Soon, these beings turned their attention outwards, hoping that the material world might allow them to stall their demise for a time longer. Anguished to survive, they sought out followers from the lost and desperate and offered them power in exchange for their service and worship. Those who rejected these gods came to know them as Havoc Gods due to the zealotry of their followers and the unrest that they caused.
These Gods are able to manifest their will in the physical world through aspects, fragments of their power and minds, which most refer to as their Daemons. Once manifested, these aspects are mortal, and vulnerable to death and harm, needing food to survive, and which can even adapt and change with experience. Gods must sacrifice a portion of their power to create Daemons, with greater Daemons requiring more of their essence to be contributed. As such, each Havoc God can only manifest so many Daemons at once, and must lose a portion of their power to do so, claiming it back when a Daemon dies.
When they are not carrying out the will of their gods, the Daemons often dwell within a strange space between Wormholes. Their control over these Wormholes allows them to appear and disappear within physical space rapidly, allowing them to carry out their God’s will without fear of reprisal.
How will you serve the will of your god?
History
Between Space
For aeons, there was a species which dwelt in the space between the Wormholes. Born of a more ancient species who transcended their physical forms, their psychic powers were advanced enough that they lived without fear of pain or death, watching the galaxy as it progressed.
Death
This changed suddenly when one of their species died. This was the first time one of their kind had experienced death and the survivors reacted with curiosity, followed by horror. No one knew what had caused it, but it soon began to spread. More of these godlike beings died while others began to recognise the signs of entropy and decay in themselves.
Survivors
A handful of these entities outlived the rest of their people; each one crediting their own philosophies and methods for preserving themselves. Yet, none were able to fully escape the grasp of their newfound mortality.
Wormhole Daemons
In the process of escaping their destruction, each of the gods cast off a number of fragments which attained their own sentience. The reason for this depended upon the individual, but all of them would begin to send out these creatures into the wider galaxy beyond the Wormhole.
Servants of Havoc
Each of these Daemons would strive to serve their creator’s agenda above all else, striking bargains and often spreading disorder as they went. Because of this, their creators came to be known as the Havoc Gods.
Timeline
- 6521 BRC - Earliest Recorded Encounter with Havoc Daemons in Sirius
- 0 RC - Radiance Cascade
- 3 ARC - Reports of Increased Daemonic Activity in Sirius Sector
- 12 ARC - Pacts Forged with Havoc Brothers
- 31 ARC -Martyrdom of God-Queen at the Hands of a Lust Daemon
Society
The Havoc Gods turn little pieces of themselves into Daemons that they cast out into our universe, tasked with finding a way to save the Gods from decay and death. The Daemons try to help their God survive by living a certain way, holding ceremonies for them, or by sending tribute. Depending on the God, tributes might be religious ceremonies, impressive achievements or other displays of devotion. The idea is to transmit the psychic energy they generate to their creator, almost like a blood transfusion. Yet none can be certain whether their methods are actually effective. As a result, Daemons are constantly striving to find other ways to help their deity, but none so far seem to have permanently solved the issue.
Fragments
Daemons are reabsorbed by their God when they die, but at the cost of their individuality. A fresh daemon is a pure incarnation of his God’s emotions and will to live. The longer a daemon lives, the more it will be attached to its current incarnation and develop its own personality, shaped by the trials and successes it encountered.
Shadows of Existence
Daemons have a mystical side, seeing the physical world as a shadow of real existence, a strange realm where they are trying to find answers to save their god. They will often speak in riddles and analogies, and look at things with a disconcerting perspective. From their point of view, they are like heroes sent on a quest in a land of monsters and strange creatures.
The Great Silence
Because they are but splinters of an incomprehensibly larger being, and because they have been fundamentally changed to adapt to another dimension, Daemons cannot communicate easily with their gods. They can receive the god’s thoughts, but these often take a lot of work to be interpreted in any kind of understandable way. They can try to send messages and updates (and they do), but can never know how much of that is actually understood by the god: it might sound like the buzzing of flies to these immense beings.
Promises Kept
In their dealings with mortals, Daemons have the reputation of sticking to their word to the letter. It’s rarely easy to forge a pact with them, but they will typically risk their lives to uphold any oath they take. They are, however, very smart and often able to find loopholes in contracts that they agree to; those who try to trick them often regret it.
