Succubi and Incubi

There is a voice in the back of your head, sweetling. It tries to make you do a thing simply by dint of knowing it should not be done. There are voices from the nighted places that want to help you find ways to debase yourself. The perverse. They are the lithesome ones. They wear illusion as fine dress. And they always, always want to tell you “yes”. Yes is a noose they gift to you. They are the succubi and the incubi demons.

See them now, the most beautiful forms humanity has to offer. No. That is an illusion. See how disturbingly gorgeous they are — features too perfect, too symmetrical — bodies too long, too muscular. You cannot look away. No. That is an illusion also. See their magnificence is revealed! See the exotic horns, tiny fangs, eyes of no colour found in this reality. Sense their primal, R-Complex sensuality. See their most amazing feature — wings of rainbow haze of shifting shades sliding in prismatic displays that hypnotise and lure. No. This too is an illusion. See their malevolence revealed! Pure angels of hell. Tortured wings and burnt flesh and charnel bouquet . You still cannot look away. No. This is not their true from either. No one has ever actually seen an incubus or succubus, only the illusions. They are magnetised in such a way that they always flow away from the truth.

Initiate the long ago…

In the first age, both the succubi and incubi served as personal hand-servants to the Host. They did not hate humanity so much as they envied them. From then on, they sought ways to create conditions where humans humiliated themselves. It was important that the humans did it to themselves, made beasts of themselves, and that these tempting spirits only nudged. Then, the Host would see how the succubi and incubi were superior. In the process, they made monsters of themselves.

Down the ages they became the classical Demon Lovers of your literature. The tempters obsessed over humanity, sometimes over particular bloodlines. Some naive humans mistook this for love. Some naive demons even mistook what they felt for love. But they never stopped loathing humankind for the very weakness they wished to encourage.

Succubi sometimes become incubi, and incubi change to succubi. The distinction is simply another of their illusions. They take the forms and tools they need to best work their plots of mortal desecration, and sometimes simply on a lark.

Traditionally, the tempters have been feared by cultures where sexuality was considered sinful. Tales of demons coupling with men and women until they died of exhaustion. But this is not truly their goal or only means. They wish to tempt humans to destruction, or at the very least to fall away from the ideal image any individual has of themselves.