@reitakishima Alright, you asked and you shall receive!
Part of the strangeness with demon classes is that the hells also tend to be occupied by some types of devils and of course the Fallen. Regardless of power, Fallen are always considered greater than even an archdemon because Fallen were never human.
Demon classes:
- Archdemons are the top tier of demons.
- Dominations are roughly the equivalent of Watchers: they monitor the workings of the hells and keep a rough order. They are tier two and answer only to the Fallen and Lucifer himself.
- Shedim are the third tier of demons. These are the older demons who do not hold an archdemon position but are powerful in their own right. Notable example: Cain.
- Furies are tier four demons. These are the main fighters of hell, the ones who most often come into contact with angels. They are the second most numerous class.
- Incubi/Sucubi are the one class that actually uses a different name for the different genders. They are tier four demons that exist to create bargains with humans. They are the most numerous class. Note that while commonly associated with lust they represent all sins and are responsible for all demonic contracts.
- Telane are tier four. These are roughly equivalent to the Keepers: they keep track of all the contracts made with demons and determine punishments for sins.
- Mazikim are not heard of on earth primarily because they never leave hell. They are the so called ‘guardians of hell.’ They keep the damned in and angels out. They are the last of the tier four demons.
- Cambions: These are demons born as the result of a demon and a human. They present as demons rather than gifted humans but since they are biologically half-breeds they are considered as lesser. They do not advance beyond tier five and are often used as cannon fodder…err, foot soldiers.
- Imps are tier five demons. They live to serve other demons, biding their time until they have enough power to seize a higher rank. They are often used for running errands and messages between earth and Hell.
- Hellspawn are the lowest class, technically, as these are actually demons that have been bred either with other demons or are human-demon hybrids that are dominantly demons. This is a very mixed class full of what is often referred to as “Hellmutts” (yes, the angels have slurs that use the pronunciation helmets to refer to low level demons).
I love that you noticed this and asked. There’s a reason Ishim only hold one tier within the hierarchy. A lot of them are used as Guardian Angels (Guardian is a job, not a rank) but they are still considered lesser than the actual Guardian tier of angels. Most guardian angels do not treat them differently though because they respect that they do the same job. Ishim who have other jobs though are typically treated as second-class citizens. To this end they are often given more menial tasks in the heavens, usually the jobs that require interaction with human souls residing there. Most of them prefer this as they often find it difficult to truly understand the other angels. Another popular position is raising the cherubim, who absolutely adore the Ishim. As the cherubim grow most lose their fondness but some remember the Ishim fondly. Your mc will get to interact with a few notable Ishim and you can choose how you see them for yourself.
All the angels refer to each other as sibling in a very loose way–this world does permit angels to form relationships with one another so they are not truly ‘siblings.’ Gabriel and Israfel have grown up together and Israfel adores Gabriel. There used to be four of them who were thick as thieves but things happened and now there’s Michael who mostly keeps to himself and then there’s Israfel and Gabriel. Israfel calls Gabriel his sibling and means it more in the human respect than the typical angelic meaning. He has absolute trust in Gabriel, almost to the point of naivete (it is nearly impossible to get him to hate you. Be disappointed, yes. But earning his hate is truly a feat, mainly because he will choose to be willfully blind or allow himself to come around to your perspective.)
@bl00dragon I am quite deliberately eschewing the normal Christian, Jewish, and Islamic hierarchies. There’s really no one true hierarchy as it different according to different theologians and denominations anyways so I decided to just chuck the book out the window and create my own. Because I am using an iconic character who is an archangel and because I wanted their to be a heavy implied duty I made archangels the top tier. However, there are two tiers (if you want to test your knowledge of my hierarchy for this world, try to name them!) that do not actually listen to them and may in fact be more powerful. More of this will be revealed if your mc chooses to concern themselves with the politics of heaven which are at best complicated. The tiers as presented in the Glossary are what Gabriel was taught as the tiers and what they represent.
@Ventura I think your mc will get along with some of the Fallen rather well then, maybe even a couple of the demons.
…Of sorts? I just mentioned in this post that the ‘sibling’ reference between angels is not the same for human siblings. However, Gabriel’s mortal identity is the maternal aunt/uncle (now I want to make Untie a thing for this) of Daniel so that legal custody is easier to maintain without suspicion. Spoilers for the next update Daniel’s mother is dead and his father is a cambion who is not in the picture so Gabriel assumes the fake identity of the deceased mother’s sibling. And I think I’ll refrain from additional comments on his ‘normal’ status.
Edit: I somehow missed @avidreader earlier. To answer your question: not really. It does but at a much slower rate than any normal human. This has to do with the fact that these shells are not easy to make and need to last–they can be reused and having a mortal lifespan would make the tradeoff of creating them difficult to justify. However, your mc never gets to the point where that is an issue because everything goes sideways real fast after thirteen years. Typically for short assignment angels will just change their form (like when your mc chooses a gender if they do). The general solution to aging is to move the angel in the shell around and rewrite their history as the need arises.