Carnalis (demons)

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WARNING: The following page contains violence, disgusting reproductive modes, and images of a bit ugly disturbing creatues. In the end, we're talking about a demon! And about one of the most, ehm, peculiar ones. Readers warned!

 

Carnalis Demons
(Daemonium Carnalis)

Cannibalism. The hunger that makes us devour the lives of others, that causes us pleasure in sinking our teeth (or spoons) in someone else's pain. And greed, with six octopus tentacles. A ghostly figure, tall, long, almost-human (but not quite... how could he be, with that mouth? With those eyes? The tapetum lucidum is a prerogative of predators ...) and his prey.

 

ORIGINS

Carnalis are relatively recent demons, when compared to other major species, and it's esteemed they were born between the third and fourth infernal era. Evolutionarily, they're an extreme degeneration of seraphim angels, which have lost almost all of their magic and underwent a remarkable physical adaptation, transforming the six wings that used to emerge from their back into six tentacles.

The word “seraphim” comes from the Hebrew seraph, fire, and thus their element is indeed fire; but since carnalis have only bland magical skills, this is concretized just in them being quite chilly, in their high body temperature, and their searching for heat sources.

This is how Saint Cyril defined seraphim angels: "Living flames of love for God and all that God loves, ever burning hearths of holy jealousy and zeal". It's thought that from this peculiar attitude for love typical of seraphims, enhanced and mutated from hellish energy, stems the hunger for food, life, sex and physical contact in general that is typical of carnalis demons, other than their character prone to the appreciation of all pleasures, both carnal (from which they borrow their species name) and spiritual, like poetry or singing.

Despite being major demons derived from the seraphim's fall, carnalis are considered to be lower in hierarchy than mutatis and luciferians, even if all the three of them derive from the same angels.

 

APPEARANCE

Carnalis are non-shapeshifting, anthropomorphic demons, unable to hide their true looks due to their scarce magic skills. They're usually bigger than human beings, with an height measuring between 1,89 m (6.2 ft) and 3 m (9.8 ft), more commonly around 2,20 m (7.2 ft); they look thing and slender, sometimes emaciated, with a particularly elongated bust.

One of the characteristics that make their head immediately recognizable both from humans and other demons is the mouth, which can open so wide that it goes from one ear to the other; teeth are almost always indifferenciated, all incisors, and the canines, in the rare cases they're present, are pretty small. Horns are absent.

 A carnalis in defensive mode

 

Hair are hollow, full of pressurized liquid when they're in good health, and stand up like quills when the carnalis feels threatened; otherwise, they have the aspect of an hairstyle well combed back, shiny, medium-short.

They can't actually be combed, indeed due to the interal pressure of the liquid that makes them readily go back to their original position, but when a carnalis is in bad health it may happen that the hydraulic pressure lowers and  the hair could partially sag, becoming messy and falling on the specimen's forehead.

A particularly striking feature that makes carnalis demons immediately recognizable is the presence of six tentacles that branch off from the upper back, and have a double row of suckers each (except in the horribilis, which have three rows). The tentacles are particularly flexible and sensitive, extensible and compressible, and can reach a maximum length of six meters each (even if this characteristic is very variable from specimen to specimen); generally, the lower pair of tentacles is also the longest. The skin covering the tentacles is slightly wrinkled, but extremely soft and silky, and is covered with small pigment pockets called chromatophores, which allow the tentacles to change color; this ability is used for both mimetic and communicative purposes: very dark colors indicate anger and sadness, very bright ones excitement, while in a state of rest they are almost always purple or burgundy.

Appearance of an adult royal carnalis (Sir Mikhail Esuriens)

Another characteristic of the species are the feet nails, much thicker than those of the hands, pointy and claw-like, sometimes dark in color.

Subspecies/races

 

- Royal carnalis (Daemonium carnalis rex)

The subspecies that look more similar to human beings, it's named after the King of carnalis, which indeed belongs to this race. They have scarcely pigmented skin, and they can be independently light or dark haired.

- Ornate carnalis (Daemonium carnalis horribilis)

The most show of the carnalis subspecies, it owns three rows of suckers upon its tentacles, which usally have a very wrinkly skin, and the hair present alternate black and white rings, usually between four and five, which end in a white tip, similar to porcupine quills. The skin can be mottled, with pale colors bands alternated to darker ones, never reaching brown. Sometimes they have reddish nose and present canines. The irises may sport heterochromia or have differenty colored rings that are difficult to see in humans, like red or purple.

 

A nightmare carnalis

- Nightmare carnalis (Daemonium Carnalis formidulosus)

Very pale skin, completely lacking in melanin, perfectly round eyes and hair very short or absent, always black, make this subspecies immediately recognizable. Their scarce expressive ability and the smooth features make of them the subspecies less similiar to humans, and forces them to often wear masks when interacting with them or with other demons. Some people find their face so repellent that they can't look at them.

They're usually taller than other carnalis, with an average of 2,60 m (8.5 ft).

 

BEHAVIOR

Communication

Carnalis are capable of speaking, just like humans and most other anthropomorphic creatures, using their voices to make a wide range of sounds. They generally have very pleasant low and full timbres, sometimes silky voices, never shrill. 

Among them abound writers, poets in particular, devoted to erotic poetry or songwriting, extolling the pleasures of the flesh,. 

In addition to the voice, a rudimentary means of communication for them is represented by the tentacles, which are able as we have already seen of changing color, like those of octopuses, to externalize a state of mind. Contrary to what happens with cephalopods, however, carnalis are also able to lie with the color of the tentacles, changing it voluntarily.

