Demon

Demon
Demons are a unique life form, possessing extraordinary abilities and unknown origins. Generally demons are divided into primitive and developed types, with primitive ones halting their development at the early "grey blob" stage and developed ones evolving further. In their mature stage, demons vary greatly in their appearances and behavior, making it almost impossible to find two identical demons.

Two main characteristics which all demons possess are shape-shifting and pocket dimension link. Each demon can use and master these characteristics with varying degrees of skill. even demons which prefer to stay in a single shape or have a poorly developed shape-shifting ability, it's this skill which let them grow into their desired shape in the first place. In addition, demons do not appear affected by aging, with some surviving for centuries or even thousands of years.

Physiology
The way a demon's body works is still mostly shrouded in mystery, one which is highly complicated by the inability to perform an autopsy or use other conventional methods of discovery. This is due to demonic tissue degrading rapidly without a trace if dead or separated from a subject. Depending on the sample, it will completely evaporate anywhere from a matter of minutes, up to several hours.

Even though demons can produce tissue and other materials are stable even when separated from them, the detached tissue will completely lose its defining demonic abilities like shape-shifting (as its no longer a living part of the demon, similar to how a human's hair is no longer living tissue), and will have to be discarded if the demon wishes to change into a form which doesn't fit the shape the material was molded. In some cases, demons have shown an ability to reabsorb those materials back into more versatile demon tissue to avoid wasting body mass.

As experience shows, demons don't have any vital organs. However demons do have to develop some kind of organs if they wish to take more complex forms or perform sophisticated tasks. For example, they must develop sensory organs if they wish to see or hear. What is vital to a demon's life is their link to their own pocket dimension, which if severed for one second will result in the immediate death of the demon. Main reasons these links are destabilized are a significant portion of a demon tissue being damaged, or a general lack of energy due to being malnourished.

Demons are capable of creating extremely efficient bodies, they can efficiently digest food and normally non-edible material, they can have inhuman strength with no change in size, have an incredible intellect, lightning fast reflexes and other feats other biological life has yet to achieve. However it is rare that a demon has all their characteristics pushed to these limits, as normally a demon develops some of those characteristics depending on their need. Demons which excel at most physical attributes usually lack development in their shape-shifting or pocket dimension link, which suggests that demons must prioritize their development in certain aspects.

Shape-shifting
One of two defining innate abilities of a demon, shape-shifting is vital to a demons survival. Demons have seemingly limitless control over their body and the shapes it can take. This makes it a big role in shaping an adult demon's body as they fit. Even demons which seemingly never shift have this ability, albeit a very slow and undeveloped one, which allowed them to take their singular shape.

Depending on need, demons can practice and train this ability in many ways. A demon's main limiting factor is the size of their pocket dimension, and how much spare body mass it has. If a demon wants to shrink in mass, the surplus tissue is transferred to their pocket dimension and vice versa. If there is not enough room, tissue will have to be urgently discarded or more gradually dissolved into energy.

Depending on their needs, demons develop this ability differently. Some demons focus on completely altering form while others optimize the process by training a few specific shapes. The latter approach makes shifting faster and easier, but it will be harder for the demon to shift into a completely unknown new shape.

Pocket dimension
The most important function for a demon, it is mostly used as a place for energy storage. Just as a demon cannot function without their pocket dimension, this dimension cannot exist without its parent demon and will immediately collapse if its demon dies. All body mass and energy stored within it will violently escape through the physically manifested body demon still in our world. Normally raw demon body mass from pocket is a thick goo of a varying color (most common are grey, green, or red). If a pocket is disproportionately big, and the demon's body was fairly small in comparison upon death, then the energy release of the dimension's collapse might be extremely violent to the point of explosion, though release speed varies from case to case.

All tissue and energy stored in a pocket dimension seems to be processed by a demon and ready for use, thus demons cannot store items without destroying them. This theory has never been tested, but there is no documented evidence suggesting otherwise.

Just like shape-shifting, the use of a pocket dimension can be trained and developed. Demons can increase the size of their pocket, or focus on a more efficient transfer in their link. Demons which rely on a single shape usually have the smallest pockets due to spare tissue being less needed.

Some speculate a pocket dimension's link is a magical interaction. However countless magi researchers, and many fruitless experiments have shown no trace of magical energy in a demon's presence or their active use of resources from their pocket. It is either a completely non-magical process, or one so efficient it leaves no trace. It is worth noting that no known spells seem to affect a demon's dimension link either.

Reproduction
As far as it is known, demons are asexual and do not reproduce. Demons seem to grow almost at random on surfaces. Developing from gray blobs, while slowly advancing into more sophisticated shapes.

