Demon AU masterpost

[2x6]

A little more info on the demons in my 13 Cards demon AU! This AU is still very much a WIP, and plenty of details can change, especially when I get around to designing the various suits’ characters.


Demons are humanoid creatures whose biology and sociology leans towards a mix of cats, dogs, wolves, horses, pigs, and humans. Typically, they can come in all colours, sport horns and a tail, and possess nonhuman traits such as sharp teeth and claws, long, pointed ears, hooves, spikes, fins, fur, and scales.

They call the demon world their home: a large natural plane with limited resources and varying biomes, with an outer boundary that keeps them from leaving. At the centre of the demon world, there sits a giant demon named Joker, who will eat anything that approaches him. Outside of the centre, the demons are free to claim territory however they see fit.

Demons come in thirteen different ethnicities, which are culturally and sociologically divided into four suits. Vertically, there exist queen imps, king imps, and jack imps. Each of these belong to one of the suits: clubs, spades, hearts, and diamonds. Together, these two traits determine the traits that the imp will eventually possess.

The suits generally keep to themselves, only accepting members of their own suit. In the current rotation of queens, the clubs and the diamonds are open to cross-suit adoption, whereas the hearts reject other suits and the spades actively hunt anything that isn't a spade.


Biology

Demons are intelligent sapient mammals whose bodies have a similar working to that of a human. They are mostly carnivores, but will consume the occasional non-meat sustenance for flavour or to aid in digestion.

Unlike mammals, demons can display strong genetic diversity and diverging traits while still remaining the same species. Some suits have clawed feet while others have hooves, and queens often have more horns than the imps do, for example. Even then, traits from one suit can appear in another altogether, for example a club with hooves or a jack with three horns.

Demons have heightened senses compared to humans. They are capable of seeing in the dark thanks to their tapetum, and a lot of their communication with each other happens through pheromones thanks to their immensely powerful sense of smell. They have comparable hearing, taste, and touch, though their instincts remain far more intact than those of the modern human.

They are generally partially bare-skinned, with a possibility for fur, scales, and spikes to cover their body. Hair naturally grows on the head and around the groin. Most demons show development of fur near the lower legs, and a considerable number also have fur around the forearms to help keep them warm. Demons have a high tolerance for cold and rarely wear clothing, mostly only wearing it as a status symbol, usually queens.

Most demons are digitigrade or unguligrade, possessing shorter thighs and lower legs and longer feet where they stand on either claws or hooves. They are bipedal but can also run around on all fours with ease; which style of movement is used and when depends entirely on the demon’s personality.

There isn’t a strong link between gender and sex in imps. When born, imps are premature and have not yet sexually differentiated, something that happens within the first year after birth. An imp that sexually differentiates as female can very well end up sexually differentiating towards male during puberty, and vice versa. After puberty, a demon’s sex is generally set in stone. Primary sexual characteristics won’t change at the base, but secondary sexual traits can diverge from primary. They tend to know their gender identity from early on. Demon societies don’t make a fuss about sex and gender and use them solely to identify possible partners and carriers.

Imps age relatively fast. An imp remains a kitten for the first two to three years of their lives, goes through childhood between the ages of two to five, experiences puberty at around five, and becomes a young adult at around seven to ten. Different suits mature at different speeds. Despite their rapid development, imps can live a full human lifespan if well taken care of.

Within demons, there resides a core that is the source of their magical tie to both the world and each other. Remove it, and a demon dies. At least, so they say.


Roles and variants

Each imp has both a role and a variant that combined make up the imp’s ethnicity, with thirteen possible ethnicities.

Their role is named by their suit and their general variant. For example, within the clubs suit, you can have club jack’s imps, club king’s imps, and club queen’s imps. You also have a queen, a king, and a jack in each suit, limited to one per role in each suit.


Queens

Queens are the largest of demons, reaching a height of between 240 cm and 350 cm. They notably have four arms, a higher number of horns, and more detail in their patterns. They are also the only demons who have permanently swollen breasts; all other demons, regardless of sex, only swell when they are pregnant or go through pseudopregnancy. Queens are facultatively bigenital and are always of the female gender, regardless of their sex.

They stand at the top of the hierarchy in their suit, often respected and obeyed by their imps. Queens decide which imps will become jack and king, being the only ones who can biologically induce kinghood and jackhood. They can also make their by default infertile imps fertile to decide who gets to pass on their genes.

There is typically only one queen per suit. When no suit has been established for a while, as soon as an imp grows into a queen, all imps of that suit can sense it, and their suit’s icon briefly gleams in their eyes regardless of where they are. Similarly, when a queen picks a king or a jack, the suit’s symbol will glimmer in the queen and the chosen imp’s eyes, offering them the intrinsic knowledge that they were chosen.


