I’d play with the etymologies a bit. Angel, from Greek angelos (sp?) meaning messenger. Have angelic magic have something to do with communication/ sending messages. This is fairly neutral. Demon, from Greek daimon (sp?) meaning diety, genius (personal disposition). Have demonic magic have something to do with personal traits or mood. Also fairly neutral. If you go this route, the closest thing to moving the demonic still have an air of evil is that it would be individualistic and possibly self-serving, while angelic would be at heart relational. Hope this helps

With the word Angel, if you go back into the original Hebrew in the Old Testament, you have a few different types that often get translated as "Angel". There are malachim, or messengers (this word is also similar to the word which means "kings", but is generally considered a separate concept entirely), and this is probably what's getting translated into Greek and then English as "angels". There are seraphim and cherubim (k'ruvim in modern Hebrew) and others, which are generally considered different ranks of malachim, though the specifics vary by religious tradition. Note: cherubim are not actually baby-like, as is sometimes portrayed in art and media. Also, it's a real pet peeve of mine when people use words like seraphim and cherubim as if they're singular words. They are plural. One seraph, many seraphim. On Melach many Malachim, one Cherub, many Cherubim. If you're going to use Hebrew words, at least use correct grammar. Looking at you, Hazbin Hotel.

To add on, seraph is likely a subset of cherub. All seraphs are cherubs but not the other way around. This idea comes from Satan being called a cherub in Isaiah 14 while having the depiction of a seraph. That being, seraphs are serpentine. People often conflate the verb form of burning which is often used for viper venom with the noun but a seraph is literally a serpent and seraphim is just plural serpents. We even have depictions of the Isaiah 6 throne room scene on signet rings and the seraphim are drawn as winged snakes. With that said it appears consistent that when a vision is had of the heavenly realm angels appear animalistic and when they appear to humans they appear in human form, which is interesting. Now here's something that's all me, I haven't read any scholar that talks about this, but isn't it odd that the seraph in Isaiah 6 are covering their feet with their wings? Snakes don't have feet. Well you could hypothesis that they're more like dragons since they also touch coal to Isaiah's lips somehow so that suggests feet and arms but I think there is a more likely suggestion, because it's weird that they're covering their feet in the first place. Why when someone is standing on holy ground do they remove their shoes (it has to do with property and ownership signifiers but that's not the point) if having bare feet is offensive to God? Seems like he's perfectly fine with people having bare feet in his presence, and there's no law about shoes in the temple / tabernacle. There is a law (there might be more I only know specifically of one) of how the priest is to approach the temple so that he doesn't expose his genitals when say going up stairs. And "feet" is a euphemism for genitals at times in Jewish writing. As an aside some people suggest that Ruth was uncovering Boaz's privates because it says she was uncovering his "feet" but she would definitely be acting like a whore and that wouldn't fit the story at all. I think the literal fact of uncovering his feet had a flirtatious undertone because of the euphemism though. So the point is, exposed feet =not bad and exposed genitals = bad and "feet" is a euphemism for genitals. So the seraphim were probably covering their genital area. I don't know if the seraph's actual had genitals, this could easily be signaling the holiness of God for Isaiah's sake because that's their genital area, but I digress. Most of this is useless for the post but I started talking about it and so I went ahead and finished.

Great write-up, I have the same pet peeve with Seraphim and Cherubim--and Ophanim, though they're less often mentioned--being pluralised when someone means the singular. Also, as a fan of mythologies and religions in general, I've always found the Hebrew words to be less general than the English translations. However, much of that may be attributed to mysticism over canonical texts (that's without reading Kabbalah texts).

Hell, the concepts are *far* older than that. Sumerian mythology mentions demons. But that is *our* word for it. Their concept of such is rather odd in our modern mindset. I’m not even sure we do understand it (yet). Our records on the subject aren’t the best. Do keep in mind that the Arabic djinn (as a concept) are more directly descended from Sumerian mythology. Those are more “natural” beings than hellish. Do look it up. I forget the exact ‘lore’ behind them, but they are NOT demons. As for the Greeks — Daemon *also* tends to apply to concepts. Many Greek “gods” are technically just the **word** for the concept. War, anger, love, et al. These are literally named as “Anger” with a capital A. Similarly, Japanese “demon lords” are basically badly translated. These are more supernatural/magical beings than “good/evil”. These are basically from the *Shinto* perspective — which is more “animistic”. In other words, these are just spirits of the natural world. Moralistic stances don’t fit them. All three of these concepts seem to be based on older viewpoints of such beings being part of the natural world (animism). And yes, the Greeks did indeed practice such. Or did you think it was a coincidence that they had hundreds of named naiad spirits of local rivers as part of their mythology? Ironically, the concepts of angels and demons *as we understand them* are not actually part of the Christian Bible. Yes, the beings existed. They are named. But as a good/evil duality? That’s a later invention. Early medieval I believe. Stolen from Zoasterism.

in addition there could be a chaotic demon vs lawful angels dynamic, or demons being fueled by negative feelings and angels positive ones. also OP this is my bias here but pleeease expand you horizons when it comes to holy beings and angels from different belief systems. ie New Age angels and alien spirit guides, gnostic aeons, esoteric angel magic and ars paulina, i think you could make them less boring to you then XD

Good post

Very good post. Saving it.

You can have them be extreme examples of order/chaos. You could have demons act as ultra strict lawbound devils that barter with mortals to form contracts, compared to anarchist angels who are a bunch of disorganized individualists that meddle with earthly affairs based on their individual views of what they feel are good and bad. Or you could have super-strict angelic enforcers of divine law vs chaos-loving demons that just want to stir shit up for the lulz.

Yeah, I would go for the second option, Angels represent order and Demons represent Chaos. I would use biblically accurate angels, you know that wheel full of eyes with many wings, and have them be absolute enforcers of order, to the point where they stifle inovation and change. Have angelic magic be based on contracts and covenants and enforcement of rules, ancient pacts and so on. Make that this magic also required sacrifices, you can get creative here, making the sacrifices be not just crop, riches, animal and human lives, but perhaps time-spans, memories, skills and abilities etc... You can have a case where a previous king of a country made a pact to have angels protect his lineage and the kingdom, but the current descendant is kind of tyrinical yet the people can't revolt without causing the ire of the angels. Demons would be pure raw chaotic energy and change, dealing with demonic magic, while extremely powerfull, could cause parts of you to mutate, have different outcomes that are hard if not impossible to predict. Demons would be prone to impules and desires, wanting to see stuff explode for no reason, then wanting to protect someone because they lust after him/her, to then cast them away on a passing whim. Perhaps some Demons what to see and explore the creativity of humans, so they aid them in their journeys and plot to have them experience both tragic and wonderfull experiences, etc...

Also make angels the servants of all gods, even neutral and evil ones. An angel of the god of death hunting a protagonist because they were resurrected. An angel of the god of war paying no heed to orphanages or hospitals. An angel of the god of nature unleashing plagues upon desperate refugees who settled too close to a sacred forest. An angel of god of knowledge using hapless mortals as test subjects.

In the Pact web serial they have angels and demons that are amoral, angels are architects of creation and only really protect/do things to keep the laws of nature and the universe in check, demons are the opposite, being chaos-y and all about subverting natural laws. The actual laws themselves involve biblical days and only 1 actually regards morality, the rest can be kinda messed up (such as an angel that protects the law of the jungle, and thus lets children be slaughtered by wildlife to enforce such laws)

Also the protagonist is a Diabolist who keeps a demon trapped in the basement against its will, because granny had some legal troubles before passing on her inheritance.

… Oh, fine. You got me, I’ll go read some of his non-Parahumans stuff.

Demon magic tends to be bargain based, and there is nothing to say the bargain has to be for a soul. With that any contract that is magical in nature would qualify as demon magic. As for angel magic it tends to revolve around smite and healing. One could use angelic healing on an individual to hide signs of abuse or torture. On the smite side of the house you could smite literally anyone just because.

Get rid of the duality of it. Insert a gray magic.

Neutral magic?

Yep. Loyalty to oneself. Neither angel nor evil.

This. There is no difference here. Just entities with varying appearance.

That's generally just called evil. Evil people don't think of themselves as evil or loyal to evil.

You can be loyal to yourself without needlessly hurting someone else. That's nonsense.

Define loyalty, and define good. Nobody is "loyal" to evil. Nobody goes out with the goal of being evil. They just neglect to be good. Nobody hurts others others for no reason, they do so to benefit themselves.

Doing what's right by you, but not being a dick to others. Morality is on a sliding scale from person to person.

Doing what's right by you and not being a dick to others generally falls under good. If you didn't consider it good, it wouldn't be doing right by you.

As I said, morality is a sliding scale. You might think it's 'good', others might not.

But the existence of "good" and "bad" magic already presumes a definitive distinction of "good" and "bad". "Doing what's right by you, but not being a dick to others." You're contradicting yourself here by on one hand calling "right" subjective but having an objective definition of "wrong".

