monstersdownthepath

[monstersdownthepath]

Monster Spotlight: Vulnudaemon

CR 4

Neutral Evil Small Outside

Bestiary 3, pg. 63

These especially devious daemons are born from the souls of those who died from a betrayal, their childlike forms hiding a truly wicked creature motivated by the joy they feel when they messily slay victims lured in with false cries for help or caught unawares by their childlike forms. Vulnudaemons can easily masquerade as some form of possession or fiendish parasite inhabiting the body of a child, sobbing and begging for mercy from the child's face while cackling and urging its opponents to lash out and harm it from the bloody, toothed gash across its throat, potentially causing soft-hearted members of the party to hesitate actually hitting it until it's taken them entirely apart. Do not be fooled, though; the entire creature is the daemon and deserves no mercy, lest it continue to spread death and misery.

This deception isn't so easily seen through, though. Even a Wizard succeeding their Knowledge check to ID the fiend will have to contend with its +12 to Bluff influencing the party's emotions, creating hesitation and fear where there was none before. Ah, wait, sorry, the fear is actually being caused by something else: the daemon's Aura of Doom, which it can raise or lower as a free action. While the Aura is up, anyone within 30ft of the daemon must succeed a DC 18 Will save every single round or be shaken by feelings of despair until they leave the area of effect. There is no 24-hour immunity clause on this either, so exiting and re-entering just prompts another save to avoid having -2 taken off the top from their d20 rolls.

At this level the -2 from shaken is actually still meaningful, especially against an Outsider. The Vulnodaemon can go even further with its oppressive aura as well, able to become invisible 3/day to linger near the party until they all succumb to the fear effect, and able to use Minor Image 3/day (without breaking invisibility!) to create phantasmal foes for them to attempt to fight against while ALSO lowering their ability to realize they're only swinging at shadows! Thankfully the Vulnudaemon's only other trick that can capitalize on the -2 to saving throws imposed by its aura is... oh dear, Inflict Critical Wounds, blasting 4d8+7 damage worth of health out of a touched target. This averages to about 25, enough to flatline most level-appropriate adventurers that fail the DC 17 Will save.

Anyone who survives the opening spell isn't going to have it any easier. These child-faced fiends are terrors on the battlefield and are stated to use hit-and-run tactics to whittle down their foes and waste their resources, though there's a bit of a disconnect between their lore and their stats; namely, the lack of Spring Attack or any special ability to actually make this viable past the first round. They also have only a 30ft speed and no mobility spells, so the only way for them to actually hit-and-run is to lure someone in close or sneak up either via their Invisibility or with their natural +16 to Stealth before sticking their target or blasting them with Inflict Critical Wounds before running off, avoiding an AoO via a convincing performance as a possessed child. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying hit-and-run isn't supported by their kit! Especially since the brats have +1d6 Sneak Attack to turn the minor 1d4+2 damage from their child-sized knives into even greater threats when attacking from stealth or surprise, AND every slash causes 1d4 bleed damage... but they're so much more infuriating if they stand and fight.

After, of course, wasting the party's resources with their initial games and illusions. Once they're finally caught out and their true identity unmasked, it may be tempting to believe that the fight is soon to be over. Do not let it trick you again, because these things are as hard to put down as any Outsider, having DR 5 that's only bypassed by Good or silver weapons, and a full suite of protection offered by their daemonic heritage. Immunity to Acid as well as poison and death effects, plus 10 Resistance to Cold, Electricity, and Fire, which cuts most low-level blaster caster's damage down substantially, if not completely. Making things even more infuriating is the fact they can Blur themselves 3/day, potentially negating one out of every five attempts to harm them entirely, and this is after you've made it past its 17 AC and its DR. It has no Spell Resistance, but it's got decent saves for its level at... +6/+5/+6? Come on, Paizo, you know you want to give it that extra point in Dex. Complete the joke.

And speaking of frustration, Vulnodaemons can potentially summon a squadron of 1d4 Cacodaemons to their aid, the bobbling fiends not only delivering their diseased bites to everyone they can, but also acting as flankers so the main threat can add on its Sneak Attacks! Without their Sneak Attack their damage track isn't really impressive, but Vulnudaemons can still make three attacks in a round where most party members are struggling with one or two. Both of their knife slashes do 1d4+2 and tack on 1d4 bleed as mentioned, but they can also bite with their razor-sharp teeth for an added 1d3+1. Not a lot, but it stacks up as you struggle with actually hurting it back, not to mention whatever buffs and potions you blew fighting its illusions, AND whatever buffs and potions you're using now just to break even against its aura!

You can read more about them here.

[monstersdownthepath]

This might seem totally random, because it is, but what’re your takes or maybe depictions of Primal Inevitables, Imperial Foo Animals, and the Akashi Guru? (She is a Danava, I believe.) Do you think that Those Who Remain from Concordance of Rivals are somehow connected or are the Outer Gods (they both fit the criteria of predating existence (or at least, the current one. The matter’s case is a bit murkier but I think it still holds some weight.) Thoughts?

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I'm not sure what the first part of this is asking, I'm sorry!

That second one is easily answered, though; "Those Who Remain" is a group which contains the Old Ones and the Outer Gods which survived the end of the previous universe, but ALSO potentially entities like the Manasaputra, who predate creation and hide deeply within the Positive Energy Plane/Creation's Forge whenever the great wheel turns once more. Since the Manasaputra can survive the destruction and rebirth of the cosmos, it's likely that whatever created Eternity's Doorstep deep within the Negative Energy Plane/Void is the opposite of whatever they are, and are also a Remainder.

[monstersdownthepath]

Do you know how adding Class Levels to monsters works? Both in general and for Serpentfolk specifically. Also normally don't drop so many asks so quick but been on a monster bent lately and part of that is 'lets beef up all sorts of bosses from the Adventure Path's'. I always thought it was just 'take Monster stat block, add Class Levels and Features and levelup bonuses and etc.' but I read that it was more complex than that. And in the Serpentfolk's case it gets even more complicated because when it talks about 'Advanced' and 'Degenerate' Serpentfolk you've got more racial Ability Score modifiers.

