World Building: Light's End
"Has a surreal look to it, does it not? Something like a shifting ghost where he is supposed to be."
-Illun
Light's End
Here I will focus on making the "Dark Side" of my story's world, and by dark I don't mean the Adorai's realm. What is so scary about people who appear in our world at twilight and sabotage our land's balance? That's child's play.
Here, I will talk about Light's End, or in other words, the realm which overshadows Anoria, Airona, and all the other worlds containing any form of life; it is the realm of Eternal Night, where there is no sleep or death, but only loneliness, pain, and fear. A realm where humans cannot imagine, and a place where Unari, and their descendants pray to never see.
Inspired partly by Hell in Arahamic religions, Light's End is also known as Hell, or the Gray Road.
Holes between Anoria and Light's End sometimes open, and some demons seep into Anoria, but not all intrusions go unchecked; when stronger, darker demons attempt to cross a hole to Anoria, they will be confronted, and not confronted by mortals, but by guardians of the sky who drive the demons back to where they came from.
But not all of them are confronted, either. Only strong and capable demons attract the attention and rouse the Guardians of the heavens. Most seep into the world and reside in dark corners, healing themselves from their stay in Light's End, and when capable, set off to work under their masters and put their plans into motion.
Common Link Locations:
Most links between Light's End open -ironically- near water and under shade, waterfalls, underground lakes are very common to be a potential Link Point. Throughout history, humans kept clear from those locations, since nightmares plagued those near such areas with alarming frequency, and forced the denizens away from the underground lakes and kept them near rivers. A frequent tale between villagers of such areas is how on some nights, inhuman roars would shake the air, and a great flash of light would follow, before all was silent again. Men later learned of the intrusions of Anoria and how the Great Demons of shade and fire were fought away by beings of pure light that shook the air with an unearthly presence. Links are called in Atarnor's language, 'Wasail', called in Dardeep and Thrarnil, 'Gathes', and in Soraiden known as, 'Athaweb.'
Demons' Nature:
Demons cannot exist naturally in Anoria, of in that regard, any mortal plane at all. They cannot stay for a long time, and the dangers of passing through Links is too risky and attracts the ever-watchful eyes of the Guardians. In response to those complications, demon lords send minions to promote their existence through cults designed and financed by humans to host the demon lords in sacrificial bodies, and sometimes, make a leak between mortal planes and Light's End to design a link wide enough to allow a demon lord to crawl into a mortal plane without the distortions that result from narrow Link usage. To counter this, human paladins, Ar'Sorai judges and hunters roam Anoria endlessly, traveling for miles everywhere they feel there could be danger. Sometimes, those individuals are even guided through dreams and visions to where demon lords make their plans, but mostly, the Guardians of the heavens wish to keep mortals living on their lives without employing them to counter those evil of their kind.
Of course, as devils do have a similar ability to speak to mortals, albeit more vague, they could impersonate a Guardian and trick the paladin, judge or hunter into working for them.
Demonic Motivations:
Demons have an innate hate to humankind, due to their history of conflict together, while the former are supported by their devil lords, the latter are (sometimes) supported by the Guardians of the Heavens.
Demons -for the most part- are selfish, tricksters, long-visioned and incredibly intelligent and chaotic creatures. Contrary to popular belief, demons were not always demons. Demons and devils are all a branch of one race, one race with incredible spiritual power, sufficient enough to transfigure the being into others through shapeshifting. The shapeshifting aspect is effected heavily by their actions. An evil person of that race would eventually transfigure himself into a demon, and when they take a darker form and grow in strength.
Devil lords are the highest demons in their social structure, which is based on wealth and reputation. The greater wealth of deeds that damaged humanity (from whatever plane they reside), the higher the reputation, for demons hate Men with a blinding passion.
Demonic Plans:
Demons' strength is in their wits and ploys, and rarely in physical or mental harm, but the all demons are large in comparison to men, ranging from the lesser peons to devil lords.
Demons primarily want to scour humanity from the universe, and take over mortal planes to stage assassinations against the Guardians of the Heavens, and from there, attack Heaven.
In Anorian Legends, they plan to use magic lines to tear the planet apart to make it resembelent of Light's End, thus Men cannot live there and it would stage the perfect ground to start their war.
In these plans, they are in conflict with the Adorai, who want to use the magic lines to channel all of Anoria's reserve to fuel their master's plan, and thus the Adorai and the Devil Lords are in an evil-vs-evil war for years, which actually started with the Unari's crusades.
The relation between demons and Unari have sparked some consperacy theories of the Devil Lords tapping into the Unari ruling council, and through that, the rituals of appointing rulers. Some say that the sword that is the finall step in determining the rulers was corrupted by a Devil Lord, and some Ar'Sorai think they were behind the straying of the lord of the Adorai House, Illun.
Demon Features:
Devil Lords' skin shrinks as their bodies grow from radiation of dark energy; their anatomy changes and their bones grow black and charred, resembling horns. They lose all hints of being living creatures and become intelligent bodies of negative energy, often manifesting from waist-to-head, while their lower halves are torn and resemble tornadoes of blackened meat and rags.
From the radiation from Light's End, their bodies grew somewhat dead, yet are held together by a magic flame; a mockery of life which cannot sustain itself, but drains whatever energy it needs to function from other beings. They no longer have blood as they once did, and their bodies are resillient to magic and impact.
Yet, any counter to dark magic, like Spiritual power or weapons enchanted by Anuvar, which burns the demons with silvery-blue flames that remain forever as long as they possess the same body.
Demons In Mortal Cultures:
There are a lot of misconceptions surrounding demons in various cultures; people of Atarnor think demons are humans who returned from Hell; Dardeep and Tharnil share the idea of demons being supernatural beings who seek the concept of ruining humanity and mocking it; the elderly of Hiek have stories of people who are touched by artifacts of inherit evil, and thus transformed and were transfigured by witches into demons.
The Ar'Sorai have a deeper understanding of demons, growing from the fact of the many wars fought between the Unari and the Devil Lords, and the Adorai have identically the same understanding.
However, these negative images have not held back many individuals throughout history from summoning, consorting, and making deals with Devil Lords for one thing or another. Most of those betrayers have got what they wanted, but not in the way they wish; demons still harbor a great hate for Men and the descendants of their mortal enemies, the Unari, and even those who serve demons are hated and mocked.