Kings

In theory, kings are taller than jacks and regular imps, standing between 170 cm and 200 cm on average. As the king of clubs and the king of spades have proven, these metrics can nonetheless be defied. Kings are always of the male gender, regardless of their sex.

Kings have a tendency to develop extra horns and spikes across their bodies. Most notably, their sclera turn black and their irises pale, with pupils that are barely visible. Kings also have a tendency to put on extra weight, and depending on how active they are, that makes them either husky or muscular.

Traditionally, kings are chosen by their ability to manage the suit when the queen is unavailable. These are often imps who align with the queen’s vision of the suit, or the ones who are the most beneficial to their continued survival.


Jacks

The smallest of the named roles, jacks grow just a little shorter than the kings, with an average height of between 150 cm and 170 cm once they reach adulthood. Like the kings, taller imps can grow into taller jacks. Jacks can be of any gender or sex.

On top of their shorter height, jacks tend to be a lot lighter than the kings or the queens. They often have a lean build and a fast metabolism that disincentivises the buildup of muscle and fat. While jacks don’t have any notable traits that set them apart from regular imps, they often do develop more patterns and sometimes grow a few spikes or horns when they are chosen.

The role of a jack is far less defined than that of a king. They are often the imps that keep the group together emotionally or who offer a valuable service to the suit that the queen wants to see develop. The decision of who gets to be jack is far less objective and far more vibes-based than that of kings.


Imps

While the queen, jack, and king are all technically still imps, the word “imp” tends to refer to those who don’t have a special role in the suit. It is improper to refer to the queen as an imp, though the king and jack are sometimes still referred to as such, especially when they are young and new in their role.

Imps are generally shorter, born a few centimetres tall and growing out to an average height of about 150 cm once they reach early adulthood. They are capable of growing taller than that, to the height of smaller kings or jacks, but it’s rare for them to grow this tall this early on in their lives. Imps have a tendency to gradually grow taller the older they get, with some reaching up to a king’s heights.

Even the most powerful queen was one day born of a regular imp. The role an imp received can induce change in their biology, such as in their height, their traits, and even their number of arms. When an imp is chosen for a role, they can intrinsically sense the change.

Demons of the club

Typically, club demons come with large clawed feet, three colours across their body, and scale-like patterns. They are shades of teal, blue, or grey.

Club demons are reserved, careful demons who will observe before they act. They are often polite and considerate, not quite fully following demonic conventions and offering leeway to those they find curious.

If they're not shy, they're instead inward. Known to take a step back and remove themselves from the world rather than actively involve themselves, strategising over acting. Once you catch their interest, however, rest assured that the obsession will be tough to shake, and they may not always have the most ordinary way of approaching the object of their obsession. Despite their reservation, they are one of the rare suits open to adoption outside their suit.


Club queen’s imps are a purplish desaturated blue, sometimes lighter and sometimes dark and more saturated. They have a long club-headed tail. Cleo is the queen of clubs.

Club king’s imps are various shades of grey, sometimes with browns or earth tones mixed in. They can have more intricate horns and more spikes on their bodies. Their tail is usually medium length with a club head, though club king’s imps notably also present with goat tails. Kuromaku is the king of clubs.

Club jack’s imps are any variation of blue and teal. They often have yellow eyes. Their tail is long and usually has a club head. Known to be the most fragile of jack imps. Zontik is the jack of clubs.


Demons of the spade
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Spade demons come in three variants: green, purple, and black. They tend to have hooves, furred legs, and more spikes than the other suits.

They are by and large the most numerous suit due to their aggressive expansion. The spade suit is a dog eat dog suit. Not only is it not unseen for both imps and officials in the spade suit alike to cannibalise imps within their suit, there are also groups that actively leave the spades’ grounds to hunt down other imps who may have survived Joker’s feast, eliminate scouts from other suits, and even invade the other suits’ territories to kill their imps and weaken their societies.

Due to an internal power struggle between the queen and the king, the suit is even more turbulent than it usually is. Emma is not nearly as violent as Spade is, but she’s unable to control him, and killing him would surely lead to his loyal subjects ending her as well. Therefore, the spades barely function as a single unit and are close to tearing each other apart.


Spade queen’s imps are pitch-black or near pitch-black and covered head to toe in reinforcing scales. Shadows often waft from their skin. Emma is the queen of spades.

Spade king’s imps are much larger and taller than the average imp and are various shades of purple. By far the most intimidating imps. Spade is the king of spades.

Spade jack’s imps are tiny little gremlins who come in varying shades of green. They are commonly visually and motorically impaired, but they are clever little hunters who are very useful in the right hands. Waru is the jack of spades.


