Can non-demons become demons in your setting? If so, how are they treated by others...

Can non-demons become demons in your setting? If so, how are they treated by others? Do they lose their mind/original personality in the process or retain it?

Humans who grow horns and a tail are just mutants

If your nonphysical form, your Soul or whatever, becomes twisted and warped due to your profane actions, you become a demon

Similarly, if you're a very very good boy you can become an angel and that's pretty much what happens to saints

actually my setting has neither angels nor demons but if it did, that's how I'd do

Never gave it much thought, it hasn't come up yet. I guess I'd say only good outsiders can fall and become demons, and only evil outsiders can rise and become archons. The reasoning behind this is that these outsiders are literally made of good and evil: good and evil become tangible subtances that form their entire bodies (if they can even be called bodies). At first I thought of getting rid of the cancerous 'redeemed succubus' meme by having an evil outsider simply being destroyed by becoming good. Now that I think about it, it just makes more sense if everything about them becomes good, and their very physical make-up jumps from evil to good. They become their equivalent archon counterpart.

On an unrelated note, I love Albedo! She's pretty, sure, but I also love the idea of her being Ainz' 'queen' of sorts. She certainly looks regal enough to play the part, unlike a certain lamprey.

Yes, in fact most if not all demons started out as non-demons, or rather demons are made up of souls, particularly strong willed souls who are used to create one or who are absorbed into one usually a succubus can retain their sense of self, but they'd have to be one of the original souls that went into it to do so, otherwise it's more of a curse than anything else as they'd just be part of a demon rather then being in control

Only this.

Godless humans that die either go to Hell or to the Abyss, where their souls are warped and turned into either a lesser demon or a lesser devil. They maintain only a bit of their original selves, but as they grow to become more powerful their original personalities are all but lost.
There are ways to become a demon/devil without getting your soul harvested though, it's just insanely hard and requires outside intervention. Becoming a demon is also easier than becoming a devil. (the latter requires too much paperwork)

Demons are spirit beings, and while they can manifest physical bodies (sometimes multiple at once), this makes them fundamentally different to humans, who are fundamentally physical beings to which much weaker spirits are transiently bound. Despite their great magical power, demons are bound by tight rules put in place by the gods when they allowed the demons to seek refuge from their doomed world. Demons cannot reproduce by themselves due to all their gods being dead, and instead can only multiply by paracitizing humans, "laying an egg" in their spirit which consumes the host's soul, killing them. Due to Divine Rules, demons can only do this to humans who are genuinely willing, which is usually accomplished by offering them a deal. Humans trade a significant portion of their lifespan for some favor. The demonic egg can be removed and destroyed with powerful spells, but such an act puts you on the demons' shit list. However, it can also be killed through enormous willpower and concentration, at which point the necrotic remains of the unborn demon are absorbed by the host's soul, transforming them into a fiend. This process warps the body and grants geat physical and magical power, without restraint by divine rules. This very rare event is considered good by the demons, who usually seek to coherce fiends into acting for their agendas

>Can non-demons become demons in your setting?

Yes

> If so, how are they treated by others?

Other demons?

Most demons, including all of the most powerful ones, were mortals in life, so they're the norm and as such a new one popping up is merely par for the course. This has been the standard for uncounted millennia.

There are other demons - far older demons, from a time before mortals - that are NOT merely corrupted mortals, but born from something far darker and more primordial. They're massively outnumbered by the new demons, and the strongest corrupted mortals are more powerful than the strongest innate demons.

But the corrupted mortals tend to be...not stupider, per se, but more visceral, and immediate, and focused on the here and now, or on themselves and their own immediate gratification or the destruction of their personal enemies. They can and do plan long-term, but only for their own reward. The oldest demons think on a much, much larger scale, and while they do want to personally preserve their own lives, they also tend to focus more on spreading evil and chaos than on simply building their own power base.

Making any pact with a demon will result in the mortal involved in said pact become a demon after death. Their soul inverts and all divine energy is replaced with the spiritual energy of the abyss. Most demons form from the very substance of the abyss, once-mortal demons are rare.

Angels were created at the beginning of time. Though rare a mortal may become an angel after death if they are pious enough in life. Paladins, clerics and other divine servants who themselves are already exemplars of their faith are the only individuals with a chance of becoming an Angel after death.

Faith is an exceptionally powerful tool. Many paladins and clerics can attest to the power of faith, that their reverence for their god gives them power beyond anything they could achieve without belief. Faith is what empowers the gods, and what makes the layers of Hell such a terrifying place.

For you see, faith is not just an aspect of divinity. Faith IS divinity.

A mortal man who believes, deep within his very soul, that he is a god will find that he is in fact a god. The kind of blind, genuine faith one must have to grant oneself divine powers is an absurdly rare thing to possess, as even the most egotistical despots in history have a twinge of doubt about their own power, and that little bit of faithlessness is enough to keep them from becoming unfathomably strong.

And the opposite is also true, which is where your question takes us. An evil man who believes he is a demon will become a demon. Ancient tomes outline complex rituals to devolve into the profane, but these are simple illusions whose only true power is to plant the seed of faith into the the hopeful. All one needs to become a demon, a god, or something entirely different, is to find the inner strength to truly believe that they already are what they wish to be.

