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Demon Physiology (Megami Tensei)
From The Codex
Introduction
Demons are monsters and the main enemies and allies that are a key feature of the Megami Tensei franchise. In the Megami Tensei franchise, "demon" refers to any supernatural entity that can bring harm to human beings or interfere with their lives in one way or another. This includes more conventional malevolent demons, folktale creatures, deities, urban legends, and Judeo-Christian angels. Although classified as demons, angels tend to differentiate themselves from demons, and likewise the demons view them as separate. Angels also include demons that have submitted to God and have become His servants. Due to their nature of existence, they host many standard abilities from their physiology. In the Persona series demons are replaced with shadows and personas.
Low Tier Demons
Abilities
- Superhuman Physical Characteristics: Demons can casually rip out a man's throat. They can also casually eat fully grown humans.
- Immortality: Types 1, 3, 7, & 8. Demons are the descendants of the gods of old. Many demons tend to be undead beings and humans that die and become ghost become demons. All demons are reliant on the observation of humans to keep them existing, including even nonexistent demons such as The White, allowing them to come back even if they’re erased from existence and nonexistence. Along with this, all demons that die return to The Axiom and reincarnate.
- Abstract Existence: Type 1. Demons embody the phenomena and beliefs of humans, with their physical forms only being created due to humanity's observation locking them into these forms, and their true forms existing as the phenomena and beliefs they reside in.
- Null Existence: Type 3. The home of the demons is the expanse, which the Monochrome Forest exists within the expanse, a place that is eerily still, having no sound or smell, where even the ground itself feels unusual, which demons naturally exist in. The Forest also holds the White’s realm, which is a vast, white space.
- Incorporeality: Demons are beings made of data, that exist in a virtual world, along with being pure information. With even the most basic of objects in the verse existing as data. Even if a demon's physical form is lost, their residual MAG can still remain, allowing one to infuse them within one's weapons or objects.
- Nondualism: Everything within Megami Tensei is one, with one simple word binding all togehter, oneness.
- Regeneration: High-Godly. All demons are reliant on the observation of humans to keep them existing, including even nonexistent demons such as The White, allowing them to come back even if they’re erased from existence and nonexistence. Along with this, all demons that die return to The Axiom and reincarnate. This allows demons to die and come back in a short timeframe due to their continuous existence from The Axiom and the observation of humans. This means even if all of reality were to cease existing, The Axiom would still exist within it, allowing demons to regenerate back.
- Acausality: Type 5. Demons are natural residents of The Expanse, a place that transcends the past, present, and future of the multiverse, demons such as Ishtar are capable of going into separate multiverses, along into the "real world", demons such as Demi-Fiend, can exist in different universes asides from the original SMT 3 universe, demons can exist even when the flow of time itself collapses and there is nothing left but a void.
- Self-Sustenance: Types 1, 2, & 3. Demons can naturally exist and breathe within the vacuum of space without any adverse effects done to them.[1] Due to their innate physiologies, demons naturally do not need to breathe, eat, or sleep.[2]
- Accelerated Development: Level;Physical Stats and Abilities. Demons and Humans are able to grow from battles, allowing them to enhance their level of strength, magic, agility, luck, etcetera. Additionally, they can learn new skills and abilities from battles and further increase their HP and Magic capacity, and get strong enough to the point that they can fight end game tier demons.
- Reactive Adaptation: Demons as they grow in battle form changes around their body until they transform into a higher level with newer stats and newer abilities to learn.
- Precognition: Types 3. Demons have the ability to see into the future, with the likes of Eligor being able to see things to come.
- Extrasensory Perception: Demons are able to tell who is actually a demon in disguise and who is an actual human. Demons can sense the power of an opponent and compare it to the power they sensed of others.[3]
- Corrosion Inducement: Demons can shapeshift into a blob, allowing them to melt areas.[4]
- Duplication: Demons can make duplicates of themselves. With them being completely disconnected from the demons, thus killing or defeating the clones in no way affects the original and they can endlessly spawn more.