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It's really not more complicated than taking a monster stat block and adding class levels/features. Just don't forget that the class' advancing stats--BAB, saving throws--also stack with the monster's existing stats, AND that it gets another feat every odd HD and an extra +1 ability score every four HD!

There are rules that add some additional sauce to this, namely a new stat array (+4, +4, +2, +2, +0, and –2) being distributed onto their base stats, and the reason behind this is to reduce the workload for the DM by simply giving them the ability to, say, add a +4 to a troll's Intelligence if it's destined to become a Wizard, rather than having the player re-calculate the troll's stats from the ground up.

Paizo has also created simple class templates you can add onto existing monsters, such as the Barbarian, Druid, or Wizard Templates, giving an existing creature some class power without having to give them class levels.

[monstersdownthepath]

What even is Achaekek? He isn’t a god, is he?

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Yes he is! And he is the god of the Red Mantis organization... or, rather, the god revered by the Red Mantis. He didn't create it, it just sort of formed in his shadow. Most of his faiths did, in fact, as he's been venerated as everything from a god of savagery, to natural disasters, to assassinations in general! Really, though, Achaekek isn't quite a god of anything, and in general is ambivalent to anything beyond his purpose. Any divine power he grants to casters seems like it happens more via reflex than any conscious action he takes.

Achaekek is an interesting deity, being a god created by OTHER gods (like his sister) to fulfill a specific divine function: namely, stopping any mortal being from "stealing" godhood, whatever that may mean. Achaekek exists to slay any being that would unlawfully claim the mantle of divinity, and he's damn good at it! To date, only one usurper has escaped his judgment (as far as I'm aware), and he's got his eye on quite a few other potential lawbreakers, waiting for them to make an overt move.

While in the past he's slain full gods for some trespass or another, in the modern day he's been restricted to slaying demigods and below... though, as current events prove, these restrictions are enforced by his own will. The instant Achaekek believes a full deity may not be what they say they are, he can and will execute them. This also proves that he's not infallible and can be tricked, something that may have more repercussions as time goes on!

[monstersdownthepath]

What kind of hag might be most suited to lead a very big coven? Was reading on them and realized that the 3-hag number is just the minimum, and a practical # to avoid infighting. But there's no rule that says a coven has to have 3 members, so got to wondering what a hypothetical 'super-coven' would be like, with like 6+ of them, and what kind of hag would best be able to keep it from imploding in a week.

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To this question, there's a real answer and an actually interesting answer.

The real answer is "none of them." Once you go above three members, things start getting messy at a level that's almost impossible to reconcile. The balance is broken and the coven is likely not to survive; cliques will form, devour the others for their power, and one trio will reign supreme. After all, only three hags are necessary to maintain a coven's unnaturally potent strength, so anyone over this number is expendable, and every hag intrinsically knows this, and will be jockeying to prove that they are not the weak link, no matter what that may take.

These problems are exacerbated even further by a hag's own innate wickedness, spitefulness, and ego; many covens are ALREADY ready to rip each other to shreds at the slightest hint of weakness or for the most meager of insults, and the more people you add to the mix, the more likely it becomes... especially when there's a player party involved to mix in strife and discord. No matter the power of the coven's leader, all it takes is a few well-placed appeals to power to the others for them to start wondering why they're taking orders from this one...

The actually interesting answer here is pretty much always going to be Night Hags (Cuckoo Hags in 2e) or their evolved superiors, the Dreamthief Hags. While all hags LOVE to cause misery and despair, they're explicitly noted in multiple sources--namely Blood of the Coven--to sometimes get in their own heads about who and what to cause misery and despair TO, and in what fashion it should be done. Simply said, hags often have so many twisted schemes slithering around in their minds that it becomes difficult to choose ONE to enact, something that gets worse in a coven where all three of the crones have sinister ideas! It's like when you're trying to pick a place to get lunch, but all three of you have different tastes, so you end up arguing about it until dinnertime.

If you've ever witnessed a coven of hags enact a truly terrific display of magic to establish themselves as a threat to all that lives only to then disappear into the wilds to sit on their thumbs and stir their cauldrons for weeks on end, it's likely because they're all arguing about where to go from there.

Night and Dreamthief Hags, though? They have goals baked into their kits and backstories. They're after something. They're here to make a profit. Blood of the Coven states any coven a Night Hag forms is only temporary until they get whatever soul they're after, but a temporary coven is just fine for them; whatever happens after they leave isn't their concern, so they'll gladly form a 6+ coven just to assure they can reap the most souls. Without class levels coming into play, Night Hags are also far more powerful than the average hag, with Driemthief Hags being tied as the most powerful, usually letting them keep their sisters in line just long enough to accomplish whatever they're here to do before each hag's own ambitions start to chafe with one another.

You could also get away with having a Storm Hag be the leader, if only out of fear. Storm Hags are one-woman wrecking crews that can level entire towns with a single twirl of their fingers, and can easily bully weaker and less magically-skilled hags into her service... but, again, this only works while she has some form of leverage over her sisters, because her individual power will mean nothing if the others decide to split her throat in her sleep.

[monstersdownthepath]

Do you think there’s any particular reason that Pathfinder has never had a Kyuss-expy? Age of Worms is easily the most iconic of the pre-Golarian APs, and so it strikes me as a bit odd that I can’t think of anything particularly Kyuss-y in Pathfinder’s setting.

Is there an obvious Kyuss-esque figure that I’m just missing? Yhidothrus, maybe?

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It actually does! He's called the King of Biting Ants, and like Kyuss he's a powerful sorcerous Worm that Walks (though he's made of ants instead, hence the name) with Mythic power and terrifying ambition. He's one of the arch-enemies of Old-Mage Jatembe, though one the great wizard believed he had defeated ages ago.

