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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 6732202" data-attributes="member: 6790260">The problem, mostly, is that the universe (or even multiverse) is too big for any one demon, even an insanely powerful one, to address all the time--and insanely powerful ones have all sorts of other issues, like having their movements closely tracked by insanely powerful good (and/or lawful, in some cases--e.g. the Blood War in FR) beings who would love nothing more than to destroy them if they screw up. So in order to wreak chaos, mayhem, and disorder without getting your face punched in literally all the time, you gotta delegate to lower-level beings. In order to pay attention to the entire universe(/multiverse), you need to have nested delegation...which means a hierarchy.And when you have a hierarchy, where power can literally be obtained by defeating (and/or consuming) your superiors, you have schemes and plots.It is entirely possible to create a cosmology where this isn't the case, but it requires substantial changes to the power dynamic of the entities involved. For example, 13A has one--or, at least, that's my understanding of it (which could be incomplete). The Gods of Light and the Gods of Darkness (essentially Good and Evil deities) don't like each other at all and, if they had no other enemies, would gladly destroy each other. But they do. They have both devils and demons to deal with. Both of which live outside of reality--one wants things from it, the other "wants in." Demons are the latter. They don't give a <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> about hierarchy or anything else...and the vast majority of the time they cannot gain access to the world, either. When they do, solid excrement really hits the whirling device. Devils, on the other hand, want power. Destroying mortals and their world would be such a waste! They're both so useful. Normally, they too cannot cross over into the mortal world, but generally they don't even if they could--much better to strike deals, to slowly transform mortal beings, through manipulating their behavior, into something like themselves, so that the mortal world really just becomes an extension of their own.Under this system, the CE "demon" type becomes a bit more like Cthulhu: they can only affect our world under certain circumstances, they really don't give a <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> about anyone in it, and just want to consume and rage around for a while. There is no real hierarchy, even if some are more powerful than others, because their interests are usually unrelated--they might fight each other now and then, but usually they just stay separate from each other. The LE "devil" archetype becomes like its namesake in modern myth: Satan offering an incredible deal in exchange for "your soul." Though "your soul" might be a bit more metaphorical than literal here--it's not taking the essence that makes you individual, but rather slowly transforming you, your very nature, into something indistinguishable from theirs. I'm reminded of the closing paragraph of Animal Farm on that--the pigs became indistinguishable from the men.</blockquote>

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