# Inhumi and devils *The Urth list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 30 Nov 2010* > Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright > in each message remains with the person who wrote it. > Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original > archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than > retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. --- ### Andrew Mason *30 Nov 2010, 18:52* > James Wynn wrote: > > A daemon, note the spelling, is merely a disembodied spirit. Inhumi > contain the spirits of others, living and dead. Mucor, at times, meets > this criteria. Also, an important theme is in the book is that if a > demon imitates a god, he becomes, in some sense, a god. Quetzal becomes > a holy man, sacrificing his life for his flock. Horn becomes Silk. > Inhumi become, in a metaphysical sense, Horn's son and Silk's sister. OK, so there's a thematic similarity between inhumi and devils, which makes it appropriate that Pike called them that. But if I am reading you rightly, the inhumi as Pike knows them - creatures which fly in through windows and suck blood - don't possess people; rather they are themselves in a sense possessed by the spirits of others whom they have absorbed. (Bear in mind I haven't read _Short Sun_ yet, so don't know the details.) I still think it's unlikely the chrasmologic writers has inhumi in mind. --- ### James Wynn *30 Nov 2010, 19:30 · in reply to Andrew Mason* > Andrew Mason- > OK, so there's a thematic similarity between inhumi and devils, which > makes it appropriate that Pike called them that. But if I am reading > you rightly, the inhumi as Pike knows them - creatures which fly in > through windows and suck blood - don't possess people; rather they are > themselves in a sense possessed by the spirits of others whom they > have absorbed. (Bear in mind I haven't read_Short Sun_ yet, so don't > know the details.) I still think it's unlikely the chrasmologic > writers has inhumi in mind. Well, the inhumi are "demonic" but the C. writings are an accumulation of mythology, the Odyssey, the Gospels, Islamic tradition, and other writings. So, I agree that it is unnecessary to ascribe inhumi as the original source of demons. They merely fit the Type. u+16b9 ---