monstersdownthepath

[monstersdownthepath]

Something I've pondered about for a while now but considering his status and since I've asked about Razmir already but do you think that the child god king of Mzali has a herald?

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Not traditionally. Walkena is god-like due to possessing divine blood and divine power, but he has no divine realm, no divine servants, and no power or influence outside the Material Plane. He may be descended from the Old Sun Gods, but he has not joined them.

The closest thing he has to a herald is his own high priest Zubari, the Guiding Ray, his 15th level Cleric, but any of his Inner Circle could potentially work as stand-ins for a more "active" Herald. Take a peek (from Undead Unleashed, pg. 58):

[monstersdownthepath]

Joke idea for your thing ealri

Death by Heath insurance

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Already a thing!

[monstersdownthepath]

1am inspiration hits me again. I've reworked a few of Vodani's abilities, again, this time tinkering with Happy Hour and Intoxicant, as well as clarifying and cleaning up a bit here and there.

Happy Hour was reworked. The spell-likes that were originally conveyed by the ability was moved up to his actual spell-like list (Enhance Water was removed entirely for a few reasons), allowing me to condense the ability a bit more. The healing he gained from it was slightly increased, but the restorative effect was replaced entirely by a 10ft shift in any direction he wants without drawing AoOs. Since he can do this as a swift action, I'm hoping this will allow him to be a significantly more chaotic presence on the battlefield. The ability was shortened and streamlined, making his special ability block look much more pleasant (to me).

Intoxicant was buffed by literally just a +1 to its ability score damage, and clarifying language was added to convey it did indeed inebriate the victim while the ability itself was shortened a bit.

[monstersdownthepath]

Do people like articles about lower CR monsters (CR 1 through 9), midlevel CR (10 through 15) or high CR (16+) more?

[monstersdownthepath]

Monster Spotlight: Scarlet Walker

CR 12

Lawful Evil Huge Outsider

Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition, pg. 414

These massive spider-like monstrosities hail from the nightmare Plateau of Leng, where they weave titanic nests from the gore of countless victims from all over creation. To say that Scarlet Walkers enjoy blood is a wild understatement; they love talking about blood as much as sommeliers love talking about wine, to the point it's basically the only thing they talk about with others of their kind or even with unfortunate visitors to their horrific dwellings. They love it so much that they have the rare Bloodsense, able to detect even the smallest traces of blood within 60ft of them as if they had blindsight. From its flavors, its texture, its scent, or its uses as building materials, all the way to its visual appearance and composition when exposed to specific stimuli... Every aspect of blood is discussed at length between hives of Walkers, so of course in order to keep conversations flowing, they need a lot of it from as many different creatures and planets as possible.

Which leads to the primary problem: Getting it in the first place. Unable to leave the Dimension of Dreams themselves, the Scarlet Walkers have taken on many curious adaptations to assure they can nonetheless reach into the waking world to bring back new samples for their brethren to enjoy. Primarily, and most mundanely: their ability to bargain with the other two easiest ways off of Leng, providing muscle and utility in exchange for transport. Despite their towering strength and dangerous attacks, they have no true defenses against the paralytic bites of either the Denizens of Leng or its ghouls (nor the Fortitude to reliably resist the paralysis), which assures the most foolish and violent of them perish at the hands of creatures which are still essentially their lessers.

More unusually, Scarlet Walkers can arrange for their own summoning if they know someone on the other side. They can use Sending at-will to send messages across the boundaries of planes to beseech any being they know of to bargain with them, leading to an interesting case where a hopeful summoner and the being wishing to be summoned are working together to make it possible. Should their prospective patron prove to be too pathetic to follow simple orders, the Walkers can also send Demands 3/day to force compliance, 25 words at a time. Whatever the case may be, whether they're bargaining with the men of Leng to travel aboard their ships, the ghouls for passage through their tunnels (which they CAN easily fit through via Compression), or a hopeful binder of the otherworldly, the end result is one of these massive spiders creeping into the waking world to do what they do best: obtain blood.

This is done primarily via their natural attacks, a trio of frightening limbs with an even scarier reach. Though the small central bodies of a Scarlet Walker give them only a 15ft space, they have a prodigious 30ft reach with their pinching claws and lashing feeding tendrils. Combined with their superior speed (40ft), a 40ft climb speed, AND the ability to stand on empty air, a Scarlet Walker can dominate most battlefields with its reach and heavily punishes any player party that can't either force it down or rise up to meet it. Their claws deal 2d6+7 damage, their tentacles 4d6+3, and all three of them tack on 1d6 extra bleed, which will be important in a moment. What's important now is that the tentacles also inflict a supernatural Paralysis, like the touch of many other creatures from Leng, so any creature struck by them must succeed a DC 23 Fortitude save or be rendered helpless for 1d4 rounds.

