#aroggus

[dailycharacteroption]

Deity Drop 5: Aroggus

With today’s entry, this week’s special continues to be about the lawful evil side, but unlike yesterday this one does not seem to be any reference to any real-world mythology as far as I can tell.

Today, we are looking at our first velstrac demagogue, in fact, today’s subject is in fact the first of the demagogues, and is also the first velstrac period!

Originally called Kyton Demagogues before Paizo renamed kytons to velstracs for legal reasons and retconned kyton to a misnomer meaning “grand master”, demagogues are powerful demigods among their kind, truly worthy of the title of “kyton”

Aroggus, along with all velstracs that came after, were originally from Hell, but left it when Asmodeus and his devils colonized the plane, immigrating to the Plane of Shadow where they could hone their pursuit of blood-drenched perfection in relative peace.

According to velstrac lore, Aroggus was born from the depraved thoughts of mortals long before Asmodeus ever set foot in Hell, and when the gods realized his power, they bound him in chains and left him to rot. Eventually he tore free, but was bound again. The next time he broke free, he accepted his chains as part of himself, making them his own, unable to be bound by them again. He then created his lesser kin from the very flesh of Hell itself, and when the Asura Rana Geryon betrayed his own kin for Asmodeus, Aroggus took his kin with him into the shadows rather than be subjugated by the ruler of devils (with a little help from Doloras, one of the Queens of Night). There in the shadows, he shed his physical form to become one with the abbey fortress he built.

All of these events taught Aroggus lessons which have become central to the worldview of all velstracs, that pain is a reward, willpower makes one strong, and that perfection must be forced upon those that lack the understanding to chase it willingly. You can probably see how they became the sadistic monsters they are today.

Aroggus long ago shed his physical form to become one with his realm, the Abbey of Nevers. However, he can inhabit a suit of armor as a shadowy mass when he needs to leave for whatever reason, wielding his mighty warhammer that he took with him in the exodus from Hell.

The Abbey of Nevers itself was a shadowy parody of a temple with an ever-shifting interior that Aroggus created to hide his people from devilkind. While most velstracs have left now that they no longer fear devils, some remain, as does Aroggus, having transcended his material form to become the Abbey itself, always being a safe place that the velstracs can return to. There, he broods and plans his revenge against Asmodeus, Geryon, and all devilkind.

With his focus on revenge, the Abbey Maker attracts faithful that are consumed with thoughts of revenge to the point of being willing to use any tactic no matter how depraved. He offers protection to those seeking such revenge, giving them time to plan and plot until they are ready to enact their vengeance. As such, the only long-term cults of Aroggus are composed of member whose revenge has no clear defined goal or is targeted against entire demographics.

As the first velstrac, Aroggus hates Asmodeus and Geryon in particular, though her perhaps may have mixed feelings towards Doloras. Meanwhile, he likely holds disdain towards more chaotic gods, and malicious indifference towards goodly gods.

Futhermore, as the first of his kind, the Abbey Maker can command the loyalty of nearly every velstrac, and at least expect the other demagogues to hear him out when he requires something of them.

Naturally, Aroggus holds sway over the Evil, Law, Protection, and Trickery domains, with the Deception, Defense, Fear, and Tyranny subdomains, all reflecting his role as the father and protector of the velstracs and the cunning planner and ruler of his domain.

Aroggus hasn’t been focused on in Second Edition, so sadly his domains aren’t detailed in that system. More time is required.

As a lesser power, his obedience only grants minor powers. In this case, the devotee must list every person that ever wronged them until the page is full and then consume the page. In return, they gain resistance to magic that compels behavior. Additionally, they gain a handful of spells, namely magic to hide themselves from magical detection, trap foes in magical force, or even imprison a target within the earth.

Aroggus has been mentioned in Starfinder, as his teachings are heavily detailed as part of the Signal of Screams AP. In that era, he acts much as he always has, though his followers benefit from all sorts of technology in their plots to enact revenges reflecting the thousand fantasized revenges that Aroggus indulges in.

