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Herald of Ydersius: The Emperor of Scales

CR 15

Chaotic Evil Huge Outsider

Adventure Path: Serpent's Skull: Sanctum of the Serpent God, pg. 82-83 (image from the same book, pg. 78)

"Okay, Lissala I can understand, but do you really expect me to believe there's a god called Ydersius?" You ask, brushing off whatever horrible wounds you were inflicted with when Kurshu caught you falling asleep during her history lesson. You don't see me grimacing in sympathetic pain, because your head is swiftly engulfed in a giant snake's mouth.

"There was a god called Ydersius," I sheepishly correct, before delving into further detail. You do not hear me, as you have been engulfed by a giant snake. "One of the primary deities of the Sekmin, colloquially known as the Serpentfolk. Possibly THE primary deity, in fact! And depending on what you consider to be 'alive,' he's still around..." You are not present for the rest of the lecture, as you are now taking 2d8+12 damage from being swallowed whole. Make a Fortitude save.

Anyway, the Emperor of Scales serves much the same function as the previous serpentine Herald we've seen, Kurshu, in that he, too, is searching for his god. Unlike Kurshu, though, he knows approximately where his god is! Somewhere in the Darklands of Golarion struck blind, deaf, and numb, but still alive in a strange way, still capable of answering prayers and gifting divine power. Between the Kurshu and the Emperor, the Emperor got a better deal, through and through... even if his current state is also a pathetic shadow of his former self. At least his god still "talks" to him, and still fuels his impressive power.

When Ydersius was decapitated and left to die, the Emperor's body fell away from his head to leave a ragged wound behind. When his god went blind, so too did he. When his god continued to live despite his mutilation, so too did he, the ragged edges of his neck twisting into a mass of living snakes. Now this abomination floats through the Darklands like a gory jellyfish, destroying everything that comes between him and his ultimate goal of finding and restoring Ydersius to power and raising the Sekmin up from the dark once more, but every now and then he must pause his march forward to receive guidance and recharge his stores of divine power. Thus the Emperor alternates between centuries of torpor to both rest and receive visions from Ydersius, and searching for his god's lost skull to eventually reunite it with the thrashing, headless, mindless body that also stalks the Darklands like a mobile, living hurricane.

Despite his wretched state, the Emperor of Scales is among one of the most powerful Heralds in the game, and in fact may have once been THE most powerful Herald, as before Ydersius was felled the Emperor was stated to possess a towering, muscular body adorned in golden armor. He benefits both from the two-page spread that comes with appearing in an Adventure Path and Paizo putting some respect behind the Herald of the Old God, and is one of the few Heralds with no real weakness, having high offense, high defense, good mobility, powerful melee, plenty of unique abilities, and an excellent selection of spells. About the only thing he's lacking in ranged attacks, but you're about to see how little that matters...

We'll begin with his defenses, which are actually quite formidable. He doesn't have insurmountable DR, but his DR 15/Good and silver will likely catch the players off-guard anyway, because who'd expect the giant Chaotic Evil snake to have the same weaknesses as the Lawful Evil devils? (and the neutral evil daemons but shhh) Thus, the first round of blows against him will likely have enormous chunks of their potential damage lost if they're not negated entirely, forcing everyone to swap to different weapons or have their properties magically changed.

The rest of his defenses are no joke, either. His numerous flailing heads grant him All-Around Vision to prevent any flankers from building up, 26 Spell Resistance and high saves (+19/+13/+15) makes him hard to harm with magic, and he's immune to Acid, Fire, and poison... but his most notable immunity is one possessed by few other Heralds: Immunity to mind-affecting effects. Between this, his immunity to paralysis, and his flight speed (60ft/round), typical magic tricks that easily close out battles around levels 10~13 have no effect on the Herald of Ydersius, forcing the party to rely more on brute force to deal with him.

Brute force or Necromancy or Transmutation or-- you get the idea. My point still stands.

In addition to direct defenses, he's also got some indirect ones: Acidic Blood and Maddening Hiss. The former spatters everyone who comes within 10ft of the Herald with 2d6 points of Acid damage every round unless they succeed a DC 25 Reflex save, which is going to be a constant annoyance for the melee fighters. The latter, however, will affect everyone in the battle, the cacophonous hissing causing 1 round of confusion for everyone within 100ft of the tangle of serpents each round they fail a DC 25 Will save instead, but thankfully the hiss at least grants 24-hour immunity to anyone who makes the save even once. Get a little closer, and you also contend with Frightful Presence, possibly debuffing the entire party with shaken and making it that much harder to make the countless saves he forces just by coming a little closer.