You may notice that neither its claws nor its tendrils have Grab or Blood Drain, but no creature from a nightmare realm would have a feeding mechanism so pleasant. No, Scarlet Walkers feed with their Blood-Draining Gaze, a gaze attack that affects all creatures within 20ft of it, forcing blood to flow from their open wounds and orifices and into the strangely human eyesockets on its lower face. Yes, those pits are its mouths, not its eyes, which are actually the quartet of tiny black marbles on the forehead. Any creature subjected to the Blood-Draining Gaze must succeed a DC 23 Fortitude save every single round or take 1 Con damage and be sickened for 1 round, but any creature that's already bleeding--such as from the Walker's natural attacks--takes a further -4 penalty to save against the gaze attack as the blood flowing from their wounds takes on a distressing life of its own, slithering through the air towards the nightmare beast.

If all it could do was be a walking Bleed Zone, it would still be a powerful beast, but perhaps one of a slightly lower CR. Unfortunately, those "curious adaptations" I mentioned means they also have a degree of power over the mind, able to blast an area with Confusion 3/day and use Quickened Lesser Confusion 3/day as well to potentially rob someone of their turn. Despite their raw physical power being impressive enough, the book notes that Scarlet Walkers are most often employed as interrogators and torturers by the men of Leng and binders in the Material Plane alike, due to their ability to read the minds of anyone they can see (via a permanent Detect Thoughts), their +24 to Intimidate, and their propensity for inflicting gruesomely slow and hideously painful deaths on anyone that meets their gaze. While suffering from the slow Con damage and wracking pain AND shaken by the spiders' intimidating presence, victims are unlikely to be able to keep the answers to any of the beast's questions (which it's asking telepathically for that extra bit of invasive horror) from bubbling to the surface and being detected.

Once someone has coughed up everything they can, the Walkers are usually ordered to either kill them or shatter their minds to uselessness, which they can do one of two ways, both 1/day each: Insanity or Feeblemind. BOTH of these spells are powerful Save-or-Sucks that boil the brain of whoever they're aimed at, the former inducing permanent confusion, the latter essentially turning the target into a barely-sapient version of itself, and if the Walker is trying to preserve its own life, it's under no compulsion to save these spells for its interrogation victims and may just unleash them in combat to mentally microwave an unfortunate player character.

All this, and we haven't even gotten into their defenses yet! Though Scarlet Walkers possess no DR, they DO have Fast Healing 10 to tick them up so long as enemies can't reliably hit their 28 AC and their tendency to stick to the high ground. They're immune to Acid and Cold damage as well as all forms of poison, and while they have no resistance or immunity to Fire damage, they DO have SR 23 and the Evasion ability, which is almost Fire immunity when combined with a +19 to Reflex saves. More importantly, it serves to take the bite out of the Scarlet Walker's biggest weakness: its Vulnerability to Electricity. Without Evasion a Walker could be annihilated by a single well-placed Lightning Bolt even if it succeeded its save, but this gives it a chance to keep a bunch of its HP intact as it slowly, painfully drinks everyone around it dry.

Due to their Bloodsense and impressive 300ft of telepathy (letting them question the identity of anything entering their sensory radius), it's almost impossible to catch a Scarlet Walker by surprise. Between their Bloodsense, Detect Thoughts, and 1/day True Seeing, it's basically impossible to hide from one. Their spidery appearance and single-minded fixation on blood may make them seem like just more mooks to be dispatched of on the way to the real final fight, but Scarlet Walkers are dangerously intelligent entities which, while unlikely to be the masterminds of any particular scheme, are nonetheless boss fights in and of themselves, ones which impose a time limit on the fight due to their Con-damaging gaze... which, by the way, works for each individual Walker in a battle, something a DM trying to use a gang of them should keep in mind, less the party be drank dry before the first turn is even over.

You can read more about them here.

[monstersdownthepath]

Four modern day daemons:

--Autodaemon, death through vehicular accidents

--Intoxidaemon, death specifically through DUIs. Different thing, and the distinction is important between them and Autodaemons. A single accident involving two or more people may produce both types of daemon.

--Cardiadaemon, death through heart attacks/heart issues

--Cioblidaemon, death through being crushed by a falling vending machine

[monstersdownthepath]

Is it ok i mention The Council of Absolutes in a creation of mines lore?

Basically the entity has pranked them with something that seems like it's a piece of a larger puzzle but is ultimately meaningless. Basically playing on their desire to know everything that can to get them chasing answers to a question that doesn't actually exist.

Is that ok?

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The Council of Absolutes is no stranger to being played "for fools;" I mentioned in their article that they are deadly serious even when doing something as tiny and mundane as examining a pencil.