The reason you may not have heard of him is because, again, he was defeated centuries before the story actually started and didn't have any say until the plot was going but for the occasional sidebar or minor lore scrap. It's a pity that he's dead and gone and will never come back ever again. Hold on, wait, I've just been passed a piece of paper. Hmmm. Well, to reiterate, the King of Biting Ants is dead forever and is never going to feature in any story.

[monstersdownthepath]

Monster Spotlight: Kuwa

CR 4

Lawful Evil Medium Outsider

Bestiary 3, pg. 206

This goofy-looking fellow here is one of many breeds of Oni, hedonistic spirits born from Kami who fail to uphold their sacred duties or become self-destructively hypnotized by the pleasures of the flesh. Kami who become oni often become overwhelmed by the fact they can see, hear, smell, taste, and especially feel, and end up destroying themselves in fits of awe-inspiring gluttonous lust, but those who survive their initial transformation stabilize into violent and threatening beasts that exist purely for their own pleasure. While the Kuwa here is the second lowest rank of all oni, they're nonetheless extremely dangerous for whatever civilization they set out to infiltrate... and for players unwittingly stumbling into them, because Kuwa are an excellent prank for a DM to pull on lower-level parties that are getting too comfortable.

See, whereas most oni take on the shapes of ogres and giants, Kuwa are perfectly fine with assuming the shape of large humans. They can physically warp their bodies into the shape of any human they feel like as if using Alter Self, and use this ability to infiltrate human societies and work towards positions of power... but not too much power. Rather amusingly for the otherwise-ravenous oni, Kuwa prefer working as guard captains, guildmasters, or minor nobles, positions which would allow them to indulge in their vices and wield power over others without having too many eyes on them or rules restricting them. Go too high up the ladder and you end up shackled by responsibilities that get in the way of eating until you burst and drinking until you drown, so the Kuwa are noted to be highly unusual among the oni in that they keep their goals reasonable... at least until they start gaining class levels, but we're limiting our attention to a basic Kuwa.

Given their focus on keeping themselves hidden halfway up the pyramid, a Kuwa can pop up as shockingly powerful boss encounters in just about any encounter that players were expecting to deal with a corrupt officer, sinister aristocrat, or even a common bandit gang leader! Oh yes, that last one is a favorite among Kuwa who can gather together a large enough band of thugs and toughs, as it allows them to live out their days taking whatever they want without needing to obey any rules but their own. That this also allows them to easily start wracking up EXP is another matter entirely, starting with the Fighter that just charged in to try and dispatch the bandit boss in a single move.

Like all oni, Kuwa possess Regeneration at a level where deactivating it may still be tricky for a novice party, especially if they don't recognize what they're looking at. Kuwa regenerate 5 hitpoints each turn they aren't exposed to Acid or Fire damage, and this damage had better come from a mundane source, because they're also shielded by 15 Spell Resistance. often costing low-level casters their precious few spell-slots and forcing them to instead focus on whatever backup the fiend has. Their heavy armor grants them 19 AC which can potentially be frustrating for martials to hit consistently, with their damage quickly healed back because their caster allies also can't hit the thing consistently. Their real weakness is their low Reflex saves... but good luck getting anything meaningful to stick when they start flying around.

Oh yes, as if they weren't frustrating enough to begin with, the Kuwa have both Darkness and Fly available at 3/day to make combat with them potentially go from "difficult" to "impossible" without some foresight, quick thinking, or strong ranged attacks to counter these tactics. Darkness combines well with their 60ft Darkvision to let them stay in melee with the safety of concealment and swing their masterwork greatclubs with impunity, two-handing them for 1d10+6 damage, a damage track that's threatening even for people with d12 hit dice. It gets worse when the oni start using either Cleave to smack around two people at once... or Power Attack to potentially knock half a Fighter's HP off in a single blow. Even bereft of their club, they can keep up the damage with a pair of claw attacks for 1d6+4 each! And while they lack Flyby Attack (thankfully), a Kuwa using Fly to take to the air can still rain down pain down with their masterwork composite longbows for 1d8+4 damage a shot, WITH an intimidating x3 critical modifier.

High damage at any range, solid defenses, irritating resilience, AND disruption... is there anything these guys can't do? No, not really, because one glance at their 1/days is likely enough to make a DMs lip curl into a wicked smile. Charm Person for manipulating the party's less intelligent members (or scheming their way into new positions of power), Deep Slumber to shut down and coup de grace anyone who actually poses a threat to them, and finally Invisibility 1/day to make an emergency escape just when the party seems to have finally got them on the ropes. If the players don't know about its Regeneration (such as if it didn't break its disguise), it can even play dead until the party's back is turned and then invisibly sneak away!

A Kuwa is not a meager threat and stands a full head above creatures with a similar CR, their high damage and high resilience combining with their small but potent list of spells to make them lethal foes for a party of level 2 or 3 adventurers. Their habit of masquerading as the common bad guys of low-level missions can spell death even for a party of level 4s that isn't fully prepared for dealing with an Outsider, least of all one that can fly in heavy armor! A Kuwa suddenly revealing itself may force the party to retreat to get some gear and make plans to counter it directly... which gives it time to plan to counter them directly.

You can read more about them here.

[monstersdownthepath]

@the-game-knight-blog

A dangerous question, because Rovagug is inside Golarion. HIS Sign of the Apocalypse already technically exists; there's a great many planet-wracking earthquakes and storms that can be attributed to him writhing in his binds, and the Spawn of Divine Destruction are all heralds of his eventual full awakening. You COULD give him Eerie Weather in the same vein as the Leviathan, because much like the Leviathan, when he fully awakens, the entire game world is destroyed.

As for the Four Horsemen:

Szuriel: Blood Moon

Trelmarixian: Dry Winds

Apollyon: Horrid Blight

Charon: Dead Sun or the Deluge

[monstersdownthepath]

Hey, quick question: Do you plan on doing an End Bringer view and statblock on Shothragot?

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Back when I was doing the Elder Evils, I thought about including the great black blot, but ultimately decided to keep it to the actual Elder Evils book. I may do it some day, but I've been keeping my articles to PF1e for a while now and plan to keep to it!

