Daemons

There are many believers in the official Holy Worship, people who have never doubted that things can go on beyond the borders of the Empire and beyond the words of its priests.

But the reality they live in is not the only one of the possible realities and the possible worlds; the entire universe is populated with ancestral entities for the most part unknown to man.
They are the daemons.

They were on Earth, intangible to matter; immense clouds of volcanic ash enveloped it in a blanket of thick darkness and its surface was torn and shattered by earthquakes and very strong lightning storms.

As the millennia passed, the sun’s rays began to penetrate the thick blanket of clouds surrounding the earth and oceans and finally the light began to radiate out of the world allowing life to spread and flourish. This was all in contrast with the very nature of the daemonic entities that until then had dominated that primeval chaos and gradually came more and more deeply into the dark meanders of the earth.

The light destroys the essence of the daemons and thus they try to avoid it. They are characterized by being evanescent and negative spiritual entities with the ability to creep themselves into the minds of the human beings, crossing the limits of their will and replacing it until they transform those bodies into empty bodies used as means to spread the dark and destructive primordial madness in form of flesh and bone.
Daemons love the pain and suffering they can generate.

With their cursed aura, daemons defile places as much as individuals. Just like a terrible disease that spreads through the body, the environment in which they live is also heavily affected by their dark presence. The plants and animals that do not dry out or rot, change into hideous hybrids pervaded by suffering and doomed to destruction; the air taints with the smell of death.

Daemons can only physically manifest themselves by transmigrating into a human being or into another creature.
Creeping into the mind like a whisper, a daemon is able to subjugate its prey. Thus, as for the environment that surrounds it, the body begins to change into aberrant forms, the mind deteriorates, the flesh rots and the spirit fades until all that remains is a deformed and corrupt being.

The daemon at this point decides whether to abandon its host and return to the shadows as an immaterial entity of pure darkness or whether to maintain control of this receptacle until it is completely annihilated.
Daemons are extremely smart and powerful, which is why in ancient times they were feared and openly venerated as divinities bringing devastation all around them.

Daemons have been studied for a long time and thanks to these studies the human being has the illusion of being able to control them in some way, of being able to draw on their powers and their infinite wisdom.
This is partly true: daemons choose to give themselves to men and to give them access to these great forces but the price to pay is very high and once understood it is always too late to turn back.

Through these studies it has been possible to find a way to put the energy of demons into one’s body and even to infuse it into sacrificial victims or elaborate fetishes, in which the essence of the daemon can expand, transforming into grotesque transient bodies with enormous power.

Daemons are commonly classified according to the mutations they cause to their prey or according to the powers they can give to those who use their arcane teachings. They are also defined in classes of increasing power according to the amount of arcane energy they are able to release. The older a demon is, the more destructive and corrupting it will be.

The physical and mental training teaching hoe to be able to manage the arcane force of the daemons is exhausting. The body needs to get used to the destructive power without being compromised by cramps and convulsions, the mind needs to resist the increasingly insistent flattery of the daemon who will try to insinuate itself into its prey in every way.

A good arcane knowledge will allow you to control and bend the daemon’s strength to achieve the objectives. The powers of a person who has achieved such knowledge are almost unlimited: distorting reality as you want, destroying objects and enemies with a simple glance, corrupting the most resolute mind a few words.

However, this condition of absolute power is temporary. Over time, the daemon will be able to break through the defenses of his host and will lead him to annihilation. There is no escape and the daemons are fully aware of this, they pretend to be controlled and to be at the service of the human being. But sooner or later even the most skillful and powerful sorcerer will be able to succumb by sinking into an abyss of endless pain.