I WILL point out that the entity pranking them may not get exactly the reaction they were hoping for. The Council is fueled by seeking answers to questions, after all, so a question that keeps them moving is still valuable, even if its ultimate answer is that it's meaningless. The result will be recorded in their archives, and they will move on.

It's like trying to "prank" a human by making them eat celery instead of steak; they may be annoyed, but it won't harm them, and ultimately it kept them going until they could find something else.

I, ultimately, dont mind, because they wouldn't.

[monstersdownthepath]

It's a little ironic that Spore Wars, a book all about the siege on Tanglebriar and the eventual confrontation against Treerazer, also gives us the stats for our third ever Infernal Duke.

Major book 3 spoilers below. Do not look if you have any interest in playing in Spore Wars.

Except he's not really a Duke, is he? But what else could you call someone who's fallen so far from the ranks of Archdevil?

Ol' Typhon should be happy he even retains this much power, enough to still keep him among the ranks of the demigods. It could have been so much worse for him.

[monstersdownthepath]

Would it be possible for a necromancer's ghost, who kept their spells, be able to potentially animate their corpse as a zombie or skeleton?

Follow up question, if that's possible, do you think we could go farther with that idea? For example, a ghost necromancer animating their body as a higher level undead, like a ghast or even a vampire> Maybe have the BBEG be a duo of a vampire and their ghost as an evil duo?

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Short answer: Yes!

Long answer: we're getting into very weird territory with this; not morally weird, which I'm all about, but weird in a way that's challenging what it means to be "undead" in the Pathfinder universe. A great many Undead in Pathfinder have no souls, and instead there's a negative energy spirit animating them that acts like a soul. In a lot of cases, especially with more complicated Undead, this quasi-soul retains access to all the memories and personality of the body it's in, and for all intents and purposes IS that person... except the actual soul is elsewhere, typically in the River of Souls, unable to move any further towards the Boneyard because of the metaphysical "weight" on the other end--their Undead body--holding them back.

Souls in the River are largely insensate; whatever they're experiencing via the connection to their undead body can be likened to being trapped in a dream. On occasion, if they "realize they're dreaming," they gain some lucidity and control, and can even snap back into their bodies... for better or worse, since negative energy doesn't play well with once-living souls. This is why there are stories of rampaging undead suddenly stopping in their tracks when they encounter something that evokes a strong reaction in them; the true soul "woke up" and regained control, if only for a moment.

With or without this weird tethering going on, it varies from undead to undead just how much of the actual soul remains in the corpse when it animates. Unintelligent undead like zombies and skeletons, for example, are no more than constructs powered by negative energy, and their souls have likely long moved on. In some other, more advanced undead, there may be enough soul residue left behind for a reasonable facsimile of the former person to be present, but the negative spirit inside is basically a new creature with some of the quirks of the old. In still others, the soul may actually be present, but warped, trapped within the corpse and tormented by the negative energy that wholly makes up their "outer shell" now; they're the same person they were, but their lives just got a whole lot more unpleasant because, again, negative energy doesn't play well with once-living souls.

Liches get around all the limitations and downsides of being undead by taking their very-much alive and positive-aligned soul and shoving it into a box, essentially remote-controlling their own corpse from the safety of their reliquary... but they still have to be careful, lest the construct they've got animating their body get ideas of its own.

All this to say that your potential "guy who's two guys" (sorry for gendering your hypothetical but i promise it's for comedy) definitely works in the actual game and is mechanically sound, BUT he also has the potential to give himselves some severe existential issues. The ghost could be the true soul, or it could just be some psychic echo or imprint left on the world. Likewise, the reanimated body could house the true soul called back into the world and twisted by negative energy! ... or it could just be some negative spirit aping the personality of the body it's inhabiting. Both halves of this hypothetical necromancer have the potential to believe that they are the Real Deal while the other should be their servant, because the other is just a hollow imitation or "scraps" left behind. It makes for a very interesting and potentially tragic, dramatic, or hysterical dynamic between them.

[monstersdownthepath]

How much damage should an ability that makes a creature like a fiend feel guilt for every life they've taken; the names,faces and dreams cut short of those they've slain forced into their minds and making sure they understand those people MATTERED to someone.

For soul eaters it's even worse as the echos those they've digested squirm in them, attacking from the inside out.

It would be the ability of a Psychopomp Usher by the way.

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Awaken the Devoured, a spell which causes more or less exactly that in daemons, says 1d8 damage/CL, but I think it'd be more thematic if it were 1d8 per HD of the target instead. You can also dabble in inflicting Shaken, Sickened, or both on them!

