Warriors Daemons!

[TheMajesticWhite]

Warrior Cat Daemons!

I don't expect all of you will know what daemons are; in fact, I think hardly anyone will. Below is some information on daemons. If you already know about them, feel free to skip the text below.

I'll be talking about two different kinds of daemons; one from Philip Pullman's series His Dark Materials; the other what daemons are in real life. However, this thread is mostly for HDM daemons; those that are corporeal and can be seen and heard by others.
HDM Daemons
A dæmon /ˈdiːmən/ is a type of fictional being in the Philip Pullman fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials. Dæmons are the external physical manifestation of a person's 'inner-self' that takes the form of an animal. Dæmons have human intelligence, are capable of human speech—regardless of the form they take—and usually behave as though they are independent of their humans. Pre-pubescent children's dæmons can change form voluntarily, almost instantaneously, to become any creature, real or imaginary. During their adolescence a person's dæmon undergoes "settling", an event in which that person's dæmon permanently and involuntarily assumes the form of the animal which the person most resembles in character. Dæmons are usually of the opposite sex to their human, though same-sex dæmons do exist.
Although dæmons mimic the appearance and behaviour of the animals they resemble perfectly, dæmons are not true animals, and humans, other dæmons, and true animals are able to distinguish them on sight. The faculty or quality that makes this possible is not explained in the books, but it is demonstrated extensively, and is reliable enough to allow humans to distinguish a bird-shaped dæmon within a flock of birds in flight.
Dæmons frequently interact with each other in ways that mirror the behaviour of their humans, such as fighting one another when their humans are fighting, or nuzzling one another when their humans embrace, and such contact between dæmons is unremarkable. However, human contact with another individual's dæmon is taboo.
-Wikipedia

Real-Life Daemons
In the best selling trilogy His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman, dæmons are undoubtedly an element which make his story leap off the page and stick with its readers. In the protagonist's world, everyone has a dæmon. They are the person's soul in animal form... a shape-shifting companion who eventually settles into one form to symbolically represent their human's nature. They give advice, they chastise bad decisions, they offer unwavering comfort and support. They can be anything from a butterfly to a wolf to a dolphin. If this bond were somehow severed, their human would become a shell of their former self.

So, what are dæmons to us? Clearly we don't have a corporeal familiar following us around, flickering from one form to the next in the blink of an eye. Those of us who call ourselves "dæmians" have taken Pullman's wonderful dæmon concept and turned it into a fun - and even useful - mental construct. For us, dæmons are a part of our consciousness that we've assigned a name, gender, and symbolic animal form. They're glorified imaginary friends that act as the other side of our mental dialogue - sometimes being the voice of reason, devil's advocate, or just a friend. (Heck, today my dæmon gave me fashion advice!) Simply put, dæmons play the role of constant mental companion. Yours might be the silent type or they might never shut up. It depends entirely on what works for you. For some of us the "mental dialogue" part comes naturally, and for others it simply doesn't interest them.

Why have a dæmon if you don't talk to them? Well, dæmonism is more than just a way to organize your thoughts. The other side of the coin is the form finding aspect. Through systematic analysis of an animals' behaviors we interpret them into personality characteristics, hoping to find the one that best describes us, i.e. our "settled form." For example, someone with a wolf dæmon should be social, loyal, and conflict avoidant. Someone with a weasel dæmon would likely be introverted, secretive, and curious by nature. A crow would be bold, playful, and opportunistic.

Not everyone agrees on what settledom entails (or if it's even psychologically possible), but essentially it is the state of reaching a fixed personality in late adolescence to early adulthood. As children we're like clay - constantly being molded and influenced by every new experience - but eventually we settle into our adult personalities that are unlikely to change in any dramatic way. Are you stubborn, passive, extroverted, blunt? Whichever traits define you should be reflected in the settled form.

To be clear, the settled form does not just describe your temperament or level of sociability. A well fitting form will explain your way of approaching stressful situations, your work habits, odd quirks, level of assertiveness, and the list goes on. Form finding is essentially a personality typing system along the same lines as Enneagram or MBTI, except the possible outcomes are as numerous as the number of animals on Earth.

That, my friends, is dæmons in a nutshell: Mental constructs which take a symbolic animal form.
-Daemon Page



Now, the purpose of this thread is to discuss what daemons would be like in Warriors. What characters would have which settled form? How would daemons existing in Warriors change stuff? How would battles/wars/skirmishes change if daemons are taken into account (and something to note; if someone's daemon is hurt, the person/cat/whatever is too, if the person is hurt, the daemon is hurt, and if one dies, they both die)? How would ceremonies change? How would traditions change?

(By the way, I'd recommend checking this out when considering settled forms of characters; and be prepared to do a lot of hard thinking and looking rrrreeeeaaaallllllllyyyy deep into different characters' personalities! Determining a settled form isn't something that should be done quickly and with little thought; I'd say it'd take at least a couple of hours, seeing how you need to look deeper into the personalities, thought processes, and reasonings of someone that isn't you, and there are so many different choices!
And here's something to note that's really important: Don't pick an animal as a character's settled form because of stereotypical traits; ex. foxes are cunning, owls are wise. That would be considered a Pullman form, which you can do if you want, but the main thing we're looking for are analytical forms.
Also: Don't pick the first form you look at and decide that's "Good enough". Look at other forms; delve in deep! Chances are you'll find a better form for that character.)

[TheMajesticWhite]

Bump~