<<As far as I've ever found, everyone agree that demons in Elanthia are just "beings from somewhere other than Elanthia." They do not carry the connotations from real-world usage of "evil beings" or beings from the nasty side of the afterlife. And yet, there must be more to the definition than that. Our characters call the subjects of the Enchiridion "demons", but the Ithzir, elementals, and Vvrael are simply "extraplanar." This is codified into game mechanics via extraplanar bane vs. demon bane.>> - Goat

This is a loaded question because it keeps changing over time and it's at the core of a number of concepts that were always or have since become totally ill-defined in the world system. What is the difference between a "demon" and a "non-demonic extraplanar entity"? What is the nature of "unholy" power? What is "sorcery"? What is "anti-mana"? What is the relationship between the demonic and the undead? What is "corruption" or "taint"? What is the relationship between the demonic and the dark gods? In the I.C.E. Age lore some demonic actually originated as corrupted souls of our world, the dark gods originated and sometimes still resided in demonic planes, and they sent the souls of their followers to them. This distinction is as blurry in the Broken Lands, Graveyard, and Shadow Valley as it has been with Kenstrom's storylines.

I think the idea that demons are always extra-planar in origin and all extra-planar entities are demonic, and that "demon" implies no connotation of evil in spite of the gods documentation where it clearly does, originates in a backlash to the late 90s period where everything was basically undefined but the world had been built around the Shadow World and Rolemaster documentation where demons are intrinsically malevolent, violent, and unholy because of the nature of "The Unlife." The impression I had at the time was a sentiment of "well, my sorcerer is in Voln and not evil, therefore..." when those spells had actually originated in the "Evil Mage" Rolemaster lists.


(A) Temporary Vacuum of Definitions

It was not possible to point at familiars or elementals and say "extra-planar but not demonic", or the things in the Broken Lands and "extra-planar and not demonic but not extra-planar in origin", or night mares / nightmare steeds and "treated as undead but actually demonic possession", or dark shamblers and "demonic possession but not treated as undead", or shadow assassins and "undead but summoned from another plane of existence." The basis for those arguments was all archaic and anything could really be anything. Meanwhile: The Vvrael? Not demonic. The Torment malevolent presence? Not a demon. Except now it is. Needs a holy weapon? Undead.

Then the 725 / Enchiridion period documentation came out where they were seemingly just extra-planars, and did not want to be here unlike the late 90s when they wanted to come here to feed on us. Then the elementals documentation came out saying the same thing, except that "most" extra-planars are "demons", and that those have an "intense hatred of life." Except not all the malevolents are demonic. Still solidly extra-planar in origin, though verloks are suspect. Then the Dark Alliance time period happens where the Dark Gods are using these very malevolent and unholy vathors, oculoth, and so on. Necleriines are demonic made by necromancy. V'reen morphs replicated themselves from our flesh. Later you come full circle with Grishom Stone making children into extra-planar hybrids, and Althedeus being a "demon" but created by the Ur-Daemon War. The Ithzir? Not demonic. The things in the Broken Lands and Shadow Valley are not "extra-planar", except ki-lin, which were not in Rolemaster.


The Elementals Documentation:

As these planes continually shift and grate against our own, at times they can intersect one another, allowing the raw power of one world to leak into another, and vice versa. This is how elementals are formed; they are a manifestation of this power, and must sustain themselves on the decidedly weaker source of our own world. Interestingly enough, unlike most outerplanar beings, namely demons, elementals have no intense hatred of life, nor do they regret the fact that they have been shut off from their true world - they simply are what they are, and accept it. It is theorized that places of intense elemental forces (e.g., a particularly large, active volcano) attract these intersections and sustain them, allowing a steady trickle of the energy of a Prime Elemental Plane to leak through.

http://www.play.net/gs4/info/tomes/elementals/elemental_overview.asp

(B) Inconsistent Taboo Rationales

If you ask the related question of why the demonic are so especially taboo culturally, the history documents from different points of time support various reasons. In one spot you can attribute it to inherent malevolence, possibly corruption and superstition dating back to the Ur-Daemon and/or the Dark Gods. In others it is that the act of summoning them is too dangerous. Elsewhere it is pinned on the way they were used in wars, or horror from accidental deaths rather than their intrinsic horror.

Meanwhile the Illistim documentation has elemental summoners almost burning down the city, the idea of interplanar bleed through and merging, and then the Confluence almost destroying the world and causing continuing hazards and disruptions over time with elemental invasions. But there is no such taboo about elementals or conjuring them, so it is not about practical dangers. And we can reanimate corpses that act like rabid animals, bringing them through town with no one caring. Go figure.

- Xorus' player

The fundamental issue is that the cosmology has never been systematically defined for Elanthia. Other planes of existence and extra-planar entities are created ad hoc. One way of squaring this might be if the Faendryl use a super-broad definition of "demon" for rhetorical / propaganda reasons, while others like the Illistim usually only use "demon" to refer to some smaller set of extra-planar creatures that are chaotic and malicious, but the term is still a catch all for pretty much unrelated things.

Some properties of what others mean by "demon" might include:
(1) They manifest in this plane constituted of "dark essence" or "anti-mana" if we are going to use that word (i.e. they are unholy, related to the undead)
(2) Summoning them and their presence causes corruption to their surroundings by polluting the environment with that power. (e.g. why the Dark Elves changed physically, the radiation warps/corrupts what is exposed to it; this might be why the Dark Gods really became so dark)
(3) They are singular entities originating from some other plane, unless they were constituted as such artificially.
(4) Their manifestations might have certain typical immunities, like you need a holy weapon of sufficient magical strength or an anti-magical weapon.
(5) Their manifestations are always hideous / grotesque.
(6) Some at least are able to unnaturally hybridize with life, because they can in the lore. (e.g. the Turamzzyrian timeline document)

Other possibilities:
(6) Maybe their manifestation is always physical / corporeal, barring possession or any phasing ability?
(7) Maybe some categories of them feed on spirit / mana?
(8) Maybe some "true demons" are "evil", others are just "chaotic" extraplanars, and others are so alien they are driven mad being in our reality?
(9) Maybe they have some common categorical relation with the Ur-Daemon?

In this case the Vvrael is related to the demonic, except it is literally nothing other than self-aware anti-mana (i.e. the dark energy itself and not the physical entities), similar to how deities were originally defined as conscious nodes with two-dimensional personalities. The things it possesses and controls are like heads on a hydra or hand puppets. The Vvrael itself is extra-planar, but the things you are hitting might not be, unless the Vvrael controlled one. The Ithzir and elementals are excluded.

What's worse with that is the demonology classifications between Shadow World and the Rolemaster bestiaries are somewhat self-contradictory. In canonical Shadow World "demons" are strictly extra-planar. Shadow World is slightly contradictory about even that point within itself, and GemStone III did its own thing on top of it. Not that any of that holds at all anyway, it's just the framework I draw back to whenever trying to understand the historical context of anything that existed before 2000-ish.

Elementals became extra-planar again, because now we once again have prime elemental planes. There's a concrete example of historical weirdness with that, too. Dark vysans should have been what we call wyrdlings, but somehow they got a >desc that had nothing to do with elementals. Werebears are undead for some reason.

- Xorus' player

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>You see Lord Xorus Kul'shin the Atlas Obscura of Elanthia.
>He appears to be an Insufferable Know-It-All.