[monstersdownthepath]

Monster Spotlight: Asurenda

CR 20

Lawful Evil Huge Outsider

Bestiary 3, pg. 24-25

As one may guess from its name, the Asurenda is the paragon of the Asura, creatures who are quite literally the mistakes of the gods given form and mind. Every time a god made a mistake of hideous enough consequence, it was akin to carving a wound into the universe, and something spilled from that mistake as surely as blood would flow from cut flesh, closing the wound but leaving behind a living reminder of the folly. In a twisted way, the asura represent the scars left on the universe from the careless damage done by the divine, something that can never be removed, only hidden and hopefully forgotten... but some mistakes refuse to be buried.

One could consider the asura to be a living punishment, a monument to the sins of the divine, because the asura certainly see themselves that way! There are few beings in the Great Beyond who can walk the walk of such an intimidating boast, but the asura can, and above the rest of their kind stands the Asurenda, below only the Asura Rana in terms of power and influence. A glance at an Asurenda's statblock reveals a truly anomalous amount of power, even compared to other CR 20 "capstone" Outsiders like the Akvan or the Pit Fiends, a--holy crap is that really all I wrote on Pit Fiends? I was so succinct back then. Anyway, even compared to the likes of their fellow capstone bosses the Asurenda is loaded, with a spell list straight out of a sadistic GMs notebook (and the superhuman intelligence needed to utilize them like a sadistic GM), enough attacks for the players to take a snack break while they resolve, more skill ranks than some parties put together, AND whopping six bonus feats to shore up some of their extremely few weaknesses!

Thankfully, Asurenda spend the majority of their existence sitting inside of abandoned temples to lost or forgotten gods, meditating upon the mysteries of the universe (and how best to unravel it) for decades or centuries at a time, but even this is dangerous for the world as they issue telepathic commands (or use their 3/day Demand) to direct and/or manipulate their mortal agents. In statuesque solemnity, an Asurenda may literally not have to lift a finger to destroy a city, and that suits them just fine; they're saving their energy to enact truly apocalyptic displays of disdain for the divine. Anything less than this can be delegated to dregs and drudges. For any cults that rise around one of these meditating malefactors, their figurehead doing as little as opening an eye is a sign that something dramatic is about to happen... to say nothing of what happens when it stands up, and the players responsible for stirring it into motion have its destructive musings put into practice upon their sorry carcasses.

We'll start with a few of the Asurenda's defenses. At their most basic, they're protected from many weapons with DR 15/Chaotic and Good, and weapon capable of piercing this DR is absolutely necessary, because their Regeneration 10 can only be shut off from a Good-aligned weapon or a spell with the [Good] descriptor. Spells, however, must contend with the "Capstone Standard" 31 Spell Resistance (all of the capstone outsiders have it!). Their size means they actually have less AC than most of their fellow capstones at 35, but they don't need it quite as much due to their offense putting their foes on the defensive. We'll get to that in a moment, because we still have a few defenses to talk about!

Though the pictured example doesn't make it immediately obvious, Asurenda tend to have faces encircling their head. This grants them All-Around Vision, rendering it immune to being flanked and denying the easy burst damage most Sneak Attackers rely on (though flat damage from Guys With Swords still applies as easily as one can beat its AC). They have a glaring weakness to elemental damage, with their only defense a meager 10 Resistance to Acid and Electricity and no elemental immunities at all, but they are immune to being cursed or polymorphed, and any Enchantment effects making it past their 31 SR have to contend with their additional +2 to saves versus Enchantments. It's not much, but their saves are ALREADY high (+25/+17/+20), so the extra +2 may be just the edge they need.

As all asura, they are protected by an Elusive Aura, a 100ft-wide barrier that bars all forms of detection and divination, preventing any curious party from pulling a Scry and Die on them... not that it would work anyway, since Asurenda specifically also project a 20ft bubble of Dimensional Lock, which prevents all forms of teleportation and magical displacement from working and prevents the normally-reliable Gates and Mazes from functioning... while also canceling out reliable defensive spells like Blink, and escape or engagement tools like Dimension Door. No, once you're in melee with this thing, there's no magical way out of it. Also, this lock only affects the Asurenda's enemies; IT can freely teleport (via Greater Teleport) and call for aid (via 1/day Summon Asura), as can its allies.

With a permanent True Seeing effect on itself, an Asurenda is free to drop its 3/day Deeper Darkness right into its own space to confound any party that can't pierce the supernatural dark, leaving them open to getting trapped in its frightening melee radius of 30ft (15 space, 15 reach). An Asurenda's numerous arms aren't for show: all six of them can hit for 2d6+13 damage a round, and each blow threatens to stick the victim with a Curse of False Wisdom, a curse that causes the afflicted to believe they've uncovered some deep and meaningful truth in the universe even as it drains 1d6 Wisdom from them each day. While unlikely to mean much in the battle, it's an inconvenience once the battle ends, one way or another. With a DC 31 Will save needed to avoid it and the ability to fling it out up to six times a round, an Asurenda can afflict the entire team with its curse and its damage at the same time, assuring its presence harms them here and now, AND later if they manage to survive!