> Unknown Armies
I run with the UA default idea of demons being disembodied personal unconscious, so in a sense, yes.
> Barbarians of Lemuria
Mages can become demons. When I get anyone to play a mage, I will flesh it out mechanically so that being a demon will suck and at the same time be somewhat cool.

No, although it's a myth that the demons constantly spread around that you can so as to trick ambitious humans into doing evil deeds for them.

>Can non-demons become demons in your setting?
Yes.

>If so, how are they treated by others?
They are considered more dangerous than the neverborn because of their superior insight into the nature and cultures of mortals.

>Do they lose their mind/original personality in the process or retain it?
It's a gradual transition to an inhuman mindset, but they always retain something that links them back to their human origins.

Nah, demons are intelligent creatures without a soul in my setting, but unlike natural creatures, they're spawned magically with some fraction of power of their creator. In a way, they're kind of like elementals, or an AI creation -- they're created with specific purpose and "programming," which is how they behave. They don't really have wills of their own, they just influence mortals with subterfuge and very, very rarely actually act overtly. And when they do, they're usually obfuscated to be unrecognizable and their actions are simply to set bigger events in motion. In contrast, humans have a divine spark of free will so they're always able to behave however they want. Demons are unilaterally evil in intent.

Humans can make pacts with devils for power, but it usually means they give up some portion of control to the creature, and the deals, while inciting, are nearly always favorable to the devil. On the flipside, humans are often used as instruments of the creator as well, but in a way that serves a greater cause. Unfortunately for the humans in question, this can be anything from a boon to their actions or a complete mishap; mechanically, it would be the equivalent of the creator deity substituting a player's diceroll for whatever he wants in a tabletop game. The result has to be a possible outcome of an action, and the action has to be initiated by the person in question of their own free will, however.

The two sides are eternally locked in a struggle against one another with humans caught in the middle, and while humans can serve either's purpose, they always remain human in the end.

I'm sill trying o decide on the specifics of this for a setting I'm working on.

Are there any examples in mythology or folklore of people becoming demons?

I like the idea of some humans being so awful in life that they become demons on death or following some magical transformation, but i haven't really ever thought of a setting that includes it.

In the Hell setting I'm thinking of now demons are only fallen angels. Human souls come to Hell twisted by their sins in life. The most prolific sinners and most evil people are twisted into all sorts of horrible shapes. Demons and devils can twist them further or a soul can transform if it continues down the path of sin - though, most humans quickly forget anything about their actual life.

Well....yes?

Demons refer to a very specific kind of being that isn't supposed to exist in my setting. The fact that they do is a major plot point to the setting.

Now, because they don't actually belong in that reality means that they don't necessarily have to follow the rules.

Like the rules of physics.

So a demon of the right type could very well turn ordinary people into demons but they also turn ordinary people into petunias or cakes,

I always wondered; if some humans want to become angels and demons. do some demons and such want to become human? How would people react when finding out someone was once a demon and now human?
These thoughts have been annoying me for about a week know.

>do some demons and such want to become human?
Why do you think there are so many stories of them constantly trying to possess and mate with us? It's so they can obtain a human body with a physical form, permanently unbind themselves from hell, be able to feel emotions like a human, etc.

A demon with a human body is almost always a very bad thing.

But wouldn't giving them mortality result in something similar to them gaining a soul and the natural morality that souls grant.

I think more often than not the demons retain their personality.

Either by having lots of negative Karma and dying, descending into hell and rising up as a demon or, more rarely, used as a carrot on a stick by demon gods or whatever to get people to commit to evil and act as their champions in the mortal world with the payoff being potential apotheosis into the upper echelons of demonkind and gain true immortality.

Basically, the Warhammer method.

>1. Selling your soul in exchange for this specifically
You'll keep your personality to a point, but it'll become a twisted shadow of the person you once were. Plus, you'll be a minion/middle management to some greater demon for the rest of your life.

>2. Having a deep seated misanthropy against humanity and having the drive and luck to shape it into something
Hating humanity due to exceptional betrayals, life-long abuse, constant severe disappointment, and whatnot. Basically, people who have become psychopaths due to nurture and stop thinking like humans, and have the sheer willpower to channel their negative feelings into raw magic. The magical equivalent of smashing your own body into a brick wall until you can break through; you have to have absurd to do it. Most of the time, you'll lose your mind in the process.

>3. Certain magical items. We're talking like shit like famous weapons used by demons, magic shards of demon energy, or other magic stuff that is otherwise really hard to come by. Most human civilizations are monarchies that will destroy items like these on sight. Few will lock them away behind maximum security to experiment and research on.
End result depends on the item. Good luck getting one, though

>4. Forsake god, die, go to the abyss, and have all your human memories and personalities burned away
It'll be (You), but you won't remember anything about your previous life

>5. Extreme obsessions for immaterial things such as power, knowledge, love, etc.
When you become so obsessed to obtaining things like love, information, or power that it materializes magically and at some point you stop being human. You become wholly centered around whatever your obsession was. Personality-wise, you retain your former 'self' but become a very warped/eccentric version of it-- think "borderline personality disorder on speed". However, if it's something like love, you can and many do lose their minds, becoming a very big threat to the person they're obsessed over.

Wendigo of Canada.