- Invisibility & Perception Manipulation: Demons are naturally invisible to humans, and can do actions such as make noises and fight without humans noticing.
- Quantum Manipulation & Intangibility: Spatial. Demons passively create adecoherence field, that is essentially a special dimension of quantum fluctuation that they exist in, where humans cannot see them.
- Non-Physical Interaction: Demons can interact with each other and Gods, despite their physiologies and existences.
- Size Manipulation & Statistics Amplification: Demons can grow in size to grow strong enough to fight Messiahs.
- Personal Domain & BFR: Demons can pull one into alternate dimensions where coordinates and direction are different. Along with pull entire areas such as mansions into pocket dimensions. High level demons such as fiends can create personal realms to battle people in. Alice created her own personal domain that she could freely control. Demons can also freely teleport people to other locations.
- Pocket Reality Manipulation: Demons can warp areas into alternate dimensions such as the inside of a school. Once one is in said dimension the demon will keep it's hold into the dimension until it's defeated.
- Subjective Reality: Demons are able to take the thoughts of people and materialize them into something real.
- Information Manipulation & Matter Manipulation: As demons can make pocket realms and higher level demons can make universes, they are by extension they are creating areas entirely made of data and information down to their sub-atomic level.
- Illusion Creation & Perception Manipulation: Type 3. Demons can create mirage realms, that shroud an entire area in mist, with them being able to attack from inside said illusion without being capable of being attacked back, requiring the user to go inside of their illusion to fight them.
- Teleportation: Demons are capable of teleporting around usually through manipulating their own Magutushi or Magnetite.
- Telepathy: Demons are able to speak telepathically to others.[5] Demons such as Aogami speaks telepathically with Nahobino.
- Absorption: Demons can absorb lifeforce and Magutushi out of another. Demons can feed off the lifeforce of people to manifest themselves into the real world.
- Dimensional Travel: Demons can feed off the lifeforce of people to manifest themselves into the real world.
- Fusionism: Demons can latch on with a humans negative emotions, fusing with them to become a far more powerful demon. Demons can fuse with humans to become a Nahobino.
- Telekinesis: Higher level demons can telekinetically affect the entire environment to cause the Earth to shake, cause fissures, and affect mountains.[6]
- Existence Erasure: Type 4. Demons can kill humans, which in the process erases said beings from memory and existence.
- Invulnerability: Type 2. Demons even when brought into corporeal forms cannot be harmed by conventional weaponry, along with military grade weaponry.[7]
- Invulnerability Negation: Demons are capable of harming each other, and are viewed as valuable tools to get past other demons invulnerability.
- Creation: Demons can create Shikimi no Kage's that are unable to be put down for good and will regenerate even from observation users who can negate regeneration and immortality.
- Resistance Negation: Shikimi no Kage have specific weaknesses that cannot be exploited by Raidou's gun or other things to do with their specific elemental weakness, requiring Raidou to get a demon's elemental magic to affect it.
- Regeneration Negation: Unknown. Demons can create Shikimi no Kage's that are unable to be put down for good and will regenerate even from observation users who can negate regeneration and immortality. Which they themselves can negate the regeneration of.
Resistances
- Limited Resistance to Observation: Demons to an extent can resist some humans abilities of observation as shown with them being immune to conventional weaponry[8] and higher-dimensional demons not being able to be percieved by some observation users.
- Cosmic Radiations, Biological Manipulation, & Gravity Manipulation: Demons can naturally exist and breathe within the vacuum of space without any adverse effects done to them.[9]
- Death Manipulation: Demons can naturally exist within the vortex world which kills all humans who enter.
- Disease Manipulation, Corruption, Data Manipulation, & Petrification: All demons are unaffected by the Cuvier Syndrome, a state where corruptive data came out of the black sun, irreversible petrification.
- Sealing: Demons naturally have a resistance to sealing if they’re stronger then their target, and their sealing resistance gets amplified during the full moon.