[eurekq]

If Cascade could visit one place, where would that be?

as cheesy as it sounds cascade would like to have a home. Like a real, proper home that she owns where everything in it is hers. she grew up with pretty much everything she owned being on her person, and even drezen never really felt like a home to her, what with all the hostility before she abandoned her demon powers and her gnawing sense of unease with the amount of power and thus consequences being put on her shoulders. I don't think she truly gets that until later in life, when her and woljifs first (and 100% accidental) kid is like 12-ish and they realize that their wandering mercenary thing they have going on kind of fucked him up (this is anarchy. you may have seen him before) and is kind of long term untenable and theyre going to have to actually grow up eventually. that's when they get an actual house (probably not in mendev) and set themselves up as nouveau riche (this is when clarabelle happens)

anyways this wasn't actually an answer to the question you asked now that I think about it. For an actual physical location rather than a concept? Since her parents do actually try to unsuccessfully claim her when she's at the height of her fame directly after the end of the game (before she fucks off and isn't heard from by mendev for like a decade) I can see her really wanting to go to the shadow plane to talk with aroggus and try to find her siblings.

[monstersdownthepath]

So what are the Velstrac?

Before we get into our impromptu Theme Month, how about we take a look at its subject?

The Velstrac, also known as the Kyton to most mortals, are the debased and detached rulers of the Plane of Shadow. As many know them, they are kidnappers, torturers, sadists, and madmen. In reality... this is almost entirely correct, though not without a sufficiently twisted reason.

The first of the velstrac were born from the debased and selfish thoughts of mortalkind, their appearance and mannerisms so disgusting and vile that the gods collectively agreed to chain them as deeply in Hell as they possibly could in a manner similar to how they handled their wayward Titans. Like all things shunned, imprisoned, and abandoned by the gods, though, they eventually broke free... or, depending on what accounts you believe, were freed by Doloras, Our Lady in Pain, or followed in the footsteps of Aroggus, one of their own, as he fled (though the current “accepted” theory combines both). They took up residence in the Plane of Shadow, called to it by the darkness... and, perhaps, the echoes of madness emanating from the prison of Zon-Kuthon, the god of pain, envy, and loss.

The velstrac’s presence in the Plane of Shadow does not predate Zon-Kuthon’s imprisonment, but they do predate his release quite considerably. Having been freed a mere 10,000 years ago, Zon-Kuthon has nonetheless quickly made a name for himself among the like-minded fans of torture and sadomasochism, establishing him as their greatest visionary in the arts of drawing screams from hapless victims.

But what are they?

Velstrac are artists

To know what they are, one must understand their drive: Unlike other Lawful Evil fiends (like the devils they share borders and towns with), the primary motivation for the velstrac as a whole isn’t conquest. Instead, they embody the Law in Lawful Evil via the enforcement of their will on the universe... their aesthetic will. In their own twisted ways, each velstrac wishes to create, but their chosen medium is living flesh, and they often create by destroying. As it goes, they quickly hit walls when it comes to butchering themselves into new and novel shapes, and turn their knives outwards in search of others to practice on. Whether it’s searching for a specific type of pain, finding the perfect pitch in their screaming, reshaping their mind with prolonged mental torture, or the reshaping of the victim’s flesh altogether, each velstrac wishes to bring terrible harm upon others until the others are transformed into something more befitting of the shadowy fiend’s tastes.

Velstrac are scattered

On an individual scale, velstrac rarely make long-term plans, preferring instead to chase their inspiration and hone their skills on whatever fools manage to catch their attention. They are largely isolated creatures, like daemons, each working on their own personal projects and collaborating only if their ideas cross over with one another. They possess a very loose hierarchy and no true government, though the highest echelons of this hierarchy is occupied by the Demagogues, whose works are entirely comprised of new and esoteric forms of suffering. They do not lead so much as hold sway over a large collection of fanatic fans, many of which hoping to impress their favorite artist, or play some part in their next project, one way or another. If anyone among this fiendish race is going to be concocting a century-spanning plot with world-shaking implications, it’s going to be a Demagogue hoping to unveil their new magnum opus or chase an avant-garde idea to its most destructive conclusion.

The most unified group of velstrac are the ones who serve Zon-Kuthon, working to increase their fel god’s power and influence in the worlds beyond their darkened plane and bring him souls to enact his depredations upon.

Velstrac are devilish

In many senses, the velstrac share more than hellish origins with the devils. They, too, transform mortal souls into more of their own through prolonged and excruciating torture, though they do so on a 1:1 basis, one of the few fiendish races to be able to do so besides the demons... were it not for the acceptable losses during the transformation process, assuring they don’t become as numerous as the demons have. Lacking the mechanisms of Hell to harvest souls for them, velstrac must seek out like-minded souls to undergo the hideous process of transforming them, and will go to any length to get such souls into the Plane of Shadow so no other afterlife can claim them... but because the depraved and masochistic are slated to become new members of their kind, that means they must go elsewhere to find materials to actually work with and hone their crafts.

