In folklore, the succubus is a demon that has sex with men (maybe women too) for dark purposes…mostly to make them commit the sin of pre-marital sex, infidelity or…y’know, sex.

The succubus has gone from really damn scary aaaaaaAAAA to I wanna do her because people nowadays are degenerates. I kid, of course, as I also wanna do one and I’m not a degenerate.

The succubus most likely originated as an explanation for wet dreams. Yeah, I said it! Well, more like that and several other things…like sleep paralysis and nightmares. In fact, the word nighmare even means female spirit. Medusa’s Gaze and Vampire‘s Bite even claims the nightmare was the precursor to the Succubus. So…nightmares, wet dreams and sleep paralysis.^B)

As I hinted at above, the succubus was much scarier back in the day because sex was sinful and having a sexy dream was something you couldn’t control.

This is a process I made up on the spot, which simply states that other creatures that are not succubi gradually start adopting succubus traits.

Vampires are the obvious example.

I honestly think that the succubus is a very simplistic monster…I mean, the primary trait is sex, followed by dreams…the latter people seem to forget about for some reason. Considering this simplicity…I’m starting to wonder whether the succubus would have died out. Obviously, the idea of a sexy seductive monster would have stayed…but maybe not necessarily as a distinct entity. Vampires, especially the WoD/CoD-adjacent ones, already have many succubus traits attached to them. I mean, look at the Toreador from Masquerade or the Daeva from Requiem and tell me they aren’t just succubi.

I would also point at existing monsters - like vampires - to show that they come in a lot of different shapes and sizes. Werewolves aren’t all necessarily the humanoid wolf thing…some of them are just wolves.

Of course, this does raise the question of ‘if they’re too simplistic, why did they survive?’…and, well, that is simple. Their central, unchanging trait is sex. So they survived because they’re hot and everyone wants to bang them even if that means death.

There’s also something about her stealing children and that she liked hanging out with birds and snakes. Lil specifically moves into Ishtar’s (Inanna’s) tree without permission together with a bird and a snake…Gilgamesh then kicks Lil out.

This is an Ancient Greek monster that is half-woman, half-snake, all cuddle.

I don’t know enough about Lamia to know whether this is a variation of a succubus, like Lil, or if it’s vaguely succubus-adjacent like the Kitsune. However, it is notable that Greek translators translated Lilith as Lamia.

A friend bluntly told me that Kitsune are not succubus or even similar…but I’m including them here anyway because I consider them vaguely succubus-adjacent.

You know what…let’s just forget it. Though the two examples I listed are ‘evil’ and ‘good’ respectively…neat.

Sirens are succubus adjacent for being sexy women and for also using their beauty (or voices, in this case) to exploit men…by making them drown.

Vampires overlap with succubi quite a bit, as I mentioned further up in the article. Ignoring the modern ‘sexy’ vampire, they also drain energy from people…just that they do it via blood (and also semen, don’t ask) instead of sex.

Considering the more modern tendency to make vampires sexy…yeah, succubi traits have basically been fully assimilated by vampires.

Another interesting point that could be made about the Daeva…from my limited reading, I get the impression that they’re good by nature…which is veeeeery unusual for vampires in CoD/WoD. They’re obviously still predators/parasites, but there are a lot of ‘canon’ examples of them just being really nice for no particular reason.

This also proves my point about the overlap between the succubus/vampire that we sometimes see. Here, in particular, they are the exact same thing.

Konosuba depicts succubi who have integrated into society by providing sexy dreams according to requests (any request…any) in exchange for cash and vitality. Or coupons.

This is one of the cooler depictions of succubi in fiction, because it makes logical sense for succubi to do something like this.

In Warcraft, the succubi are called Sayaad. Besides being mostly female, they either pretend to be male and/or they ate all their males, hence why males are rare. Kinky.

Since I’m already including the Chronicle of Darkness equivalent, I may as well mention the Toreador.

The Toreador are the sexy vampires from Vampire: the Masquerade. Think of the Toreador as the precursor to the Daeva…actually, the Toreador are a bloodline in Requiem as well.

They’re being included here mostly due to the connection to the Daeva. While the Daeva are pretty unambiguously also succubi, the connection between Toreador and the succubus is not as direct. Basically, I don’t think people noticed the connection between the sexy vampires and the succubi until after the fact. Though I can’t be sure.

So, as far as I’m aware, there aren’t any overt references to succubi in regards to the Toreador. Though the connection does still exist since, y’know, Daeva and sex.

• There’s something called the ‘Wiki of the Succubi’ which has over 9000 articles^C) and just a short glance at some of the stuff on there already overwhelmed me. The article on Lilith, alone, is massive. This is a rabbit hole that I need to go through at some point.