Lemures
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Philotomy Jurament
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Lemures
Are lemures considered devils? (My gut reaction is no, they're not.)
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Matthew
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Re: Lemures
For the purposes of special abilities? I would say not.
[i]It is a joyful thing indeed to hold intimate converse with a man after one’s own heart, chatting without reserve about things of interest or the fleeting topics of the world; but such, alas, are few and far between.[/i]
– Yoshida Kenko (1283-1350), [i]Tsurezure-Gusa[/i] (1340)
– Yoshida Kenko (1283-1350), [i]Tsurezure-Gusa[/i] (1340)
Re: Lemures
I would say no. I think the source material for the monster related to some sort of evil spirit (or lesser entity). Here from wiki (for what its worth).
In Roman mythology, lemures (singular lemur) were shades or spirits of the restless or malignant dead, and are probably cognate with an extended sense of larvae (sing. larva = mask) as disturbing or frightening. Lemures is the more common literary term but even this is rare: it is used by the Augustan poets Horace and Ovid, the latter in his Fasti, the six-book calendar poem on Roman holidays and religious customs.[1]
Lemures may represent the wandering and vengeful spirits of those not afforded proper burial, funeral rites or affectionate cult by the living: they are not attested by tomb or votive inscriptions. Ovid interprets them as vagrant, unsatiated and potentially vengeful di manes or di parentes, ancestral gods or spirits of the underworld. To him, the rites of their cult suggest an incomprehensibly archaic, quasi-magical and probably very ancient rural tradition. Four centuries later, St. Augustine describes both the lemures and the larvae as evil and restless manes that torment and terrify the living: lares, on the other hand, are good manes.[2]
Of course the not mentioning them as devils or demons in the MM and their ability to be on the prime material seems to suggest another sort of haunting like entity as well.
In Roman mythology, lemures (singular lemur) were shades or spirits of the restless or malignant dead, and are probably cognate with an extended sense of larvae (sing. larva = mask) as disturbing or frightening. Lemures is the more common literary term but even this is rare: it is used by the Augustan poets Horace and Ovid, the latter in his Fasti, the six-book calendar poem on Roman holidays and religious customs.[1]
Lemures may represent the wandering and vengeful spirits of those not afforded proper burial, funeral rites or affectionate cult by the living: they are not attested by tomb or votive inscriptions. Ovid interprets them as vagrant, unsatiated and potentially vengeful di manes or di parentes, ancestral gods or spirits of the underworld. To him, the rites of their cult suggest an incomprehensibly archaic, quasi-magical and probably very ancient rural tradition. Four centuries later, St. Augustine describes both the lemures and the larvae as evil and restless manes that torment and terrify the living: lares, on the other hand, are good manes.[2]
Of course the not mentioning them as devils or demons in the MM and their ability to be on the prime material seems to suggest another sort of haunting like entity as well.
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Back in the days when a leopard could grab and break your Australopithecus (gracile or robust) nek and drag you into the tree as a snack, mankind has never had a break"
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Thomas Jefferson in letter to Madison
Back in the days when a leopard could grab and break your Australopithecus (gracile or robust) nek and drag you into the tree as a snack, mankind has never had a break"
** Stone Giant
Re: Lemures
I put them on the same level as larvae - something that can be promoted to a devil.
"There are more things, Lucilius, that frighten us than injure us; and we suffer more in imagination than in reality" - Seneca.
Re: Lemures
I'd say they are not devils, even though they are under the carpet "Devil" category. Unlike the rest of the listings under Devil, they are not listed as one behind their name (where all the rest have Lesser devil, Greater devil or Arch-devil tags).
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An old school role-playing game periodical with a focus on adventure design
Stephen Colbert: “What would you do, when coming up with your character you roll six rolls of three six-sided dice to come up with your character”
Joe Magliano: “There’s a new way now where you roll 4d6 and you take away the lowest.”
Stephen Colbert: “Really? That’s for children!”
Re: Lemures
Yeah, lemures are listed under Devil in the MM because they're part of the "Nine Hells Ecosystem," but I would definitely not grant them all of the standard devil abilities and immunities.
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