Enter the shadowy bargains and mercenary work.

Like all Outsiders, velstrac can be called via magic or by frantic prayer. However, they can--and do--offer their services to sadists and monsters who can assure them a steady supply of flesh and blood to work upon, entering unofficial contracts they respect to the letter due to their Lawful nature (an especially enterprising velstrac may get a devil to pen the contract for them, enforcing it with Hell’s power). Poor and unfortunate captured souls are tormented in life and, if the velstrac has its way, long after their death, the horrors arranging for the gutted but still-living carcass to be transported to the Plane of Shadow so their brethren can pounce upon their soul the instant they finally die to continue their work, no longer constrained by the limits of flesh. This assures at least two souls: the victim, stolen from the cycle of souls, and the one who signed the pact, condemned to the Plane of Shadow to be transformed.

They possess physical similarities as well; like devils, silver is the most effective weapon against the velstrac. Silver weapons bypass their Damage Reduction, and the Regeneration possessed even by the least of their kind (necessary to survive the wounds they often and eagerly inflict on themselves) is suppressed primarily by damage from silver weapons, though most of them can also be harmed by Good-aligned spells and weapons.

[dailycharacteroption]

Planar Tour Guide: The Plane of Shadow part 2

(art by Remi Portmann on Artstation)

Geography

True to it’s name, the Plane of Shadow, or Netherworld, if you prefer, is a place of darkness, varying by a vague twilight and complete pitch blackness. When there is light, the source isn’t discernable, and the shadows of objects regularly shift and twist like black fingers reaching out from their source. Indeed, that alone makes the plane a forboding and unsettling place for daylighters, but that is just the beginning.

The terrain of the plane is, as we mentioned yesterday, a twisted, (albeit truncated) reflection of the material plane. You might recognized the edge of a shoreline or the presence of a familiar city, but the plane of shadow has a way of warping everything familiar. Cities appear as the most sinister version of themselves, their monuments inverted in strange ways or made all the more forboding and oppressive. Places of terrible happenstance become pocket nightmares inhabited by strange shadowy beings that might reflect those terrible deeds, or just as likely were moved into the way that Material Planes monsters move into abandoned dungeons and cave networks.

But even the wide areas between such landmarks can be twisted. A sea might be filled with dry sand instead of water, a forest might be a sinister place of twisted boughs, and so on.

Of course, there are also structures built by denizens and deities alike, such as the Abbey of Nevers created by the velstrac demagogue Aroggus, as well as various shadow giant holdings carved from the warped mountain ranges, and the elegant spires of the cities of the shae.

Zon-Kuthon also has his own realm here. Xovaikain was originally his prison that he agreed to be confined within “until the sun did not shine on Golarion’s surface”, a confinement that ended all too early when Earthfall cloaked the planet in dust clouds. The realm is even more twisted than other parts of the netherworld, being a place of nightmares, oppressive terrain, magical storms, and waking hallucinations meant to sap away the will of all who enter, to say nothing of the poor victims in the prison-palace itself. Aside from the residents, visitors must also worry about the many shadowy predators that come to the region seeking an easy meal of those whose sanity and bodies have been wracked by what they experience.

Speaking of hazards, the fact that this plane has deep connections to the Negative Energy Plane means that sometimes a bit of that even deeper darkness wells up in the Netherworld (or more accurately, part of the shadow is swallowed up, leaving the consuming void in it’s place). These voidboils build up and sometimes explode outward, bathing the surroundings in consuming negative energy.

Despite how inhospitable it can be at times, there are those beings that make it home and thrive there, which we will see tomorrow! Tune in then for more!

[monstersdownthepath]

The Enigma of Experience

Minor Artifact

Aura: Strong Conjuration

CL: 20th

Weight: 1 lb

Slot: ��

Also known by names such as the Shared Sorrows, the Torments of Ecstasy, the Path to Perfection, and many others, this mysteriously alluring puzzle box is decorated with patterns depicting scenes of humanoid creatures embracing the whirling essence of the Shadow Plane. As the faces of the cube are shifted around, the scenes change to show the humanoid figures being flayed and cut, infused with the darkness of the plane, and eventually emerging from the darkness as Velstrac as the puzzle nears completion. While a strange and amusing curiosity, the true and terrible purpose of this device was gifted to it by its ancient creators who infused it with the ability to bridge the gap between pain and pleasure, suffering and enlightenment... by conjuring Velstrac to enact their wills upon the user. Hundreds of unfortunate (or fortunate, depending on one’s view) mortals have been drawn through the gates of ultimate suffering by this tool, of which there are said to be four total in existence; one each made by followers of Vevelor, Sugroz, Kaikyton, and Aroggus.