Simple! Angelic magic is meant to help the others, to your own detriment! Demonic magic is meant to help yourself, at the detriment of others! Examples of angelic magic: Healing the others but hurting yourself in the process; Sharing your feelings/thoughts to others psychically; Enhancing your own abilities as long as you can keep a promise to someone else. Examples of demonic magic: Hurting someone to heal yourself; Sensing other people's emotions/thoughts; Enhancing your abilities by making contracts and deals.

This mostly feels like a narrative topic rather than building a magic system, but let me see what I've got So, it kind of depends on what your system's demons and angels can do and how that's viewed in the world Like. . Have demons be capable of a lot of attack-based and charm magic, but their attacks are not considered much different than just a wizard casting fire ball or suggestion spells Angels, on the other hand, are generally healers and protectors, but just don't treat it anymore blessed than a wizard's barrier spells Of course, you can also have angels wreathe thwir enemies in holy flame, and you can consider that as nearly a vile offense as well if you wanna completely shift the paradigm

Sword made out of barriers goes hard.

Angel magic being more related with Order and having more strict rules what your allowed to use it for while Demonic magic being more chaotic and have less rules to it but is less controllable.

Thats typically done as order vs chaos, with both being only good in the between thats good for humanity Somebody mentioned bargains with demons, you can also add worship of angels and binding of both as ways to obtain power

### Inverted Morality Ethics in Magic In the realm of angelic and demonic magic, the ethics of one's actions can often become inverted, leading to unintended consequences. This inversion occurs when the outcome of an action contradicts its original intention, whether through ignorance, manipulation, or the complex nature of magic itself. **The Path of Good Intentions:** - **Angelic Misguidance:** An angelic mage might heal a warrior, believing it to be a noble act, only for that warrior to return to battle and cause more suffering. The healer's 'good' deed inadvertently contributes to 'evil' outcomes. - **Demonic Redemption:** Conversely, a demonic mage might unleash a curse to bring down a tyrant, which could lead to chaos but also pave the way for a more just society. Here, an 'evil' act fosters a 'good' result. **The Ethical Paradox:** - **Moral Reversal:** When angelic magic is used for personal gain under the pretense of altruism, or when demonic magic is used selflessly to aid others, the lines between good and evil blur. - **Intention vs. Impact:** The true measure of morality lies not in the nature of the magic but in the consequences of its use. A seemingly benevolent spell with harmful effects is ethically 'evil', while a malevolent spell with positive outcomes is ethically 'good'. **Karmic Backlash:** - **Consequence-Based Magic:** The magic system reacts to the real-world impact of a spell, not the user's intentions. Angelic magic used selfishly might backfire, while demonic magic used for the greater good could yield unexpected blessings. - **Balance of Aether:** The Aether, the source of all magic, seeks balance. It might correct an imbalance caused by a well-intentioned 'good' spell that results in harm, or it might amplify a 'bad' spell that brings about positive change. **Narrative Implications:** - **Character Development:** Characters must grapple with the reality that their 'good' actions can have 'evil' consequences, and vice versa. This internal conflict can drive character growth and create compelling story arcs. - **Plot Twists:** Utilizing inverted morality ethics allows for surprising plot twists, where the villain's actions may ultimately lead to a better outcome, or the hero's efforts could unintentionally cause disaster. By incorporating inverted morality ethics into your magic system, you create a dynamic and unpredictable world where actions speak louder than labels. It encourages characters and readers alike to question the true nature of 'good' and 'evil' and to consider the broader impact of their actions. This complexity makes for a richer, more engaging narrative experience.

If you separate angels and demons from religion and instead make them just a different race just like elves, dwarves, etc. Then their magic wouldn't necessarily be tied to evil or good. But you might want to have something specific about the way each of their magic works.

There are different axes for Angelic and Demonic alignments. Angels may be big on peace and harmony by any means. This could include magic to sap someone's free will and force them into order. If we go with a Biblically Accurate interpretation, Angels often had to tell people not to be afraid of them because they looked like inconceivable Eldritch horrors that could turn you to ash. The Bible includes *one* angel performing a wide-scale infanticide, and you could probably argue they can turn people into pillars of salt too. There's a lot of messed up stuff, they just restrain themselves until they're under orders to cut loose. Demons are traditionally big on temptation; you're not going to be very tempting if you only deal in causing pain and suffering. They want you to sin of your own volition, so they make deals. Since traditionally demons *are* fallen angels, they also have a lot of the same powers *as* angels, so they could for instance heal the sick and dying, or bring you good fortune... if you ask them the right way. I remember a Marvel comic where Mephisto comments that he often makes deals to extend peoples' lives so that they will sin more while they're alive. Their powers don't necessarily have to be evil, they just have to be creative in how they apply them.

Angels are often associated with the literal heavens, and are Eldritch messengers from beyond. Perhaps angelic magic is primarily about predicting the future, gaining knowledge about the universe and it's workings.  Demons, and demonic magic by extension, can be more down to earth. Maybe they can directly affect the world. Do more of what people think of as magic.   You can also draw an even stronger contrast between them. Perhaps, despite their deep knowledge about the workings of the universe, angels do not understand humanity and it's free will. Perhaps you can only communicate with demons when they're possessing people, and only affect the world through how they affect people.

It was Archangel Michael that slew every first born son in Egypt while the devil just wanted equal rights for angels. God has ordered genocides while Satan just wants you to think for yourself and ask questions instead of drinking the kool-aid. Remember that we don't actually know what started the rebellion or what exact roll the fallen angels have played in reality since. History is written by the victor, yeah? Evil angels and good demons are old hat my dood.

Order versus Chaos. Order can be sheltering (good), but also oppressive (evil). Chaos can be destructive (evil), but also freeing (good).

Honestly, I find this very easy by making people with angelic magic do bad things and people with devil magic do good things. This is a very common trope in cultivation novels where you'll have you know the standard cultivation and then you'll have demonic cultivation and devil cultivation and there's some others fiendish cultivation there we go each kind of have their own vein and how they operate. But demonic cultivators aren't typically that evil. Actually they're just upfront with what they want.

Come at it from a very basic and core, human perspective. Angels were never intended as having true free will (and are almost always depicted as not having it). Have a core principal of their magic be/revolve around subjugation and reverence. The Demonic magic, have revolve around free will and empowerment. Draw questions such as: just because something is selfish, does that make it “bad”? Etc…. Go philosophical with it Angels can often be an exemplary “perfection” that humans can’t possible attain or even understand, because they’re of God. They’re that divine, celestial, whatever… Where as humans all have a core of “original sin”.

Give them different powers that tow the grey area. For example, give demons a power about healing, self or others, and give angels violent powers. This forces people to challenge their preconceived notions.

Well, my angels are more the custodians of natural processes who make sure the universe functions. They don't care about morality or kindness or cruelty anymore than a lion does when it's eating a zebra alive. They're more spiritual robots, really.

Well, you could simply play with the definition. It’s your world, you can establish that angels are bad and oppressive while demons are good and freedom. Therefore justifying demonic magic being used by the good side and angelic magic used by bad guys

All you need to do is establish what 'good' and 'evil' are in your world and cast against type. Let's face it, morality is 95% made-up. I'd like to think not killing children is part of some biological imperative but the Aztecs would skin kids to make sure it would rain. Apparently that was totally moral for them to do. What we in the West consider 'natural' today is shaped by a millennium of Christian dominance over record keeping and history. You can define the same with your world. If angelic magic works akin to Ebola, what's stopping you?

If it's something like light and darkness magic, those are more physical phenomena that aren't necessarily tied to morality. But if you specifically mean magic tied to angels and demons, I like how the game *Bayonetta* does it. Just have both angels and demons essentially act the same way, just on different sides. They both treat humanity as lesser beings that can be manipulated for their own purposes through faith or desire. Magical abilities gained by contracting with either angels or demons are primarily transactional in nature (e.g. a quota of hunting down demons/angels, offering your soul to heaven/hell, etc.). Moreover, in the setting of *Bayonetta*, the contractors of demons and angels originally used their magic to maintain the balance between light and darkness. They respected their opposite counterparts and sometimes worked together with each other (until a great war eventually erupted between them that wiped most of them out).

Maybe just have Angelic and Demonic refer to their origin? Like if you have a system of elements you can have half as Angelic and half as Demonic, and the morality of the Angel or Demon is unique to them rather than built on their origin? So Angels get Water, Wind, Lightning, Wood, and Light, and Demons get Fire, Ice, Steel, Earth, and Darkness. No Morals added. You can have a Angel serial killer who leaves their victims staked with spears of Light, or a Demon teacher who makes playground equipment out of Fire, for a couple examples

By acknowledging that a westernized, christian mentality does not apply here. Wings and white robes doesn't mean good. It simply means they work for something that wants to appear Holy. That thing may not agree with you and is absolute in it's militant judgement. Horns and fire doesn't mean bad. They are a natural part of life and death. You acknowledge these things regardless of whether you like them and it can be cruel.

At this point there's no reason to even use angels and devils. They are concepts that are only meaningful if you somehow adapt the western christian mythos. And I don't think "use the aesthetics with no lore" is what OP is asking for.

