Fomorii Demons

These creatures are so not your dream date, unless you happen to fancy misshapen sea gods that roamed the planet from approximately BC 500 to AD 400. Are you into multiple limbs? Single eyes? How about a bunch of eyes on stalks and skin ranging from deep shades of green or red, or orange, or purple, or blue? Well, then. Have I got some demons for you.

The Fomorii were led by the one-eyed god Balor who could kill all he beheld with a single look of his great eye. Balor's eyelid was so large and so heavy that it took four men to lift it in order for him to wield his death magic.

Balor's wife, Ceithlenn, was a prophetess, and she prophesized that Balor would be killed by his own grandson. Upon hearing Ceithlenn's prediction, Balor took his only daughter and placed her in a crystal tower. Nevertheless, a young man found her in the tower, they fell in love, and had three children. When Balor discovered this, he had the children drowned, but one managed to be taken away.

The child grew up to be the Sun God Lugh, a great leader of the Tuatha D'Danann.

The D'Danann, gods of light, were led by Lugh in many battles. In the Second Battle of Magh Tuireadh against the Fomorii, Lugh shot out Balor's great eye. The shot was so powerful that it went out the backside of Balor's head and killed twenty-seven of the Fomorii. The eye vanished beyond the shores of Ireland and Balor's body was sent to a confined location in Underworld.

When Balor was killed, the D'Danann drove the Fomorii out of Ireland to reside in a lower part of Otherworld, away from the Fae and Elvin Sidhes. Stripped of their god status, the former sea gods became demons, but maintained formidable powers.

The Fomorii left the sanctuary they had been granted and traveled throughout Otherworld, attacking beings and feasting on them before they took the being's "shell." Once they transformed into that being, it was almost impossible to distinguish them from the race they had infiltrated.

Despite an old grudge between the Fae and the Elves, the D'Danann combined forces with the Elves to send all of the Fomorii to Underworld to roam below the oceans and lakes forevermore, with other beasts that were equally evil. All doors to Underworld were sealed, the Fomorii never meant to roam any of the Otherworlds again.

Only, it's hard to keep a good demon down for long...in so very many ways!

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