Daemon

The Daemons have traveled a hard road to Earth, escaping the clutches of the Demon King Dagon to come here and facing the prejudices of those who view them as too alien to be Beasts. Despite their appearance, they are often fiercely dedicated to fighting evil.

Lore[]

The Daemons were a primitive race dwelling on the Plane of Tartarus in the Lost Ages. There, among the blasted rock and ash, they scratched out a living until one day their pitiful existence was interrupted. Djall, the Dark Lord, had found a gateway to Tartarus soon after arriving on Earth and on that day the path of the Daemon as a people changed dramatically.

Upon discovering the great weapon Starscythe, Djall drew it from the ground, ripping a planar hole between Tartarus and the nearby Plane of Hell. As he screamed in pain at the energies released, your, the Demon Lord of Hell, heard his cries and entered Tartarus, intent on taking the Starscythe. Djall, not yet a match for your, fled, leaving the Starscythe behind. Gathering the weapon to himself, your returned to Hell, pleased to have augmented his already formidable might with a new weapon.

your had many sons, but foremost among them was Dagon, who lusted after his father’s throne. Demons being what they are, Dagon soon stole the Starscythe from his father and cut him down with it, thereby becoming the ruler of Hell and its Demon legions.

Curious, he peered into Tartarus through the riff that his father had entered that plane through. There, he saw the Daemons and decided that though Tartarus was a useless wasteland, the Daemon people might be convinced to serve the Demons. He waded into Tartarus with the Starscythe and death by death convinced the Daemon people that servitude in Hell was better than extinction. Thus did the Daemons leave Tartarus for the smoky pits of Hell.

For three Ages of the Earth, the Daemons multiplied and served King Dagon. It was they that built his vast Inferno Fortress and as their reward, Dagon would occasionally permit some of the Daemons to be eaten by himself or one of his favored underlings. In Dagon’s eyes, this was a privilege for the Daemons, for to be consumed into the essence of one so glorious as Dagon surely must be a great honor. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Daemons did not tend to agree, but they had no power with which to contend with the will of the Lord of Hell. And so life went for the Daemons, year upon year, millennia upon millennia. They lived, they bred, they worked, and they died, all to serve the whim of the hated Demons who ruled them.

Move forward in time to only a couple of hundred years ago and the biggest event in the history of the Daemon race since the arrival of Djall in Tartarus took place. Prince Baal, eldest son of the Demon King Dagon, took advantage of a newly-opened planar rift in the lands of the People of the Skull and caused the rising of the Hellmount – a great mountain belching fire and steam – in order to expand the rift such that it be large enough for his massive form to step through. Baal, unable to challenge his father Dagon, had decided that he would seek dominion on Earth.

The wisest among the Daemons and one of their leaders – known to history as Furcas the Liberator - saw an opportunity that had never presented itself in all the Ages that their kind had been in thrall to the Demons. He gathered as many of his people together as he could and quickly they stepped through the rift, arriving in the Ural Mountains where the People of the Skull make their home. The first of the three races of the People they encountered were the Grumkin, whom, along with the Varga and Ogres, made up the People, and in absolute terror of the Baal, who, though not yet on Earth, was already worshipped as a God by many of the People. Furcas and the other Daemons certainly understand this, for they too lived in terror of Baal.

The story of what happened next is not a short one, but suffice to say that both the Daemons who came through the rift and some of the Grumkin they encountered fled the Hellmount and the Urals entirely, heading West to the lands we call home. They first encountered the Foxen of the Ranger Kingdoms, and from there word that the Prince of Hell was seeking to break through and wreak havoc upon the Earth spread among the Beasts. The Daemons, as thanks for the news they brought, were permitted to live among the Beasts and so humble and hard-working were they that they were soon welcome among most Beasts.

Today, the Daemons are treated as equals among Beasts and are generally implacable foes of evil in whatever form it manifests.