, making the exact form difficult to identify. Each demon takes an identity from the statement of some crime or betrayal, and is attracted particularly to those who have committed that crime. For example, demons named Forsook-One-Who-Loved-Me-Truly, I-Wish-I-Was-Skinny, and Smothered-My-Child-With-A-Pillow are recorded in works of dark lore. Because no demon is completely immune to the demon of self-loathing depredations they inspire great terror even in their peers, so that greater demons often use these beings as enforcers compelling the subservience of others. They in turn resist their power solely by having sufficient self-will and scathing enough wit to turn the self-loathing back on its origin before it overwhelms even such mighty beings. They also tend to lurk in the train of demons of pride, treachery and vanity, like a pack of vultures or jackals awaiting a feast. Even if banished, a demon of self-loathing, once it is invited into the world, can return to the scene of its previous crimes in one years time so long as at least one person who remembers it believes its actions were just and recalls no victims with pity. Thus, while few are so rash as to summon such dreadful beings, once summoned they are particular hard to unsummon and they have a tendency to slowly accumulate. [/QUOTE]
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