Devil's Heart

If it’s a demon masquerading to look like an angel, then yes! Nom nom~

So I can’t just eat anyone/anything to get stronger?

Reminds me a little bit at diablerie in the old World of Darkness: Vampires consuming other Vampire’s blood and soul to gain powers and the pleasure of said delicacy… Just that here it’s about demons…

I honestly wouldn’t call it weak. It’s a solid concept why the MC should at least avoid demons without forcing any arbitary motivation at the MC. And it’s a simple enough conflict to start the game with and allows for a certain streamlining that will make your work easier.
Unless you mean “simple” when you say weak, but believe me simple starting points for a conflict are neither bad nor weak. See it as way to get the main character stumble down the rabbit hole…

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Thanks for your insight! I don’t want a motivation that potentially isolates readers because it doesn’t align with how they want to play, but at the same time, I wanted a motivation broad enough to believable.

I think that wanting to avoid being eaten, and dying, is a believable enough motivation.

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Absolutely

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You can eat anything, the MC is an omnivore due to their half demon lineage, but it does have consequences.

You could eat that woman’s soul who is walking down the street, but you would have to dispose of the body unless you want the police coming after you and further complicating your life. As a hybrid, you’re limited in the ways you can get a meal.

Fighting, killing, and “eating” other demons is probably the easiest. You won’t face any human consequences, getting a record and/or going to prison, for doing so unless your MC has a guilty conscious about eating former human souls. Other individuals might catch wind of what you’re doing and think you’re doing some good, others might think you’re a cannibal (which you are), and some might try to stop you based on their beliefs. It’s… kinda like hyenas stealing a lion’s hard won kill albeit the digestive process is already done.

In this scenario where you’re hunting your own kind, you’re kind of like the Dovahkiin from Skyrim. Other creatures can kill demons, but it’s not guaranteed that the demon will actually die from their successful attempt. If you go out, kill, and eat a demon, then it’s an assured death.

Hunting down other supernatural creatures may or may not be your second go-to option. Due the demons’ actions of sometimes popping into reality and going on a rampage for something to eat, supernatural creatures are having their own fights to be recognized as people not monsters. As this monster civil rights movement is happening, not all monsters are being considered citizens and thus aren’t protected/granted the rights of a citizen. Meaning, you could go hunt down some werewolves to snack on their souls and you’d have a slimmer chance of going to a trial for killing and harvesting their souls compared to if you hunted and killed humans for their souls. This doesn’t eliminate the possibility of the dog - or in this case, wolf - biting back and hunting you.

As a half human, you can eat human food and it’ll fuel your physical body. It won’t fuel your “demon side” as much as if you went out to eat someone’s soul. Eating human food to fuel your “demon side” is like eating junk food, it’s a cheap and easy fuel source, but it’s not what you need to maintain your health. Eating souls, or stealing another demon’s energy, is eating healthy.

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Demons as apex predators… That, actually sounds quite interesting! And definitely unique. True that is typically a weak excuse, well I guess I’ll just have to wait and see what you come up with, so far you have me very intrigued. :smile:

Anything that has or looks like devil may cry I’m there :innocent:

Been working on types, or classifications, of demons that we will see in the game as well as just skeleton ideas for the possible MC motivations. If you see a potential plot hole in the making, point it out, so that I can knit it back together ASAP! :blush: Don’t be afraid to add your thoughts, or disagree with mine! Creativity comes from the clash of ideas! :wink:

Keep in mind that these aren’t set in stone, and may or may be seen in the final product!