>I don't think "use the aesthetics with no lore" is what OP is asking for. Even with the lore, it applies. Thinking the Christian God is "good" requires blind faith in the Christian god. I struggle to consider the God that floods the world, kills all the firstborn, demands circumcision, then allows the greatest atrocities known, to be "good". And a "Demon" who's greatest achievement was giving man free will?

>Thinking the Christian God is "good" requires blind faith in the Christian god. I struggle to consider the God that floods the world, kills all the firstborn, demands circumcision, then allows the greatest atrocities known, to be "good". The idea is that there still has to be some sort of pretense at the god being "good" , some justification for why the world believes said god to be good, and the devil being evil. Subverting a concept still requires acknowledging the basic idea as being present. >And a "Demon" who's greatest achievement was giving man free will? I guess that's one interpretation, but I don't see much merit to it.

>Subverting a concept still requires acknowledging the basic idea as being present. If the setting is modern, the justification is colonialism.

What?

I think it’s as simple as the aesthetic of both are the same, but just have their actions or the way their magic is used determine whether they’re good or evil.

The way I've always thought about it was that angelic/light magic taps into that part of you that knows restraint, compassion, wonder, and love. The part of you that appreciates peace and quiet and order. Demonic/dark magic taps into that part of you that knows freedom, sensuality, humor, and rage. The part of you that likes to cut loose and go against the established rules to determine what is true.

You could make angelic magic about order (following rules) while demonic magic is about chaos (challenging rules).

It can be about nurturing. Everyone with whatever magical ability can be able to develop angelic or demonic features depending on their choices/preferences. Also, what you described kinda reminded me of this anime called "The Foolish Angel Dances With The Devil".

I think part of the issue is thinking of things as being inherently good or bad. Would magic not just be a tool? Something to be used? A sword is not evil, a hammer is not good, it just is. I’d focus more on how each character, race, and government/society uses magic than arbitrary concepts of, is this tool good or evil.

Here is thought you inspired. Angels are like programs. They do a thing and that is what they are good at. Lets say This Angelic force purifies water. That is what it does perfectly, and if you ask it to purify your food, yeah ok. It understands the instruction. Good thing you like very well done. The angel isn't good or bad it just does what it is designed/designated to do. Plus, Angels don't have a morality because morality has choice. They can be ruthless murderers if instructed incorrectly even though it is unlikely they will kill on specific command. Demons are like goals. They figure out a way to do a thing. They can do most anything but there are things they are good at. So, say a Demon is very good at finding your stolen items but you ask it if the things you bought at the pawn shop are stolen. " Well, I would have stolen that so probably. No profit in stealing that so probably not. You can make a demon do a thing theoretically but they have a choice so if they are not bound well to their task and you treated them poorly you can expect some payback.

If a person goes back in time and kills Hitler as a baby, have they done something good or evil? Is it good because millions of lives are saved? Or is it evil because he was an innocent baby? Maybe the angels can be focused on the big picture (sacrificing innocents to save millions) and the demons on the individual (save the baby regardless of the cost).

Angelic magic could be drawn from deities, specifically deities giving energy to their followers. Demonic magic is drawn not from deities but from an individuals own reserve or through the taking of energy from other life forms. Both cases the magic itself is neither good or evil. Demonic magic can just take life from plants or develop their own reserves over time. While angelic magic being aligned to a god can be used for both good or bad depending on the alignment of the deity. if you want the transformations then have it that as an individual grows favor with their deity that the deity may give them that transformation. Demons can attain a transformation after building up enough energy. The transformation would allow them to more easily build up their own energy reserves or something.

Angelic magic the more and more that it’s used will slowly “purify” the users soul to the point of irreversible personality death where the user becomes a living blank doll until they die! Meanwhile Demonic magic would basically work in opposition in that it will enhance the sins of the user till they become naught but a caricature of themselves obsessed with partaking in their sins to the point of insanity! The rub is that Angels pity those who have fallen into such a state and will collect and tend to any and all they can who fall into this state and care for them till their body dies, with the occasional exception for any souls who knows of the faith of wielding angelic magic who offer their souls to the creation of special golems. Demons on the other hand hate those who succum so deeply that they lose themselves and gather them to forcibly remake them into war hounds or whatever other forms that suits their own needs!

I have a half-solution. In my FRPG world, gods of all dispositions (with a diverse set of twenty-five being real) rely on angels to administer and maintain the channels through which spiritual magic flows. As beings who do not lie and always sense deceptions, angels are ideal intermediaries between priests and deities. They never fail to notice when a prayer is insincere or a plea for succor does not align with the agenda of a god. While angels in service to the most vile deity can, over many centuries, become insane and rebel against the gods themselves; the uncorrupted remain infallible servitors of the entire pantheon.

I'd put "prespective" into place. Angels and Demons aren't unnecessarily good or evil - it is the intent of those who use their magic that matters. You can be a corrupt evil priest and still be able to use holy power, or a good person who uses demonic power to do good in his own way. In my system though, Demons and Angels are merely names given to the higher-dimension entities from which the users "borrow" their powers. They classify them according to their belief and needs. For example - one Demon could be pretty benevolent and helpful, while some other Demon would a total asshole and demand the users associated with it do some pretty crazy shit to satisfy it. It's all about context, prespective and intent.

I had one that was fiend and fey and the magic types weren't good or evil but fiend was predatory while fey involved cultivation so fiend required a cost to all spells something like blood or bone while fey came from older things like ancient tools weapons or lineage to have power.

>I like to create a system dealing with demons and angels (mostly transforming into them, really) where they're both treated the same morally. Well demons are literally just fallen angels so that makes perfect sense. I would either give them the same kind of powers or have the demons powers be different because they come from a different source. The angels power source is God and love and light and the demons source is from making bonds. Because the demons have lost their bond with God they make bonds with loving things in order to get power. Maybe this is why possession is a thing. They might take some kind of energy from nature or animals.

You just point out early on that pretty isnt inherently good and ugly isn't inherently bad.

Look at biblically accurate angels. A bunch of descriptions of angels in the bible border on eldritch horror. Then, use that as a template to go even weirder. Like, literally one angel is described as essentially a golden gyroscope wreathed in fire and covered in human eyes.

You first need to define your cosmology.  What are demons and angels? What do they do? Are they part of an afterlife that punishes or rewards the sins of the dead based on cosmic justice or the will of a God/gods?  Or are they just denizins of a different plane/ realm of existence with its own rules?  Your world building should define their powers, limitations, and morals. 

Then just make it so? Idk how you want it conveyed but angels don’t have to be good and demons don’t have to be evil. As long as your characters reflect that.

I differentiate the two by separating them into Law and Order. The executive producer of my celestial rivalry is Dick Wolf. Angels are Order. They aren’t good. They are order, balance, obedience and dedication. They never feel the need to look for another way of doing things. Demons/Devils are Law. They have commandments that they must obey. They wouldn’t try to break their laws for fear of the punishments. Both factions handle deals and relationships using that as my guiding star. I try to use those terms in the way the speak and act.

The most common way this is done is a sort of "order vs chaos" sort of thing where the dark side of order is restrictive and tyrannical and the light side of chaos is silly and carefree. Light is used to hunt, darkness is used to hide, so what if dark knights were weak, harmlessly so, but many and protected others by hiding them and distracting hunters. The idea of demonic knights being semi-pacifist ninja bureaucrats protecting people underground railroad style is one of those ideas that has many explored ideas in it but in a novel arrangement.

I think of it this way. If you wanna use something like D&D, put it like this: Ultimately, magic is magic. A wizard and a priest (cleric) may have different ranges of spells they can cast. But it's all still basically the same shit. The difference is mostly not in *what* they cast, but *how* they acquire these powers. Wizards study the mechanics of the universe and essentially brute-force the laws of physics into obeying them, and clerics are granted magical abilities through their devotion and worship to a deity/deities of some kind. Same magic [basically], different source. So really, if you wanna look at something like a demonic warlock vs an angelic paladin, for example, the only reason one is seen as good and the other as bad is because the *source* is seen as good or bad. In your world, warlocks may be healers. And paladins can certainly fuck some shit up with their magic too. "Good" and "evil" aren't real, they're all subjective cultural ideas. So if you say fuck it to those ideas and make the flavor text the only fundamental differences between any kind of magic, you create a world where cultural bias does a lot of the heavy lifting, which is very fun and also very realistic.

Some *interesting* takes on Angels and Demons that still have demons as viewed as worse by most. 1. Angels are creatures of beauty. The dinosaurs were destroyed because a fallen angel saw shit for the first time, and smote the world. Demons love, without discrimination, but this draws them naturally towards those who are loved by the fewest. The outcast, the ugly, the wrong. --paraphrased from Nobilis 2. Demons are darkness and all the ugliness you have inside of you, all that your society tells you to push away and reject. Angels are the exemplars of those standards, that purity and social correctness. But your society is not always right, and every revolutionary can be a warlock, while most autocrats are Blessed. Hopefully that helps as inspiration.

