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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jürgen Hubert" data-source="post: 2310246" data-attributes="member: 7177">It's not necessary for demons to be recognizable as twisted reflections of humanity.  It's only necessary for them to be recognizable as that destructive maiming nihilistic impluse within us.  It is not at all necessary that they share any larger attributes with us, and certainly no qualities within ourselves that we would find admirable and attractive.  Any attractive properties they possess must be a sham, or at least based upon the fact that evil is mysteriously attractive even when it is disturbing and loathesome.</blockquote>Well, for D&D I'm mostly using the Planescape model of demons and devils, where they are twisted reflections of humanity on some level - after all, they originated from human souls.Cthonic entities, on the other hand, are Beyond Good and Evil, as Lovecraft would have said. The horror with them is not that they are evil - because they are not; in the universe of the Cthulhu Mythos, "Good" and "Evil" are merely human constructs that are irrelevant to the cosmos at large. The horror is that in their very existence, they make human beliefs pointless. Good, Evil, Law, Chaos - they all don't matter in the face of the Mythos. And the human mind shatters at these implications. That makes them loathsome - because humans are loath to confront all the implications of their existence.Plancescape demons and devils, on the other hand, are the opposition that must exist to the forces of Good to make Goodness meaningful. There are hints of ancient Cthonic entitites in Planescape as well - the Ancient Baatorians, for example. But I think it is significant that the Baatezu, who are made from human souls, took their place and now dominate that aspect of the setting.At least that's my theory of How Things Work, and I'm sticking to it for my campaign.   <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />But in Tolkien's world, Balrogs are pretty much the definition of ancient cthonic beings!A better analogy to demons would be the Ringwraiths - they are tragic figures in a way, and they were once humans and are thus on some level understandable. And yet they are utterly lost and evil beyond redemption.I think we simply have different views on this. But to me, Good and Evil are first and foremost human concepts - and beings that reflect these concepts thus reflect humanity.[/QUOTE]

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