Demon's are evil greedy creatures that are perpetuated by the sins of humans. No one knows the origin of the first demon, time has swept away all trace and story until they just became a fact of life. It was accepted that demons lived among humans. They were considered to be the source of evil and their presence alone instigated more crime, pain, hate, war, death, etc. The humans banded together against them and survived dark times until heroes began to emerge and hunt down the demons. The demons to save themselves went into hiding until their histories turned into myths and myths turned into fairy tales and fairy tales were used to warn and teach children against evil in general. But the demons persisted in the shadows. They lay dormant, coming to light only when necessary or when tempted by great evils of the humans. But they still remain low enough to stay out of the public's eye, collectively working to amass enough power to finally emerge and take over the humans without fear of any hero that may try to rise up. But while the general public may dismiss demons as fairy tales and deny their existence, there are still some who wear the mantle of the heroes of old and fight against the darkness in the shadows.
Demons are literally humans turned evil, turned into monsters by a physical stain of sin. This transformation gives them longevity and power that is tailored to the sin and to the personality of the demon. But demons cannot spontaneously grow their own power. They can kill other demons and absorb that power to grow and cultivate more sin, but that would leave a limited amount of sin from the first generation. But, when a human turns into a demon, that transformation of sin generates more power. But instead of waiting for a human's sin to get so great that they transform on their own, demons have devised a process that accelerates the transformation.
At the cost of some of their own power, a demon with bestow a Gift upon a human, usually under the promise of great power or another tool of greed. But just the Gift is useless, a human cannot use a demon's power no matter its form until they are a demon themselves. So the demon instructs them to make a sacrifice to unlock the Gift and receive the power. This sacrifice will be the sin that changes the human to demon but when used with the Gift, will increase the original demon's power by some magnitude.
Mathematically it looks like this: A demon sits at 100% power to start with. He approaches a human and offers a Gift of 5%. So now the demon is at 95%. The human goes out and kills someone like his obnoxious old neighbor who is going to die anyways. The human now becomes a demon with 11% power compared to the original demon. The murder doubles the gift plus his own sin added about 1%. The first demon now comes back to the new demon and kills him, absorbing the new demon's power. The demon now has 106% compared to where he started.
It's by this process that demons slowly increase their power. Power is lost when a hero manages to kill a demon, releasing the sin's energy without it being reabsorbed by another demon. The power in the Gift is also lost if the human is killed before the transformation or refuses to make the sacrifice. Different sacrifices have different multipliers. Killing someone just as sinful maybe doubles the Gift. Killing someone of virtue will increase it three to five fold. Killing an innocent is about seven to ten fold. It is hard to get a good transformation with any other kind of sin that is less than murder.
Heroes are those who possess a virtuous soul that can defeat a demon. They have varied tools and weapons that they use to hunt and fight demons. The majority of heroes tend to belong to families with several heroes in their bloodline, though new heroes are known to emerge or be inspired. The first skill of a hero is awareness. They are more aware of the supernatural than a normal human. They can see what is 'wrong' with something. There are different levels of awareness but all heroes have at least something. The strongest of this skill are known as Seers.
The next skill is strength. Heroes tend to be stronger than normal heroes, fitter, faster, able to carry more weight. This is important for the Combatant heroes. Not all heroes have strength though. Some have the skill of magic. There is a great range of magic abilities and proficiency. But those who have strong enough magic to fight demons with are known as Mages. Magic is defined by the ability to influence your surroundings, via physical manipulation. There is another area that is close to magic but instead of the environment, it focuses on the people. This is commonly referred to telepathy and telepaths are known as Sages. Common attributes or powers are the ability to communication (tell or hear thoughts) over long distances, influence (up to direct control), and dreamscaping (entering one's consciousness/unconsciousness through dreams).
Heroes that come from families tend to have similar skill sets and usually have a history of fighting demons, making them very dangerous enemies of the demons. Some of the larger families go after more than just demons and help police the supernatural world.
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