It is, thankfully, not as simple as picking it up and solving it. The shifting, sliding faces of the puzzle box defy idle or accidental attempts to pierce its mechanism; only focused, concentrated effort yields any progress. Solving the Enigma of Experience requires at least 10 minutes of uninterrupted effort, lest the box simply reset itself, and an Intelligence check that becomes easier the more longing and kinship the user feels for what they believe to be lurking on the other side. Unless the DM rules otherwise (such as if the user has been tricked into believing the box is something else entirely, or if the user is a hedonistic masochist), the DC is 25 for any creature with a Good alignment, 20 for True or Chaotic Neutral creatures, 15 for Lawful Neutral, Chaotic Evil, or Neutral Evil creatures, and 10 for Lawful Evil creatures. If the user is a follower of a Velstrac Demagogue or Zon-Kuthon, they succeed automatically.

What happens when the box is opened is not always reliable, with the exception of the light levels within 60ft of the user becoming dim light (or darkness, if it was already dim). All magical light sources within 60ft of the user are automatically dispelled, or suppressed if they cannot be dispelled. Roll on the table below to see what emerges from the resulting darkness:

1: Spiked chains ending in hooks lash from the box itself, dealing 4d6 magical slashing and piercing damage to the user and restraining them (Escape Artist DC 25, Strength to burst the chains DC 25). Roll again, ignoring 1s.

2~12: 1 Ostiarius Velstrac and 1d4+1 Evangelist Velstrac emerge from the shadows around the user.

13~17: 1 Oitos Velstrac and 2 Sacristan emerge from the shadows around the user.

18~19: 1 Interlocutor and 3 Sacristan emerge from the shadows around the user.

20: Roll again, ignoring 1s. If another 20 is rolled, an Eremite emerges from the shadows. On any other result, the called creatures are initially friendly and more willing to bargain.

This emergence is a calling effect which cannot be dispelled, nor can the darkening effect be blocked or suppressed. Velstrac called by this effect may use their Plane Shift spell-like abilities on willing or helpless targets, which may not make saving throws against the effect.

Unless modified by a 20 roll, the initial attitude of any creature called by the Enigma is indifferent. Their goal upon emerging from the dark is the capture of the user and their transport to the Plane of Shadow to begin their transformation into another Velstrac, though they may take moments to speak with the user first. They act as usual for a member of their race; their concern is introducing mortals to their concept of perfection, enlightenment, and pleasure, but whether or not the Enigma’s user desires or, indeed, was even aware of the possibility of experiencing them is of little bother to the fiends of pain. If they are not successfully bargained with or simply grow impatient (typically within 5 minutes of being called), the Velstrac attack the user with the intent of subduing them and taking them to the Plane of Shadow. 

A user not wishing to experience centuries of torment can use Diplomacy, Intimidation, or Bluff as normal to shift the attitudes of the called fiends, though once summoned the Velstrac will not leave without claiming a victim and will not go out of their way to do so themselves unless the user flees. All the user can do at that point is flee (allowing the fiends to track and attack them) or acquire another victim for the Velstrac to take instead (a Lawful Evil act), a task they are typically granted 3 days to perform before the Velstrac begin to hunt them. A user which strikes a bargain with or flees the Vesltrac becomes marked by an invisible mark that cannot be dispelled; while this mark persists, the Velstrac constantly know the distance and direction of the user and have a permanent Status spell upon them. The soul of a user that dies while marked is automatically transported to the Plane of Shadows.

The user must secure a victim, render them helpless, and then place them in an area of dim light or darker, at which point the called Velstrac emerge and seize the target. At the DMs discretion, the Velstrac are free to reject an offering for any reason, such as if the victim is too young or non-sapient, or if they’re a follower of a Demagogue or Zon-Kuthon (such souls belong to them already). The more powerful the Velstrac is, the more likely they are to reject victims who don’t meet whatever strange criteria they may have; the Interlocutor, for example, may demand victims with more than 10 Hit Dice, while an Eremite will only accept a specific individual that they name.

