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Divine Personalities...

Hey everybody! Haven't been on in quite awhile now. Anyway, I ran into a little snag and was hoping to get some help. Humans are under threat from demonic forces from a spiritual realm. These creatures have an eternal hatred for mankind and seek to claim their souls to enslave and torture for eternity. Pretty heavy stuff.

In this realm there are countless demons but there are those that are considerably powerful and have large influence and numerous servants. Even though every demon swears fealty to the Black Emperor (Lord of the realm) the demonic princes fight among themselves for greater power and to get higher on the totem pole.

I want to have these princes to each be distinct in their own way. Someone suggested to me to make them each represent certain emotions like have a Prince of pain, or terror, or war, etc. But I don't want to do anything like that because 1) they are supposed to be cunning and very intelligent and thus would make them seem narrow-minded and 2) suppose the Lord of Pain caused a huge massacre. Wouldn't that also cause terror and be counterproductive?

Instead I like the idea of having personalities rather than literal representation. The problem is that the story doesn't delve too much into these creatures but I dont wish to make them too vague. Any suggestions or ideas?
 

Gryphos

Auror
If they're not present for very long then I'd say to give each a distinctive personality trait like "the smart one" or "the particularly ruthless one". Make that their standout feature and it'll be a quick and simple way of making each one different. And then in future if their characters are revisited, add on to those traits to make complex personalities. But if they're not particularly present then giving complexities would be wasted effort.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Inevitably we assign human traits. You could try looking to the animal realm for some ideas. Maybe one is snake-like, lying unseen, striking swiftly. Another could be dog-like, faithful but vicious in a fight. Lizards, whales, cats, birds. Of course we anthropomorphize all these creatures, but they could give you a fresh angle on characteristics.

I agree with you about shying away from having their personality be an echo of their powers. Find a way to introduce a bit of contradiction (the shy one with the explosive temper; the powerful one who can be inept) and you would have your distinguishing hook. It sounds like you aren't looking for full backstories, only a little something to help keep them distinct in the reader's mind.

That said, why do they need to be distinct? Do we need to know about those internal infernal power struggles? (couldn't resist) How often do we meet these guys? Are they there simply to add variety to the catastrophes?
 
How clearly does the story show them? If they're seen mostly as distant masterminds or brief encounters the human heroes can only learn a little from, they might be best known by what temptation or threat they offer people, and then the people begin to guess at the personality behind it from the plans they've followed.

So if one has been glimpsed at court when one king starts a war with another, and then leads demon armies to ravage both weakened kingdoms, he might be known for his cunning and treachery, and people (and his demon rivals) will be rushing to warn people about trusting him again. Another might deal in plagues or storms, and make people struggle to figure out which catastrophe is his and which way it will move next. Then add to that, in what way are the demons smarter than a human schemer (they're probably centuries old) or at least see things we can't-- and what ways are they stupid, arrogant, assuming this or that ("force always wins!" "everyone takes my deal someday!") and that undermines their raw power.

This only works so well if we see a lot of the demons up close, or in their own hell. But that's a hard thing to write, to keep them terrifying; you might do better to limit how much we see them, and say we know them more from their works and how hard people are struggling to figure them out.
 

DavidJae

Troubadour
Consider researching demons from mythology and using them for inspiration, especially Chinese and Japanese mythology. Otherwise, give them aspects of human nature such as greed, jealousy, fear, or anger. Just treat them as you would other characters and make them flawed, just on a much bigger scale. They have no human concepts of morality, so they can be interesting characters
 
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