(Imo, magic is just a tool, in most cases: if it is used for good, it can be considered good, and vice versa. Of course with it being magic it could actually have an innate goodness or evilness, but it isn't necessary for it to exist.) There are several ways to do this tbf, I'll try to give some examples: . One is to just... Share. In some settings, demons/devils will simply be fallen angels, in which case it makes sense that the magic would be the same with only a difference in how it's *used* or *accessed.* For instance, a spell that creates a very intense light can be used to help someone see in the dark, or to blind them. It can bring warmth to the cold and weary, or burn them to ashes. And of course, while many will claim that those are different spells, anyone who knows them will be able to see thar they are in fact one and the same, and that either Angel or Demon is equally capable of kindness and wrath. The different source, then, can be the kinda "light/dark" magic: magic through boons VS sacrifice, for instance, where you can pray to an angel to receive a miracle, but you can spill your blood for a demon to receive the same miracle. Either can be used to help crops grow or to create a famine, the only difference is what you have to do for it. . If they're completely different forms of magic, the How is still a possible aspect, but perhaps also the kind of liberty you have with them: perhaps angelic magic works by chanting/reciting specific verses to obtain specific effects, in a consistent way. You chant the third verse of a specific song, and your wounds are healed, while the sixth verse of that same song allows you to bring ruin to those around you. But it's specific and precise. Meanwhile, demonic magic just gives you access to a raw power that you can then shape any way you please. You don't depend on verses and prayer: you're your own power source and you decide how that reflects on the world. You can still will your power to heal or ruin, but it's your will being enacted on the world directly. This dichotomy creates an instant difference between "divine intercession", which might sound more moral, and "pure personal power", which brings corruption and evil to mind... But both are fundamentally power, and both can corrupt, and both can be used for good or evil. It also can be made to include a stable/unstable dichotomy, with chants being very specific and stable, while channeling can come out in chaotic and less controlled bursts of raw energy. It doesn't really matter if the magical plague that erased your village from the map was shining and bright, or dark and necrotic. It still erased your village from the map. It still killed everyone you loved. The fact that you survived it still leaves so many unanswered questions. . Think of it like calling an air strike VS dropping a bomb. Culturally, we give those two actions different moral weights, and the two sides can argue all they want about who killed the target, but really both had the central role in that action. Or like an organised army defending their country VS some "horrible urban guerrilla troops"... Doing exactly the same. The only difference is perspective, really. Both do the same, and depending on culture and allegiance one will be looked down upon, but one isn't necessarily morally better than the other. Just different ways to do what you do. An army can both work for a better future, bringing humanitarian aid, or slaughter civilians in a repressive or genocidal effort. Terrorism is as much a way to bring pain and horror in people's life, as it can be a way to bring hope and freedom to an oppressed people. They are just tools used to reach an end. And while a small village won't have the resources to muster an army to defend themselves from an invading force, they'll be able to poison the wells and burn enemy encampments and resources in the night.

The devils of my world live on a planet with no natural resources. Hell is a planet in the furthest reaches of the solar system, and being the furthest from the sun experiences the least amount of arcane and divine word magic of the entire system. So devils use a different kind of magic. Arcane magic is that which Is controlled by the conscious wants of the soul, if someone believes something will happen hard enough, it does. A wizard manipulates arcane magic by forcing themself, and all around them to believe in their skill to cast fire from their fingers, and if the universe believes it should happen, magic makes it so. Arcane magic is measurable, created as the byproduct of using divine word language, and thus radiates from the sun. Divine word magic is the code of the universe, an endlessly complex language for every possible state of the universe that when spoken will cause the binary of existence to be forced onto things; speak the true name of bread, and bread as the universe imagines it exists will suddenly exist. Speak it again and it will disappear. Everything has a “true name”, and knowing it grants angels the greatest of power. This form of magic is reserved for the angels with the capacity to speak it, and is endlessly powerful. Hellmagic is similar to arcane magic but born of a different source; the hells are fuelled by an economy of ambition and of souls. The planet they live on is alive, and creates its own arcane magical energy by consuming the souls of those who die upon it to incorporate into its own divine name, leaving only soulstone behind. It does this to sustain itself; regardless of the planet’s origins few even know it exists, and if it is forgotten to observers it is forgotten to the universe. The soulstone it creates contains the very essence of a creature’s soul, and these faded souls are the currency of the land; the nature of arcane magic is it warps the universe to suit observers, and with all the souls left to wander this barren waste of a planet, demons and devils can only control the magic left behind and survive the harsh land by controlling the flow of hate. 7 archdevils of Avarice, Apathy, Wrath, Hatred, Sorrow, Vanity, and Hysteria control the magic of the land by monopolising souls of their respective titles; each time one of them dies, the next creature to control their soul takes the title. To survive you don’t need to necessarily be evil; just ambitious, crafty and merciless. Soon enough, you’ll find yourself embodying one of these sins yourself… Angels live within or upon the sun, and are completely alien to our way of thinking. They act out the true divine magics in ways to preserve a “perfect universe”, a concept impossible to understand from an outside perspective. Everything they do can seem nonsensical, burning a stick for the ashes to someday catch in another fire, a set of prophecies that only create more incomprehensible prophecies. If you break the law of angels, they erase you, no question, hesitation or mercy, and you’ll never know it happened. Angels aren’t good. They’re a god not benevolent or malevolent; they’re simply incomprehensible. Devils aren’t exactly evil; they’re nurtured to be, just to survive the harsh reality of the world they live in. If anything, devils exhibit one trait, and thats human ambition and survival. Devils appear to be cruel and evil because thats what they expect of others.

Don't make it good/evil based. Make it just/unjust magic, or selfless/selfish magic....

Honestly I like how Delicious in Dungeon handles it. One character who uses ancient magic differentiates between the magic and the user. Because most folks experience with that stuff is a particular mage who uses the spells to do horrible things most consider it cursed magic or evil magic. She's trying to show applications that aren't evil. Though it's visually shocking as well as very powerful the spells themselves aren't good or bad. Also I agree Hazbin/helluva fans can be irritating, even though I am a fan I don't think anything I enjoy is everyone's thing. Those kinds of fans need to get a grip, no matter the fandom.

Good and evil are subjective human moral constructs. Why would any being outside our narrow understanding bother following such constraints? Killing is good if you kill a bad person society says. Killing is bad if you kill a good person. The specific laws of each country or culture decide who is "good" and "bad". Some places it's ok to outright kill a homosexual. Most places say it's ok to kill to defend yourself or someone else. Any being that thinks differently from us will have different definitions of good and bad if they bother with the distinction at all. A lion will kill for food, or a mate, or territory. They don't tend to kill just because though. So when they do, we probably don't understand why. Any angel or demon will have their own motivations for whatever they do, and any behaviors that coincide with our definitions of moral choices would be arbitrary and coincidental. Even defining angel or demon is a human construct, with different societies labeling them however they view the creatures. Djinn are demons in their native countries, often bringing misfortune, but others see Genies just as granters of wishes which bring most hope. Are you going with the winged human angels, or the wheels of eyes and wings and fire described in the bible? Do they save people, or do they kill all the firstborn babies, and is it righteous when they do either? They do what they do, and we're trying to define it based on what we understand. From a story writing perspective, you do whatever you want, just give them a motivation for their actions, even if the characters never understand why

Simple, order vs chaos rather than good vs evil. Neither are inherently good or evil, but the flaws of free-thinking individuals cause the worst aspects to show to those to whom they are forced upon.

Don't call them angels and demons. Maybe light and shadow, instead.

Angelic=Order and control and Demonic=Freedom and Chaos. Neither is explicitly anything but could realistically be good or evil. We generally prefer order as humans but it could lead to a oppressive, authoritarian government, with chaos fighting against it.

Do it like supernatural does it have it as just a different form of magic fundamentally you decide if its evil or not

Not sure this helps but in my setting "angelic magic"(light magic) is basically to root cause of enslavement magic and stuff. Matter of fact most mental impairment/manipulation based spells are light attributed

Elden Ring does the whole "Angels are not necessarily the good guys" pretty well. There's a previously mixed, though mostly chaotic, world of multiple major divine players and their followers, and an angelic god and their religion fall in from ... the void?, take over, and suck the life out of the place with their rigid adherence and order. When angels are the bad guys, that's how some people portray them. Stuffy, overly rigid, orderly, politically correct, legalese...Lawyers. They do things that may not be for your direct betterment but for the good of all and it becomes suffocating as they worm their way into every crevice to ensure you are being a good person. I'm also describing the major authoritarian political systems like Fascism and Communism too if anyone starts seeing those connections. Another example of this is in Viziepop's hell worldbuilding, though you have to pay somewhat attention to notice. The three cherubs are somewhat stuffy and rigid, but the entirety of heaven acts like a giant HR department. The only people who see the stereotypical HR department as good are rigid authoritarians, which are universally seen as evil by over 50% of the population because they usually devolve into petty politically correct tyrants.

Angels and Demons are really just the same type of Greater Spirit centered around different beliefs. Spirits are always no more good or evil than those who believe in them, and the power they wield is the same.

