This drawing went through so many changes, but I’m genuinely happy this is the one I ended up sticking with. The character in the center is Nicholas, a golden crowned flying fox (fancy way of saying he’s a fruit bat) and he has happened upon a very special book. Here’s a quick run down on if this were to be a plot for a series:

Nicholas is a student fresh out of college and he belongs to the wealthy Pierce family of flying foxes. His parents give him one of their older estate homes for him to stay at until he can find a place of his own. While organizing, he finds a small library full of old and worn books. Curious and deciding to take a break from cleaning, he browses through them before coming across a particularly odd black book with white runes engraved into it. Unknowingly, he ends up summoning a certain powerful demonic entity into his home. From there it goes into a downward spiral of demons, magic, bounty hunters, and secrets.

And while I’m at it, here’s some extensive info on our lovely snake demon man:

"What’s up bitches, and bros, and non binary hoes!" -Astaroth

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Theme song: Bang! by AJR

Voice: Work In Progress

-Basic Info-

Name: Astaroth

Name Pronunciation: Ah-Store-Oth

Name meaning: A Duke demon of Hell

Nickname(s): Snake man, Shadow King

Species: Noble Demon/Shadow Demon

Age: Thousands of years

Height (upright): 10ft (his entire body length is around 25ft)

Weight: Unknown, but can easily crush a bus

Body build: Muscular/Well built

Past Residence: The Lost Vale Dimension

Current Residence: The Mortal Realm

Gender: Male

Pronouns: He/His/Him

Sexuality: Biromantic asexual

"Don’t weep for the stupid. You’ll be crying all day." -Astaroth

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-Physical Description/Traits-

Fur color(s)

Black

White

Fur texture: Velvety

Fur length: Incredibly short

Main fur color: Black

Eye color: Reddish pink

Distinguishing Feature(s)

• Snake-like lower body

• One eye

• Crescent moon shaped head

Claw color: Black

Ear length: None

Ear type: None

"I don't dab. I stab." -Astaroth

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-Personal Info-

Personality

Like any other species, no two demons are the same, Astaroth is most certainly no exception to this statement. While he may be violent, deceptive, and overall a menace like any other demon, he’s full of character. On any normal day, he’s a bit of troublemaker and typically is incredibly nosy be it towards strangers or friends. Personal space also seems to be on his list of things he doesn’t care about when around other people, loving to get all up in people’s bubble.
Astaroth has, on multiple occasions, has displayed a rather inappropriate and vulgar sense of humor not for the faint of heart, yet he also has proven to still hold some sort of sophistication when talking to others. While not necessarily quick-tempered, he has a volatile nature when he isn’t joking around or by himself and can be fairly stiff when he isn’t in the best of moods. Yet, even chaos needs order and he has certain ways of doing things and going about his day that appeal to him and to disrupt that can have consequences.
But, despite all this, he can be astonishingly warmhearted and approachable towards those he finds himself caring for. In fact, he is often described as ”the local cool uncle” and once he’s formed a bond with someone it can never be broken.

-Likes-

• Sour candies

• Physical affection (ie. massages, cuddling, belly rubs, etc…)

• Tormenting mortals (usually before eating them)

• Climbing elevated areas

• Baths, especially if bubbles are involved

• Gossip

• Crass jokes

• Action

-Dislikes-

• Chicken

• Being called a ghost

• Carbonated beverages

• Having his stuff touched without permission

• Summer

• Reading

• Being told he can’t do something (he’ll do it anyway, but he’ll make it out of spite)

• Seeing his friends in trouble

• Abrupt, bright lights

-Phobia(s)-

• None

-Good traits-

• Gregarious

• Vehement

• Exuberant

• Intrepid

• Ostentatious

-Bad traits-

• Duplicitous

• Boastful

• Errant

• Morbid

• Crass

Single or Taken?

Single

"Next time I'm at the pet store, I'm gonna take a hamster and drop it in the scorpion cage. I wanna see what a hamster's face looks like when it goes, "oh, fuck."" -Astaroth

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-Powers/Stats-

Abilities

-Shapeshifting
Astaroth is capable of shapeshifting or morphing his body into whatever living organism he wishes. His most common forms that he takes when shapeshifting is a tuxedo cat, varies species of snakes, a bat, and a raven. In any form he takes, he’ll have a “tattoo“ of his symbol on shoulder.

-Darkness Empowerment
Astaroth becomes stronger and faster when he comes in contact with darkness, enhancing his existing powers. He is his most in pure darkness or at night, specifically New Moons.

-Darkness Mimicry
He can transform his body completely into shadows. His transformed form is anatomically identical to his normal form, aside of being made of shadows. Astaroth can assume a two-dimensional form, extend outward to become a larger shadow, blend into the darkness/shadows completely, and even teleport through them.