But it's a big "if." Asurenda don't just have claws, they can rear down and bite someone for 2d6+13 damage. The damage is no higher than their claws, but the bite also injects a poison into the victim that deals 1d6 Con damage each round for up to 6 rounds if the target fails their DC 33 Fortitude save. Worse than the poison, however, is that the bite Grabs anyone it hits, and if you thought these monks of desolation were above dirty tricks, you're sorely mistaken. Anyone who can't break the Asurenda's grapple before the horror's next turn can be swallowed into a gut where profane forces batter and bludgeon them each round, dealing 4d6+19 bludgeoning and 4d8+12 Acid damage, assuring there's no true loss of damage if it takes a moment to gulp down a foe before getting back to mauling the rest of the party.

Giving up a moment to swallow a foe still doesn't mean safety for everyone else, nor does somehow escaping its massive melee radius, as it can still wander up to a cluster of foes and use Great Cleave to spread damage, curses, and poisons around, AND finish off a cleaving bite by Grabbing someone else. Even funnier is that Asurenda have Spring Attack as a bonus feat, letting them skitter up to someone on their nightmare of limbs, bite and Grab them, and then skitter away, dragging them along. This is even more dangerous than you'd think, because they have a decent 50ft of speed... in every movement mode but burrowing, making them TRULY all-terrain but also meaning a Grabbed victim may be pulled up a wall, underwater, or even straight into the air, making it more difficult to rescue them and more painful to actually escape.

While the party should have a way to take to the skies by the time they can expect to fight an Asurenda, the monks still have more tricks. Like many capstone Outsiders, they can use Greater Dispel Magic at-will to strip their foes of any flight-granting magic, and all the while their superior size and reach allows them to rain blows down from above. Firing at them from a range is an exercise in frustration, because Paizo took one look at their numerous limbs and decided to put them to work by granting them Deflect Arrows and Snatch Arrows as bonus feats, allowing them to block one ranged attack a round and even throw it right back if they feel like it. ONE ranged attack may not seem like much when a dedicated archer can fire six to eight attacks a round, but it's a frustrating drop in damage when the boss' AC keeps every attack from hitting and its DR keeps many from doing meaningful damage, and the first one that does BOTH gets blocked... to say nothing of the poor Alchemists throwing their Bombs, because if one of THOSE gets grabbed and hurled back into the party, it's going to hurt everyone.

And all this time, I haven't really gotten into the meatiest part of the Asurenda's kit! The REAL reasons that they're so dangerous. No, no, their melee is impressive and scary, but it's not the true reason they're final-boss-worthy! The impressive thing is that the Asurenda are excellent multitaskers with a bunch of spells that let them engage multiple party members at once... with Time Stop available 1/day to give them the time they need to set it all up. In stopped time, the Asurenda is free to set up all the darkness it needs, pop in a bunch of its 3/day Quickened Blade Barriers along the battlefield (it COULD do it outside of stopped time, but it's more efficient this way), get its Summon Asura (one CR 19 or below Asura) out of the way, and then finally conjure its menagerie of Spirit Blades.

Upwards to six of these blades can be conjured as a swift action, but the Asurenda must sacrifice either its standard action to direct one blade, or its full-round action to direct all of them at once, something a little too punishing to do outside of Time Stop but still possible if it begins combat outside the party's reach. Once these blades have been directed at a target, they relentlessly attack that target once a round with a +29 to hit, dealing 3d6+7 damage per hit. Each blade CAN be directed at a different target, but the way the ability is worded suggests that multiple blades can also attack a single target, allowing the fiend to focus down a single enemy with all six if it feels like it. The blades cannot be interacted with unless hit with Disintegrate or a similarly powerful effect that can destroy force constructs, so they're going to be constant in the battle, slowly cutting down whoever they're assigned to unless the victim takes the time to move more than 50ft away from the Asurenda to dissolve the blade.

You know! Just move out of its melee, through its Blade Barriers, and pray it doesn't just follow you to keep the blade going. Easy!

With the ability to keep the DPS up and engage the entire party at once with a single action, the Asurenda are already powerful enough, but what if I told you that it gets worse? Because there's still three spells I haven't talked about: Quickened Death Knell at 3/day, Quickened Baleful Polymorph at 3/day, and finally a 1/day Power Word Stun. Asurenda are directly noted in the book to assure the total destruction of their foes, and will take a moment in combat to swallow unconscious enemies whole, but if they're pressed for time, they can simply use their Quickened Death Knell to instantly kill someone hovering on the border of death AND empower themselves in one fell swoop. It's even worse if the thing drops someone with its Full-Attack and THEN uses Knell, because it gives the party no chance to respond to the sudden loss! If there's a particularly annoying low-Fort fool around, the malicious monks lose nothing but a spell-like by trying to target them with Quickened Baleful Polymorph; at worst they can still attack, and at best they've completely removed an enemy from combat until the affliction is reversed.