Finally, he's got both Blur and Mirror Image available at 3/day to just add an extra layer of obnoxious attack interceptions. Pile on all these miss chances with his 3/day Blindness/Deafness, and the poor suckers trying to make weapon attacks are basically never going to hit without RNGsus on their side even if they can consistently exceed his 30 AC. This isn't even the end of his access to magic, just his access to defensive magic; he has both Chaos Hammer and Unholy Blight at 1/day each to blast opposing alignments, and can use Poison at-will if he wishes to slowly, painfully kill someone with Con damage, which is his typical go-to if none of his other methods are working. Capping it all off is Suggestion at 3/day and Mass Suggestion at 1/day, both useful out of combat AND in it to rid people of methods which would impede his goals or harm him.

The usual Suggestion? 'Don't use Delay Poison.' Remember when I said he had no weaknesses? That was a lie. This one simple spell available to half the casters in the game is the Emperor's biggest counter, because if you HAVE it, then the battle with him is significantly less scary. But if you don't? You're in for a hell of a time. EVERY attack the Emperor of Scales throws out inflicts some kind of poison (and, again, he has Poison at-will), and he's got NINE attacks per round, assuring at least two or three failed saving throws. These nine attacks are stacked onto a body with a 15ft space AND reach (mostly; his primary bite only has a 10ft range), so his intimidating Full-Attack is hard to avoid and harder to deny.

His primary bite deals 2d8+8 damage and each of his eight snakebites deals 1d6+4, but every single one poisons and Grabs the victims hit, and if you look at his statblock and say "wait, the snakebites don't have Grab!" I point you a little further south and show you one of his feats: Snatch. This feat gives ALL claw and bite attacks a Grab and a pseudo-Constrict (against Small or smaller creatures for the Emperor), even his snakebites, meaning up to nine grapple checks a round! Snatch also allows the Emperor to hurl away anything he's bitten, either forcing them into unfavorable positions on the battlefield (like over a pit) or simply to deny them their own melee actions against him. Snatch also works well for any flying monster, the Emperor included, and his numerous limbs means he can grapple the entire party at once before hauling them 60ft into the air and drop them for some free damage!

Speaking of free damage: Anyone caught by the Grab of his main bite is in danger of more than just the damage. He can remove the grappled victim from combat by swallowing them whole, casting them into his gullet for 2d8+12 damage AND a dose of his acidic poison each round, leaving the rest of the party vulnerable to a cascade of snakebites and Snatch shenanigans.

This does segue nicely into talking about his poisons, which you'd do well to remember are delivered by ALL of hits bites. Two different poisons, in fact, one for his main mouth and one for his snakebites. The poison in his main mouth is the scarier of the two at first glance, forcing a DC 25 Fortitude save once per round for 10 rounds to avoid taking 2d6 Acid damage and 1d4 Str damage per tick, but thankfully despite its extreme duration, it still only requires 2 consecutive saves to cure... unlike his snakebite venom. At first, it looks much tamer in comparison: A DC 20 Fortitude save avoids it, it lasts for only 6 rounds, and it deals 1d2 Con damage. All-around weaker, right? Well, perhaps you need a refresher on how poison works in Pathfinder: Multiple doses of the same poison stack. Each dose of the same poison beyond the first adds +2 to the DC and +1/2 the duration. So someone suffering from one dose of snakebite venom has to succeed two consecutive DC 20 Fortitude saves for 6 rounds, but someone suffering from two has to make DC 22 saves for 9 rounds, three has DC 24 for 12 rounds, four has DC 26 for 15 rounds, so on and so forth.

An especially unlucky soul tanking all eight snakebites and failing all eight saves would thus need to make DC 34 saves for 27 rounds, each failure sapping 1d2 Con from them and making it that much harder for them to actually succeed those saves to form a painful feedback loop. And this is while the Emperor's main bite is ALSO dealing Str and Acid damage! Anyone swallowed also has to contend with the 10 rounds of Str and Acid damage quickly becoming 15, then 20, and 25 every time they fail to escape his gut! But if all of this sounds scary, remember that the common level 2 Delay Poison completely removes this threat for essentially the entire day, giving everyone involved enough time to patch up and secure a scroll of Neutralize Poison before the delay spell ends and the bitten victim dies horribly.

If unable to use his poison, the Emperor is far more manageable. The individual damage from his attacks rapidly stacks up, but HP damage is much easier to cure than stat damage! All that being said, though, the Emperor still has enough tricks to pose a serious threat to any level-appropriate party. Between his acidic aura, his spells, his Frightening Presence, Maddening Hiss, and poison, he can attack every save available to a player in some fashion. In my mind, all of this combined with the fact that he serves as Herald to humanity's oldest enemy (besides itself), means there was only one real choice to cap off End of the World Month: Heralds of Horror!

You can read more about him here.

#finally my favourite boy is getting his due #yay :D

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