Origins of various Demons

Lore Story Forum
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I would like to discuss the known origins of various Demons.

Most Demon types are corrupted Mortal Races yet the Mo’arg, Nathrezim, Pit Lords, Abyssals, Infernals, Felbats and Void Hounds are all native to the Twisting Nether.

Infernal

Of the natural Demons it seems Infernals are constructs infused with Fel Elementals(ones created anywhere but Xoroth) and Fire Elementals(the ones from Xoroth) with the rare Void and Ice Elementals.

Pit Lords

Pit Lords seem to have originated as Infernals or Abyssals if Goroth is any indication.

Mo’arg

Aggonis son of the Pit Lord Aggonar is a Mo’arg showing that Mo’arg are descendants of Pit Lords.

Seems the more brutish Demons native to the Twisting Nether are all descended from Fel Elementals shoved into rocks by(according to Chronicle) powerful and intelligent Demons I.E. Nathrezim!

Dreadlords

Antaens were introduced to Players as Argus Dreadlords in the concept art so they seem to be a breed of Nathrezim.

Void Hounds

While many are native to the Twisting Nether and thus breathe Fel others are native to the Void and thus breathe Void.

Now onto the other Demons:

Ered’ruin

Ered’ruin Doomguard were first used by Sargeras to sniff out Fel users before he released and welcomed them into the Burning Legion.

Eredar

Eredar were turned into Wrathguard(who have the faces of Broken), Man’ari, Eredar Brutes and Eredar Doomguard(which consist of Kil’jaeden and the Doommaidens). Man’ari, Eredar Brutes and Eredar Doomguard seem(confirmed in the Brutes’ case) to be a deliberate transformation while Wrathguards and the preceding Krokul/Broken Eredar are the usual transformation due to Fel Magic.

Satyrs and Terrorguard

Satyrs and Terrorguard seem be Mortals transformed by a special ritual with purple Terrorguard like Verinias the Twisted being Night Elves.

Aranasi

Aranasi appear to be a corrupted Race from some conquered Legion world possibly Rancora.

Wyrmtongue

According to Treasure Master Iks’reeged he spawned within the deepest recesses of the Twisting Nether so Wyrmtongue either have breeders within the depths of the Nether or are natural Demons.

Observers

Observers originated from the Great Dark Beyond and thus are a corrupted race.

Inquisitors

Inquisitors are the most mysterious Demon in WoW according to Inquisitor Tormentorum.

Imps

Imps originate from Azeroth according to https://wow.gamepedia.com/Daglop#Quotes.

Overfiends and Fel Core Hounds

Overfiends draw power from the Firelands according to https://wow.gamepedia.com/Conflagration_(quest)#Description and thus likely originate from the Firelands itself as would Imps(which appear in the Firelands) and Fel Core Hounds.

Succubi

Female Night Elves seem to turn into Succubi as shown by Sensiria. Male Night Elves wind up like Illidan.

Felhounds

Created from the nightmares of a mad god(I.E. Sargeras himself) they are Sargeras’s pets.

Felskorn

Vrykul seem to become Demons without needing to transform physically though they obviously can physically change as seen with Skovald.

Feltotem

They were once Bloodtotem though since they are Demons they are now bound to the Twisting Nether and will reform in time.

Feltalon

Demon Harpies. They look like Harpies with Fel energies flowing from their wings.

Shivarra and Gorefiend

Griselda the Crone was an Orc turned into a Shivarra due to heavy Fel infusion by Gul’dan indicating that Shivarra are Female Orcs(funny how Sargeras decided to use Female Orcs as corrupters of the Titans once he obtained Aggramar). The only Male Orc Demon encountered is Gorefiend.

Thoughts on all this?

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To be fair, I doubt Blizzard has really fully fleshed out that lore in the first place, and so there isn’t really an answer. At most, we can only speculate.

And a lot is about convenience, take for instance Giselda the Crone. My bet would be that her being turned into a shivarra was less of an indication of Shivarra being former Orcs, but rather that Shivarra was one of the few menacing female demon models available to Blizzard.

And then there is the fact of the Legion’s numbers. The Legion is a massive, galaxy conquering force with countless trillion demons under their command and more. Because of this, we can infer that the most common demon types, I.E. Felguards, Succubi, Felhounds and Imp are not from any native specie, but must be generated by some other mean(I.E. from the Twisting Nether/Fel Magic), as it would be impossible for the native population of any one planet to supply such a significant portion of the Legion’s near endless numbers otherwise.

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I dont think blizz thought through everything over the years they have retconed stuff and sevral ideas here seem to contradtic other things so while ssf omd are accurate most of those that are trabsfirned from azeroth races or dreanor races aside from sytar i doubt.

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Considering its hard to truly kill a demon and that Sargeras has been doing this for a long time it actually is possible.

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will we ever go to succubus planet

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Not without massively increasing the game age restriction, we won’t.

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Goroth isn’t an indication of pit lord origins; his Dungeon Journal entry indicates that being crammed into that stone body is a form of punishment for some past failure.

Like the nathrezim, mo’arg (and their smaller gan’arg offshoot) were one of the original demonic races that Sargeras conquered and locked away on Mardum. The “son of Aggonar” was likely a moniker adopted by one of Aggonar’s favored servants, rather than a suggestion that mo’arg are the literal children of pit lords.

Succubi ave their own designated race - Sayaad - though it isn’t known if they originated as demons or were once a mortal race that succumbed to corruption. Their fixation on things like sensuality - which other demons have no need of - suggest the latter.

The hint of imp origins merely suggests that they may descend from elementals, not that said elementals necessarily all come from Azeroth. Given the rise of parallel evolution between planets (such as Ancients, wolves and cats evolving on both Azeroth and Draenor), it’s possible that the development of elemental life follows a similar path, with imp-like creatures evolving on many worlds where elemental life emerged.

The “Argus dreadlord” concept likely originated from the Devs initially planning to have Nathrezim be the Legion’s advanced weapon and artifact designers/crafters in Antorus (since dreadlords were responsible for creating numerous Legion-forged weapons like Frostmourne) before deciding to create a new race for it instead, rather than an indication that Antaens actually are Nathrezim themselves. Of particular note, Antaens are explicitly gigantic in size as a function of their role in the Legion, while that’s not really an inherent quality associated with the Nathrezim.

Felskorn vrykul, feltotem tauren and feltalon harpies aren’t actually demons; they’re fel-corrupted mortals along the lines of fel orcs. Most pertinently as non-demons, when they die on Azeroth they die for real.

Gorefiend’s a strange situation because his transformation is made out to be largely a result of gorging on the souls beneath Auchindoun rather than fel corruption, as his prior form was just a fel-using - but still mortal - orcish warlock along the lines of Gul’dan. His in-game presence has no mob-type associated with it, so he’s not necessarily an actual demon.

It’s unlikely that Shivarra and terrorfiends are meant to explicitly be orc and night elf derived; notwithstanding Devs just using convenient demon models at the time, more likely those were cases of the individual being deliberately transformed to resemble a preexisting demon type.

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Pit Lords were a race converted to demons they have no elemental connection.

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The Exodar has a 3D musuem gallery on the topic.

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Chronicle specifically lists them as a Race that’s Native to the Twisting Nether. Same goes for Nathrezim and Void Hounds.

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I remember hearing or reading somewhere that Annihilan (or Pit Lords) originated from the same planet as Wyrmtongue or something akin to that. Take this with a grain of salt because I can’t find that anywhere in the Wowpedia articles.