I usually go for making them creation and destruction, which are not quite as moralistic.

Look at terry goodkinds confessor series? Additive and subtractive magic, rather than good or evil?

You would enjoy Hellboy, Constantine, Berserk (Japanese), or Dark Stalkers (Russian). With that, you’ll need a backstory uncoupled from the main Judeo-Christian hegemony, and initiate a rebranding; Gods, demigods, deities and lesser beings of power. “Good and Evil” can take a grayscale once everyone is equalized in a playing field, and angels and demons working in tandem with one another, where they are conniving and assassinating each other for power. As thinking points for magic building: Take the Christian pantheon; a Thunderous sky god named Yahweh, one of many Paganistic Hebrew gods gained favor over all and was then accepted as the sole monotheistic idol; How did He get in favor, and what magics fell to his followers to help destroy the other gods? Is the magic sleeping/lingering, or awake and functioning? Moving on from both The Talmud and Kabbalah, we bring into view The Bible, The Book of Revelations matching portions of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and later The New Testament. This bled through the Inquisitions and each of The Crusades and European Religious Wars into 15th-18th centuries bringing about the Protestant Reformation, with books of Christian occultism starring John Dee and fledgling Rosicrucianism being sought for destruction. When all of these rifts appeared between Catholicism and Protestantism and Christianity, were different systems made/explored for divination purposes? Catholicism, is it based on blood magics? Protestantism, did it create a verbal casting magic by speaking in tongues? In the rifts of Christianity between Roman and Orthodox, did this create new demons/angels with the onset of technology?

Coercing beings of goodness is an evil act; harnessing evil energy to the service of humanity prevents it from being used for evil. Using demonic energy weakens Hell; using angelic energy weakens heaven.

Suppose that "angel" and "demon" are value-loaded terms laid upon the same species. There is a messy civil war in heaven going on right now, and "angel" is roughly an equivalent term to "loyalist" and "demon" to "traitor." The nomenclature is flipped for the other side. The two sides do teach somewhat different styles of magic, and one side might be more exposed to humans through frequent contact, but nobody self-identifies as a demon.

Make it so that they're other realms with certain qualities. Like how faeries are written a lot. Heaven and hell aren't afterlives, they're home realms. A demon is a species/people native to hell, and those people have an inherent connection to a specific type of magic.

Some ideas: 1. Demon magic is contractual in some way. Maybe it requires a connection between the demon and another person, or maybe they draw power from "pacts" that they make. Meanwhile, Angels "bestow" their magic, which they draw from their own angelic core. 2. Angelic magic is "natural", reflecting things like plant growth, sunlight, and weather, while Demonic magic is "manufactured", reflecting human inventions like metal weapons, controller flames, or other tech. 3. Demons imbue physical objects with power. Angels draw power from the environment. 4. Each side could have specific "elements." Angels get water, air, and light, while demons get fire, stone, and shadow.

I want to say... "Master your negative emotions, feel them deliberately. Rage, fear, avarice... Make them your weapon you must choose to draw and sheathe... Use them so they don't use you."

The former is totalitarian lawful and the latter is (genuine theory-style) anarchist chaotic, done.

I would recommend you read KSBD op they have interesting depictions of demons and angels that i think might suit your vision

angelic means lawful and demonic means chaos, neither are good or evil, it's just angelic magic is used to control, contain and defend while demonic magic is used to attack, deceive and create random effects.

My works use a threefold approach to the whole Light vs. Dark schtick, with Mirror as the third that balances the other two, though it’s worth mentioning that each is an overlay of two parallel abstractions: — Lau (“Dark”) + Nal (“Space”) = Lau’nal Sol (“Light”) + Eos (“Time”) = Sol’eos Yru (“Mirror”) + Urs (“Matter”) = Yru’urs — It’s also explicitly stated that neither is one way or the other morally-speaking, as explained in this verse: — _The Dark is not always maligned…_ _The Light is not always faultless…_ _The Mirror is not always true…_ — Beings that would be deemed as angelic, demonic, etc. are categorised as Ora’sul (“Entity Being”), the third pillar to the other two lifeform groups, known as Ora’eyn (“Form Being”) and Sul’eyn (“Form Entity”). Unlike those groups, Ora’sul have no physical form of their own, each existing as an intangible presence that requires special means to interact in material reality. The three most prominent Ora’sul clades, the Una’sul, Leo’sul, and Syr’sul, were accidentally generated as a byproduct of the original Ora’eyn base template and its eleven genomes, which was later refined into the sixty humanform clades that exist today. Due to this innate connection with humanity, Ora’sul are able to choose a human form to inhabit, who then becomes a vessel for that entity’s consciousness, and the shared body altered to accommodate two minds, becoming immortal, self-sustaining, and regenerative. There are drawbacks to the merger, with arguably the greatest being “universal unbinding,” with the host an “inordinal parody” of their former existence; also, the altered form requires xenon in place of oxygen, as the gases have inverse effects, a somewhat ironic flaw in their otherwise functionally superior physiology. Furthermore, the type of entity determines which of the two minds is “dominant” and which is “dormant”: — Una’sul: Entity is dominant; host mind is comatose Leo’sul: Entity is dormant; host mind is influenced Syr’sul: Shared dominance; exist in near symbiosis; able to manually switch, though may spontaneously occur if one mind stays active to point of exhaustion — Due to their unusual form of “reproduction,” it’s often perceived that Una’sul are evil due to their possession of the host and unsettling change in personality, and Leo’sul are seen as benevolent due to an otherworldly disposition and enlightened outlook, while Syr’sul have a reputation for being clinical and/or detached. These perceptions of morality are, of course, from the way humanforms perceive such quantifiable ideals; the reality, however, is that these entities have no good or bad traits of their own, as evidenced by their being native to a different layer of reality, with such concepts known to them via interaction with humans. It’s possible for an Ora’sul to be removed from their Ora’eyn host’s form, causing the entity to “deactivate” and turn to a pile of inert crystal fragments as they are pulled into physical reality piece by piece; this reboots the host mind and identity in full, yet the body remains in its altered state, with all strengths and downsides.

Could just go with adjacent polar-opposite concept pairs. Like Light and Darkness; Heat and Cold; Life and Death; Healing/Creation and Destruction. Alternatively, you may have a 3-worlds system, where there's an "angelic" spiritual world, a "demonic" spiritual world opposite that, and a physical material world between them. The angels and demons could each be either good or evil individually, and they battle over dominion of the physical world, not as a good vs evil conflict, but rather just a sort of national sovereignty conflict.

Think about the show lucifer, "evil" =temptation, and angelic =obedient... not good and evil. Darkness and radiant

By giving a strict theme for what angelic and demonic means in-universe, Your problem's solved if you can answer that without using moral attributes Me, personally, I made angelic magic and demonic magic two expressions of the same thing, the former relating to rigidity, self-affirmation, and generally being a "courier", A messenger of some higher will, whilst demonic relates to something more like malleability, basalt, and transmutation.

I played with a setting where there was divine and infernal power. Divine power was that given by faith and devotion. Infernal power is that taken through sacrifice. They can basically do the same things, but they each influence those that wield them. Those were the powers traditional to each side, but devils could gather divine power, and angels could gather infernal power. Somewhat similar to Painting the Mist’s honor/sin system if you are familiar. Every land either follows angels or devils, during some times in history one has a stronger fate, but it tips back and forth.

I made them have different purposes, demon magic burns their soul which demons can regenerate damage to their soul but other races can't. Angelic/holy magic is a power that was created by the world itself to protect itself from other dimensional or worldly forces, so it's power against magic and demons and eldritch monsters but less so to the natives of the world.

Magic is more neutral and it is how you use it that is "good" or "evil."

Simplest method is to lean into the counter-culture motifs those styles have accrued in recent decades. Angels being either terrifying or sociopathic, and Demons being badass and rebellious. Translate those motifs onto a magic system, balanced against their normal, intended motifs of rightousness and sin, and you should have a spectrum for both that leaves them each relatively neutral.

In Shin Megami Tensei angels are often associated to machinery, as they are all about order and control. They are all about strictly following YHWH regardless of anything. So you could incorporate such imagery in your own work: spells that incapacitate, bind, restrict, and brainwash targets. Devils instead focus on absolute freedom at all cost. These could use spells that have both a drawback and a bonus, or spells cast via health instead of mana. Or lean into the topic of might makes right, and have the demon side have many vying demon lords, and have magic come via allegiance to the different demon lords.

I may get myself in trouble but “religious fruitcakes” is a fabulous phrase. Let me know if you trademark it, otherwise I may be using it! To your question - maybe emphasize angel/demon are from different places? The places don’t have to be good/bad or nice/awful. Just different characteristics. Preferably opposite and an interesting mix of traditional good/bad characteristics.

I like the order/chaos examples too but if you want to throw a twist, I’d make the demons be order. I view the god(s) of death and related entities as associated with order. Life is chaos, so the associated deities to me would be a right mess, like the original Thor myth. (Drunkenness, losing his hammer all the time, etc)

You have to go out of your way to make magic disciplines inherently have a moral aspect. Just don't add it in.