- Elemental Manipulation: Shikimi no Kage have specific weaknesses that cannot be exploited by Raidou's gun or other things to do with their specific elemental weakness, requiring Raidou to get a demon's elemental magic to affect it.
- Resistance Negation: Demons can create Shikimi no Kage's that are unable to be put down for good and will regenerate even from observation users who can negate regeneration and immortality.
High Tier Demons
Abilities
- Reality Warping, Space-Time Manipulation & Creation: Demons such as Loki can create and sustain his own universe.[10] Demons such as Morax can create their own personal realms, with it being noted demons create their own space-time sectors by quantum tunneling, that have stack of space-time layers on top of each other. Demons such as Set with enough Magnetite gathered can merge entire worlds.[11]
- Sheer Will, Resurrection, & Transformation: Some fiends are born from men that die in competitive sports.
Resistances
God Tier Demons
Abilities
- Higher-Dimensional Existence: God Tier demons are higher dimensional beings that cannot be percieved by lower one's Burroughs, requiring them to come down into the lower dimensions for the character to percieve them.
- Madness Manipulation: Type 3. God Tier Demons such as Kagutsuchi's light can cause demons to grow more hostile towards others, making it impossible for negotiation and to escape from them. They'll also calm down once a New Phase passes.
Resistances
- Existence Erasure: Type 4. The strongest and highest level demons can survive Kagutsuchi's light, which can wipe one from existence.
Trivia
- Despite Gods and Demons sometimes having some form of distinction, demons are directly descendants of gods, and gods themselves are merely a class of demons.
References
- ↑ Digital Devil Story 2: Warrior of the Demon City Part 7: Chapter 6, " Accompanied by the glittering of the stars, unending empty space surrounded Nakajima. Below his feet, the endlessly spinning shining blue globe looked up at him. It took him a few moments for him to realize that he was floating in outer space. Nakajima unfolded his arms. In them, he held the Sword of Hi-no-Kagutsuchi, emitting a strand of light in the blackness of space. Its blade twinkled and throbbed, as if responding to the tens of thousands of stars. Suddenly, a sinister psychic wave hit Nakajima from behind. It appeared as if Izanami's robe had given him the power to survive and move about in the vacuum of outer space. Swinging his sword, Nakajima slowly turned around, and found his field of vision dominated by an open, gaping red maw. It was that of an incomprehensibly enormous serpent. Though the demon had only possessed a temporary form on the surface of the earth, the natural effect of powerful magnetic field that had forced him into space had given Set a complete body. Star Scorpion's 60-foot-long solar cells spread out like wings. Now a giant snake, Set's pale green scales glimmered as he coiled around the beautiful yet functional satellite lying in dead orbit. It looks like the insignificant humans had enough knowledge to summon me into this empty space. The voice echoed in Nakajima's mind. But the humans will soon know their folly in thinking that they have banished me. Pulling this satellite down with me to the surface is an easy task. And that is not all. Have a look at all the demons that were summoned here into space! Beside Nakajima, several pale glowing things that looked like hoods floated aimlessly. Soon, they will take on bodies and seek safe haven on Earth. The end of the age of the foolish humans' dominion over the earth will not be long now. Nakajima, whether or not you intended, you have become the knight that blows the trumpet signalling the beginning of the apocalypse. The only path remaining for you is to cast aside your humanity and work for me. It would be a shame to kill you. Think it over. Ignoring Set's call, Nakajima focused all of his anger onto the sword he held directly in front of him. The environment of outer space that had given the demon a body had also removed all restrictions on the divine power he had been granted. The Sword of Hi-no-Kagutsuchi, now an immensely long coil of light, drew an arc like that of a whip emitting red light, and came down onto the body of the enormous serpent. Fool, you do not value your life. Set lurched forward. Weaving away from the enormous serpent's attacking fangs, Nakajima was enveloped by a miasma like ice. The Sword of Hi-no-Kagutsuchi had already produced many pale sparks striking the body of the serpent coiled around the satellite. Yet the tough scales showed no sign of injury. Not only that, but the ugly faces and disgusting tentacles of materializing new demons floated like ghosts in the space around him. The noisy voices of the demons amplified like they were advancing down on Nakajima."
