Demon

Demons are a species of Other and are universally reviled as the most dangerous type. Demons work towards bringing the universe to an end, making the world worse one step at a time. Someone that utilizes demons is called a Diabolist regardless of gender.

What differentiates demons from other types of Others is the fact that they carry a sort of taint or rot or radiation that lingers even after they are gone. Anything taken by demons can't be reclaimed and the stronger the demon the longer their influence lasts. Interacting with demons incurs a heavy karmic debt. Angels are their opposites, but demons will prevail in a one-on-one conflict against them.

According to Bartholemew Peck's Abyssian, it suggests that the emptiness of space might be the remnants of what happened after demons fed off it.<ref>There is no telling the damage they have done, but Bartholemew Peck’s Abyssian suggests a dark possibility, that the universe as we know it might be the leftovers of something far vaster. That the materials and elements that gathered to form stars and planetoids are merely the crumbs of a feast.
If this were true, it would be the demons of the First Choir that did the feasting. - Excerpt from Interlude 7.x</ref> Rose Sr. theorizes that if you trace sources back far enough, demons are responsible for every Other and practice coming into being,<ref>“My understanding of things is simple, Alister. Every Other is, if you trace things back far enough, the fault of demons. Every practitioner is the fault of Others, or, for a rare few, the fault of demons. All of these things, in their way, guide all of existence slowly toward its end. The unlucky few who get in too deep fall into their clutches.
[...]
“I’ll explain,” she said. “I believe that the ability to practice comes from demons. I believe the world’s attempts to balance itself are a response to this. A response to us.” - Excerpt from Interlude 12</ref> meaning all magic is spiraling us towards the end of existence.

Types

Puissance

Demons produce offspring motes called Imps, which are the most basic of demons found but can grow in power. In terms of power they are ranked from imps, least, lesser, moderate, through an unknown nomber of upper-middle ranks, and demon nobles at the top.<ref name=":0">“There is a difference,” Mann said, “Between the various tiers of demon.  Imps, least, lesser, moderate, all the way up the hierarchy.  The simplest way to mark the distinction is capability. [...] Speech is one such thing.  It’s an inverse of men.  We’re speechless

at birth, we gain the ability, with increasing faculties, then if we 

live long enough, the ability to speak gradually leaves us.  Imps can speak because they borrow from men, they sup from the collective unconscious, and they sup from victims.  Demons of the noble tier can speak because they are… broad.  If they’re neither and they can still communicate, they may well have something of man.  A token.” - excerpt from Interlude 15</ref>

Generally speaking only imps and nobles can speak; Imps because they're so weak they have to take much of their shape from human victims and ideas, and Nobles because they're so broad. Some demons of the middling ranks can also speak, however, generally those who have something of humanity in their makeup such as Barbatorem's scissiors.<ref name=":0" />

Choirs

Demons are also divided into different choirs, which was done by Practitioners to make it easy to categorize them. This division is ultimately artificial.<ref>“Demons and devils fall into choirs.  Choir of dark, choir of chaos, choir of ruin, choir of madness, choir of the feral, choir of sin, and choir of unrest, in order. [...] The choirs aren’t real things… only an idea that some have clung to, some demons and devils included.  They’re a handy way of categorizing.” - Conviction 5.5</ref>

1. Choir of Darkness: Demons and devils that had been given life in counterpoint to creation and thrive in the darkness, the antithesis of creation, and entropy distilled. Anything destroyed or devoured is never recovered, making it arguably the most dangerous choir.
2. Choir of Chaos: Demons that disturb and throw areas into disarray.
3. Choir of Ruin: The choir that brings about ruin, they damage things through connections, allowing them to harm practitioners through their workings. Opposed by structure, such as geometric shapes and symbols.
4. Choir of Madness: The choir that brings about madness, it acts against balance and can be deadly to Others like Sphinxes. However, those who are slightly mad themselves can oppose it for a time, and those who can bring about madness like Dionysus can ward it away.
5. Choir of the Feral: The choir that inverts and perverts the natural order and instills hostility into those around it.
6. Choir of Sin: The choir of man’s evils, it is a weaker choir but the one most personal to Humans.
7. Choir of Unrest: Seen as the weakest of the choirs, the demons here work with intangible forces. However, it is the one that furthest its goals in Wrong because it is subtle and hard to get a grasp on. They even take to writing tomes themselves, under the guise of being diabolists, to spread themselves.

Notable Demons

Choir of Darkness

• Abstract Demon
• Ouhim

Choir of Chaos

• Morax
• Ornias (Popular theory, but not confirmed)

Choir of Ruin

• Barbatorem
• Zapan
• Unnamed Cube woman

Choir of Madness

• Hauri
• Unnamed Screamer

Choir of the Feral

• Christopher
• Marquis Andras
  • Pauz
• Surbas

Choir of Sin

• Succubus
• Murr

Choir of Unrest

• Agares

Unknown

• Mahoun

Trivia

• Wildbow accidentally mixed up the order of the choir at some point mid-story and hadn't noticed it until four years later.<ref>Just double checked something in the story and I did get a 'chaos' and 'madness' transposed at one point.
  

Each of the choirs are a reflection of the days the world was fashioned, according to the Christian creation story. Light <-> Dark.
Chaos is the second choir. You could call them demons of the void, but that gets confusing with common perception of 'void' and proximity to the choir of darkness. In the Pact cosmology, the 'void' is the world without form. Water and sky are separated into discrete things. In these demons you have the evocative element of things that swirl and storm.
Demons of chaos disturb and throw into disarray. They aren't focused on singular targets, but on areas. They are the Leviathans of demons, wrecking places, not just for humans, mind, but for Others and their realms. They disrupt natural cycles and create others, turning places into traps or hazards of the body or mind.
And because I confused them, to elaborate, the choir of madness is tied into the sun/moon stars. In addition to being a counter to or a perversion of clarity, vision, knowledge, they play into destiny and the bigger picture. Astrology, star signs, key births. - Reddit comment</ref>

• • In Judgement 16.5, a bit of text originally meant for the choir of Madness has now been incompletely altered for the choir of Chaos.
• The choirs are inspired by the Bible's seven days of Genesis.

References

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