All Velstrac within 100 miles of the Enigma know the distance and direction to it, as well as the name and alignment of all creatures within 10ft of it at all times. Often, they will take it upon themselves to free it from the grasps of creatures they believe will not use it. Each time a single creature uses the Enigma in their lifetime, a cumulative +5 is added to the dice roll to determine which Velstrac is called.

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Destruction: An Enigma of Experience can be destroyed by solving it while basking in the light of Heaven, Elysium, or Nirvana. Upon being solved, an Eremite emerges to claim the box and will do everything in its power to escape the plane with it. If the Eremite is slain, the Enigma is destroyed in an explosion of shadow that deals 10d6 Cold damage to each creature within 100ft.

[monstersdownthepath]

Does anyone know where this particular picture of Aroggus, the Abbey-Maker comes from? Reverse image search just belches out pinterest link after pinterest link, and I don’t even know where to begin with the books.

[monstersdownthepath]

Demigod Dossier: Velstrac Demagogues, part 1

Pictured: Aroggus, the Abbey-Maker

Lawful Evil Mad Artists of the Shadow Plane

The Complete Book of the Damned, pg. 120~121 Additional information is also present in Adventure Path: Return of the Runelords: The City Outside of Time, pg. 74~79

Our second-ever Demigod Dossier, now fully in-swing! The Velstrac Demagogues are the rulers of the Shadow Plane and all the lives within, though many of said lives within aren’t really fans of them. Natives to the Netherworld find the presence of the Velstrac an annoyance at best and a threat to their lives at worst, and would much prefer if they went back to Hell where they came from, but unfortunately for everyone everywhere they don’t appear too eager to throw themselves into the jaws of the inferno just yet. Instead, they’re busy throwing themselves into the jaws of one another.

The Demagogues represent the pinnacle of a specific subset of the Velstrac’s twisted senses of ‘art’ and ‘perfection,’ either because they’ve mutilated themselves into something wholly unlike anything else that can, did, or could exist, or they’ve pioneered a form of artistry that other Velstrac couldn’t even conceptualize in the first place and gathered a fandom. It takes some very twisted, alien forms of thinking to become a Demagogue and get others rallied behind you, even moreso because the Velstrac themselves are, putting it kindly, completely out of their gourd. When your audience already expects the insane and outlandish, you have to go even further, and many of the fiends you’ll soon see have.

We’ll only be covering four in this initial post, with the rest to be saved for later...

Demagogues view mortals as little more than primal clay to be shaped, and thus see little worth in investing true divine power into them, worshipers receive Boons that are are relatively simple: a trio of spell-like abilities, each of which may be used 1/day. Boons are normally gained slowly, at levels 12, 16, and 20, however entering the Evangelist, Exalted, or Sentinel Prestige Classes can see the Boons gained as early as levels 10, 13, and 16. Note that while they are Lawful Evil fiends originally from Hell, they are not devils, thus you cannot enter the Diabolist Prestige Class to obtain their Boons without DM fiat.

Aroggus, the Abbey-Maker

Demagogue of Possibility, Revenge, and Sanctuary Domains: Evil, Law, Protection, Trickery Subdomains: Deception, Defense, Fear, Tyranny

Obedience: List the names of those who have wronged you until the writing covers a page, then consume the parchment. Benefit: Gain a +4 profane bonus on saving throws to resist compulsion effects.

What a completely normal, sane, and healthy thing to do! As the first of the Demagogues to flee from Hell, Aroggus is EXTREMELY angry at the devils for locking them up in the first place. Angry enough to want revenge on the whole of the diabolic race, as well as the Asura... Angry enough that he hasn’t yet even started getting around to enacting his revenge, instead just constantly thinking about and refining it as if no iteration of suffering is perfect enough to match his fury.

True to form, he wants you to ruminate in your anger rather than doing anything to enact your vengeance, blacking out a page with the names (or just one name) of all who’ve wronged you no matter how petty or insignificant the inconvenience they may have caused. Unfortunately, no two ways about it, you’re going to look insane (in the literal definition of the term) doing this every day, especially if you only have one or two people who’ve wronged you enough to get onto your list. Scrawling their name, front AND back, until the page is filled and then eating it is behavior that will raise eyebrows no matter who you’re adventuring with. Best to keep this one behind closed doors. Make sure you have a glass of activated charcoal after, because all of that ink day after day (unless you write with, I don’t know, berry juice or blood) is going to do amazingly terrible things to your constitution.

