Patrick-Leigh
Inkling
I've been thinking about whether to use Imps in my story setting and it occurred to me that Imps could actually be a type of Fiend (an Demon/animal hybrid) that are created by Maleficar (essentially witches, warlocks, sorcerers, etc.) to serve as vessels for Demons to inhabit in order to physically interact with the world in service to the Maleficar. My idea, at least for now, is that Imps themselves are created from a combination of different creatures, so they can take on various forms to suit different purposes, but primates are always used as the primary basis in order to get a roughly humanoid frame and hands with opposable thumbs. When an Imp is not possessed by a Demon, it is a highly intelligent and therefore trainable creature but is not fully sapient. They can follow complex commands but can get stumped by certain obstacles, just as a trained animal can. For example, you can train a dog to fetch a ball, but if you throw two balls at once, the dog will get confused and struggle to decide which ball to fetch first. When an Imp is possessed, however, they are under the control of a fully sapient entity (a Demon) and therefore are not stumped the way an animal would be.
What makes Imps qualify as Fiends is that they have Demon blood in them. Usually, this is from a Demoness who assumed physical form, consumed the tissues of various creatures to get their DNA, then spliced it all together with her own Essence in order to synthesize the DNA of the Imps she wants to create. I'm thinking that a Demoness will lay eggs with Imp embryos inside them, since Demons hate any act of creation, so gestating the Imp inside her and then birthing it would be anathema to her. The sooner she can get the act of creation over with the sooner she can get back to corrupting souls and destroying things, which is what the Imps are expected to help her do.
Finally, I'm thinking that, to reduce how many eggs the Demoness has to lay, Imps are capable of reproducing on their own, but only for a few generations before they are too far removed from their Demon ancestor. Essentially, the demonic essence has decreased with each generation so that viable gametes are no longer produced. However, a single female Imp can lay hundreds of eggs, so this isn't really a big problem in most cases. The point is that a Demoness only has to produce about a dozen female Imps in order to get the process started. Then, there are many, many bodies for Lesser Demons to posses. (More powerful Demons need more powerful breeds of Imps to inhabit, but I'm still trying to think of how those are created.) That's about all I've worked out so far, but I'm interested to know if people think this is a good idea to use for my story setting.
What makes Imps qualify as Fiends is that they have Demon blood in them. Usually, this is from a Demoness who assumed physical form, consumed the tissues of various creatures to get their DNA, then spliced it all together with her own Essence in order to synthesize the DNA of the Imps she wants to create. I'm thinking that a Demoness will lay eggs with Imp embryos inside them, since Demons hate any act of creation, so gestating the Imp inside her and then birthing it would be anathema to her. The sooner she can get the act of creation over with the sooner she can get back to corrupting souls and destroying things, which is what the Imps are expected to help her do.
Finally, I'm thinking that, to reduce how many eggs the Demoness has to lay, Imps are capable of reproducing on their own, but only for a few generations before they are too far removed from their Demon ancestor. Essentially, the demonic essence has decreased with each generation so that viable gametes are no longer produced. However, a single female Imp can lay hundreds of eggs, so this isn't really a big problem in most cases. The point is that a Demoness only has to produce about a dozen female Imps in order to get the process started. Then, there are many, many bodies for Lesser Demons to posses. (More powerful Demons need more powerful breeds of Imps to inhabit, but I'm still trying to think of how those are created.) That's about all I've worked out so far, but I'm interested to know if people think this is a good idea to use for my story setting.