Anyone curious about Shothragot's stats (or, well, the stats of its essence) will have to use the Wayback Machine!

[monstersdownthepath]

"Meat is meat" is a pretty wildly applicable worldview. I think on Golarion it would move in degrees much like vegetarianism does, where certain cultures or just individual people are more or less tolerant of eating sapients, and from there the kinds of sapient creatures become more or less acceptable (reptiles, fish, birds, and plants are all fair game but anything else isn't, etc).

Ironically, being a vegan or a vegetarian on Golarion is easier than it is on Earth. There's a half-dozen spells and items that can flat out conjure food from the aether, numerous sapient Plant monsters will gladly share their fruits and vegetables, Goodberry exists... I mean, hell, if we wanted to get REALLY insane with worldbuilding, there could be a brand new opposite end of the diet spectrum where people refuse to eat anything BUT magically-created food, or utilize items like Rings of Sustenance to eschew "taking" from the world entirely!

Was rereading Dungeon Meshi the other day, and a thought but how controversial do you think eating sapient creatures on Golarion is? Most of the 'normal' races tend to have cannibalism taboos in their mainstream societies, but that only applies to each other and isn't a sure thing either. And plenty of monsters have basic / complex societies of their own and are sapient but eat the flesh of other sapient creatures, such as giants. Not to mention 'wild' monsters that are maneaters but are also still sapient, like dragons.

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Sapients eat sapients all the time on Golarion. Like you said, you can't really throw a rock without hitting another creature with 3+ Int (who will then start swearing at you for hitting them with a rock). If you restrict your diet to only nonsapients, you'll... well, you'll probably be fine, because there's still lots of common wildlife, but you're really missing out.

Eating dragons is basically a rite of passage in many cultures, and many Magical Beasts and Aberrations have entire paragraphs in their lore describing how people cook and eat them regardless of their intelligence... but there's no talk of humans eating giants regardless of how often giants eat humans, nor do you really see lore blocks talking about how people snatch humanoid fey out of the air and shovel them in their mouths. In general, I think it boils down to "the more human a creature looks, the more uncomfortable it becomes thinking about eating them."

It's probably controversial in most human societies to eat more humanoid creatures, if only because of the discomfort it can cause, but in my personal opinion even commonfolk would probably not turn up their nose at the idea of eating something inhuman that was still capable of speech, because while such a phenomenon exists only in ethical thought experiments on Earth, on Golarion intelligent wildlife has lived alongside humanity since humanity's dawn, so the culture around it is likely wildly different. Who cares if they can talk, those are just animals! And they're real good fried!

Note: cannibalism is taboo amongst humanoids for reasons beyond mere spiritual/religious concerns, because the act of eating raw humanoid flesh can sometimes cause Ghoul Fever, which can quickly spiral into a whole host of problems.

[monstersdownthepath]

Was rereading Dungeon Meshi the other day, and a thought but how controversial do you think eating sapient creatures on Golarion is? Most of the 'normal' races tend to have cannibalism taboos in their mainstream societies, but that only applies to each other and isn't a sure thing either. And plenty of monsters have basic / complex societies of their own and are sapient but eat the flesh of other sapient creatures, such as giants. Not to mention 'wild' monsters that are maneaters but are also still sapient, like dragons.

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Sapients eat sapients all the time on Golarion. Like you said, you can't really throw a rock without hitting another creature with 3+ Int (who will then start swearing at you for hitting them with a rock). If you restrict your diet to only nonsapients, you'll... well, you'll probably be fine, because there's still lots of common wildlife, but you're really missing out.

Eating dragons is basically a rite of passage in many cultures, and many Magical Beasts and Aberrations have entire paragraphs in their lore describing how people cook and eat them regardless of their intelligence... but there's no talk of humans eating giants regardless of how often giants eat humans, nor do you really see lore blocks talking about how people snatch humanoid fey out of the air and shovel them in their mouths. In general, I think it boils down to "the more human a creature looks, the more uncomfortable it becomes thinking about eating them."

It's probably controversial in most human societies to eat more humanoid creatures, if only because of the discomfort it can cause, but in my personal opinion even commonfolk would probably not turn up their nose at the idea of eating something inhuman that was still capable of speech, because while such a phenomenon exists only in ethical thought experiments on Earth, on Golarion intelligent wildlife has lived alongside humanity since humanity's dawn, so the culture around it is likely wildly different. Who cares if they can talk, those are just animals! And they're real good fried!

Note: cannibalism is taboo amongst humanoids for reasons beyond mere spiritual/religious concerns, because the act of eating raw humanoid flesh can sometimes cause Ghoul Fever, which can quickly spiral into a whole host of problems.

[monstersdownthepath]

How do you feel about the nindoru? A new type of Fiend in second edition.

Their write up is a bit confusing they represent cycles or the breaking of cycles or toxic cycles.

They eat souls but unlike Daemons they don’t eat the whole soul just suck on it a bit and let it go

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They feel kind of like more advanced or specialized versions of daemon or sahkil, in my opinion; they're born from and feed upon souls who've reincarnated multiple times, which in Pathfinder tends to either mean souls that did so little in their lives that the Boneyard puts them in for another spin cycle, or someone whose soul refuses to rest but who cannot or will not embrace undeath and seeks out a new vessel instead. This isn't every case--especially in cultures whose beliefs strongly tie with reincarnation, which the Boneyard appears to grant, and among Samsarans, for whom reincarnation is the norm--but it's the usual case.

Nindoru originated in Tian Xia, where the faith of Sangpotshi--which teaches reincarnation as a means to perfect one's final journey into the afterlife--is common, and they exist in direct opposition to this specific faith, making them a unique case in Pathfinder. Rather than being opposed to order (demons), will (devils), or life itself (daemons), they're opposed to the idea that souls have to reincarnate over and over again to achieve perfection and have torn themselves from the cycle to enjoy this new eternity, making them closer to oni than anything else. They do share much in common with daemons as well, with the book--Season of Ghosts: No Breath Left to Cry--stating that one must choose to become a nindoru, to eschew their potential for becoming better and to revel in making life, and the world, worse. They also enjoy devouring souls... but like you said, not the whole thing.