The benefit is good. Compulsions are typically Save-Or-Suck effects, so having more Save means less Suck for you later on. It’s useful at any point in your adventure, so I can’t say anything bad about it! My only wish is that it was a little stronger, since some other gods give +4 vs compulsion and charm effects.

Boon 1: Nondetection Boon 2: Forcecage Boon 3: Imprisonment

Nondectection is a good spell for those times when you need to sneak by diviners, hide magic items from scrutiny, avoid the gaze of a Paladin who’s a little too judicious with Detect Evil, or to add another layer of shroud over Invisibility and the like. It’s a spell that’s a pain to prepare every single day, but useful to have when you need it... but you only have one casting of it per day, so using it wisely is paramount. Ironically, it combines well with your own Divination to find out if you’ll even need it later.  More often than not you won’t be using it at all except to idly ward yourself when going into town or diving into a dungeon.

Forcecage is a completely different animal, the offensive and defensive applications of the spell simply mind-blowing, to the point that keeping this to just one paragraph to save space is going to take some herculean effort on my part! So, the basics: Forcecage has two versions, both of which halt all movement through them: A 20ft square of force bars that allow spells, projectiles, and line-of-effect through, and a 10ft cube that blocks line-of-effect and all forms of magic and supernatural abilities. A Forcecage is effectively invincible (having Hardness 30 and 20hp/level) and impossible to move, so anyone trapped inside without the ability to teleport is likely to stay there for the spell’s duration. Also, to put it simply, shoving enemies in the cage is the main point, but if you cannot, a 10ft/20ft square is an enormous roadblock to stop up narrow passages with.

Which leaves Imprisonment, a portable hole you can shove all sorts of problems into, which will likely create new problems down the line if the target had anything you needed on them. I recommend knocking out a foe, stripping them of their valuables, and then shoving them into their baby jail for all eternity! With the Freedom spell being the only means to undo Imprisonment (even Wish and Miracle fail), you’ll have no actual way to undo the spell against any target you cast it on for one or two more levels, if at all (depending on the party composition). Make sure to use it only when the villain has no MacGuffins, or is a powerful recurring threat. Imprisonment works on anything and everything capable of failing the Will save (take note, anyone wanting to fight Kaiju, Great Old Ones, or Spawn of Rovagug), which gets a -4 penalty if you know the target’s name and some facts about its life, so famous villains are even more vulnerable to being thrown into the Eternity Marble! 

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Barravoclair, Lady of the Final Gasp

Demagogue of the Elderly, Fatalistic Insights, Resurrection Domains: Death, Evil, Healing, Law Subdomains: Murder, Restoration, Resurrection, Undead

Obedience: Practice breath control, holding your breath until you nearly pass out. Benefit: Gain a +4 profane bonus on checks to resist drowning and on saves against inhaled poisons.

A hell of a step down in terms of unhealthiness in terms of Aroggus, and significantly less suspicious, too. Breath control is practiced by people of all stripes, from athletes to explorers to simple monks attempting more profound meditation. While ‘nearly passing out’ is skirting an edge most people won’t approach, it’s not exactly as dangerous for you as, say, inhaling water or eating poison every day. Without any materials needed, the Lady of the Final Gasp is one of the simplest and probably the single cheapest Obedience ritual one could ask for! There is a minor caveat in that races who can’t breathe can’t technically do this Obedience at all, but those aren’t the audience Barravoclair wants anyway.

Unfortunately, the benefit is as weak as the Obedience is easy to do. Drowning is unlikely to come up as a danger unless you’re physically dragged into the water by a monster (which means holding your breath likely isn’t an option anyway), and inhaled poisons are the least common poison type in the game. Against the odd Catoblepas or Green Dragon it will come in handy, but it’s protection from injury poison you really need, which the Lady of the Final Gasp doesn’t provide.

Boon 1: Speak With Dead Boon 2: Resurrection Boon 3: Soul Bind

Alright, let’s face it. Some days, you need Speak With Dead to keep the plot running smoothly. Whether your overzealous DPS kills everyone in the room, your Fireball-lobbing Sorcerer kills everyone in the room, or your summoner’s unchained beasts kill everyone in the room, chances are at some point in your career you’re going to save the party a lot of headaches by being able to pull answers from a corpse. Having Speak With Dead available every day will likely not matter 80% of the time (meaning you can typically use it at your leisure just before going to bed), but much like with Water Breathing and spells like Remove Curse and Neutralize Poison, having it for those 20% of times you need it can keep the wheels spinning and stop unneeded side quests.