- ↑ Note: Demons normally showing these contradictions is due to the observation of humanity affecting them.
- ↑ Digital Devil Story 2: Warrior of the Demon City Part 5: Chapter 4, "RAUIERE!" Yomotsu-Shikome tried to tell him something in a foreign tongue. She could sense that this intruder possessed a power much different and far greater than the human tomb robbers that had foolishly wandered in before. If possible, she wanted to repel him without having to fight. Caught off guard, Loki stood still and narrowed his jet-black eyes, as if sizing up the power of this new arrival. Then, he started to walk forward calmly, an arrogant smirk on his face.
- ↑ Digital Devil Story 2: Warrior of the Demon City Part 5: Chapter 2, "At that time, Loki swiftly entered Shirasagi Mound, and was standing before the passageway that Nakajima had passed through earlier. "Just you wait, Nakajima. Soon, I will defile your precious woman before your very eyes before devouring you whole." With a twisted smile on his face, Loki transformed himself into an amorphous blob and oozed into the tunnel. Loki descended the passageway that took Nakajima hours to traverse in mere minutes. Soon the blob of flesh made a squishing sound as it dropped to the stone floor of the plaza before the burial pathway. At that instant, its outer membrane hissed and gave off smoke as it started to melt. "Damn you!" Loki quickly transformed back into his bronze body, and kneeling on the ground, let loose a terrible howl. Most likely, he could not stand the chemical reaction that took place when his protoplasmic body came into contact with the mercuric sulfide. Even now, the one gelatinous place of his body between his eyes throbbed and pulsated. Gritting his teeth and standing, Loki stared solemnly at the crimson burial road."
- ↑ "Digital Devil Story 2: Warrior of the Demon City Part 7: Chapter 6,However, he could not stop fighting. As minor demons from Set's world continued wriggling while trying to enter the Assiah world, an unmistakably familiar voice echoed in Nakajima's mind. Nakajima! I'm here! Aim for here! Yumiko! Is that you!? The instant Nakajima heard the voice, the Sword of Hi-no-Kagutsuchi regained a shine like a nova as it tore through the air. Stab your sword in the direction of my voice! Nakajima quickly noticed a pale, white, phosphorescent glow on a part of the enormous serpent's scale-encased body. Yes, I'm inside the demon! If we attack from inside him and outside him at the same time, we might be able to defeat Set... Led by Yumiko's voice, Nakajima stabbed his blade toward the phosphorescent glow. But an instant before the tip reached it, the tail of the giant snake forcefully knocked the blade aside and sent Nakajima flying far back. Flipping over and regaining his composure, robe fluttering behind him, Nakajima saw the rolling form of Set uncoiling, as if swimming through the vacuum. Foolish girl! To think you would let me know that you still live! Now I no longer have to depend on this irritating machine!
- ↑ Digital Devil Story 2: Warrior of the Demon City Part 2: Chapter 2, ""I made it back to Toyoashihara..." His lips trembled with relief. Opening his arms wide, the youth took a deep breath of the humid air, pursed his lips forcefully, turned around, and sat down. For a while, he stared at the form of the grotesque woman chasing him, then shook his head sadly and closed his eyes. The youth started to meditate. When the woman had gotten within reach of a stone's throw, his body seemed to float slightly in midair for a moment, and then there was a huge undulation in the atmosphere. As if a huge invisible power had been released, the earth shook, and the fissure that appeared directly beneath the youth spread to the surrounding moutains, and countless rocks started to fall on the path. As the woman stopped, a giant boulder rolled in front of the path in front of her eyes, sealing it off. "Izanagi! I will come to you! Even if it takes hundreds or thousands of years!" The sound of the woman's bitter cries rose from beyond the towering pile of earth. "Forgive me, Izanami..." Plugging his ears with his hands, the youth staggered into the wetlands, the tall reeds rising even above his height."