But then there's Power Word Stun. It's no Kill, but it still has a chance of shutting someone out of their turns for anywhere from 1 to 16 rounds if their HP is low enough with no offer of a saving throw and no way to dodge it unless the target is immune to compulsion or mind-affecting effects. Not even the reliable Freedom of Movement can protect someone from the stun! Only being above the HP threshold works to prevent it and only Enchantment-breaking effects remove it, and the Asurenda are both smart and wise enough to hold back until it can be used for its maximum impact.

So, let's see here: Can fight the entire party at once, can control the shape of the battlefield and deny the party coordination, can move unrestricted across any obstacle, or terrain, can instantly kill someone who thought "the only HP that matters is the last one," cannot be magically fled from, has a potent Save-or-Suck that takes a swift action AND ALSO it has a powerful Full-Attack? AND it even poisons? The universe is quite lucky that so many of these Wise Ones are content to spend their time meditating on the perfect plan rather than enacting it, because once they start to move, there are few forces in creation that can stop them.

... except Dominate Monster, all death effects, sleep effects, being stunned... There are a few ways a party can stand up to them, but that requires A) getting through their SR and saves, and B) surviving the retaliation when these attempts fail. Good luck!

You can read more about them here.

[monstersdownthepath]

What would fit a Fiend based on SCP 994- Bobble The Cloen

I'm torn between Sahkil tormenter, Daemon harbinger or possibly demon lord. Something that corrupts by turning violence into a game and teaching lessons that corrupt childrens ability to understand right and wrong.

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Bobble feels very much like a Demon Lord trying to get his kicks by corrupting the youth and fully embodies Chaotic Evil, but if my memory serves, in ye olden tales there is at least one Foundation story where Bobble is revealed to be the Horseman of War, so it'd be funny to make him a Daemon Harbinger with his eyes on the throne of War.

[monstersdownthepath]

Something I always found weird was Greyon's role in the Asmodean conquest of Hell. a being made from a Divine Mistake. betraying their kind to a god and then being able to vore 512 other Demoguges and Ranas and then just become a Archdevil.

it seems like there should be more bad blood between Asmodeus and the Vestlacs and Asura considering Asmodeus and the devils colonized their land and put them on what was Reservations. it makes me think that this is Greyon's plan and when Asmodeus is weakened. Greyon would spit out the Tyrants to kill him.

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please dont describe geryon's role in the exodus like that

A few things: There is bad blood between the Asura, Velstrac, and Devil population, enough that the velstrac fled to the Shadow Plane and largely make their homes there, where they can practice their art in (relative) peace. However, as time has passed, more and more of them have begun moving back, and they represent a notable portion of the population of Dis (in which they have a special embassy that welcomes "vacationers" to and from the Shadow Plane). They're frequently hired to help torture mortal souls, but many of them have begun taking up more aesthetic jobs in Hell. They are welcome, but many still choose the freedom of the Netherworld due to finding Hell's hierarchies too restrictive and their leaders too boring.

Asura, meanwhile, are seen as "subjugated vassals" in Hell, second class citizens barely worth note so long as they do not break the laws of the land. Given that asura keep to themselves and tend to do little bit sit and meditate for years on end, this arrangement suits them, though it does chafe them; the Ecology of the Asura article found in Adventure Path: Return of the Runelords: Temple of the Peacock Spirit, pg. 68-73 states that the asura that dwell in Hell are 'quietly seething' due to the presence of so many divine figures in their lands but can do little else due to... well, the presence of so many divine figures.

Geryon might be playing the long game, as its layer in Stygia is one of the few places in Hell that asura are wholeheartedly welcomed in, but it's far more realistic that Asmodeus has promised something like undoing all the mistakes that lead to the creation of the asura in the first place and thus erase them as a whole (which they want), or that Asmodeus' fiendish plans for all mortal life in the universe aligned with Geryon's goals enough that it was tempted into service. If one wanted to look at it from another, potentially more problematic angle, there's a very grim parallel which can be drawn about "someone who is part of Group A but who believes in Group B's rhetoric selling out others in Group A to get preferential treatment from Group B." It's in Hell's nature to pull up the ladder behind you once you've climbed to the top, after all, and the asura are very pointedly noted in multiple sources to shamelessly engage in hypocrisy whenever it benefits them.

[monstersdownthepath]

An unused niche amongst the sahkil for fear

Body horror.