Demons of the heart
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Heart demons are either yellow, pink, or white. They tend to wear jewellery and embellish their bodies, showing themselves in the best light they can.

To be with the hearts is to be part of the elite, or that is what the officials would claim. They are all about love, happiness, and gentleness; isn’t it right, therefore, that they live in absolute luxury and maximise pleasure? At least for those at the top of the suit, that is the case; for the lesser imps, who have to maintain this lifestyle, life isn’t all roses and sunshine.

The hearts can be posh and condescending, thinking only themselves to be the civilised suit, and they look down on all the others. They are the least numerous suit, as they don’t bother to go looking for heart imps in the demon world and don’t adopt outside their suit.


Heart queen’s imps are a radiant white, often painful on the eyes as their true form is hard to look at. What exactly they look like is unknown, as they are so radiant that their body cannot be seen. Helen is the queen of hearts.

Heart king’s imps are all sorts of pink, though they often have yellow flecking. Romeo is the king of hearts.

Heart jack’s imps are yellow, often presenting with pink flecking. Felix is the jack of hearts.


Demons of the diamond
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Diamond demons are a special suit. Mysterious, quirky, often hard to place and understand, this suit is by far the most diverse suit. They come in red, brown, and orange and have a tendency to have more diverse traits, often having a lot of fur, scales, and spikes.

Above all, diamonds are curious learners. They seek to understand the world around them, even if they’re not always as proficient at researching it. They’re not afraid to ask questions and insert themselves into situations to push for answers, and they have a tendency to be warm. On the other hand, they also have few boundaries for how far they are willing to go to learn about the world around them.

The diamonds are the only suit that actively go out of their way to find other suits’ imps and integrate them into their own suit. Nicole has a vested interest in all living things in the demon world, and she studies the other suits to better understand them and find a way they might coexist. And, of course, to pick a few of them apart to see what they might look like on the inside. Diamonds are also the only suit to have an active system where they use and breed cattle and pets from around the demon world and to have mastered agriculture, often making hunting unnecessary.

The diamond suit is the only suit where living joker imps reside without having been wiped off the dimension. No one knows why Joker allows these joker imps to live with the diamonds. As such, the current diamond suit is several hundred years old, far older than the other three current suits.


Diamond queen’s imps are orange and tend to display spotting. Nicole is the queen of diamonds.

Diamond king’s imps are red and generally scaly, appearing dragon-like. These imps are laid-back and easygoing. Dante is the king of diamonds.

Diamond jack’s imps are brown and generally fluffy. They are very cuddly cat-like imps, often less vocal despite possessing the verbal skills to speak. Gabriel is the jack of diamonds.

Joker demons
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As far as Joker is concerned, there is just one joker demon. If there are more, he will ensure that there aren’t.

Any queen would be wise not to keep them around.


Reproduction

Demons can reproduce through two ways: through creation, and sexually.


Every day, thousands of demons are created by Joker, of any suit and any role. Their purpose is simple: to be immediately eaten and fulfil Joker’s insatiable hunger. An overwhelming majority of demon kittens created this way don't survive their first hour, as even if Joker makes them by the handful, he chases down the kittens who escape so long as they remain within his arms’ length. These demons are genetically distinct and aren't related to one another, but they are nonetheless referred to as litters. Created demons are the equivalent of ten to fifteen days old and tend to be far more robust than natural-born kittens.

Those who do escape make it into the demon world, where they are faced with harsh weather conditions, lack of food, hostile wildlife, and spade demons who are on the hunt. Demon kittens can survive up to a month without milk, but their strength will wane over time. If they don't find safety, they may succumb to their environment.

Those lucky enough to find their suit or a suit that is open to adopting other suits get integrated into the suit and raised as one of their own. They are often fed by the queen, though if an imp who recently gave birth is available, they may be added to this imp’s nest.


Secondly, demons can reproduce sexually.

Demons are by default infertile and have flat breasts when they live in the presence of a queen. A queen can choose to make whichever demon she picks fertile, often choosing to impregnate the imp herself regardless of their gender, so long as they have a compatible sex that allows for pregnancy. She can also choose to make multiple of her demons fertile and let them breed among each other, though this is less popular as the queen's genes are potent and make for strong imps.

Pregnancy lasts three to four months, during which three to twenty kittens develop in the womb. Pregnant imps quickly become agitated and maternal, creating nests for themselves and sometimes adopting younger reluctant imps in the group to take care of awaiting birth. During this time, the suit takes care of the pregnant imp, bringing them food and water and keeping them clean and warm, protected from threats.

