Demonkind

Basic Information

• Biology

  Demons can be compared to satyrs, having digitigrade legs ending in paws with large black claws. They have darkbrown fur from the waist down, as well as covering their forearms and hands. Their hands end in claws as well, but these are much smaller and more manageable, almost like sharpened fingernails. They have lion-like tails, which are long and thin, ending in a larger tuft of fur.
  
  Demons have humanlike faces and torsos, with a number of distinct differences. Demons have similar skin colors to humans, but in different distributions; demons are more often darker skinned than humans, and even the lightest demons are considered decently tanned by humans.
  
  Demon eyes all have yellow sclerae, instead of white like humans, and their irises range from dark brown to purple to red or amber. Demons also have tusks like orcs that jut up out of their mouths from their lower lips. They have pointed ears, but these are usually overshadowed by their most notable feature: their horns. Demon horns are all the same color: dark brown with a hint of dark red. The shape of the horn can vary greatly, the most common type being curving back, down, then forward again in a small spiral, pressed close to the sides of the face, much like ram horns.
  
  Demons share few internal differences to humans. They have mildly better senses of smell and hearing. They are obligate carnivores; they can eat and enjoy plants, but they require meat to survive.

• Soneus & Enochia

  Soneus, the world of humans.
  Enochia, the world of demons.
  
  The world of Soneus is both similar to and unlike our own.
  
  Humans live with sub-modern technology; with a bit more advancement in fields such as agricultural production and genetic manipulation, and less in fields like aeronautics and networking. Things like cars and motorboats and machines exist. The internet (as we know it), space programs, and smart phones do not.
  
  Soneus has three distinct realms: the Known World, the Distant World, and the Uncharted World. The Known World consists of one continent--Saphra--and several islands of varying size. These areas are where civilizations flourish, and a large percentage of the world population lives. The Distant World, on the other hand, consists of two other continents--Cet and Ediira--and far more islands. People do live out here, but not nearly as many as do in the Known World, and only in small towns or even villages. If technology as great as in the Known World exists out here, it is only because of illegal practices being held out here. The main reason that people don't live out there in greater numbers is simple: monsters. Horrifying, eldritch abominations that populate these lands. They are strangely absent from the Known World, but flourish in the Distant World. The existence of these creatures are often the only remaining hint that magic used to exist. Finally, the uncharted world is simply that: uncharted. It is mostly so because those who attempt to travel beyond the Distant World often do not return. Humans know things exist out there--other landmasses and likely dead civilizations--thanks in part to relics and maps of the past. However, after the Great War over 50 years ago, these previously mentioned horrifying monsters began to appear, and travel outside of the Known World became dangerous. Outside of the Distant World? Impossible.
  
  Little is known about Enochia, to both humans and demons. After the Great War, and the mysterious event only known as the Great Atrocity, Enochia has been wholly uninhabitable. Demons now inhabit Soneus under the rule of humans.
  
  Travel between Soneus and Enochia was done through special portals that either spawned naturally in the world, or are artificially made. Those that spawned naturally are assumed to be pre-existing, having been permanent fixtures in their locations for all of history. Portals between worlds often appear in bodies of water, but they have been known to appear in other places, too.
  
  The governments of Soneus have declared travel to Enochia illegal, claiming it to be hazardous to human life and to life on Soneus. All known portals are heavily barricaded, though few people ever care to traverse them anyways.
  
  Sonean flora is very similar to real world flora, and, at least in the Known and Distant worlds, non-monstrous fauna are somewhat similar, too.

• Religion

  Very few demons are known to be religious, but many humans are. Though there are many variations depending on location, there is one, central religion across both worlds. The basic, universal religious lore is as follows:
  
  The only god, simply known as God, Goddess, or by name, Asani, created three worlds: Soneus, Enochia, and a world with an unpronounceable name. This third world is her own private domain, her personal sanctuary, known to commonfolk only as the Elysium. Soneus and Enochia were placed below the Elysium, and are known together as the Lower Heavens.
  
  Asani created life to fill the Lower Heavens, and created two races to flourish in them, one to rule each. Out of water and clay, she created humans. Out of fire and coal, she created demons.
  
  Though each race loved their own worlds, and loved her, they coveted the chance to be with her in the Elysium. However, Asani knew that humans and demons would be incompatible, so she gave them the Choice. One race would join her in Elysium; the other would rule over the Lower Heavens.
  
  While her intentions were pure, humans and demons were not pure, and so to secure their places in Elysium, they battle with each other until the end times, when either one race will come out victorious, or Asani herself comes down from heaven and chooses a victor to join her forever.

• History

  Humans and demons have always had alternating periods of war and peace, and of course humans and demons have always had wars between their worlds' own nations. However, none of those conflicts come close to the scope and magnitude of the Great War, which resulted in a mysterious cataclysm known only as the Great Atrocity.
  
  Prior to the Great Atrocity, both Soneus and Enochia were fully charted; their nations and their peoples experiencing the full luxuries of technological and cultural prosperity. However, as previously mentioned, humans and demons always alternated between periods of war and peace, and eventually, tensions rose to the point of inciting a new war. This war, however, would be different. It would involve countless nations, and truly pit humanity and demonity against each other.
  
  It is unknown what the nature of the Great Atrocity was, but it brought an ultimate victory for humanity, at a terrible cost to both sides.
  
  Enochia was wholly destroyed. Soneus, almost the same.
  
  Soon after the war, Soneus was soon populated with great and greater numbers of monsters; monsters that can destroy entire cities in a day, or melt people just by looking at them, or spread diseases so painful that death is a blessing. The world population fell quickly, nations at every corner of the planet, wiped out.
  
  Whether it is because no monsters appeared, because the monsters that appeared here were weak, or because of sheer dumb luck, the people of the continent of Saphra were able to survive and make their home safe again. Saphran nations were weakened to the point of almost collapsing, but unlike their brothers around the world, they were able to rebuild.
  
  Little information remains about what the Distant or Uncharted Worlds were like, or even what Known World civilizations were like before the collapse, but thanks to the relic and knowledge that did survive, the Saphran nations were able to restore their corner of the world to a good percent of it's former prosperity. Many of the effects felt after the Great War still remain, but as new generations of people are born, there are few if any who remember the world that came before.
  
  Demons who were already in Soneus, or who were able to escape, were placed into servitude under humankind. As memory of demon culture and magic faded, so too did it's prominence and use, until no traces remained. Demonkind, as a culture, became fully subservient to humans, powerless and lowly.