Like they're so focused on the psychological,that things like it is a niche that should be filled.

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I'm not sure what you mean, considering the Sahkil as a whole have body horror pretty covered! I mean, just LOOK at some of these freaks! (body horror warning in those links, obviously, though one is SO bad I used a substitute image) Sahkil embrace all the body horror tropes wholeheartedly to make themselves as repulsive as possible.

Unless you mean inflicting body horror, in which case, yes, there are tragically few; the Nucol sahkil embodies the fear of parasites and infestations, and the linked Ichkoh above embodies the failure and wear of bodies, but all of the named Tormentors focus on psychological or physical violence rather than bodily warping.

I understand the logic behind it; Paizo as a whole seems to be moving away from more problematic tropes, and associating deformity with soul-eating fiends isn't the best look if it's not handled carefully! Or handled as ridiculously as possible; like with many things, going over the top with it can probably work. Sahkil representing the fear of "being violently pulled inside-out" or suddenly having the functions of every hole in your body swapped around.

[monstersdownthepath]

Monster Spotlight: Druj Nasu

CR 8

Neutral Evil Medium Outsider

Adventure Path: Strange Aeons: What Grows Within, pg. 84-85

These especially vile fiends are one of the many species' of Div, the despoilers and corrupters of creation, and may just be one of the most wretched of them all. As living profanities go, Druj Nasu are among the worst of the lot and are rightfully viewed as living plagues whose very presence prompts the swift adoption of quarantine procedures and powerful responses from any Good-aligned faiths in the area, as wherever the Drug Nasu walk, so too do the dead, their rotting nails and chipped teeth carrying virulent plague.

All Div exist to oppose some form of mortal creation, and the Nasu oppose the sacred practice of burying the dead. They exist to despoil and debase those who are resting in peace, and will vandalize tombs, destroy interred belongings, blaspheme against whatever gods may be watching over the buried, and even steal the bodies of the dead for their wicked plots. No act is too profane for the Nasu, who will do everything from hurling corpses into wells to showering households with dismembered limbs and everything in-between, but their bread and butter of despair-inducing desecration is delivering the bodies of the freshly-buried back to their families, sometimes going as far as to pose the corpses within the home. Families tormented by a Nasu may believe their dead relative isn't resting peacefully as the corpse reappears on their property over and over again, insects begin to fill their home, their belongings are stolen or destroyed, and all their food stores begin to rot.

And this is if they're lucky. An especially unlucky settlement may have their dead relatives shambling back, their bodies filled to the brim with plague-spreading insects and whatever filth the Div could shove into them like horrific taxidermy before hitting them with Animate Dead (which it can use 1/day). Such unfortunates are used to slay their former families, each body becoming another morbid prop in the fiend's play one way or another. If bereft of corpses to begin with, Nasu are quite adept at creating them, either directly or indirectly.

A Nasu being indirect is almost impossible to differentiate from a curse. They can use Putrefy Food and Drink at-will, and are noted to delight in spoiling food stores and poisoning wells with it to force mortals into starvation... sometimes just before dropping a quick and easy meal into their homes in order to prompt the birth of ghouls and enact yet another depravity against the resting dead. Nasu are also capable of using Summon Swarm at-will and Insect Plague 1/day, both spells not actually breaking the effects of the fiend's Invisibility spell, making its victims believe the swarm emerged from nothingness. With its Hover feat, the Nasu can even summon from midair! They can even straight up use Bestow Curse 3/day to ruin a particular creature's life, the DC 20 save against the effect difficult for even player characters at this level to make consistently!

If you think that DC may be a little too low, though, don't worry, because the Nasu have a way around that. Their filth-slicked tongues are coated in a lethal, supernatural disease that inflicts 1d3 Constitution damage each day unless the victim can succeed two consecutive DC 20 Fortitude saves. More important than the damage is that the disease wracks the victims with grim gut churning and a sense of impending, inevitable death, rendering them sickened and shaken for 24 hours each time they fail a save against the disease. In case you're unaware, sickened gives a -2 penalty to attack rolls, weapon damage rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks, while shaken gives a -2 to attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks, and these effects stack with one another for a total of -4 to attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks, and -2 to damage rolls. Someone being shaken also means they're more vulnerable to fear effects than most, but thankfully the Nasu have none built in; they don't even have ranks in Intimidate, for some reason!

