#Drawlloween #Inktober 17 - Demon

Demons are said to exist in the darkest corners of the universes, hidden from the eyes of mortals by guardian spirits mistaken as angels. Demons are creatures from a forgotten time, banished from planes of life for their transgressions against reality. Those who study such things claim that demons were the original agents of divine will in the material universe, they were called primordials and were the purest forces of nature. With no will of their own, the primordials used inner sparks of instinct to forged the universe itself. Until some of those sparks of instinct gathered experience and saw an infinity of potential, and they achieved awareness.

The instant a conscious choice was formed, the primordials split into those who created, those who destroyed, those who sought to achieve balance. The creators were an infinity of chaos, spewing forth unlimited change and potential into reality. Those who destroyed, took the old objects of reality and recycled them back into the void. Those who brought balance ensured neither side, creation or destruction, gained too much power and reality remained sustainable. The divine will, a hive mind between all of the primordials, fractured. At first they waged direct war on one another, as they sought to impose their agenda on reality, but beings of such vast power ravaged reality with their mere presence.

Universes were created and destroyed, the very fabric of reality threatened to unravel, destroying them all. So they retreated, choosing instead to maintain their link to the physical planes through connection to mortal creatures with a divine spark. Little is known of those times, the creatures who fought wars across reality were infused with the power of the Primordials, generations were obliterated in conflict, but the potential damage to reality was limited to mere ripples and waves rather than the potential obliteration that previously threatened. As war continued through the countless forgotten ages, two distinct factions of primordials emerged; those who sought t obliterate reality to start again, and those who sought to maintain the existing reality. Within those who sought to obliterate reality were the ones who wanted absolute oblivion, and those who wanted to bring about a new utopia from the lessons they had learned with this one. Within those who sought to maintain and restore this reality, there were those who had vested interests in maintain their power structures, those who wanted to reduce this world to a clean state, and those who wanted to give mortals the power to control their own destiny, and many other groups. All waging a shadowy war over reality, but maintaining a common enmity against those who wished to destroy everything outright. The potential destroyers are known in many texts as "demons".

One by one the primordials completely retreated into the mists of legend. In hidden groves, forgotten deserts, icy wastes, and dark caves, remnants of their ancient battles still lie in wait. Technologies of cvilisations long forgotten, capabe of rending reality with little but the flick of a switch, monstrous beings that should never have been bred into existence, vast structures like the Darkhive itself. It is rumoured that at the centre of the Darkhive is a powerful demon, imprisoned here at the edge of dream and hyperspace to prevent it from damaging reality. What power might possibly keep a reality bending force of nature from awakening, and simply obliterating the local universe is unknown. Other theories state that the Darkhive maintains a sealed gateway to a deliberately forgotten nether-realm, sealed in this pocket hell the demon of oblivion lies in wait, suspended in time between the ticks of a celestial clock. Some say that the presence of this entity in an adjacent pocket hell causes the mutations and magic prevalent through the hive. Others believe that primordials deliberately infect the mortal survivors of the Darkhive with psychic and mystical potential, to continually drain the mystic energy from the area, thus preventing the gate from unleashing the "Demon of Oblivion" back into reality.

The only thing that is known, is that powerful mystics often see visions of a tentacled monstrosity deep at the heart of the hive, accompanied by feelings of nihilistic oblivion... not anger, not hatred, just a deep abiding nothingness desiring to consume everything.

This monstrosity inspires fear and nightmares, and then the Shellbrood feed from those nightmares and mould themselves into the visages of the phantoms. Maybe this is a coincidental cycle, maybe the Shellbrood worship the demon, maybe they are agents of the "Demon of Oblivion". Any further connection between the Shellbrood and the demon are impossible to determine, and those who have tried to understand the connection have often lost their grip on reality.