They prize souls that have reincarnated multiple times, and they cut 'choice pieces' from the soul to consume and let the rest go, something morbidly comparable to a gardener plucking ripe fruit (excess quintessence) off a tree (the soul), though in this case the harvest requires violently tearing at branches and peeling bark. The soul of anyone defiled by a nindoru often become corrupted by the spiritual agony that's been inflicted and fixates on how much of their past was taken by the attack. Such poor souls may turn to darker and darker means to quell their pain and elect to become nindoru themselves.

I really like how they look, though they feel quite close to the Sahkil flavor-wise, up to and including the fact that they are not assigned forms by some arbitrary higher will, but instead choose their forms based on the pains they enjoy inflicting and the cycles they enjoy breaking. Overall, I think their niche as a fiend specific to one faith that's slowly spreading outwards to menace the rest of the universe is pretty neat!

[monstersdownthepath]

Monster Spotlight: Erodaemon

CR 11

Neutral Evil Medium Outsider

Bestiary 6, pg. 70

At some point, every single branch and breed of Outsider realizes that more or less every form of mortal life has something in common: lust. Be it viewed as a means to joyousously and passionately display emotions and form of bonds among the celestials, or as a method of corruption via reckless and harmful pursuit of pleasure above all else common among fiends, pretty much every Outsider species (with very few exceptions) regardless of personal alignments or philosophies tends to have some specific species dedicated to swaying mortal opinions via the (second) most basic desire of all life. Even the daemons get in on the action, though their reasons are actually quite unique; rather than being directly created to exploit lust, Erodaemons arise from souls who perished because of love.

Personifying death through heartbreak specifically, Erodaemons are the hate-filled souls of anyone who perished as love was torn from them. Perhaps they lost their partner to another lover, to death, or to boredom, or perhaps they were injured or slain by their partner; whatever the case may be, a nascent Erodaemon lost someone they once loved and they began to use the jagged shards of their shattered heart as a weapon, either before or after they died (or even both!). After congealing in Abaddon for a few decades, the resulting fiend lives to destroy relationships and string along those desperate for affection and warmth.

Where a Succubus lives to have fun and spread corruption for its own sake, an Erodaemon makes cruelty the #1 objective in its doings. All daemons exist to spread their own misery and death to others, so these fiends eschew shapeshifting into any old Jane Doe and instead become Objects of Desire, their shapeshifting powers tied directly to their at-will Detect Thoughts (which should, in my opinion, be Detect Desires). When they read a victim's mind, they can then instantly become whatever Humanoid being their target desires the most, their disguise so flawless they get a +20 to Bluff and Disguise checks to imitate that person... which carries their Bluff and Disguise skills from an already-imposing +33 and +24 to an unbeatable +53 and +44, assuring their disguise is essentially unbreakable, even if the victim knows their target intimately (which would normally confer a +10 bonus).

While this incredible stat boost SHOULD make them undetectable and unstoppable, it carries with it some pretty pronounced weaknesses. They lack Change Shape and any form of disguising magic, relying wholly on Object of Desire's full-round shift to become the dream girl/boy to one specific person, and they have to make their act work from there if they want to get results! Erodaemons cannot go walking around outdoors in disguise like a Succubus can, and if their disguise is broken they cannot instantly shift into another in an emergency. This is more of a hazard than it seems, because not only can their disguise be dispelled, it breaks the instant they attack any other creature for any reason and through any means, which forces them to be peaceful, demure, and harmless in every situation lest their disguise shatter the instant they so much as throw a punch, or try and fight off someone attacking them! This limits them even further, forcing them to always choose victims whose ideal lovers aren't combative or aggressive and likely forcing them out of any city where gladiator games are common.

They still have things they can do without breaking their disguise, though, such as the ability to cast Unnatural Lust at-will to immediately set up some pretty disturbing domino reactions, usually creating enough of a kerfuffle to let them quickly teleport away or slink into the shadows with their +22 to Stealth. Unnatural Lust is bad enough in the hands of a daemon, and worse still in the hands of one so devoted to ruining established relationships and shattering bonds between friends and lovers alike, but it doesn't stop there: the Erodaemons can also use Quickened Suggestion 3/day to give out sadistic orders or set up a tragic scene (or simply avert unwanted attention), or curse a single target 1/day with Utter Contempt to turn even the most kind-hearted and loving human on the planet into a complete bastard for 14 straight minutes. Utter Contempt is especially dangerous in an urban setting, because it turns 'indifference'--the most common attitude for a normal person to feel towards another in an urban setting!--into hostility, serving as yet another potential distraction or another method for the daemon to force an otherwise normal person into a potentially reputation- or life-destroying situation.

Their most dangerous ability in or out of combat is their Wilting Kiss, a mind-warping curse they can unleash as a free action against a willing, helpless, or grappled target. Anyone who fails a DC 23 Will save becomes supernaturally obsessed with the daemon and does everything in their power to stay near them, suffering 1 Charisma damage each and every round they spend further than 30ft from the fiend that cursed them... which can potentially be lethal if it teleports away! Another DC 23 Will save can save someone from this damage, and succeeding the save twice in a row breaks the curse, but most commoners simply can't succeed a save that high, and many low-Will PCs will find themselves longing for the fiend's poisonous presence so much it may literally kill them. This ability CAN be a double-edged sword, as the daemon has no control of HOW this obsession actually manifests, but it's got ways to keep its victims under control, and most creatures it's going to be using this ability on are no real threat to it anyway, even if it kisses an entire crowd of people one at a time to make them fight over it.