What this means, however, is that Nasu are incentivized to use their 60ft fly speed and Flyby Attack to buzz in and deliver one painful, infected bite (1d6+4 damage) to infect their victims one at a time with their disease, then buzz off and hide invisibly until the sickness incubates and manifests a mere hour later. Once everyone is suffering from a -4 penalty to their saves and attack rolls, the fiend flies in to finish them off. In combat, the Nasu will stand amidst their summoned swarms to attack, summon more swarms, or blast enemies with their 3/day Enervation, their Swarmwalking ability protecting them from the harm caused by any swarm. If you think a single well-placed Fireball will dispatch this Div and its insect minions, I have unfortunate news: Nasu, like all Div, are immune to Fire damage, and they have a unique ability called Untouched By Flame that causes any swarm conjured or Undead created by the fiend to also become immune to Fire. It is because of this ability that any body sighted in the presence of a Druj Nasu is not to be buried (as it will return) or burned (as this will fail), but is instead to have its bones cleaned by scavenging animals before being buried while also being prayed over.

Their bite isn't their only melee attack, though. The bodies of these disgusting, insectoid fiends constantly crawl with biting carrion insects, so much so that their two claw attacks (1d4+4) loose these insects onto their victims, potentially nauseating them and robbing them of their next turn unless they succeed the DC 20 Fortitude save twice. Note: the stat for their disease states that their claw is also supposed to transmit it, but the actual claw attack only lists the nauseating Distraction. Presumably, the Div have to lick their fingers before the disease can be passed on via claw attack.

One last trick the Druj Nasu possess is their disgusting Droning, a bardic-music-like ability they can begin as a standard action but maintain as a free action once it's started. This horrid buzzing brings to mind swarms of carrion flies and affects every creature in a 30ft radius around itself, afflicting all creatures with a -4 penalty to Perception checks and a 1 in 4 chance to become nauseated for a round. ANY spellcasting in the area must also contend with a DC (15+spell level) concentration check, or the spell is automatically lost, the action wasted. Who would have thought that being close to a corpse-hijacking plague monster would be awful for everyone?

Defensively, Nasu have DR 10 that's bypassed by weapons that are both Good and made of cold iron, are immune to Fire and poison (but not disease????????????), have 10 points of Resistance to both Acid and Electricity, and SR 19. At the level a party may encounter one, though, its greatest defense is likely a combination of its fly speed and its ability to rain distracting and irritating swarms down on the party, with the book even stating Nasu will not land until it has smothered its victims in swarms. Like with many irritating flying threats, the key to defeating a Nasu is to find a way to bring it down and keep it down... and luckily, there's a built-in way to do just that! All Div possess some form of fault in their essence, a compulsive behavior they must follow regardless of how self-destructive it is, and in the Nasu's case, they have two: They are driven into a berserk fury at the sight of symbology associated with Sarenrae and go out of their way to destroy anything or anyone associated with her, and they have a incredibly averse reaction to the presence of dogs. It's a coin flip as to whether a particular Nasu will be driven to extreme violence or mortal terror by the sight of a dog, but in either case, the presence of a canine companion (or a Hound Archon) will make battling one of these beasts significantly easier! It's even believed that the presence of a dog makes the rituals to cleanse a Druj Nasu's corruption from a grave site much more likely to succeed, but there is nothing backing this up mechanically... but a DM may want to implement it anyway, since otherwise the true danger of a Nasu's machinations may not be the fiend itself, but the wrath of the dead that it provoked.

You can read more about them here.

[monstersdownthepath]

Hey, big fan of the blog!

I was wondering if I could create something under a similar umbrella to your previously mentioned unfinished idea for an artificial diety created by the Dominion, I think you termed it an 'Intelligence'?

I think it's a very cool idea! And I already have three vague ideas that could each be a DI or could be mashed together to make one or two.

I suppose I'm asking permission to use the name and overall concept for a Dominion Intelligence if that's ok with you?

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You certainly may! In my attempts to keep everything from just being an "[X] Lord," I make up new categories now and then. "Dominion Intelligence" is going to be my name for any deity-level entity in the Dominion of the Black; not just demigods, but the powerful leaders as well.

[monstersdownthepath]

Do you think there’d be any potential in the idea of a Qlibboth Lord that holds a particular hatred for Daemons?

It’s an interesting idea to me, but I’m not entirely sure if Qlibboths are the sort of things that could hold grudges.

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Yes. Daemons are the reason demons exist in the first place; it was daemonic experimentation with Abyssal Larvae that created the first of demonkind! But the qlippoth have a much bigger problem to deal with before they can enact any form of revenge against the daemons. Namely, you know, the infinitillion demons on their doorstep.

The average qlippoth may not have the presence of mind necessary for anything but immediate reaction, but the Qlippoth Primordials do, and their newest member even specializes in the destruction of knowledge, hinting that it may one day be put in charge of making sure that no experimentation on a similar scale could ever be done again. The qlippoth may be realizing that ending mortal lives is a stopgap measure, and if you subscribe to the idea that Archdevil Barbatos is a transformed Primordial, the qlippoth capable of long-term planning may be moving towards eradicating free will or even sapience as a concept to assure their eternal peace.