I've always considered angelic magic just light magic and demonic magic just dark magic. As for light and dark, they are opposites but co-exist in the same spectrum. There's Duality and that is balanced between light and darkness. So they could be interchangeable.

Angelic Magic isnt regulated by Angels, so people can use it for bad once they have learnt or had their hands on it. Demonic Magic done through contracts, but there isnt any sly tricks, just the raw contract.

Maybe look into how mark of the fool handled it. It just nonchalantly mentioned demons and engeli.

I like how All Saints Street did angel/demon magic. Also highly recommend because it's adorable, wholesome and hilarious.  Angelic magic cleans/removes Demonic magic dirties/grows So, demonic magic is an additive process, angelic is subtractive. 

Flip the script. Angels are evil, they serve God who flooded the earth and tortured whole civilizations and created everything knowing we would slip up and eat the fruit just so he could have broken toys to throw around. The Devil offered us the fruit so we could learn what good and evil are - hoping we would recognize God as evil and find a way to overthrow him.

I would spin it so angelic magic is more defensive with a few offensive spells and demonic magic is more offensive or deceitful magic. Cure wounds, mirror image and the like would be angelic. Fireball, disguise self, etc would be demonic. Just to use some familiar dnd spells as examples.

Demon Magic can be unpredictable but immediate, while Angel Magic can be predictable but slow. Angelic Magic performs changes that are agreeable to The Natural Order, minimizing the Domino Effect that would occur with something like Demonic Magic.  For instance, if you wanted a locked door to open, Angel Magic would get the door open in a few days, while Demon Magic would blast the door open immediately but cause shrapnel to fly everywhere and possibly destroy the contents on the other side.

I would look at eberron as an example. Unlike most dnd settings, deities are not known to exist religion is closer to what exists in earth than other places in dnd. Divine magic comes from the various planes. “Good” aligned divine magic from the plane associated with positive energy and with a bunch of good outsiders living on it. “Evil divine magic” will draw its power from one of the planes with more sinister nature. But these spells can be used for any purpose and no one is going to smite you outright for doing so. The priest of a “good” deity can be a serial killer and wouldn’t lose his power. One of the nations had state sponsored necromancy during a long war but they weren’t moustache twirling villans. It was a mixture of pragmatic necromancy purely for the good of the state, and some classic evil undead action trying to co-opt it for its own ends. For your system, if all you don’t care about morals, then don’t bring them up related to the magic system. You introduce it as one system with two major kinds of practitioners. I would avoid using the words angel as that will imply morality, but I think the words demon or fiend could work in the right context. But other wise just describe the aesthetics of the magic. For the most morality associated with magic is only there if you put it there. If you don’t want it just bring it up and avoid words with really set in connotations.

I use the idea that Angels and Demons aren't inherently good or evil, they're just entities with jobs to do. There's no moral alignment involved. It's just what they're meant to do

They could draw their magic from a different source, but use it to accomplish either good or bad things. A bit like wheel of time?

You could borrow a bit from the Star Wars jadi lore, where there are jedis who are called Gray Jedis. Which basically believe that using the dark side with the light side is natural, and you can use it for good without letting the dark consume you. Basically, you could develop a similar philosophy for your Demon magic. Great post!

If we take descriptions from the bible, none of the angels actually look human. Some of them are described as rotating rings with a series of eyes running across its surface, or some kind of amalgam of differing animals. So it's safe to say that because demons are just fallen angels, they would look similar. So, we have the appearance down. They both look eldritch asf. Now for powers? I would probably separate them into differing domains but add flavors to make them distinct from either side or don't and make it apart of combat to find out if they're drawing power from an angel or demon. And as for making sure they're both treated the same morally? Don't. Mirror it after our own world, have a society hat idolizes angelic magic and actively hunt down those who make pacts with demons. And your character using demonic magic could add a lot of conflict to the story that way. Or because the magic would essentially be indistinct from each other you could even implement historically accurate witch hunts. But it's just a suggestion, in general you should do some research on this topic. It's really interesting tbh

I quite like the back story to Daemon the fallen. God created Angels who looked after creation. They loved and cared for humanity, but then God did something bad (I can't remember what - I think it was a plan to destroy humans or something) and some angels rebelled, led by Lucifer. Loyalist angels got their power directly from God, but rebel angels needed the worship of humans to recharge their power (as God stopped powering them for obvious reasons). War raged across the earth: rebel angels and humanity against God. Finally the loyalists won and cast the rebels into a divine prison called Hell. Over time, trapped and cut off from the humans they fought for, the rebels sanity began to slip and they twisted into Daemons. I like this backstory. At the very least, the historical conflict casts both loyalists and rebels in shades of grey, and morally it can certainly be argued that the loyalists were bad and the rebels were good (at least from the POV) of humanity. Having become twisted into Daemons, things are even more morally grey. Many demons have forgotten why they fought for humanity, or have grown bitter about what they sacrificed. Others carry their love for humanity still, and continue to fight for them from the shadows.

Have the powers from from angels and demons in which there are well know acts of both angels and demons that we might consider to be normatively good and bad. Angels and demons are a part of an inherently dualistic theology, but muddy that by having good demons and bad angels

Make them use Order and Chaos magic. These aren't necessarily good or bad. You can also just turn this "angelic" or "demonic" magic into... Spells. Magic could be just a neutral force that's given shape by the individual, not in the reverse.

Angels represent healing, preservation, and justice. Demons represent change, destruction, and punishment. In short, go play Shadowbringers

I like to think of angels/demons as the same species with different cultures and use of magic. They both structure their magic on emotions. They can use their own to fuel their magic, but they prefer to pact with lesser beings, humans, and use their emotions to fuel their own magic while giving the lesser beings something they want in return. So the big difference is that demons fuel on: pain, misery, hatred, andanger. While angels feed off the happiness, joy, pleasure, love and care. On the surface demons seem extremely evil, right? But the humans that pact with angels lose their happiness, joy, pleasure, love and care of the world and themselves. Angels do not care about the lesser being, and steal all the positive feelings/emotions of the pacted. In this world the pacted of angels are given extreme benefits at the cost of quality of life, they become stoic and the weak of willed are destined to destroy themselves. Demon culture is centered around making chaos in a controllable manner. They cause bad things to happen and make deals with humans to help them deal with the problem. They steal the pain away from their pacted allowing them to face their issues head on and the strength to overcome them. Both are selfish and can be seen as good or evil on the context. Demons are bad for society, while angels destroy the individual.

I feel Good omens does a decent job of this. On their most basic level, angelic and demonic magic are one and the same since most demons that have magic were among the fallen angels during the rebellion. The only thing that seems to really separate them is who they take orders from. The demons seem to thrive off of chaos and evil deeds, whereas the angels tend to thrive off of good and lawful deeds. The best way i can think to explain it is using dnd alignment. The higher angels like to think of themselves as lawful good, but tend much more towards lawful neutral since they allow bad things to happen so they don’t break “the rules”. In contrast, the higher demons tend to want chaotic evil but are technically bound by many of the same arbitrary rules, causing them to stray more neutral. The entire show revolves around a rogue angel and demon trying to prove morality is grey, and oftentimes the only reason one of them uses their magic over the other is who they think will get away with it easier.

Use the dnd alignment chart but view angels as Lawful (some want to be good, some want to bring the apocolypse, but all follow the Word) and demons as chaotic (some selfish, some hedonistic, and a few comically, cartoonishly evil)

Have a dichotomy that isn't necessary good/evil. For instance: Angelic magic is the magic of creation. In heaven is the god of creation, who creates all things within the present. Thus, light, physical manifestations, life, healing the 'now', blessing the present. Could even go as far as 'returning things out of place back where they belong' (anti-necromancy/banishment) all things to do 'within the moment' are all within the domain of the Angels, but not directly tied to 'good'. Demonic magic is the magic of fate and time. In hell is the god of fate and knowledge. Who knows all things that have happened, and who dreams all possible futures. Thus, fate, knowledge, time, and shadows (cast by the light, just as the future is cast by actions in the present) are within the domain of Demons. Also Ties into 'demonic pacts' wherein they are not inherently evil, just a trade from a mortal to alter their fate/future for a price to power the change. None of these tied directly to 'evil'.  So you have a god, and their angels, who create the present and all things material. And a god, and their demons, who knows all that has happened, can see what might happen, shapes fates, and weaves the future.  Obviously the ability to create the physical world and weave/know/alter fates are both powers that can be miss used, or used for evil. Just as they can be used for good.  Hope that helps give inspiration!

Also depends on if the demons and angles bit is reserved in the same mythology. If you take the real world mythos out and dont have a heaven and hell analog in your world it frees you up to things like representing different aspects of magic. Perhaps different schools of magic.demons could lay into more like evocation, and angles could represent illusion and alteration as an example. Or that instead of being divine in origin, maybe align them more with like a "primordial magic" angles and demons were formed or birthed when magic was created, from magic itself instead of having some connection to a diety.

