• Appearance: • Name: Limen, although he uses aliases liberally when among humans.
• Title: ‘Thought Experiment’, some call him; at times disparagingly.
• Age: 150 years or so, maybe a bit less.
• Species: Daemon, but a non-supernatural one, or so he insists. Prefers this antiquated spelling over the usual ‘demon’.
• Abilities: The creation and manipulation of barriers. Any physical thing which Limen does not allow to pass through his barriers, be it a planet or a particle, will reflect off. Under their aegis, no conventional calamity or cataclysm could cause harm. But this absolute protection does not extend to the spiritual or the supernatural — the slightest touch from a blessed weapon will break any barrier, large or small, and many ghosts and devils will be able to bypass the barriers some way or another.
• Personality: Limen’s purpose and overarching motivation is the decrease of entropy. Unlike a certain cat-like alien mascot, however, the heat death of the universe is of no consequence — he himself does not know why this cause compels him so. It is the way it is. His methods can be indirect, however — irrelevant-looking acts like ‘gaining knowledge’ and ‘encouraging the reproduction of living organisms’ also count as steps toward his goal.
He is aware of and understands human concepts of ethics and morality, at least intellectually, but does not see himself or his ‘research’ as bound to such principles. Eating humans unnecessarily isn’t his style, though cannibalising the occasional demon to strengthen himself is totally reasonable if he predicts that it would decrease entropy more than a potential alliance. Making swathes of land uninhabitable is fair game as well, and if something or someone happens to walk into the wrong barrier, the wrong way — well, they’re on their own. Humanity as a collective whole, however, fascinates him.
• Background: Born from the restless musings of learned men, what would one day become Limen was initially a formless being, more concept than entity. A hypothetical, a what-if that was never meant to be realised. As the wisest among the mortals continued to ponder and discuss his nature, the being became more and more concrete, an individual emerging from the philosophers’ jumbled theories and thoughts. And so was born a daemon.
This daemon did not have a name at first. He meandered around man’s cities and towns, like a mere mindless spirit driven solely by his ultimate duty. Yet over time, exposure to human society would eventually lead Limen to take on some of the mannerisms and habits of humanity; feelings, reasoning, beliefs, identity, names. Desiring to grow more in the likeness of man, he sought a physical body. First, he was a crystal, a lattice of carbon in an endlessly repeating pattern. Then he was an ashen twig, a gravestone lichen, a timid mouse, a proud boar. As he grew closer in stature to the humans who he so wished to imitate, so too did his wisdom and power increase.
By the turn of the century, Limen was ready. From dust and air he began crafting a new body in the image of man. Soil and seawater were passed through innumerable and transient barriers, broken down and remade into human DNA, human proteins, cells, tissues, organs — until at last, after decades of uninterrupted labour, he could rest. When the work was complete, he entered the body, gave it life, and thus took on human flesh. With the blood coursing through his veins as testament, the daemon Limen had become a worldly, finite creature, inseparably bound to his human body.
In this fragile form he would traverse the globe, walking across oceans and continents when no better transportation could be found. When circumnavigating the Earth and spelunking in its nether regions no longer offered much to gain in information, he began experimentation of his own. The methods which had given birth to him were the organs and instruments through which he would learn. This research could grow destructive, and would every now and then draw the Devil Hunters’ attention. That was fine. Even they had difficulties pursuing him up past the ozone layer or down to the abyssal plains. And so the work continued for many decades.
Having recently returned from a sojourn on the Moon, curiosity led Limen to take a gander at the supposed boom in Japan’s devil population and catch up on the latest advancements in demonology first-hand.
• Other: Limen is gradually getting used to the ubiquitous fruits of the digital revolution, which exploded in pace during his extraterrestrial sabbatical. The ever-accelerating rate at which information is being produced pleases him.
