The Devil and the Almighty Blues releases II, giving listeners a look through the pinhole at a band’s honest, dark and pure expression, drawing influences from the original delta blues via the electrical revolution in the late sixties/early seventies, to the more contemporary desert scene.
Virtually all religions & cultures have various supernatural spirits that are considered malevolent or even evil.
This page was created as a study of how different religions of the world personify “evil.” Throughout this section, you’ll find lists of demon names and descriptions of different demons, devils, monsters, and evil spirits.
Note: What is “evil” is often defined by a specific belief system. One religion’s gods become another religion’s demons – especially as Christianity became dominant and demonized pagan or foreign gods and goddesses.
Below, you will find some criteria I used to decide whether to include an a demon or monster on this list:
Demons and Fallen Angels associated with the Judeo-Christian Devil (either with biblical writings, non-canonical writings, or Christian fictional works like Dante’s Inferno, John Milton’s Paradise Lost, or the many Faust Myths)
The spirit is considered a demon because it is included in a list of demons by a demonologist of the 14th -19th centuries (such as the Pseudomonarchia daemonum (1583) or Dictionnaire Infernal (1863)) or is included in a magickal text (e.g. the Goetia)
If a god or goddess is associated with death, involved in the annual fertility rituals of the harvest, or is a caretaker of the underworld, I have included them.
Some gods and goddesses are known for having a destructive side when angered. They may kill, drink blood, or cause havoc for entertainment.
Some belief systems like the Mayans and Native Americans thought that the destructive elements of nature were gods that needed to be appeased or sacrificed to.
The trickster is a supernatural entity who is mischievous and often causes trouble. A trickster might be a god or associated with animals like Ravens and Coyotes.
Want to learn more about demons within Ancient Judaism and Christianity? Browse sample lessons from the course Fallen Angels, Demons & Satan in Judeo-Christian Traditions or click the button to enroll in the course.
Select Demons Alphabetically » [ A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z ]
Select Demons By Type » [ All Demons Americas Asia/East Europe Judeo-Christian Modern Magick ]
Embodiment of Scarlet Devil | |
---|---|
Developer(s) | Team Shanghai Alice |
Publisher(s) | Team Shanghai Alice |
Series | Touhou Project |
Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows |
Release | August 11, 2002 (Comiket 62) |
Genre(s) | Vertical danmakuscrolling shooter |
Mode(s) | Single-player |
Touhou Koumakyou ~ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. (Japanese: 東方紅魔郷 〜 the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil., lit. 'Eastern Lands of the Scarlet Devil') is a vertical scrolling shooter and the sixth official game of the Touhou Project series. Embodiment of Scarlet Devil was the first Touhou game to be released for the Windowsoperating system, and the first to be published by Team Shanghai Alice. The move to Windows allowed for Embodiment of Scarlet Devil to reach a much wider audience, and it remains one of the most popular Touhou games to date.
After the release of the previous Touhou game Mystic Square in 1998, ZUN graduated from university and the series became inactive for four years. During this time, he worked at Taito Corporation as a game developer and also composed music for various games created by members of Amusement Makers. After leaving the group in 2001, he formed the one-man dōjin circle Team Shanghai Alice. This, along with the jump from PC-98 to Windows, represent a 'clean slate', and as a result Embodiment of Scarlet Devil essentially serves as a soft reboot of the series.[1]
Embodiment of Scarlet Devil is a vertical scrolling shooter, in which the player shoots enemies who come from the top of the screen, while dodging their attacks. Bosses appear in each of the game's stages, and as the player advances, the stages get more difficult, with enemies attacking with progressively large amounts of bullets. The player can enter Focus mode, which slows the player character, making it easier to dodge enemy attacks. The player has the option to use bombs, which will grant temporary invulnerability, clear the screen of enemy bullets, and deal immense damage, but the player has a limited supply of bombs, meaning they must be used cautiously. If the player is hit by an enemy bullet, and uses a bomb within a six frame window, they can avoid death, a technique known as deathbombing. Unique to Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, the amount of time in which a player can perform a deathbomb is decreased each time it is successfully done.[2]
The game offers two playable characters to choose from, each having two shot types. Reimu Hakurei covers a wide area of the screen with weaker attacks, whereas Marisa Kirisame relies on her speed and power to make up for her thinner attack spread. Each of the bombs perform differently depending on the character and shot type.
Embodiment of Scarlet Devil is the first Touhou game to utilise the Spell Card system – each boss in the game uses various attack phases, called spell cards, all of which are given a name.
In Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, the player can acquire points in various ways. Shooting enemies, grazing their bullets, and collecting point and power items that they drop on death will increase the number of points. The power items increase the player's shot power, giving it more damage and a larger cone of fire, and when at maximum power, the player can move to the top of the screen to collect all on-screen items at once. Defeating enemy spell cards also grants points, and a further bonus is given if they are completed without dying or using any bombs. Collecting enough points will grant the player extra lives and bombs.
The game consists of six stages, including an Extra Stage, which is unlocked if the player completes all the regular stages without using a continue. On Easy difficulty, the game only has five stages, meaning the player must complete the game on Normal or higher in order to unlock the Extra Stage.
In Gensokyo's summer, the Scarlet Mist Incident (紅霧異変) occurred. Gensokyo was entirely covered in red mist, which blocked out the sun. It reached Gensokyo's Human Village, and since humans cannot survive in the mist, they were forced to stay in their homes until the incident was resolved.
Reimu Hakurei, felt that it was her duty as a shrine maiden to find the cause of this unnatural weather. Marisa Kirisame hoped that the person responsible for the mist would have some interesting items to collect.
The heroines found their way to the Scarlet Devil Mansion (紅魔館), located in the Misty Lake (霧の湖), where its residents tried to stop the intruders from reaching the lord of the mansion. Upon reaching the mansion, it is revealed that Remilia Scarlet created the mist to block out the sun so that she could feel comfortable during the day, as vampires are weak against the sun. After defeating Remilia, the mist is removed, and the incident concludes. The Scarlet Mist Incident is the first time the spell card rules were used, which popularized their use throughout Gensokyo, and battles from then on also used the spell card rules.
In the Extra Mode, the heroines returned to the Scarlet Devil Mansion during Remilia's absence and found the entire household in chaos. Remilia's younger sister, Flandre Scarlet, was on the loose, while Patchouli Knowledge, the library witch, was trying to keep her from escaping. Meeting the heroines after 495 years of being locked in the basement, Flandre asked that they would play with her, but the heroine fights her instead, to prevent any further incidents.
The Scarlet Devil Mansion, which features in stage-3 and beyond, is a western mansion located at the bottom of Yōkai Mountain on a causeway of the Misty Lake. It is entirely scarlet in color, as is the road that leads to it. It has a clock tower, which rings only at midnight. The head of this mansion is Remilia Scarlet, but since she is a child, Sakuya Izayoi is in charge. The gatekeeper is Hong Meiling, who intercepts fairies that come from the lake. Flandre Scarlet is also in here, as well as a great number of fairy maids who feature as regular stage enemies. Sakuya manipulates the space inside to make it seem larger than it actually is.
Playable characters:
Boss characters:
Other:
In the four years since Mystic Square, the previous Touhou installment, ZUN branched off from Amusement Makers and established his own dōjin circle, Team Shanghai Alice, of which he was the sole developer. As EoSD would be the first release of Team Shanghai Alice and the first game made for a Windows audience, ZUN felt that the game would need to leave an impression. This resulted in EoSD's Western theme, unlike most other games in the Touhou Project which have a more oriental theme.[7]
The Spell Card system, featured in every Touhou game since EoSD, was created by ZUN in 1999 while working on Seihou, and was intended to be a means to identify bullet patterns with names as well as adding depth to his characters. ZUN further stated that EoSD itself was created for the purpose of introducing this system.[8]
EoSD is also the first time ZUN programmed a Windows application from scratch. As he was more familiar with APIs and DirectX and was relatively unfamiliar with the application level, a lot of time was put into creating libraries and tools for EoSD. As a result, little time remained to improve the game's presentation, and ZUN resolved to improve the next game in that regard.[9]
The game's soundtrack was originally composed for the RolandSC-88 Prosound module. The soundtrack was arranged and re-recorded using the Roland Edirol SD-90 before the game was released.[10] The original version of the soundtrack is still included with the game in the form of SC-88 Pro compatible MIDI files.
Though there has been intent to release Embodiment of Scarlet Devil on Steam, due to a glitch, when running the game in fullscreen on Windows 10, the frame rate does not have a limit, causing the game to move at such a speed that it is unplayable. Fan patches have since been released, but ZUN said that he was not able to fix the issue himself, as he has lost the source code.[11]
Speaking in 2013, ZUN said that Embodiment of Scarlet Devil was the overall best selling Touhou game.[12] On GameSpot, the game has an average score of 8.5/10.[13]
In annual polls conducted by the Japanese Touhou Wiki, Embodiment of Scarlet Devil has been voted the most popular game each year since 2016.[14][15][16][17][18]