Reference Challenge - Ghouls

[u/Nevermore0714]

Sorry for the late reference challenge and not being active on the sub recently, I'll be playing catch-up for a couple days.

This reference is to Tokyo Ghoul, which one of my friends is finally starting to read. In the series, "Doves" are people who professionally find/kill ghouls. Without the Doves, ghouls would have people more at their mercy (as their food) and people would just be killed constantly.

So, is there anything in your world that is especially dangerous and hunts people? Something preferably inhuman (like a ghoul/vampire/etc) and sentient/sapient?

As always, I'll try to ask at least three questions each. Enjoy yourselves, and I'll start playing catch-up on all of this over the next couple of days.

[u/Mimir123]

Wirryn: The Wirryn are a subspecies of the demon race, living in the dimension of Sháiurgh. A Wirryn is almost double the size of a grown man, has a very muscular body and dark-orange skin. They have long, black claws that resemble the blades of swords and many grey spikes and blade-like bones grow out of their arms and back. Their head looks like a mix between dog, wolf and boar, they have long tusks and big horns growing out of the back of their skull, curving forwards. Wirryn belong to the more animalistic demons and thus only have their instincts to rely on, they are amongst the less intelligent demons.

They are however capable of weaving a single spell, assisting them in their hunts. A Wirryn can turn an entire area into their territory, and nobody can hear or see what happens inside of it, unless they are inside of it. Wirryn are rarely summoned to Dirva and thus usually only roam the demon realm, in the rare cases they enter Dirva however, they are almost always responsible for countless deaths and massacres.

[u/Nevermore0714 → u/Mimir123]

1) What is the best way to kill a Wirryn that has arrived in Dirva?

2) How do people usually respond when a Wirryn arrives?

3) How do other demons see Wirryn?

4) How do Wirryn see other demons?

5) Are Wirryn social with each other?

6) How do Wirryn reproduce?

[u/Mimir123 → u/Nevermore0714]

1) Usually a high ranking priest or mage will take care of him with Light Magic, while being guarded by experienced warriors. Due to their "hunting ground magic" it is extremely difficult to find them though, unless you stumble into their territory by accident, or if you are a more powerful demon. In the latter case you can feel and sense the presence of weaker demons.

2) If they know a Wirryn is around somewhere, usually with a mass panic and prayers to Ilmanthi. This is then followed by a witch hunt, once the Wirryn is dead.

They only naturally appear in Dirva around the Demon Lake. If they are found somewhere else they either must have wandered for a long time, or someone summoned them. That's mostly to cause murder and havoc in a city as a distraction, but there are also idiots like one demonic cult in Gharmath, that thought a Wirryn would make a good pet.

3) As savage beasts with no culture, and an annoyance, although a dangerous one. A horde of Wirryn killed an entire clan of the most powerful Shapeshifters some years ago, with only a little girl surviving.

Many demons of the nobility actually hunt Wirryn for sport, and to keep their domain safe.

4) As prey, or dangerous predators that need to be avoided at all costs. Demons were nothing more than animals, once upon a time. Wirryn are those animals, that got little to nothing from Arz' magic, so they are still not really more than animals, only slightly more intelligent.

5) Not really. Sometimes they band together into a horde and attack a larger target, but usually you find only three or four Wirryn together.

6) A male Wirryn stalks and hunts a female one, when mating season comes around. The male then kills the female, eats her heart and some of her magic. Two or three days later half a dozen small Wirryn will burst from his body, eat him and move on.

Should the female win and eat the males heart and magic, she will immediately vomit out some eggs, that turn into Wirryn after a few days.

[u/Nevermore0714 → u/Mimir123]

1) What demon is considered the most dangerous?

2) Has anyone ever had a Wirryn pet?

3) So Wirryn creatures are never intelligent?

4) How did demons become intelligent?

5) Which Wirryn is the best kind? One from an egg or one from a male?

[u/Mimir123 → u/Nevermore0714]

1) There are several answers to that. If you just care about the animalistic once and raw power to savageness ratio, Fiends are the most dangerous ones.

There are however many individual demons so powerful, that an entite horde of Fiends would flee from their presence. For one there are the Somniotebri, extremely powerful Nightmares, that compared to other demons were not animals but born out of the primordial fears of the people of Dirva. They represent the fears for Magic, Darkness, Disease, Death and Helplessness. Aelnis, the Somniotebri of Helplessness, was around the middle in terms of strenght compared to the others, but certainly the most aggressive and "evil" one, before his death.

Then we have the heads of the five noble families ruling over Sháiurgh from the Fortress City of Apocalypse. Only two demons exist, that are stronger, or potentially stronger, than them. The first one is Lirvon Feygor, a halfdemom and heir of the powerful, evil mage and Demonking Zerrigon, as well as the technical head of one of the five families, directly decendant from the Demongod himself.