Capping their emotional manipulation off is a 3/day Crushing Despair to blast an entire crowd with sudden, sickening sadness, and at the very top of the pyramid lays a 1/day Modify Memory, a spell dangerous enough in a normal caster's hands, let alone a daemon with a modus operandi as sadistic as an Erodaemon! Whether it's erasing the daemon's terrifying initial appearance before it slipped into its Object of Desire disguise or making some unfortunate sucker believe they committed the murder they've just discovered, there's a thousand uses for Modify Memory... especially when the daemon starts combining its spells, filling a target with artificial sadness and hate via Despair and Contempt before implanting a memory justifying both feelings.

And we've spent six entire paragraphs talking about what happens before an Erodaemon enters combat! Though they prefer to stay out of a fight until they're primed to pounce on a heartbroken victim and devour their soul, Erodaemons are far from the helpless handmaidens they're forced to pretend to be. Their primary threat lays not in their two claws (1d6+5), but the serpentine tail which makes their bite attack, dealing 1d8+5 damage... and 1d4 Charisma drain. Succeeding on the DC 22 Fortitude save against this drain doesn't negate it, but simply lowers it to 1d2 damage. Still, this means the average party frontliner can take two, maybe three good hits from this bite before they're simply rendered insensate, though this is only if they don't cut the daemon down first.

Defensively, Erodaemons have DR 10 that's bypassed by a Good or silver weapon, and a party hovering around this level should have access to one or both for everyone planning to bash, slash, or stab. Indeed, hurting one with magic is a lot harder, as they have SR 22, 10 Resistance to Cold, Electricity, and Fire, as well as outright immunity to Acid damage. Like all daemons, they're also immune to death effects, disease, and poison, though this is unlikely to truly come up... unless their partner is trying to kill them subtly, in which case they might think it's cute. Even WITH these defenses they're more resilient than they appear to be, as they can use Enervation 3/day to shave a chunk of stats off anyone trying to hit them, their Quickened Suggestion to keep anyone capable of hurting them off their backs, and Unnatural Lust to force someone to skip their turn by making another party member extremely uncomfortable... or forcing someone to run up and accept a Wilting Kiss and fall head-over-heels in love with the thing trying to kill them, putting a haplessly smitten shield between the daemon and the party desperately trying to blast it.

You can read more about them here.

[monstersdownthepath]

What kind of monsters are there that are associated with books? Whether destroying them, protecting them, or whatever. Designing a bibliophile Green Dragon (I like the new lore but I will be in the cold hard ground before I get rid of the originals for them in my games) and wondering what sort of pests or allies or ornamental guardians they might have.

-----

If you want to go direct: Gishvit are living tomes from Axis that record the thoughts of anyone who wants them to, and on the opposite end are the Akizendri, which are proteans that exist to confound the written word.

Scrivenites are lore given form, and obsessively catalogue everything and everyone they see, and Guardian Scrolls are often used by mages to guard their archives.

Raelis Azata are the transformed souls of authors and poets that wish to copy and preserve works, and in opposition to this are the Hyakume, who go out of their way to read over anything they can get their hands on before destroying the original to assure only they can know a fact.

There's a few more I can think of but this should be a good starting point!

[monstersdownthepath]

Monster Spotlight: Fungus Queen

CR 9

Chaotic Evil Medium Plant

Bestiary 6, pg. 130-131

These seductive heralds of rot and decay are the end result of a cabal of succubi assassins that attempted to infiltrate the rotting layer of Cyth-V'sug, Demon Lord of Fungi, to dispatch one of his blighted followers. As you can plainly tell, this did not go as planned; not only was every assassin slain, but their corpses were mulched and used as fertilizer... from which the first of these beauties grew. Since then, innumerable Fungus Queens have budded from demonic remains and spread throughout the cosmos to act as the mouthpieces for Cyth-V'sug and, on rarer occasions, his wretched son Treerazer. Mouthpieces and uh... other pieces.

Any further jokes are purposely withheld.

Fungus Queens are boss-level threats on their own, easily serving as the Big Bads of lower-level adventures where themes of corruption and decay are overt and literal instead of figurative (though metaphors still work). They thrive in just about any environment but work best where they can set up shop and be thorough in their actions, because much like the succubi they descend from, they enjoy working slowly to assure the damnation and destruction of as many souls as possible. This typically means they hole up somewhere sheltered from the outside world, such as a lonely glade in a forest or swamp, an abandoned building, an unwelcoming cave, or a stretch of sewer line. Anywhere they can disappear to... and make their victims disappear.

Regardless of environment or species, Fungus Queens have tools of corruption at the ready, their Plant Empathy letting them use words alone to sway the opinions of other Plant creatures, even nonsapient ones. When a more stern touch is needed, Compel Plants allows all of their mind-affecting spells and abilities to affect Plants just as easily as anything else, letting them wrap the guardians of nature around their fingers with Charm Monster or order them around with Suggestion, both of which they have at 3/day. This also allows them the ability to turn away non-Plant authorities investigating their activities, disguising themselves as harmless townsfolk, druids, or hermits with their at-will Veil to complete the illusion, Veil having the amusing clause that the affected smells different as well, likely a godsend for these mold maids. When people begin investigating a little too closely, Fungus Queens can abandon mere trickery and simply take complete control of them with Dominate Person, which they have at 1/day.

One a Queen is established, she's hard to dislodge. While not AS subtle as a Succubus due to the fact they bring infestations of mold wherever they go, it goes without saying that by the time anyone realizes how bad the problem is, it's already too late; that wall's gotta be torn out completely. With numerous patsies guarding her, a Fungus Queen can set up shop and shield herself from any actual scrutiny until her infestation is ready to enter its terminal stage. Any creature the Queen does so much as kisses is subjected to her Energy Drain, automatically slapped with a single negative level and forced to succeed a DC 23 Will save or be bound to accept another kiss via an automatic Suggestion effect and thus get slapped with another negative level. Any creature that would normally die from these negative levels instead becomes infused with Abyssal spores and transformed into a Fungoid Creature (though Vermin instead become Spore Zombies). A DM wishing to do some additional work can instead use the Fungal Creature Template as the Fungoid Creature Template itself suggests, which has the added benefit of allowing the infected creatures to spread their infection and thus the Fungus Queen's influence entirely on their own!