-Sun Blocking
Astaroth can block the sun in the sky by creating dark clouds to block the sun, preventing sunlight coming down, which will kill plants over time and prevent solar-powered beings from getting their power. These clouds are not real clouds, they only take the physical appearance of them. Instead, these “clouds” are made of pure demonic energy and cannot be moved, blown away, or flown threw.

Weapon Summoning
-He can summon a weapon no matter where he is. His summoning weapon is a large, black battle axe with red accents (imagine the Daerdic Battle Axe from Skyrim)

Dark Aura Manipulation
-Astaroth can manipulate the aura around him that has been tainted by dark forces. When this happens, he tends to experience dark emotions such as hatred, anger, or despair. The more he experiences these emotions, the darker and colder his aura grows. However, he does not lose his sanity or force of will, but he’ll become more dependent on dark emotions as his aura slowly takes control of his actions and moral thoughts. Luckily, this only happens when these emotions are at their highest peak and as long as he is able to calm down or have someone calm him down, this won’t happen.

Shadow Mutilation
-He can inflict damage to opponents through their shadow, which may kill the target and potentially destroy the body in the process. If he can touch the shadow, he can hurt the target.

-Darkness Tendril Generation
Astaroth can summon tendrils of pure darkness on any surface. The tendrils themselves cause pain for whoever may touch them and he may utilize for defensive and offensive purposes.

-Weather Manipulation
Like most demons, Astaroth can cause some form of disruption to the weather. He can create and manipulate wind, lightning, and make the temperature drop. This includes the ability to control the intensity of the weather in highly concentrated (inside room) or vastly extended (continental) areas.

-Supernatural Strength
He is capable of lifting things ranging from small houses to large airplanes and being able to lift massive structures and trains with ease. His immense strength enables him to easily overpower a large majority of entities. He is capable of tearing the strongest metals like a piece of paper with his bare hands. Offensively, he can send opponents flying miles away, create cracks in the Earth the size of a meteor, or release a force of energy equivalent to nuclear weapons upon an entire city.

-Darkness Blast
Astaroth can release blasts of darkness/shadows over a specific target area causing great damage and/or delivering great shock waves of pure force.

Stats

Strength: 11/12

Stealth: 10/12

Speed: 10/12

Attack: 11/12

Stamina: 12/12

Intelligence: 11/12

Bravery: 11/12

Empathy: 5/12

Sanity: 5/12

Kindness: 6/12

Athletic Capabilities: 12/12

Loyalty: 9/12

Patience: 7/12

Hearing: 12/12

Smell: 0/12

Vision: 12/12

"Just because you're accurate doesn't mean you're interesting." -Astaroth

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-Extra Misc Fact(s)-

• Despite his rather snake-like body Astaroth is covered in very short, velvet-like fur. Under sunlight, his coat gives off a bright, clean sheen.

• He’s often mistaken for a ghost by mortals due to his appearance, but he is not one. Additionally, being that he is not a ghost he cannot phase through objects (not taking any of his shadow forms into account) and is 100% physical.

• His bite is mildly venomous. While it won’t kill, it will cause intense pain, hallucinations, and moderate paralysis around the forearm area.

• Often times he has a target when scaring/tormenting particular species as he finds scaring certain species are more fun than others. He often messes with porcupines, honey badgers, possums, goats, and skunks more than any other species.

• Even though he has flat teeth his bite is just as dangerous as demons with sharp teeth. He can rip flesh and bone like paper and if he really wants to cause some pain, he’ll wrap his body around his victim, bite harder, not let go, and slowly suffocate the target.

• He is able to willingly make his teeth and eye glow in the dark. Moreover, he has supernatural night vision and can see even better in darkness than he can when it’s actually lit.

• If not for the fact it occurs by accident, the fact he can use hypnosis would be another of his abilities. During times of stress, Astaroth’s eye will become ringed with orange and if one were to look into his eye while it’s like this, not only will they become hypnotized, they will feel the same thing Astaroth is feeling on an astronomical level. Effects after looking away vary, but the more his face is looked at the more severe and less likely the victim is to recover.

• Not a morning person. Astaroth is known to be considerably peevish for a good hour if he’s woken up early (between 6AM-8AM).

• If he gets comfortable with someone who happens to be wrapped in or around his body, they better get comfortable too. Once he’s in a position where he has no plans on moving, he’s not going anywhere for a while.

• Terrible at video games, like, real bad at them. He’ll still play some for fun, but only the ones that have less of a chance at making him mad.

• Given that he is a higher ranking demon, alongside being a shadow demon, abilities of the light category only cause harm if done by other exceptionally powerful entities. For example, a mage that deals in light magic won’t leave more than a scratch, but if another Noble Demon or an Arch Angel with light powers went against him it would be much more of a battle.

• Whenever he starts to get agitated he’ll shake the tip of his tail similar to a rattlesnake. It, much like a rattlesnake‘s, is a warning to signify that he’s starting to get angry and telling whoever it is that is messing with him to knock it off.

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