Demons, can however create life. Beings normally referred to as demon bastards (demon spawn, demonkin, imps). Demon's have absolute control over how their "offspring" will look and develop, but cannot pass down any shape-shifting or pocket dimension abilities, thus they are not considered actual demons. Demons can produce bastards through any method convenient for them: asexually, or sexually with existing world species.

Psychology
Due to their unique development and the lack of need for reproducing, demons lack stimuli developing their behaviour that other species have. Kin still struggle to understand how demons think, due to how alien it is and how much it varies from demon to demon.

Demon behavior heavily relies on the "purpose" they have. It is unknown when and how it is set, or if a demon can even choose it themselves, but it acts as an undying urge to perform some kind of task. Usually purpose can be described in one or few words, for example "Get rich" or "Walk west", although describing demon purpose with words has being criticized by some demonologists who claim the nature of a demon's purpose must be more complex.

Cognitive abilities are usually correlated with the complexity of purpose a demon has. If their purpose is very simple, a demon usually develops a very primitive sentience, one that meets the bare minimum to perform the task needed. If their purpose is sophisticated or requires social interaction, then a demon develops mentally to a kin level or above.

It is important to note, that the more mentally developed a demon becomes, the more they deviate from their original purpose and start developing seemingly unrelated traits. Demons can develop interests outside their purpose, they can choose to perform their purpose in less efficient ways, or even alter it. But the eternal urge of their original purpose will always be there.

Development
Demon start life forming as a grey formless blob on a hard surface, most of the time immobile. We have yet to discover if there are any conditiona under which the probability of a demon forming is more likely, so it is seemingly random.

At the early blob stages, demons lack sentience and act similar to fungi or plants, efficiently gathering nutrients for future development. Interestingly enough, plenty of demon stay in this stage, though we do not know if they lack a purpose for further development, if their purpose is already fulfilled in this stage, or they just somehow lack an ability to progress. Such demons are classified as primitive and generally don't survive for long, dying of natural causes.

Developed types progress further. Surprisingly, intermediate stages are relatively short, as it is presumed a demon stores energy during their blob stage enough to achieve maturity in one go. During this stage, demons don't really have many standard characteristics, and are rather a simpler or imperfect version of their matured stage.

If a demon wants to grow into a fairly big shape in their mature stage, one which cannot be gathered during the blob stage in one go, they normally gather their lacking body mass later in their mature stage.

Famous Demons

 * 1) Lady Wolf - a fairly young demon, whose first appearance was in 641 A. Year, somewhere in northern Ohmish territories. She was fairly unknown for a while, traveling south, taking the shapes of kin and interacting with others. Ended up in Atlathka where she formed a formidable criminal empire. Purpose: Unknown.
 * 2) Ghbrd (Cursed Vermin) - an ancient demon, his first appearance goes beyond records. His real name is barely known and is generally remembered by his folk name. He made his fame by traveling around the world, bringing trouble anywhere he shows up. He himself does nothing, but time after time he succeeds in convincing people to betray each other and their own principles, which has often led to disasters. In a few cases however, the outcome was fairly positive. Purpose: Corruption.
 * 3) Rotten King (Allfather)- dead demon, first appearance 200 B. Year, somewhere in the deep south. An infamous demon which created undead species for his intent of conquering the civilized world. Completely conquered the southern continent, but started having heavy logistical issues once arriving on the northern continent. While his undead horde was never fully defeated, alongside his main army, the Rotten King was defeated at the great battle of Einad. Real name long forgotten. Purpose: unknown.
 * 4) Sisikh (Ugly librarian) - ancient demon, first appearance goes beyond records. A gigantic immobile demon, who has a fortress-library Blue Atlas build around him. Sisikh has being hoarding records, books and generally knowledge since he existed and makes his fortress act as small autonomous city-state despite for long time being inside Ohmish Empire territory. He has significant amount of people serving and protecting him. He is very stingy when it comes to sharing knowledge but he is known to trade away information for significant reward. Purpose: Accumulate knowledge.
 * 5) Qa (God-emperor) - ancient demon, first appearance in 148 B. Year, in the eastern continent. First appeared in the capital-city of Kuvat, back then an insignificant country. After defeating the royal guard single-handed, he challenged the running king to trial by combat for his throne. In terror, the king refused and was executed by Qa on the spot, overtaking the country by force while claiming to be the true god-emperor, destined by the universe to lead his people to greatness. After quelling rebellious regions he started expanding, turning a small country into a mighty empire. One which still exists to this day, governed by the same emperor. Purpose: Govern an empire.