Flavor question regarding demons

[Alpinwolf]

This is about Pathfinder only because that's the world I'm playing in, but feel free to share lore from other settings. I am not actually looking for game-mechanic rules, here; this is mainly for RP visuals.

I'm already well along in the Wrath of the Righteous, in a group that the GM is having a hard time challenging already. So I don't need to eek out that one more point of advantage. I'm interested more in flavor & fluff, regarding demons.

To wit: What do demons fear?

I can remake my summoner's eidolon at each level, in the image of any creature or creation I can dream up. But while it's easy to ask a person what a person finds intimidating or frightening (again: fluff - not mechanic), I have a hard time coming up with a flavorful "design" for my personal monster that would be a bit more unsettling for my most-hated enemies: evil outsiders. Demons in particular.

So this is a philosophical inquiry, I guess.

One quick option would be something looking like an angel or other good celestial being - however you imagine that. But demons already hate those and probably figure that if anything is coming after them, angels would be likely candidates.

Another alternative, (since Mendev is close to Numeria anyway,) is that a creature looking like a high-tech construct, a faceless robot, enigmatic to mortals and outsiders alike, could be an unsettling departure from the "expected" enemies. Maybe?
(I'm still considering this, although I have already established RP for my PC that she has a penchant for nature & animals, and reveres Gozreh. I'm still interested in how y'all might see this option.)

I don't pretend to fully grok the lore on any side, so I'm just spit-ballin' here. I'm told demons mainly respect and fear greater strength. But if we humans get squicky at bestial features on a "man", large fangs and horns, oozing ichor, asymmetrical biology, and such.... what do demons find revolting in reverse?

Thanks, Giants!

[Shadowquad]

Demons have been fighting the Blood War for eons. Another obvious answer is a Pit Fiend. Or, even truer to the nature of demons : another, bigger demon.

[Fizban]

The nature of chaotic murderous evil is not a subtle pyschology. They fear that which can harm or force its will upon them, and nothing else, unless an individual has some specific past experience. The answer of "a bigger, stronger demon (or celestial)" is pretty much the only one I would find appropriate. A construct is something that itself does not feel fear or pain, but unless it's known to be particularly effective at killing demons, they still have no reason to fear it.

That's in a general sense, obviously. There might be some deep lore in one or more settings that supplies an answer.


If I had to try for something, I'd go with "we fear that which is most like ourselves." Chaotic beings which are not evil might mystify demons and inspire an uncanny valley effect in them. Demons are chaotic, but still unified by being evil. Evil does evil, and evil is the opposite of good, but chaos without either is just madness (and law is the obvious opposite of chaos). Those who consider themselves unpredictable depend on others acting predictably, so what do you do when faced with someone better at your own shtick? The problem with this is that most "chaotic neutral" beings in monster manuals are actually chaotic evil by their actions and get away with it because reasons, but anyway.

So that's pretty much. . . Sladdi for 3.5. People don't generally think of Slaadi as threatening, but consider that demons aren't immune to the egg pellets or slaad fever of red and blue, and lack the ability to cure themselves or a society that would care to help them- scary like a mangy dog that might have rabies, one bad hit and you're done. Green and grey used to be implied to make use of spell trigger items (despite no explicit ability to do so), which would give them unknown magical abilities of unknown power, while the Death Slaad gets Implosion long before any proper demons do (along with Circle of Death), just roll the dice and you're dead.

I could see demons fearing slaad as diseased madmen, a dangerous pest for the powerful and something to flee for the weak.

[ViperMagnum357]

In addition to anything powerful enough to seize control of them indefinitely, I suppose only permanent death would be what a Demon genuinely fears. The rest-banishment, imprisonment, getting reduced in power or shanghai'd by another entity-to a being that does not age, such things are temporary inconveniences, though hardy less unpleasant for that.

[Darth Ultron]

To wit: What do demons fear?


They are not all to different from many other life forms:

1.Death, real, final, permanent death/destruction/obliteration
2.Imprisonment.
3.Loss of status and power in a social/political sense
4.Loss of power in a physical/mental/magical sense
5.Enslavement

[Alpinwolf]

Thanks, all -- especially to Fizban for that considered response.

Slaadi... I haven't thought of them in years, except when ordering a salad and making myself chuckle.... Looks like they're mainly confined to WotC stuff, tho. I just read elsenet that the PF equivalent to a Slaad, in the panoply of outsiders, would be a Protean - beings of chaos. And my eidolon already looks pretty chaotic. Worth more consideration..

I'm expecting a "nay", but what about any "forces" of nature? A Green Man? An Ent? :-P Demons probably consider plants trivial, but as a subset of my initial question, I'm trying to figure "what would it look like when you've pissed off a god of nature?"

Good food for flavory-thought, cheers!!