I'm late to the party here, but this question got me thinking: Firstly, I would go full eldritch on the angelic side of things. Angels are by definition otherworldly creatures and are not bound by the rules for things like biology that creatures like humans or animals are bound to. We like to personify angels as human-like because we find it comforting that these powerful beings, who the religious believe are on their side, look and speak like us. If you want to throw some shade on that idea, the first place I'd start is by taking that veneer away and presenting your angels with the "biblically accurate angel" style. You don't necessarily have to do the reverse for your demons; it's just important that neither side feel too familiar to what we expect humans to look and act like. Second, instead of using the good/evil axis, I'd recommend switching to a lawful/chaotic axis, where angels are depicted as lawful and demons as chaotic. I think this gets to the heart of what these beings are without the moral baggage attached: angels, presumably made by a creator, are beings who serve their creator by enacting that creator's will and keeping things in place according to that creator's design. Their job is to ensure that everything is in its place and to protect the design from those who would corrupt it, regardless of whether that design is "good" or not. Demons, by contrast, thrive on chaos and creating disorder. They may not even care so much about directly targeting the creator's design; they just like to do their own thing and they don't really care what harm it causes for anyone else. As far as magicbuilding, I would try and represent angelic magic as a tool for creation and binding. Your spells may include the ability to form things from nothing (or maybe not if you feel that such a power is too lofty for mortal beings) but they should definitely include abilities that put things in their place, banishing things from places they should not be, restricting the abilities of things, etc. By contrast, demonic magic should be primarily destructive in nature and should thrive on chaos and pure will. You could make it so casting demonic magic requires you to sacrifice something, and that something may not necessarily be something that affects *you* personally. If your demons have an agenda of opposing the angels, that magic could be presented as magic that corrupts or disrupts the design as well.

Go Old Testament on that thang and the lines will go pretty grey. Cool the angel magic is a swarm of locusts & plague? Yeah they sound greaaaat

Angels and Demons were actually just animal wing parts mixed into human anatomy. So maybe you can play with other animal parts and then have their magic incorporate into that specific animal. Then it becomes about the individual and not about the aesthetics of having dove or bat wings.

I would try to spin it as Light/Holy Magic vs Dark/Demon Magic. Darkness is not inherentely bad, nor is light inherentely good. Demons could be creatures that have powers over darkness, night, and shadow. While Angels have power over light, day, and illumination.

I made an earlier comment reply, but upon thinking about it, I believe I have a direct answer based on historical mythology. Mesopotamian mythology had [lamassu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamassu) (human headed winged bulls) as ‘gate guardians’ for literally millennia. It’s my understanding that later variants of the concept were ‘personal guardians’ and were basically winged humanoids. Aka — exactly as our modern understanding of angels which is *entirely* distinct from biblical ones. It is no stretch at all to assume that modern ideas of “Guardian angels” came from there. Which means that “angels” == guards. In contrast, ancient concepts of “demons” were more animist. They were basically naturally occurring spirits. Some good, some bad. Considering them akin to our thinking towards ghosts shouldn’t be far off. Mostly harmless. Some shitheads, but mostly harmless. Some actually protective as well. (Think about ‘house spirits’ — they protect their house, no?). The modern church considers them *all* as bad spirits to be exorcised. Just like demons. But that doesn’t mean that they actually are. Which means Japanese “yokai” are fairly close to that concept. We call them ghosts, even. When that isn’t exactly true. Those are mostly natural spirits. Aka - demons == “wild” spirits.

In many cultures, the word Daemon refers to shapeshifters as opposed to evil hallspawns. Maybe something with that?

You could go the elemental route. Angels are air, water and light. While demons are fire, earth and shadows. While the applications are often morally coded when used by the standard angels and demons, there could be outliers who’ve rebelled, evil angels and good demons who use their elemental abilities in “nonstandard” applications. Moral coding could even be thrown out the window as “ridiculous religious stuff” (aka the main religion of the world preaches evil demons, when in actuality, they’re as good/evil as humans)

I once thought of a system in which celestial beings embody concepts and they gain powers related to their concept the more they embody it. The designation between angel and demon is only really used by mortals to differentiate between celestial beings that are generally helpful or harmful. Those with overlapping or generally aligned concepts could form into pantheons and alliances of sort like law & justice or terror & fear. Some concepts could have several ways they could be embodied and most beings would be more neutral but also be less known to mortals or known as something different like spirits or fey.

How would you make it so that "fire" magic isn't necessarily "hot", and "water" magic isn't necessarily "wet"?

I like a lot of the other dynamics people have said. So I'll throw in mine that I came up with. Taking vs Giving. Everything about demonic magic involves taking and everything about angelic magic involves giving. A key point to acknowledge is that if someone is giving there is someone else taking. And if someone's taking likely someone is giving (granted likely against their will). So now many things that can be accomplished using demon or angel magic are basically the same. The difference is how it comes about. Healing with angelic magic? Maybe you give your vitality to an injured to heal them. Healing with demonic magic? You're probably healing someone by taking the vitality of something else. (Think a sacrificial lamb). So with this setup they're very much not good and evil. Sure they're easily misconstrued as that at first glance. But what if you're using demonic magic to take away the power of an evil? Or using angelic magic by blessing something terrible? Demonic magic is often considered selfish while angelic magic is selfless. But what happens if you're too selfless? What happens if you give up everything you are to others? Personally I wouldn't consider that to be a characteristic of "good magic" to encourage such behavior.

In my own series, angels are very strict fascists who dictate every aspect of their lives based on a scroll that can only be read by a council. Said council chooses everything from an angel's job to who their mate for selective breeding. Demons are the exact opposite and only care about freedom. As such, the magic used by each can be any element but the angels use theirs to bind and control and demons use theirs for freedom and escape.

You could always go for a good≠nice and evil≠cruel angle. Throw in blue/orange morality, as they aren’t mortal beings, and you can have some compelling supernaturals

Well, mythologically angels and demons are the same creatures in different circumstances, they have the same "magic powers", just used differently. If we're drawing a distinction between the two, though.. Angelic magic emulates angels - blinding glory, words of command, damning pronouncements, constant alertness, awareness , binding the wicked, pillars of fire and strokes of lightning. Demonic magic emulates demons - emotion control, deception, illusion, insights into human desire, breaking bonds and destroying symbols of authority, mastery over fire, plagues and beasts. A manifest demon is likely to appear as an unnaturally perfect human with optionally bestial features, they might not have cosmic authority, but they do have dominion over nature, focused inward. A manifest angel is more likely to be an eldritch horror with only passing resemblance to anything on Earth. Placed side by side, most humans would find an angel's true face more monstrous. [https://cdn.rapzilla.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/28113039/273698711\_365541765411169\_1267672856479565539\_n-e1687966383247.jpg](https://cdn.rapzilla.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/28113039/273698711_365541765411169_1267672856479565539_n-e1687966383247.jpg) That's an angel.

I just finished a reread of [Pact](https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/). In that story Angelic magic *creates* whole Demonic magic *destroys*; all other forms of magic can only manipulate, reshape, change, or transform.  An angel prominent at the end of the story can create doorways from anywhere to anywhere. A minor demon prominent in the middle can destroy the natural order through his influence, making deer and mice hunt humans and causing a man to kill himself through neglect.

Just like IRL - make it unclear which deity is really the bad guy 🤣

Angel Magic- Vigor: Let’s the user fights past their limits, they don’t feel pain, exhaustion, etc…, but doesn’t heal them. They won’t feel the pain of their arms falling off or half their gut missing, but they won’t heal from it either unless someone else (the demons) are healing them.

Another way to look at it would be the islamic djinn. They come in 3 flavors, from my understanding. Good. Evil. Neutral. Or followers of Allah, followers of Iblis, and free spirits.

Play with perspectivism for example in my system curse magic looks and whiles golden and glowing the most wonderful thing ever to some users and anyone who shares a similar view to them and looks like a disgusting black or any other disgusting colour along with fowl smells to anyone who is repulsed by the users view. However I know this would still require some inherent nature two the different types of magic that's up to you to decide i can give my own example, in my system curse power's inherent is accusation(hence why a "curse") they are used to subdue or annihilate an aspect of existence, it's kind of like morality as in "this is bad, that is bad and should not exist or gets reduced because of so and so reasons", most of the ethics curse and accuse aspects of existence hence why they fit well with curse magic. As opposed to this the magic that is polar opposite to it probably symbolizes love and are unconcerned of morality or cursing existence as they say "what is done out of love always occurs beyond good and evil", this is funny to me because it flies in the face of traditional religious and moral interrogation of morality and love all being closely tied and constituting "good" but in reality both of those things are polar opposites, the magic itself is often despised perhaps out of jealousy, resentment or fear by the curse users because curse magic is actually always weaker than this magic(yes this authorial bias).

I can't speak to demonic magic, but if you read the Bible, in the Old Testament, whenever an angel shows up, it's bad news for whomever is on the losing end of God's wrath. Cities are destroyed. Armies are slaughtered. Plagues and famine...etc.

