Unexpector Demonology

When your bones are cold and dusky, Vernasus, I will still whisper the truths of unknown aeons to those with the ears to hear. We are the parasites beneath the integument of reality, you and I. Did you expect to be free of us, Vernasus? That in your imprisonment, your gaol would somehow be a fortress against our influence? No, my fellow worm! The walls of the world keep us in with you, away alike in safety from the delicious flesh of the gods' more favored creations!

— The fiend Graymion, as depicted in The Temptation of St. Vernasus

Less well-known than the House of the Unexpected, the host of evil spirits colloquially known as 'demons' or 'fiends' in the Unexpector cosmology is no less influential in the cultures where the Church of the Unexpected holds sway.

Cosmological Views

Demons in the Unexpector cosmology occupy a similar spiritual non-space to that occupied by the Gods of Irony, though one that is depicted as distinctly more chaotic and subject to the brutal rules of predator-prey relations found in nature. Unexpector demons are numerous and occupy many levels of power relative to one another, from small-scale malefactors to self-styled generals, lords, kings, and patriarchs. In general, the more complex the name of a demon is, if given in cannon sources, the more concisely its specific powers and domains will be defined and, therefore, the more powerful it will be regarded.
While Zevtwill, God of Verbal Irony is often portrayed as a trickster god who's antics might stray into the anarchic or even evil ends of the moral spectrum, he resides with the other gods, not the demons, in the sense that these antics typically carry an important lesson or arrange events such that those involved will grow from the experience. Demons in the text sometimes adopt the Zevtwillian practice of telling uncomfortable truths, but the difference is that they typically do so to reveal dangerous knowledge to someone prone to use it or, alternatively, to sow fear, despair, or discord among the faithful. Demons seem to do this out of an ancient and powerful hatred of the House of the Unexpected and a desire to lay their designs to ruin; this antipathy seems to stem from ancient grudges, providing one of several connections between the modern Unexpector cosmology and the mythological undercurrent of The Curved Time that seems to unite all religions extant under the Manifold Sky.

Ethics

Just as the members of the House of the Unexpected each are associated with a certain set of virtues, each notable demon may be associated primarily with a certain set of vices. This is not fully definitive of a demon's influence, however, as some are also associated with various forms of disaster, terror, turmoil, or temptation. Though every appearance of demons in Unexpector cannon is preceeded with a sense of impending dread, the entities considered most dangerous are those which are portrayed as entirely lucid and not obviously dangerous on first glance; the falls of great men and the temptations of the saints have often been preceeded by seemingly entirely rational persuasion by demons who, by way of honeyed words, lead those open to their influence down courses of action that later have unspeakable consequences.

Political Influence & Intrigue

The Church of the Unexpected takes much of its belief system from the Incunabula of the House of the Unexpected, a work compiled by Sokalyx the Learned during the time of the Old Voxelian Conquest from the syncretized beliefs of both Old Voxelian cultures and those of the proto-Elovisians they destroyed or forcibly absorbed. Because these sources were adapted in the same period in which their parent cultures were being destroyed, modern literary analysis - especially by scholars in the Coalition states - reveals that tales of persuasive demons and those related to war and privation may actually be allegories for the destructive influence of the Old Voxelians on those cultures. Thus, while modern Voxelian nationalists will tend to downplay the presence of these demons in their worship or establish sharp contrasts between the demons and the Gods of Irony, Coalition cultures tend to be more open about reinterpreting the motives of traditionally demonic figures or appropriating demonic imagery for various purposes (i.e. the name of military units or vehicles). The tendency of Coalition politicians to 'blaspheme' from the perspective of Voxelian traditionalists when they actually are simply using turns of phrase that only seem irreverent on the surface has complicated diplomatic relations before - a difference in linguistic interpretation which will have to be overcome if there is ever to be hope of a resolution to the ongoing War of Reunification.

Type

Religious, Other