Due to the small size of the imps, birth is easier than most mammals. Imp kittens are naked and wet and are licked clean by the parent and the rest of the suit after birth. Drinking the parent’s colostrum helps the kittens with their immunity and development, but the queen’s milk mimics colostrum and gives the kittens a big boost.

Demons surrounding the pregnant imp can display a hormone-induced pseudopregnancy. Regardless of sex, they will exhibit physiological signs of pregnancy without actually carrying, including the swelling of breasts. These imps are more aggressive to ward off potential attackers and help the pregnant imp with nesting. Once the pregnant imp has given birth, these imps will help nurse the kittens, as demons tend to have no more than two nipples and a litter can have ten times that number of mouths to feed.


Regardless of how an imp is born, their development tends to be roughly the same, with natural-born imps being slightly weaker than created imps due to the physical stress of birth.

Kittens thrive on milk, but they can also survive on meat. They are very metabolically efficient and don’t need frequent feedings, but the more they get fed, the faster they grow and the more food they need. Kittens can go about a month without food, though this is far from ideal for their development.

Generally, the whole suit raises new kittens. Kittens do stay with their parents, or if they are created, a group of parents is selected to give the kitten stability and certainty, but it’s not rare for an imp to have been raised by hundreds of suitmates during their childhood. They don’t have a strong sense of family in the horizontal sense, as kittens they were raised alongside can become future partners.


Sociology

Demons are simultaneously very human in behaviour, and act more animalistically. Where demons most resemble humans is their intelligence, their ability to speak, their ability to adapt, and their tendency to walk upright. It’s in the way they interact with each other and the natural world that they diverge.

A lot of demon social interaction relies on allogrooming, pheromone communication, use of the mouth and claws, and verbal communication through means other than words. They can talk just as well, but it will always come across far more strongly when a demon cuddles with their mate, licks them clean, and picks parasites out of their fur.

Demons also notably bite each other a lot for the sake of bonding and communication. Light nibbles will heal easily; harder chomps are meant to warn the other, often when a younger imp is crossing the line, and bites that hold are signs of aggression. Young demons have a tendency to nibble on tails, be it their own or that of their littermates or caretakers. This is done as play, affection, and to explore the world and their own bodies.

Verbally, on top of using words, demons are also capable of purring when pleased, yowling and hissing when displeased, and chirping, rumbling, growling, snorting, and meowing, especially when younger and before they have learned to speak.

That doesn’t mean that verbal communication is rudimentary. Demons are verbose, sometimes more so than humans are, and won’t hesitate to let others know exactly what’s on their mind in combination with species-specific noises. That being said, some demons simply never speak and keep to non-verbal noises, or they rarely speak. Diamond jack’s imps are often barely verbal, and spade jack’s imps prefer noise over words. Sexuality plays an important role in demon society. This can have a role in bonding, hierarchy, relaxation, and reproduction.

Sex is not always romantic. It can be used as a way to greet other members of the suit, to make up after a bad spat with a packmate, or to better get to know each other. Still, there is a large difference in the vibe of a brief sexual encounter with an ally versus a romantic sexual encounter with a partner, and the two shouldn’t be confused for each other.

Since demons are of human intelligence, they also engage in sex for the sake of pleasure. There is less stigma about this than in modern human societies, so demons not only very openly sleep with each other and engage in sex acts that will never lead to offspring, but they also tend to have multiple partners and rarely are jealous when their partner sleeps with other demons.

Only the current diamond society has mastered agriculture and domestication. While the other suits occasionally pick up domesticated animals and reuse cultivars that previous suits left behind, they are generally societies that hunt and forage to have their needs met. Usually, the jack’s imps are the ones who hunt, and they are highly appreciated for looking after the suit’s most basic needs. This is also why jack’s imps have a tendency to be more animalistic in behaviour.


The human world

When a demon dies, their core is returned to the earth and eventually reabsorbed into the arcane fabric of the demon world. When a demon core isn’t absorbed in time, however, it has a tendency to filter through the demon world and end up in the human world.

Humans have spent aeons collecting these demon cores, in some cases revering them, in others condemning them. Cults that worship these cores have found ways to summon creatures from the demon world using these deceased cores. Demon worshippers may try to bring a demon into the human world to gain something in exchange, such as power or divine luck, or to slay these demons in order to steal their powers. In certain religions, demons have also been summoned just to be purged.

Most demons who are summoned are clueless when they come to the human world. Humans have such a funny idea of how demons work, have made up such silly stories about what demons are and why they exist—and as such, demons are often blindsided by the demands and worship they receive once summoned.

In reality, demons can offer little besides their magic. Only the cults that revere them out of fear or respect get their end of the bargain fulfilled.