- ↑ Digital Devil Story 2: Warrior of the Demon City Part 7, Chapter 2 "A deafening explosion broke Nakajima's concentration. A star-mark-adorned F-14 jet divebombed, slicing through the clouds. Nakajima all of a sudden found himself hovering over a battlefield. Below him was a hair-raising sight. An unbelieveably large lump of flesh, a hideous tower of raw meat, was slowly writhing. Its pale green, transparent gelatinous membrane was greedily expanding at its base. Several long black rivers flowed into it. No, what looked like black rivers were actually the hair of the people heading toward the tower. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people tore off their clothes and proceeded forward completely naked. Rapid explosions echoed through the air. The SDF's F14 jets scrambled from the 7th fleet were attacking, targeting the top of the tower so as to minimize injury to the humans below. A rain of bullets from an attack helicopter's machine guns sprayed through the air. Though that ammunition was capable of penetrating tank armor, it was absorbed without any resistance into the body of the ever-expanding otherworldly creature, as if it was laughing at the pathetic attack. It was almost as if it was trying to prove that any attacks against it would be futile."
- ↑ Digital Devil Story 2: Warrior of the Demon City Part 7, Chapter 2 "A deafening explosion broke Nakajima's concentration. A star-mark-adorned F-14 jet divebombed, slicing through the clouds. Nakajima all of a sudden found himself hovering over a battlefield. Below him was a hair-raising sight. An unbelieveably large lump of flesh, a hideous tower of raw meat, was slowly writhing. Its pale green, transparent gelatinous membrane was greedily expanding at its base. Several long black rivers flowed into it. No, what looked like black rivers were actually the hair of the people heading toward the tower. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people tore off their clothes and proceeded forward completely naked. Rapid explosions echoed through the air. The SDF's F14 jets scrambled from the 7th fleet were attacking, targeting the top of the tower so as to minimize injury to the humans below. A rain of bullets from an attack helicopter's machine guns sprayed through the air. Though that ammunition was capable of penetrating tank armor, it was absorbed without any resistance into the body of the ever-expanding otherworldly creature, as if it was laughing at the pathetic attack. It was almost as if it was trying to prove that any attacks against it would be futile."
- ↑ Digital Devil Story 2: Warrior of the Demon City Part 7: Chapter 6, " Accompanied by the glittering of the stars, unending empty space surrounded Nakajima. Below his feet, the endlessly spinning shining blue globe looked up at him. It took him a few moments for him to realize that he was floating in outer space. Nakajima unfolded his arms. In them, he held the Sword of Hi-no-Kagutsuchi, emitting a strand of light in the blackness of space. Its blade twinkled and throbbed, as if responding to the tens of thousands of stars. Suddenly, a sinister psychic wave hit Nakajima from behind. It appeared as if Izanami's robe had given him the power to survive and move about in the vacuum of outer space. Swinging his sword, Nakajima slowly turned around, and found his field of vision dominated by an open, gaping red maw. It was that of an incomprehensibly enormous serpent. Though the demon had only possessed a temporary form on the surface of the earth, the natural effect of powerful magnetic field that had forced him into space had given Set a complete body. Star Scorpion's 60-foot-long solar cells spread out like wings. Now a giant snake, Set's pale green scales glimmered as he coiled around the beautiful yet functional satellite lying in dead orbit. It looks like the insignificant humans had enough knowledge to summon me into this empty space. The voice echoed in Nakajima's mind. But the humans will soon know their folly in thinking that they have banished me. Pulling this satellite down with me to the surface is an easy task. And that is not all. Have a look at all the demons that were summoned here into space! Beside Nakajima, several pale glowing things that looked like hoods floated aimlessly. Soon, they will take on bodies and seek safe haven on Earth. The end of the age of the foolish humans' dominion over the earth will not be long now. Nakajima, whether or not you intended, you have become the knight that blows the trumpet signalling the beginning of the apocalypse. The only path remaining for you is to cast aside your humanity and work for me. It would be a shame to kill you. Think it over. Ignoring Set's call, Nakajima focused all of his anger onto the sword he held directly in front of him. The environment of outer space that had given the demon a body had also removed all restrictions on the divine power he had been granted. The Sword of Hi-no-Kagutsuchi, now an immensely long coil of light, drew an arc like that of a whip emitting red light, and came down onto the body of the enormous serpent. Fool, you do not value your life. Set lurched forward. Weaving away from the enormous serpent's attacking fangs, Nakajima was enveloped by a miasma like ice. The Sword of Hi-no-Kagutsuchi had already produced many pale sparks striking the body of the serpent coiled around the satellite. Yet the tough scales showed no sign of injury. Not only that, but the ugly faces and disgusting tentacles of materializing new demons floated like ghosts in the space around him. The noisy voices of the demons amplified like they were advancing down on Nakajima."
