I'd like to do a little research here, among people versed in fantasy games and literature. :) The subject is: fantasy demons.

I was wondering: in what way are demons depicted in various games and books? For example: do they more often reside in the material world, like in Tolkien (where Morgoth and Sauron were arch-demons ruling their own lands?) - or do they rather exist in some eldritch dimension? Also, how many of them are there - are they more often presented as unique beings, or as countless hordes? Are they tied to the afterlife and reside in some afterlife dimension, or is their dimension something completely else? Do they breed? Can they be killed or destroyed, or are they immortal?

Overall, I'm curious on the various concepts of demons in fantasy. Care to share some examples?

Hmm, off the top of my head, here are some demons that I can think of...

Daemons in the "His Dark Materials" trilogy by Phillip Pullman ("Northern Lights", "The Subtle Knife", "The Amber Spyglass") are basically the personification of a person's soul. A daemon takes the form of some kind of animal and follows that person around - the person and the daemon can speak to and understand each other but as far as I can remember people don't speak to each others' daemons. And touching someone else's daemon is considered highly inappropriate/forbidden (as if you were intimately touching the person themselves without permission). When the human is young, their daemon tends to freely shift between different animal forms, but as the human hits maturity/puberty, the daemon settles down into a chosen form and stays that way for life. Daemons generally can't move far from their human (it's painful for both of them) and if the human dies, the daemon instantly ceases to exist.

Demons in the Myth series my Robert Asprin come in all shapes an sizes, because the word "demon" there is just shorthand for "dimensional traveller". There are a whole load of different planes inhabited by various species (some humanoid or thereabouts, others downright alien), and travel between dimensions seems fairly common - one dimension, Deva, contains a huge market (called "the Bazaar") at which can be found members of pretty much every species imaginable.

Demons in DnD are extraplanar creatures who tend to be not very nice and live in the more chaotic regions of existence. There are also devils who can inhabit similar kinds of locations but the two don't tend to get on, as far as I can remember. From what I recall, in earlier editions of DnD when they had the Nine Alignments, demons tended to be Chaotic Evil while devils were Lawful Evil. I believe both tend to have red as a dominant colour, plus horns and fiery abilities and stuff like that.

Hmmm, that's a few for now, anyway. If I think of more I may post them ;).

If I remember Daemons were Neutral Evil.  (Eek sorry meant to say in DnD
Now they have the part blood tieflings.

  I remember reading a book once where the demon summoned by a magic-user to aid his rightful king to be hiding from his brother among the peasents, was badly discribed in the spell/ritual.

  What big noisy, powerful thing he summoned was a military personal carrier, and it's squad from Veitnam. when the King realized they were humans i think he told the mage to break the cirle of comulision on the.. its been awhile  since i read it.


Edit to insert D&D mention.
This message was last edited by the user at 17:36, Thu 11 Aug 2016.

In reply to C-h Freese (msg # 3):

That novel was "Doomfarers of Coramonde", by Brian Daley. It is hard to find the original 1978 novel even on the used market, but the good news is it is available on Kindle. There was also a sequel the " Starfollowers of Coramonde", which follows the squad leader/APC commander as he returns from Vietnam, becomes disaffected with life in America, and willingly chooses to return to the fantasy world where he had been summoned.

Thanks! Here are some matters I'm currently curious about:

1. Do demons breed - and, if not, where do they come from?

2. Are there fictional portrayals of demons where they can be killed? In LOTR, Sauron couldn't be killed - he only got dispersed. On the other hand, Gandalf did kill the Balrog, I think...

3. Are demons always tied to the afterlife?

1. In some settings, they do breed like other races. In others, they are created by other beings or even arise spontaneously. For example, in the novel The Fallible Fiend, the main character is a demon who has a family back home, coming to the human world as a slave in order to earn resources that his people value highly (iron, I think it was). In the Exalted game line, demonic races (First Circle) arise from unique demons of the Second Circle and have a wide range of means by which they later reproduce. The blood apes, for example, procreate through intense agony, the new ape forming from curdled air as the tortured parent screams.
In the rpg Cinis and in the Wizardry novels by Rick Cook, demons arise spontaneously from complex magic, being evolved spells in a sense.

2. Yes, in many settings demons can be killed. Some require it on their home plane or by especially potent weapons, some require esoteric methods to snuff the demon's life out permanently, and some let them die like other people. Using Sauron as an example was a very poor choice, as he was a fallen god, not a demon, having originally been the chief servant of the one who created the dwarves and the most powerful of his divine rank. Gandalf slaying the Balrog was likewise a battle between two entities of similar supernatural power, not a mortal spellcaster slaying something unnatural.