Fungus Queens can communicate with their spawn from across any range, and Fungoid/Fungal creatures can communicate telepathically with one another while within 100ft, giving the horror at the center a pseudo-hivemind and preventing her from ever being surprised by the party's shenanigans unless they can avoid being spotted by any of her minions. Fungus-infested creatures retain all the abilities they had in life (though whether they keep their memories and personality largely depends on the DM, as Fungoid creatures DO, but Fungal creatures DO NOT) and can be directed by the Queen to disguise their infected condition, letting them spread their master's infection and influence even further than she could on their own, up to and including collecting victims to bring her for further direct corruption.

Though Fungus Queens can only control a limited number of spawn directly (24 HD worth, for a normal Queen), infested minions count as Plants and thus can still be commanded and directed with Plant Empathy and magic enhanced by Compel Plants, so their makers will not be short on servants when the player party finally comes knocking. Since Fungus Queens more or less always know when a party is coming without some extreme stealth on their part, this allows them to set up their most annoying ability ahead of time: Sporepod. A Fungus Queen can use a standard action to raise a pillar of fungal matter anywhere within 60ft, and once raised, this pillar stays in place until she either moves more than 120ft away or the pillar is destroyed (15 AC, 20 HP), and these pods act as dangerous impediments for the party.

Not only can they block movement, but Fungus Queens can use a move action to instantly appear in a square adjacent to any of her pods, giving her incredible mobility if she's set up beforehand. Since creating a pod is a standard action and teleporting to it is a move action, AND the Queen does not have to have line of sight to the point she's podding, Spore Queens can do a discount Dimension Door by repeatedly creating and transporting to the pods, but this isn't their actual purpose; their actual purpose is to act as vectors for her natural attacks. Spore Queens can attack with two claws for 1d6+5 damage each and can also lash out with four fungal tendrils for 1d6+2 damage each, but a Queen can also force her pods to sprout tentacles and attack with those in place of her own, letting her make melee attacks across the battlefield if she so wishes.

1d6+2 isn't an especially frightening amount of damage, but the sticky tentacles Grab onto whatever they hit, Constricting for an additional 1d6+5 damage a round... which is STILL not scary, but the REAL purpose of these attacks is to pin enemies in place for the Queen's infested minions to dispatch or to keep them in her 1/day Mind Fog so it can make them vulnerable to her mind-affecting effects, and to waste the party's time getting free or attacking the Sporepods. Destroying the pods is simple (again, 15 AC and 20 HP), but the Queen can make them at-will and takes no damage if any of them are slain, so they're literally just distractions and swift escape routes to keep the party from engaging the demonic fungi in melee, making for a potentially harrowing game of keep-away. A single Mind Fog into Dominate Person may just turn her from annoyance to an enemy that's impossible to defeat.

Fungus Queens have quite a few defenses; even if one DOES get caught in melee or shot at from afar, the attack had better be cold iron or Good aligned, or it will barely scratch her through her DR 10. With Slow available 1/day and impressive mobility thanks to her pods, actually harming a prepared Queen with weapon attacks is unlikely, forcing the party's melee tanks to deal with the threats directly coming to them instead of the other way around. Magic-wise, casters must contend with SR 20 and even more defenses on top of that: Acid and Cold damage is reduced by 10, and the advanced grounding the Queens have going on means that Electricity damage is entirely nullified, while the defensive bonuses gifted by the Plant trait means most reliable forms of crowd control (mind-affecting effects, paralysis, sleep effects) simply will not work on either the Queen or her minions.

Fungus Queens work best as subtle threats that are built up over time, slowly infesting larger and larger areas with their wicked servants before their machinations become too overt to keep hidden, though they CAN work as drop-in hazards the party stumbles into. In the latter case, they're significantly easier to beat due to likely not having as many minions or nearly as many Sporepods already set up. In my opinion, however, this isn't an especially satisfying way to portray these creatures; they're highly intelligent, wise, AND charismatic, so their ability to Veil themselves and puppet their controlled minions across any distance should be used to much better potential. If her plans are interrupted far too early, some contingencies may be sprung: perhaps the most outwardly hideous infested minions keep a 'fair maiden' to be sacrificed to their foul god locked in a rotting cage and surrounded by giant mounds of fungus that lash out with sticky tendrils, all for the purpose of this maiden being 'rescued' by a band of intrepid heroes and brought back to civilization where the real campaign begins...

You can read more about them here.

[monstersdownthepath]

Homebrew Artifact: The Tome of the Deep

Major Artifact

Aura: Strong all

CL: 20th

Weight: 5lbs

Slot: —

This mystical tome is remarkably tame-looking for what it is, possessing a simple red cover with the its title written in Aklo on the front, the words spelled out with shards of silver. The pages are simple white paper that resists all forms of damage or attempts to alter its contents, with new ink sliding directly off. The text itself in a bizarre mixture of Aklo and Aquan, the language being used often changing mid-sentence, and is largely incomprehensible word salads even to those who can read it. It has numerous multicolored ribbons trailing from its spine, ostensibly to aid in marking important pages, but when free they flutter and flow as though they were underwater. These ribbons frequently wrap around whatever comes close, sometimes preventing whoever is holding it from easily putting it down. The book is constantly cold--enough that precipitation often forms on nearby surfaces--and emits the smell of the ocean.

The Tome contains unusual power over the seas and allows its holder to navigate and manipulate them with ease, its incoherence actually a cipher that can be understood with study, revealing the author(s) to harbor a deep cruelty towards sea life. After studying the Tome of the Deep for at total of 24 hours (across any number of days), its powers begin to unlock; the base benefit allows the holder to gain the benefits of Water Walk and/or Water Breathing as a swift action, and they can dismiss the effects as a free action. They also gain a swim speed equal to twice their walking speed, and gain the benefits of the Know Direction and Tongues spell at all times, though the holder hears all voices through a bizarre reverberation, as if the speakers were talking underwater.