The most common color codes they use, both when communicating among themselves and with other species, are: 

- Lighter and darker bands, changing and pulsating: a threat signal, it means that the specimen is about to lose its patience and resort to a physical attack.

- Full white: indicates total compliance, willingness to submit, sometimes even pleasure in being dominated.

- Full black: indicates a bad mood, a desire not to be approached. Sometimes the nightmare carnalis show completely black tentacles without wanting to communicate anything in particular, but only because of the strong pigmentation of their tentacles that makes them look dark even while resting. 

- Red and yellow, striped: indicates excitement, happiness, good mood. 

- Red and yellow, in patches with sharp edges, with brown or black points: indicates the active search for a prey, implies that the other carnalis must keep their distance.

- Full blue: indicates the desire to not be touched, not so much because of anger, but because they're in a state of calm that is too easily interrupted.

- Red, purple and mottled blue: indicates the desire to be the center of attention, to speak and be heard, to be particularly showy. It's generally a color scheme used by high-ranking carnalis.

 
Diet and hunting  

Carnalis are direct soul hunters, that seduce their victim to sign contracts with them and legally acquire the soul before devouring it.

They have two ways to convince their victims:

1. Through food. When evoked by people that are in economic difficulty, or by edonists in search of unique dishes, carnalis offer them foods that are more and more rare and delicious, enough to 
exalt and confuse the senses of their victims, who become addicted to the food the demons provide them. The carnalis are virtually the only ones to use this hunting technique, and in order to do so they help themselves with a substance, called carnaline, secreted by particular glands that are found inside their mouth -- at the bottom, above the last molars -- and which, if ingested, has the ability to sharpen the sensations experienced by human beings in an almost violent way.

By mixing their saliva with food ingredients, the carnalis (who are often also excellent cooks) prepare irresistible, sweet dishes that are highly addictive to the consumer. After serving the dishes for a period of time (ranging from a few days to a few weeks) to the human-prey, the carnalis stop feeding him and leave him in the throes of a withdrawal crisis not unlike that caused by cocaine addiction. When the human is in the most acute phase of his suffering, the carnalis offers one last dish, better than all the others, in exchange for the signing of the contract for the sale of soul and body, and thus ensures the meal.

2. Through sex. Summoned by thrill seekers, outcasts, loners, or simply by those who don't understand the scope of such an evocation, carnalis are available for almost any sexual practice, including the most violent and hardcore: thanks to their extremely efficient regenerative abilities, these demons can be hurt, vivisected, violated in many ways and still be able to get back into shape within hours (or days) from the event. The carnalis thus offer any kind of sexual performance in exchange for the human soul, sometimes seducing the victims slowly through weeks of frequentation, as well as administering  them carnaline (for example through kisses) which creates states of altered perception and addiction in the prey.

 
Courting and reproduction  

Carnalis have two reproductive modes. The first is the interspecific one (that is between a carnalis and a specimen of another demon species), which gives birth to hybrids that will tend to resemble the other parent more; the second is the intraspecific one (namely, between two carnalis), from which small, pureblooded carnalis demons will be born. But let's see these two modes in detail:

 

1. In interspecific reproduction, the courtship mimics that of the species with which the carnalis reproduces, and the mating is not too dissimilar to the one happening between two mammals.  

However, hybridization is extremely rare, as carnalis have difficulty in reaching orgasm - and therefore inseminating - species other than their own; although, as we have already seen, these demons assiduously practice recreational coupling and also use it as an hunting mode, it's rare that it fully satisfies them. If the mating is successful and the mother is impregnated, the gestation will be as long as it normally would be for the species of the female, and the young that will be born will tend to closely resemble the mother, although they can sometimes inherit some carnalis traits: the most common ones are the height and an abnormal number of teeth, the rarer the tentacles.


2. As for intraspecific reproduction, courtship does not exist, as one of the two specimens must be dead. Carnalis demons are, in fact, sequential hermaphrodites: they are all born male and become female only after death, and in particular after the detachment of the head.

When a carnalis dies, their body begins to emit a cocktail of pheromones that make their body irresistible to any other of their kind. The living carnalis detaches, and very often devours, the head of the dead one, and at the moment of the detachment of the vagus nerve (or pneumogastric nerve), a metamorphosis occurs in the body of the dead that will lead to the digestive system transforming into a reproductive one.

The stomach of the dead and decapitated carnalis becomes a mother's womb, a sort of uterus, in which the babies will develop, in numbers ranging from one to four.

Mating therefore takes place between a living carnalis, always male, and a dead carnalis, always female.

Pregnancy completely drains the substances of the female's body, ultimately reducing it to little more than a skeleton covered with skin, and the young emerge from it by tearing it or with the help of the father. Gestation lasts from four to eight weeks, during which the father feels the instinctive need to protect the "incubator", or rather the decapitated body of the mother.

 

Trivia and facts

• Many believe carnalis males to own an ectocotyl, namely a modified tentacle used for mating, not unlike those that cephalopods like octopuses have. It's clearly just a rumor, born from the fact that few are aware how this demons actually reproduce, other than the curiosity around their tentacles.
• Nightmare carnalis are often called by young demons “smileys” or “emoji”.
• A carnalis criminal is especially popular in the human world; it's wrongly believed that he has no face, but it's actually just a white sock wore on his head and used as a mask. This shady individual usually kidnaps and devours (or uses as a bargaining chip) babies.

  

Image gallery (Click to enlarge the pictures!)

carnalis + fallen angel by sunrise.fangirl.4.life	alien + carnalis by sunrise.fangirl.4.life	by sunrise.fangirl.4.life
by LovelyWingsArt
	By Sunrise.fangirl.4.life	+
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