3. No. For example, The Book of Ebon Bindings has a number of demons in it, but afterlives are something of the gods rather than the demons. Likewise, in Rolemaster and the Shadow World setting, demons are either entities from far distant planes (the Pales), or embodiments of mortal sin that take on physical form in this world (the Ishru).

Just to straighten the record, Tolkien's stories were monotheistic. Eru was the One God, the Creator. The first entities he created were the Ainur who were perhaps to be equated with angels. Morgoth was a fallen Ainur and Sauron was his servant, a Maia. Gandalf, Radagast and Saruman were also Maia, but because they were 'good', they were forbidden to use their full powers in Middle Earth, whereas Sauron willfully broke the rules and gathered power for himself. If he wasn't stopped, Saruman might have become another Sauron.

I don't recall any mention being made of the 'level' of the Balrog. From its description it may have been a demon, but how it compared with Gandalf in the hierarchy is open to question. However, it was significantly easier to defeat than Sauron or Saruman. Gandalf and the Balrog fell off the Bridge in Moria and only Gandalf returned. I don't think it was specified what happened to the Balrog. It may have been killed, buried, banished...

Likewise, there was no definite death for Sauron or Saruman. Saruman had his throat cut and died, but only after he had been stripped of his powers, and even then, his spirit rose immediately and then dissipated, just like Sauron. However, Sauron had dissipated before, when he was 'killed' by Elendil and Gil-Galad, but his spirit reformed and came back, firstly to Dol Guldur, then to Mordor. There is nothing to say that either Sauron or Saruman were finished forever.

Heh, I didn't know I knew that.

As for demons in general, most of what I've read suggests that they are immortal, they don't reproduce, they were created in the Beginning, and can only be banished back to the netherworld.

Thanks for all the answers so far!

A question: how do the DnD / Pathfinder demons work, exactly? Can they be killed? I've looked at the appropriate entries in the Pathfinder bestiary and it seems they can be killed just like any other creature...

Look up the templates used. Unless the individual creature has an ability that says otherwise, all creatures in D&D 3rd and Pathfinder follow the rules of their templates. For demons, that would be an Outsider.

Yeah, and it seems that the outsiders don't have any special rules about not being killable...

Note that outsiders, if they are not the Native subtype, cannot restore souls to their bodies using raise dead, reincarnate, nor resurrection.  The fact that the above information is given, and the alternatives which can are listed, implies that in Pathfinder, Outsiders can most definitely be killed.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestia...r-listings/outsiders

Actually, I'm pretty sure that in DnD and probably Pathfinder, they can only be killed permanently on their home planes. THe reason they can't be raised/resurrected is that their souls were banished to their home plane, and they are not actually -dead- exactly.

Though that might be older editions I'm thinking of.

then there is the question in first edition, when you leave the material plane plane with an astral spell and get killed you are pulled back to your plane by the silver cord.  then does that mean that demons have their own cord that pulls them back to their plane?

Nope. Demons ran on entirey different rules. There was no cord; it was never fully explained. But in early editions, you could also, conceivably, have your cord snapped (particularly by Gith silver swords), which would kill you instantly. Nothing like that for demons.

Okay, here's another question - a more literature-oriented one:

Are there any fantasy novel which actually depict demon armies marching forth and attacking the mortal / material realms? Also, how many books are there which show a demon manifesting and engaging in combat, like the Balrog?

The Diablo universe has the demons and angels fighting a constant war with each other. Some of these angels and demons got fed up of the fighting and buggered off, setting up their own little world on a place called Sanctuary (can't remember whether it was already called that or whether it got the name because that's what they used it for). Some of them actually interbred, creating offspring called Nephalem who were more powerful than any angel or demon. Because of this, a thing called the Worldstone was created at the heart of Sanctuary to basically act as a dampening force on their powers - over time, the Nephalem became known as "humans".

At some point (I can't remember whether this was before or after the Nephalem first showed up) the still-warring factions of Heaven and Hell found out about Sanctuary and started iterfering with that as well. It might even have been some of them (probably the angels) who created the Worldstone.

Anyway, I could go into more detail but basically the games themselves have you fighting off the demon armies as they invade Sanctuary, generally led by or acting under the orders of one or more of the three Prime Evils, the youngest of whom is Diablo, the Lord of Terror (his elder brothers are Baal, Lord of Destruction and the oldest, Mephisto, Lord of Hatred). There are also four Lesser Evils - Andariel (Maiden of Anguish), Duriel (Prince of Pain), Belial (Lord of Lies), and Azmodan (umm, I can't remember his title but supposedly he's a master tactician when it comes to waging war. Supposedly).