After studying the Tome for 48 total hours, further benefits unlock as the reader comes to understand that despite the author's apparent dislike of the sea, they are a fanatical devotee to some mysterious cabal of "Forgotten Gods of the Depths" that lay hidden in the sea's darkest and deepest trenches, bound there in ancient times by the gods of mankind. The holder gains a +4 profane bonus to saving throws against all spells with the Cold and Water descriptors, as well as against the abilities and spells of all creatures with the Aquatic or Water subtypes. In addition, the holder gains the ability to use the following spell-like abilities:

At-will--Fog Cloud, Hydraulic Torrent, River Whip

3/day--Control Water, Find the Path, Geyser (DC 25)

1/day--Control Weather (as a Druid), Submerge Ship

After studying the Tome in its entirety for 96 total hours and coming to learn the supposed names of the Forgotten Gods of the Depths, its final benefits unlock, enhancing the profane bonus the holder gained from the previous unlock to +8 and granting them the ability to perform truly bizarre feats by speaking prayers to these gods aloud:

Atrophic Harvest: Once per day, the holder may chant a litany of bounty, causing sea life to suicidally fling themselves into nets, onto the deck, or even into waiting mouths. This litany requires 10 uninterrupted minutes to perform, but if allowed to conclude, results in the harvest of 1d4+4 tons of sea life in the form of fish, sharks, small whales, crabs, and other animals. This can manifest as the sea life filling up a trawling net or leaping onto a ship's deck, leaping into the waiting arms of fishermen, or simply washing up on the nearest beach. Utilizing this power deals 1d6 Wisdom damage to the holder, and may have far-reaching effects on the sea's ecology, at the DMs discretion.

Banish: Once per day, the holder may utter a word that inspires mortal terror in sea life as a full-round action. All creatures with the Aquatic or Water subtype within 300ft of the holder hear this word regardless of intervening barriers, and become panicked for 1 minute upon hearing it, attempting to flee the holder as swiftly as they can via whatever means they possibly can. Utilizing this power deals 1d6 Wisdom damage to the holder, and prevents them from speaking at all for one hour.

Cruel Drive: The holder may chant a litany of haste from the Tome while standing on the deck of a ship. So long as the holder maintains their chant, the ship's speed is doubled, it ignores the sinking condition, it takes no penalties for moving against the wind, and it ignores penalties it would take for operating at half crew capacity. Performing this litany requires the holder's full concentration; they cannot take any actions but to chant, or the litany ends. Each minute (minimum 1) the holder maintains the chant, they take 1 Wisdom damage. Whenever the litany ends, this ability cannot be used again for 1d4 hours.

Dredge: The holder may pull treasures from the bottom of the ocean. Once per day over the course of 1 hour, the holder may produce 500gp x their own HD worth of valuables by sitting within 100ft of the shoreline and chanting, the valuables washing ashore with every toss of the waves. These valuables take the shape of coins, gems, art objects, and other tradable goods lost to the tides. At the DMs discretion, the holder may request a specific object that was lost to see be returned to them with this power. Once this action has been performed, it cannot be performed within one mile of the previous location until 30 days have passed. Utilizing this power inflicts 1d6 Wisdom damage to the user.

Vengeance of the Deep: Once per day, the holder may cast Vortex, Seamantle, OR Tsunami as a spell-like ability.

At the DMs discretion, further research may yield powers ever stranger, including details of the rituals needed to release the Forgotten Gods.

Curse: The Tome of the Deep possesses a powerful curse and a vengeful, malevolent, alien will of its own. A holder that has unlocked even the basic powers of the Tome becomes unwilling to part with it, utilizing all of their strength and resources to retain possession of it. Similarly, the cursed holder becomes unwilling to travel further than 1 mile per HD they possess from the nearest shore, becoming compelled by an irremovable Geas to return to the sea if they do as the blasphemous gods call for them. No ability score damage caused to the holder by utilizing the Tome's power can be healed through any means for 24 hours after sustaining it. All creatures with the Aquatic or Water subtypes can sense the Tome's malevolent presence from up to 100ft away, and their attitude to the holder drops two stages and cannot be improved past "indifferent" through nonmagical means. Finally, a dread fog follows the holder wherever they may go, rolling in every night from the sea to surround the holder in a roughly 5 mile radius. This fog is mundane in most respects, but eerie shapes, disconcerting sounds, and bizarre scents often emanate from it; this stimulus can be experienced by every creature in the area, not just the holder. This dread fog is not directly dangerous beyond the hazards it creates by obscuring sight, but at the DMs discretion, its distressing emanations may have a deleterious effect on the populace experiencing it.

Destruction: The Tome of the Deep can be destroyed in one of two ways: the final death of all the forgotten gods, or if the Tome is consumed by a Colossal creature that is both Mythic and possesses the Aquatic or Water subtypes. This creature must then swim to the bottom of the ocean and remain there until the Tome is completely digested, which takes many years. When the Tome is finally destroyed, the creature that swallowed it irreversibly slain as well.

[monstersdownthepath]

So far sm Empyreal Lord I have I wanna have feedback on an ability for him.

A once a day 60 foot sphere that lasts for one minute.

It's called Send In The Clowns.

Just imagine, the Empyreal Lord snaps his fingers and suddenly,circus music begins playing and then the clowns arrive; robes/cloaks etc are lifted up as though the clowns were under it the whole time. Trees split open to have clowns pouring out like a clown car. A group 3 high on each other's shoulders emerges from under someone's hat. One pops up from the ground like he took that wrong turn at Albuquerque. Once they are assembled, the buffoonery begins. Allies have total concealment because of the clowny chaos, while enemies can't concentrate unless they're deaf because of the blaring music and have to make a reflex save to do any complex action like spellcasting,as to avoid pies to the face.

After the effect ends the clowns all burst in a spray of glitter so thick visibility becomes 0 for a round.

Too much?

------

[menacing honking growing closer and closer]

It's cute! Though you could probably get a lot of mileage out of modeling it more after Mad Monkeys.