Lost and Broken Souls
The commonly held belief in The Varolian is that when souls die, Haroch claims them, taking them to The Underworld. Once there, they are either left to wander, taken up by one of the other gods, or simply wait for oblivion. Some souls, though, lived terrible lives and are unable to move on from the memories, allowing their spirits to fester and turn to darkness in death. Others are tortured into evil by existing demons, or corrupted by the long reach of
The Breaker.
Whatever their source, the demons from below are evil beyond redemption, desperate to force others to suffer the same way they have. In appearance they are almost all bipedal, with mighty wings and frightening claws, gleaming jewellery, and skin that is either dark or formed from starlight.
Types of Demons
Eater of Hope
The most common type of demon, these foul creatures are born of mortals who died with true despair or terror in their hearts. In their new forms, they enjoy nothing more than to torture their victims, allowing them to marinate in fear before devouring them. They are also obsessed with hoarding items of great value, then using them to tempt and manipulate mortals, for they feel a perverse pleasure in watching creatures falling to despair after giving in to greed. In this, they are thought to be the foremost creators of tieflings, promising parents great wealth in return for their firstborn, only for them to abandon their children when they realise what they have done.
While they are the most common, they are by no means weak. A single one of these demons can slay a score of soldiers with no more than its devastating breath of black fog that clings to the soul and empowers its attacks.
Abhorrent Overlord
Adorned in horns and bracelets of Underworld gold, Overlords form from the souls of people that fell to poverty, greed, or loneliness. Now, their appetite for pain and death is eclipsed only by their avarice; these fiends delight in searching out treasure and slaughtering all who stand in their way.
Able to leech the life force from wounds they deal, an Overlord is frightening even alone. Worse, then, is the fact that they almost never are. Harpies, vultures, crows, and other flying scavengers are attracted to an Overlord, drawn by its evil and the promise of warm meat. They will defend it to the death in great swarms, and their spirits may be summoned by their masters to wound and obscure all nearby.
Demon of Loathing
Born from violence and hatred, these oddly insectoid demons are said to be the most fearsome in single combat. Every wound that is dealt to them appears upon their foes as well, forcing opponents to survive their own blows as well as the monster's. Reports of these beings are few, for the moment one somehow finds its way to the world of the living it goes on a deadly rampage without care for tactics or guile, inevitably ending with a hero or priest arriving to destroy it completely, though often at the cost of many lives.
Master of Feasts
When a mortal starves to death, falls to dehydration, or is drained dry by a vampire or similar leeching magics, they may become a Master of Feats. These huge, bloated, demons can conjure endless supplies of enchanted foods able to fullfill even the heartiest of appetites. Their feasts are nourishing and delicious to all who partake, but come with quite the cost; those who eat of the demon's food or drink of its wines become bound to it, enslaved to its will.
Only a handful of these Masters have ever been spotted, known to ensorcell entire towns of people with their "gifts" and enjoy using them as puppets until eventually the demons grow bored and consume their victims.
Nightmare Shepherd
None of these terrible overseers have ever been seen walking the Earth, but they have been spotted through portals and in visions as heralds of untold disaster. How they form is unknown, as are their individual combat abilities. What is known is this; where they walk, hell follows with them. They seem eternally surrounded by uncountable seas of undead, thought to be able to command a legion of souls with a whisper.
It is truly fortunate that none of these star-covered demons have ever made their way up from The Underworld, and some believe that they are in fact benevolent, tending to their herds of souls while they await their ultimate fates.
Wild Demons
The demons listed above are those who appear similar and have been reported by multiple people at multiple points, but they are not thought to be the only ones around. Stranger creatures with much different appearances and abilities have been known to exist. Some appear to be much more goat-like, others more serpentine, and one or two of giant proportions with red claws that shred concrete and screams that can be heard miles away. While they are almost entirely unstudied, the idea that they are also demons from The Underworld is a popular one, though more than one scholar has lost their life attempting to learn more.
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