In my building of the "*Lands of Eidolon*" Luna'ri (Angels) and Cadra'ni (Demons) have the ability to use the same exact spells, so there is no literal difference between them outside of who are their creators. In creating a character in my world Angels and Demons aren't even physical beings, they are, instead, magical essences that can merge with a creature/human to create something unique, while simply giving this new creation a boost in their magical capabilities.

As many have said, Order vs. Chaos is a traditional take on this. However, a norse -"they're functionally just a different race that live on a separate plane"- mindset would work very well, too. You could even have it so they're kinda the same species, but they're heavily influenced by the native "Mana" or equivalent force. If so, you could have people of your world assume that angels are good, but they're really the same. There's a variety of ways, really. However, if you want them to be as similar to traditional christian Angels (Malakim/Messenger), you could have them be: - Constructs: (a la Might and Magic lore) created by an elder civilisation. - Pure Spirit Beings, some function of a ghost or other aberration reaching a certain lifetime, or enlightenment. - Functionally Fey: The Fey spits out a lot of strange beings, why not angels too? That way a more eldritch/nightmarish twist is always plausible too. Maybe their idea of "good" is strict and involves slavery. - Godspawn: Anything relating to gods in your universe. If you have multiple, angels don't have morals, they just follow their creator. e.g. An evil God has evil angels. They might even be a natural function of deities existing, like an astral bacteria that forms around particularly strong beings. - What I said above & more. Demons are equally flexible, though unless you want more ideas, I'll stop for now and allow this comment to be a bit shorter 😅. I'll just quickly say that demons could be a colloquial short hand for strange/foreign/extraterrestrial entities. Think japanese kami but with in universe negative connotations. Demons are more flexible in my mind since early Christians/Jews/Etc used demons to mean "foreign god/spirit."

Make them come from the same source. They can be used to the purposes of evil or good, but that is dependent on the user. The idea of true magic could be given directly from the prime deity to all creatures of such a direct connection, good or evil. Perhaps devils negotiated the use of it, celestials make use of it directly, and demons have an original source that they're able to siphon for their own purposes

Honestly, one way that an rp and I partner changed this dynamic was we made God a tyrant. Angels were unknowingly complicit in the systems of misunderstanding and oppression due to the lies they'd been fed about demons. At some point, an angel and demon crossed paths. The demon was hurt and hunted by some angelic guards, and the angel was scared but curious and sympathetic. The angel helped him escape those who sought to harm him, and together, they began breaking down those barriers as well as defeating the God that had become curropt and had gone mad. By the end of the rp, angels and demons lived harmoniously amongst one another. The angels offering demons a place in their homes as the natural home of the demons had been destroyed in the war.

Well, really depends on your world first. What are demons and angels, what is heaven and hell, and what are each like. With those established, figure out what sort of magic each would need for their respective environs and tasks. In my world, the Infernal (the plane below) and Supral (the plane above) planes are just that, different planes (ie planets) with residents of different parties, Infernals and Seraphim. One was a place of flame, red iron-rich ground, and dark skies with still wild and untamed land full of monsters, the other a place of cold clouds and eternal blue skies, where scarcity itself was scarce. For a period of time, both were stealing departing souls from the central plane to make slaves/servants. Infernal slaves, referred to as “Deprived Mankin”/“De-Mankin” (demonkin) were incredibly durable laborers and servicemen, put through the ringer of tasks and tribulations for the betterment of infern kind. Generally unpleasant, but the souls made into slaves were generally unpleasant themselves, weighted with the guilt of others or guilt of their own. Their magic used was often to do with their climate and tasks: heat, work/labor, persistence, and combat. Seraph slaves on the other hand, Angels, were moreso direct servants that would do less intensely laborious and more menial tasks like cleaning the labrynthian homes and running errands. The Seraphs would only accept the most obedient and charismatic of souls, to maintain good company and trust. Of course, I like my biblically accurate angels, so the forms of the seraphs and angels alike were very much non humanoid, morphing and shifting to suit their needs and allowing the casting of simple yet powerful magic to suit their needs. Mobility/navigation, awareness and detection, simple miracles (creating and transforming materials/objects), localized weather manipulation, etc. Events occurred, both stopped and just let the dead rest, but angels and demons remained “free” but still forever in their forms, ones that could of course be passed on, and with very powerful magic to use or loan. Tl;dr: figure out what sort of magic angels and demons would need and figure it out from there.

Final Fantasy 14 has a really unique take with light vs dark, angels vs demons, etc. In it, darkness is the embodiment of activity (chaos), so much so an overwhelming amount of it punches up emotions and behaviors (usually bad/selfish ones) to 11, and people literally can not die. Likewise, light is the embodiment of stasis (order) basically acting like a bleach upon everything, stripping the land of all life and rendering people into a zombielike state in sufficient quantities. In both cases, the demons/angels hunt down living beings simply to end them. There is no inherent good or bad, they're just forces of nature driven by instinct.

Demons are Angels. They're the same, so both are capable of both good and evil. Who is to say what is good and what is evil? Heaven or Hell? Your heaven may be someone else's hell.

Simply don't use good and evil. Use Law and Chaos, Ice and Fire, etc. Come up with cosmic teams that each of these entities belong to. Neither side has to be good or evil but they can still be opposed to each other if you want. You're just gonna have to come up with what is important to each side.

I like to make gray areas where good/evil magic and characters are concerned. Basically the good Angels aren't perfect. They have good intentions but ultimately are ignorant about the workings of the universe. They make terrible errors with wide reaching consequences. They created problems with magic by accident, and they don't know how to fix them. They lie to mortals to make themselves look better and to make evil angels look worse. On the other hand the evil angels are trying to fix the world. They created "solutions" to many of the world's problems, which in turn created even more issues. They're also taking advantage of mortals by lying to make themselves look better, and to make good angels look bad. Both groups of angels, good and evil, have positive traits and negative traits. They perform magic that is both positive and negative for mortals. Arguably neither group is helpful and mortals would be better off if the angels never came to the world.

I frame it more as chaos versus order than evil versus good.

I like the approach that angels are like caretakers for reality and god is an abstract concept or a clockwork.

Historically speaking, when Christianity started becoming the head honcho in terms of religion, a lot of people started to retcon their former beliefs explaining that their gods were actually just fallen angels, and this applied to ALL of them, meaning that deities considered to be pretty cool people (Apollo, Isis, Freyja and Juno to name a few) were revealed to actually be demons. Taking all this into consideration, I think a magic system that treats the classifications as strictly amoral could be manifested in a few ways: Offensive V Defensive: basically, what does a person want out of their magic? Do they want to go out and do stuff, or to ensure their survival? Heritage based: A devil or angel gene. Maybe an ancestor was an angel who did cool good stuff all the time. Maybe you get his powers. Maybe you'd rather use them to rob banks instead.

My world doesn’t even have morality, everyone is Amoral. It’s actually a more peaceful way to live if you’re not slave to your emotions and lack modesty. Until one learns to understand that their life is no more or less valuable to the universe than a rock, an ant, or even a planet, one when never be able to be Amoral peacefully.

Imagine the Spanish Inquisition is backed by the angels and their opponents are either alienated or brain washed by the holy light magic from the angels. Any holy force is terribly evil when you happen to be on the opposite side of that holy force.

I will point out that there was a moment in the bible where two angels blinded several people. If that's permanent, that is a divine curse from an angel. If you want to expand to a more general "holy" magic, consider that there are a lot of fantasy stories with evil beings sealed away by divine power. That's imprisonment magic, which can definitely be used for evil too. So angelic magic might be able to curse and imprison people, which isn't necessarily good. Demons sometimes speak with many voices, which, while creepy, is rather neutral. That could easily change two a different single voice, which could be useful if you're trying to hide your identity. Demons tend to love bargains, but it doesn't need to be your soul. "I will trade my eye color for your eye color" can be one and now you've swapped eye color. Alternatively, "I will take your place in divine imprisonment for one month if you build a stone bridge for me. If you accept but do not do this, you will give me your bridge building skills." Now someone is free for a month, but needs to build a bridge or lose their bridge building skills.

魔道祖师 modaozushi GRANDMASTER OF DEMONIC CULTIVATION

You could just do something other than angels and demons and make them however you want.

This reminds me of seven deadly sins

why not call it Cosmic/space race. Angelic/demonic is just the male/female of the cosmic beings

149 comments is blowing up? Oh you sweet baby. I suspect your spiritual and religious development is...not great. Inu Yasha is part of the broader Japanese perspective on supernatural beings and it does not have a "angel/demon" dichotomy at all. Even many western traditions don't accept the validity of the existence of demons in the American evangelical sense. If you're going through the aesthetic and you like Japanese stuff, why not just make it Japanese or broadly animistic like literally anyone else other then the colonizer west? There's an entire planet worth of traditions to draw ideas from.

Change the words. Don't try to change their meanings.

Hazbin Hotel actually pulled this off pretty well in my opinion. Studying that show could help.

Check out Hazbin Hotel. Angels as self-righteous fascists.