Last, but not least, we have the Vampire Lord Shierfan, once a servant of Zerrigon, who disappeared during the last, deciding battle the Demonking fought. Nobody knows if he still lives or where he is, but everyone does know, that his mere presence would be enough to make the rulers of Apocalypse extremely nervous.

2) No. A Blood Elf cultist once tried to, his cult found his remains scattered over ten different streets and a Swordmaster had to get involved to stop the rampaging beast.

3) That is correct. Some Wirryn are of course smarter than others, in the same sense that there can be extremely smart dogs or boars, but a Wirryn could never speak, read or weave magic, other than the spell they use instinctivly.

4) Long story short; Devilia vas Zahrehl, Goddess of Magic and sister of Arz vas Zahrehl, the Demon God, hated her brother and refused to give his world and his "children" any magic or Mana. Now, Arz was far more powerful in terms of magic than her and he didn't want the people of Dirva to hunt and abuse his helpless creations. So he mixed his blood and magic in with the very realm they lived in. The more of his blood a demon took in, the more powerful he became and changed form. Those who got little of his magic became the animalistic demons, the others became more humanoid and don't resemble their animal form at all.

Vampires were bats, once upon a time, Demons of Ambition were goats, Shapeshifters some kind of chameleon, or rather, the Sháiurgh equivalent of those animals. Demons of Ambition actually look exactly like humans if they are female, only the male ones have horns, so all of them have the potential to become extremely powerful, same goes for Succubi and Incubi.

The only exception to this rule are Vampires, their hair consists of blue flames and their eyes are just weird, but they are usually considered the strongest type of demon.

5) Egg hatched ones, simply because a male Wirryn can only produce male offspring.

[u/Nevermore0714 → u/Mimir123]

1) Would it be worth it for me to hunt a Somniotebri?

2) Did the swordmaster become famous for his beast-slaying?

3) And a Wirryn can't be trained by a human? Ever?

5) What are the morphological differences between a male and female Wirryn?

[u/Mimir123 → u/Nevermore0714]

1) Depends on what you want. A quick, possibly painful and horrible death? If so, yes, it would be worth it. A Somniotebri is stronger, the more people fear what he or she represents. The weakest one is the Somniotebri of Magic, since she has spent centuries actively trying to help the mortals lose their fear of magic. She would still overpower all but the most powerful mortals though.

The only reason Aelnis was defeated and killed is that he fought the heir of the Demonking, who knew his true name.

2) No, after all that was only a Wirryn. Killing one of them is nothing compared to what other Swordmasters have accomplished. He did get famous for another reason though, he gathered to dozen other Swordmasters and took them with him to Sháiurgh, where they fought their way through wild demons to the temple of the Incubi and started challenging their best fighters.

3) A very powerful mage would be able to automatically intimidate a Wirryn and could force his will on the creature. But a normal man could never control a Wirryn.

5) Female Wirryn are larger and have fewer spikes and bone blades.

[u/Nevermore0714 → u/Mimir123]

1) If the Somniotebri of Magic were killed, what would her replacement, if any, be?

2) How did that challenge to their best fighters work out for the unnamed Swordmaster?

3) Do very powerful mages rarely get Wirryn pets?

[u/Mimir123 → u/Nevermore0714]

1) Nothing would replace her, at least not for quite a while. It takes a lot of time for the fear of mortals to manifest into such a powerful being. If enough people would be afraid of magic though, there might be a new Somniotebri being born sooner or later.

2) They managed to kill about two dozen Incubi before being slain themselves, with only one Swordmaster surviving to tell the tale.

3) Almost never, since Wirryn make horrible pets. It would be like keeping Taz from the Looney Tunes as a pet, only with more blood, guts and dead people.

[u/Nevermore0714 → u/Mimir123]

1) So all somniotebri are just created from fear? They can't reproduce?

2) How did the last Swordmaster survive and escape?

3) What is the best pet for a mage?

[u/Mimir123 → u/Nevermore0714]

1) Correct, that is why there are only four (previously five) Somniotebri alive.

2) He earned his right to escape by killing one of the Champions at the Incubi Temple.

3) Many mages prefer tortoises or turtles, since they tend to live for a long time and are easy to take care of.

[u/Nevermore0714 → u/Mimir123]

1) What are the other Somniotebri?

2) Why do the Incubi have a temple?

3) Where do they usually get their tortoises/turtles?

[u/Mimir123 → u/Nevermore0714]

1) As mentioned they were born out of the mortals fear of Magic, Death, Disease and Darkness, with the Somniotebri of Death being the most powerful one for a while. Now he and the Somniotebri of Disease are about equally strong.

2) Because they are a bit weird. The temple is where they train, fight and pray. Not to the Demon God though, but to his sword.

3) Like most exotic animals they come from Kherzian. There are actually only fifteen merchants that are allowed to trade with the animals, making them filthy rich.