Demonic Classifications

Flesh Bound: This class is traditionally considered the “lowest” class because they’re subjected to the laws of nature. As a demon - albeit one bound in flesh (a demeaning sign that you’ve lowered yourself to the level of your food) -, they have to enough power to subvert the laws of nature for their body but only for a limited time. If a Flesh Bound is able to subvert the natural laws permanently on their physical body - subvert the concepts of mass and weight by manifesting a 50 ft long and 200 l.b. tentacle by tricking the natural laws into thinking that that limb is a whip and should act like a whip, for example -, this is a sign of great power but also arrogance. This class requires the demon take a hands on approach to getting a meal, typically by killing or nearly killing their prey, but it’s the class that will almost always feed first - with few known exceptions - and thus, it’s the class with the most demons at one time. This is because it’s been proven that by being Flesh Bound is the quickest way to obtain power over a short period of time. Flesh Bound demons have expanded their diet to include emotions, and memories - a delicacy since this is a dietary staple of Spirit Bound demons.

Spirit Bound: The traditional “middle class”; spirit demons are those with their power to subvert the laws of nature by influencing their surroundings. Like the name implies, spirit bound demons don’t have physical bodies that can be damaged or killed. This is what makes this class a social step up from Flesh Bound, but not by a huge margin because even though they’re not subjected to the laws of nature, they’re still limited by these laws because they have to curtail their hunting methods in order to feed.

  • These demons are the ones typically responsible for cases of “demonic possession”. It is because the demon forces itself into a host’s soul that individuals can see the effects of “demonic possession”, this is because the host obeys the laws of nature and now with the demon latched on to feed - something inside that doesn’t obey those laws - it causes a clash between the natural and unnatural that manifests as these disturbing symptoms. In cases like this, the demon can devour the soul in a short period of time - this is where cases like the Exorcist are more likely to occur; very obvious signs that something is wrong because of the “frontal assault” on the natural laws - or over a long period of time (years, maybe a decade) where it can cause depression (this is the exception rather than the rule!), long term memory loss, insomnia, and result in identity loss.

  • Spirit Bound demons are also the reason why severe hauntings - Hotel Monte Vista in Arizona, RMS Queen Mary in California, Winchester Mystery House in California - aren’t laid to rest. In these cases, a spirit bound demon will create a vacuum to draw in ghosts of deceased humans. However, experienced or smart Spirit Bound demons will leave several ghosts untouched in order to avoid detection by other ghosts and to attract and leech on unsuspecting ghost hunting humans who might unwittingly contact the demon. If this happens, the human stands a chance of being subjected to a case of “demonic possession” over a long period of time.

  • Because of their limited mobility and influence in the physical world, spirit bound demons are the ones who are more likely to “release” demonic artifacts into the world. These artifacts will sometimes act as lures, other times as a lunch box, to tag and then reel in a human’s soul after they die. A “lunch box artifact” are objects that influence the human’s mind to make them hold onto the object until they die, therefore collecting the soul into the object which will then ‘digest’ the souls into energy. Since these objects are physical, spirit bound demons will often find their lunch boxes being sought out, pillaged, and sometimes repurposed for a Flesh Bound demon. A countermeasure that spirit bound demons have developed is that their objects will treat Flesh Bound demons as humans and devour the Flesh Bound demon’s energy if it cannot resist the object’s influence. The object’s power can sometimes extend to other Spirit Bound demons, but this is a rare and costly risk to take.

Cosmic Bound: These are the demons who conjure the image of something from an H.P. Lovecraft novel. They instinctively disregard the natural laws of the universe with their mere presence and conjure an abstract fear in the other classes. The presence of Cosmic Bound indicates that many lesser demons will be consumed; mere krill flowing into the mouth of a whale shark. The last time a cosmic bound fed around Earth, the Ice Age occurred, the source of the sudden change in the precession of equinoxes, and ended after the Cosmic Bound left to feast elsewhere. They are few and far between and less than a handful have been recorded in the oral history of demonic teachings. It is unknown how a demon can ascend to this level of power, and if these else-things even obey the few laws that demons abide to.

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The motivations for the MC sound good, as do the demon classes. Personally I’d choose one of these three:

Which class was our parent? Do they affect us?

:blush:

A mix of all three most likely. Demon Parent might’ve been a Spirit Bound demon, perhaps bordering on a Cosmic Bound, but then became a Flesh Bound. Demons aren’t trapped inside these classifications, but it takes a significant amount of energy to change from one “class” to another. Being half human half demon, the MC is naturally predisposed towards the Flesh Bound class, and while it will be possible to expand their abilities into the other classes, it may take even more effort for the MC to fully transform from one class to another.