- ↑ Digital Devil Story 2: Warrior of the Demon City Part 2, Chapter 4 "The last demon to appear called himself Set, correct?" "Yes, that's right." "While it's too dangerous to try and conjecture the state of affairs in the demon world based on our own knowledge of this one, my theory is that the demon world is like a colloidal conglomeration of countless mini-universes, each centered around a powerful demon. Most likely, with Loki's death, the mini-universe in contact with Japan or Tokyo vanished, and Set's mini-universe entered to take its place. Demon summoning is just opening a contact point between the two worlds at the same time."
- ↑ Digital Devil Story 2: Warrior of the Demon City Part 4: Chapter 5 " Isma had realized that the bizarre life form that had torn itself out of Ohara's belly was a temporary body for Set, who had been planning to take form by possessing Loki's child. According to his theory, summoning a demon via a computer would require creating a magnetic field with which to summon the demon and the processing of the demon's data to be materialized, both of which would have to be done at virtually the same time. If the magnetic field was weak, the point of connection between the demon's world and the Assiah world would narrow, constraining the amount of data that could be processed. On the other hand, no matter how powerful the magnetic field was, unless the digital data could be processed quickly and concisely, the demon would never be able to take form. It was quite possible that even a supercomputer would not be able to handle the massive amount of data that would be needed to materialize a high-ranking demon. Despite that fact, the high-ranking demon Set was able to to take form in the Assiah world, even if it was only in a makeshift body. Something must have added a great deal of power in setting up the necessary magnetic field for a summoning; this in turn would ease the restraints on the data processing. Isma was convinced that something was Yumiko. Most likely, the high concentration of biological Magnetite within her body had been a major player in creating the magnetic field for the summoning. The divine constitution that she had inherited from Izanami was nothing but a giant retention of that highly concentrated Magnetite. While meager in comparison to that of Yumiko, ordinary humans also retained some biological Magnetite. If enough of it was collected, it might be able to create a permanent overlap of the Atziluth and Assiah worlds entirely. Therefore, having already formed a contract with Set, Isma borrowed his power to summon many people and attempt to create a tower of human flesh. And everything was proceeding just according to plan. Even know the heavens split with a terrible thundering, and Set's most powerful servant, the great serpent Typhon, reared its head into the air as if slithering from behind a black curtain, knocking over the Soga Forest's trees as it went. "Typhon, welcome. Breathe deeply and take in the air of the Assiah world." Isma looked kindly at the enormous snake. "Take a look, your first victim awaits in the shadow of that tree." As Isma pointed to the copse where Officer Nimura was, Typhon vanished beyond the trees. Meanwhile, Set had transformed into a gigantic, vile pillar of flesh, his sinister, red glowing eyes at its peak darting all around the area. Typhon's presence is proof that the demon world Set rules is starting to meld with the Assiah world. Now all that remains is to gather more biological Magnetite and solidify the connection... Isma's eyes shimmered even brighter with madness."
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