Wormhole Daemons
The nature of their Gods is connected to the way Wormholes work. Daemon’s powers include the ability to open temporary Wormholes with an ease unmatched by any technology. They almost never use spaceships, preferring to open a passage to wherever they need to go.
The Radiance
Wormhole Daemons' beliefs about the Radiance are often heavily influenced by the God they worship, and so too does it influence how they refer to it. Most believe that it reflects a wound which in some way reflects their own gods' injuries, but their feelings on this may vary greatly.
Change Daemons refer to the Radiance as Noqix'pe, meaning the Enigma. They are convinced that experimentation upon it might yield some knowledge on their god's condition. They are obsessed with the hallucinations and mutations which the Void produces; many are convinced that some arcane truth lies within it but know that the discovery of this truth often comes at the cost of the sanity of those who seek it.
Plague Daemons instead use the term Sim'olck, or the Festering. They see it as analoguous to their god's own growth and infection. To these Daemons it is a rival with which they share some kinship; a different vision of the universal which they seek to create. The hallucinations and mutations caused by the Radiance are seen as calling them to a different unity, away from their God. Some seek it out, to test themselves or to save those at risk of succumbing by bringing them into their god's graces.
Lust Daemons name it Ic’krab, meaning the Blight and see it as an imperfection within the universe itself. Some hope that it may be destroyed to cure their god, others as a test which must be overcome to prove their own perfection. The mutations and hallucinations which it may cause are seen as signs of weakness, possibly marring a Daemon beyond worthiness and so only the most daring or desperate dare to venture there.
War Daemons call it Sohaz’re, meaning the Wound. Among Daemons, they take the least note of the Radiance; acknowledging it as more than a random phenomenon might mean facing their own god's weakness, though they still appear to be drawn to it instinctively on some level. This, however, also means that they are least likely to take precautions when venturing there, confident in their own might. They rely on determination and denial to see them through, even as hallucinations become acute and mutations become visible.
Language
Daemonic language derives from the divine language of their gods and is generally considered particularly unpronounceable by most other species. Daemons also consider this a sacred tongue possessing some modicum of inherent psychic power. As such, they generally prefer to speak in the language of whoever they are communicating with, reserving their language only for use among their own kind.
In this same vein, Daemons have adopted use-names; self-appointed monikers reflecting an aspect of their personality or role which are usually a compound of two words. These will often vary according to the god which the individual Daemon was born from.
Daemons will tend to introduce themselves by their use names, while keeping their true names secret, as there are a number of superstitions and beliefs surrounding the use and knowledge of “true” names.
Example Names
[True Name], [Use-name] - Dobarorchagakos, Archanarch
This Daemon would introduce himself as Archanarch, revealing his true name, Dobarorchagakos, only as a sign of extreme trust or compulsion.
Change Daemon Example Names
Blarzahpobarem, Bleakrime
Oororpsseqizya, Erroreye
Rinivipwozirod, Gravemurk
Lust Daemon Example Names
Layoftr’thvat’rn, Idlebarb
Lolons’stucot’ne, Mournsong
Bebartl’lohazng, Yesteryearn
Plague Daemon Example Names
Bumolrndrirkop, Aciddrip
Emzirtychwidck, Hollowpox
Jotawnyougakch, Rotnerve
War Daemon Example Names
Ikfugormavatce, Bloodmaul
Nawidiljomitvi, Hammercrush
Banuvckslehryr, Spinedoom
Note that use names are in italic and are the names which Daemons use and are known by, with their true names being a closely guarded secret.
Trivia
Notable Characters
- Swiftclaw (Champion of Change) - A Change Daemon skilled in infiltration rather than arcane study, Swiftclaw styles himself as a gentleman thief.
- Eonflux (Champion of Change) - A Change Daemon skilled performing experimentation on themselves and others through fungal contamination.
- Fungusfester (Champion of Plague) - A Plague Daemon dedicated to scientific curiousity who seeks a means to develop a more viral fungus.
- Poisonzeal (Champion of Plague on Giant Snail) - A Plague Daemon who has dedicated herself to a unique form of healing, highly protection of those in her care.
Proverbs
- Only the strong are safe from death
- Loyalty is a warrior’s virtue.
- Tell me something I don’t know.
- To know death is to transcend it.
- Live long and fester.
- We can wait for you to join. We have all the time in the world.
- This galaxy is merely a slab, waiting for our chisel.
- Perfection requires pain.