For example, as a Flesh Bound you can subvert the natural laws and temporarily have - not grow, because that’s following those laws - an extra pair of limbs to make a quick escape from your pursuers. Using the energy you’ve devoured, you can exercise and gain mastery in skills that the Spirit Bound class uses i.e. vacuum ghosts to your location, latch and leech off of potential prey, and craft your own demonic artifacts.

Bonus points, because you’re half demon, you have the potential to obtain longevity and “eternal youth” via two routes, and if you’re not afraid to cross a few moral boundaries :innocent:.

If you’re more experienced in your Flesh Bound powers, you could subvert apoptosis and autophagy (programmed cellular death) and necrosis (cell death due to external factors). If you’re more experienced in your Spirit Bound powers, you could just body surf to the next healthy host.

I have no idea how that would translate into stats though. :confused:

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I like to consider myself “morally nonconformist”


So with enough experience could someone have powers active from different classes at the same time?

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I think I understand what you’re trying to say. Hope I don’t botch it terribly! :sweat_smile:

Yes, the MC could use their Flesh and Spirit Bound powers/abilities at the same time. It’d take more effort, but with practice the MC can employ multiple abilities - from different classes - at the same time!

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I look forward to the demo

Pfft

Can the MC turn parts of their body in blades/claws/etc? (Kinda like Alex Mercer or James Heller from Prototype) bc that’d be cool af.

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Your ideas sound pretty dope. I love stories with demons in them. Would be pretty cool if you could romance a demon. (In case they can morph into a human form?)

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Yes, they can! With a Flesh Bound demon, or in this case MC, the only limit is the imagination.

I suppose a Flesh Bound could create a human weapon - be it something either fantasy, like a sword, or modern, like a gun - from their own ‘flesh’. In the case of a gun, the MC might not need to know how a gun works in order to get it ‘fire’, but this might be bordering too closely to DMC’s infinite ammo mechanic.

Alternatively, the MC’s flesh gun could resemble something like this with the ‘bullets’ being actual shards of bone from the MC’s body.

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Do flesh bound have true forms or are they just whatever they want to be?

Romance is taking a back seat.

I might try to weave potential romance options with semi-plot importance, but it depends on how well I handle the exposition of their plot relevance. If I fall flat on this, I’ll either just scrap the romance idea or acknowledge that the MC is in a relationship but won’t include any “ground breaking” scenes starring the MC and their romance interest.

Most importantly, I want to avoid making romance like something out of YA novel, or just avoid YA novel romance cliches because, let’s be honest, they’re not realistic in the slightest, they’re overused, abused, and sometimes silly…

If there is going to be a romance option, it’ll probably try to resemble Root/Shaw, a.k.a. Shoot, from Person of Interest. Here’s some off the cuff yet good tumblr posts that, I think, explain how Shoot is a quality example of a good relationship: here and here.

In this story, the MC and their romantic interest will be - or at least, I’ll try to write them this way - two complex, independent characters. I want to avoid defining the romantic interest as just a romantic interest with no plot relevance - it’s nice, sure, but it’s not good writing in a plot driven story. :unamused:

What I want to try to do, is create other characters - which the MC can enter in a friendship, romance, a sexual relationship, or something else altogether (I’m running out of adjectives here) - where they’re the hero of their own story and the relationship between them and the MC is just a portion of their life.

Going back to your question; if there is a romantic/sexual option who happens to be a demon, then they and the MC could have a physical relationship if the demon is Flesh Bound because they already have a physical body. If the MC seeks a relationship with a Spirit Bound demon, there’ll probably be a lack of a physical aspect to the relationship because they lack a body.

And no, I’m not going to curtail the narrative to where a Spirit Bound RO changes their class - becomes Flesh Bound - just for the MC, because that action has an unhealthy undertone, one that I don’t want to promote.

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