... And speaking of side quests and things you’ll need once in a blue moon, Resurrection? For free? Even 1/day? With the hefty cost of 10,000gp for the normal spell, even a well-off party will feel the impact every single time they have to use Rez, but the removal of the cost ups the power level of the spell by a margin so enormous that it doesn’t really matter what Boon you get before or after this one; THIS boon rewards worship of Barravoclair enough to justify putting up with her empty benefit. Even without factoring in the ability to raise party members, you can now curry favor with people of all stripes and demand all forms of insane payments for your ability to raise centuries-old dead at no cost but time... or do your work for free and call in favors at a later date. Do note, however, that you’ll also need someone else on standby to remove the negative levels/stat drain caused by the resurrection process.

I said it didn’t matter what the third Boon was and I stand by it. Unlike with the free Rez above, Soul Bind’s enormous cost still makes its use as anything but a once-per-campaign finisher of an annoying enemy irritating and unfeasible. Spell-likes normally require no components, but Soul Bind operates in a gray area of the rules in that its focus component becomes the subject for the spell, meaning that a DM can very easily and very rightly say you DO require the  gemstone whose value must equal or exceed the target’s HD x 1,000. Binding even a simple 5 CR creature requires the tall order of a 5,000gp gemstone, and if you want to use it on a target that’s worthwhile, it gets expensive fast. It’s way cheaper and easier to just hire a Cacodaemon. 

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Fharaas, the Seer in Skin

Demagogue of Experience, Murder, and Patterns Domains: Evil, Knowledge, Law, Repose Subdomains: Ancestors, Fear, Memory, Souls

Obedience: Study the interior of a freshly severed limb. Benefit: You are immune to bleed effects that deal 6 damage or less.

This Obedience is deceptively simple for what its implication is. You’d best get yourself a Sack Of Rats or have access to a lot of disposable prisoners (or the Regenerate spell)! But thankfully, there’s some wiggle room in the wording: ‘freshly severed’ means no cheating and using Gentle Repose on the same arm over and over, but it ALSO means you can carry around a single corpse and slowly slice it apart, as the limbs themselves don’t have to be fresh, just freshly cut off for the purpose of the ritual. Also, you can use the bodies of Undead, Constructs, and any other creature that technically has severable limbs! Though Fharaas, the Seer In Skin, will likely punish you if your ritual doesn’t involve the examination of actual flesh.

You’re going to look really weird, is what I’m saying. At least if someone barges in on you, you can claim you’re inspecting them for something or other. Infection, signs of magic, etc, whatever you can come up with to blunt the blow. You can cover yourself moderately well by being a butcher or a hunter in your day job, as the severed limb doesn’t have to be human, or even sapient (hence why I suggest a Sack Of Rats), letting you freely slice up and examine your kills.

Bleed effects are fairly uncommon in the grand scheme of things but are also a pain in the neck to deal with in the middle of battle, so this giving a +4 bonus aga--wait, sorry, hold on no, this isn’t a bonus to saving throws? Or skill checks to heal bleed? It just... Stops them if they deal 6 or less damage? You don’t even have to make a save?

Okay. Okay, alright. So you’re just immune to bleed, then?

More or less, really. There are very few monsters that deal more than d6 bleed damage with their attacks (be warned that higher-level ones can sometimes stack their bleed!), and this ability also works on the rare but dreaded stat bleed, and off the top of my head there are NO monsters that deal more than a d4 dice in stat bleed damage. My main problem is that it doesn’t reduce the bleed damage you take by 6, so taking even 1 more point of bleed damage makes this ability useless. Still, though it’s fairly narrow, being effectively immune to a dangerous and irritating status ailment at level 3 or so (when bleed is at its most threatening) is well worth taking up butchery. 

Boon 1: Keen Edge Boon 2: Vision Boon 3: Foresight

Keen Edge is a spell you absolutely want to slap onto any vaguely pirate-y or hoity-toity party member you may have, as cutlasses, rapiers, and scimitars all leap from a dangerous 18~20 critical range to a terrifying 15~20, meaning they threaten to critically strike 1 out of every 4 attacks instead of just once every other fight or so. With a duration of 10 min/level, the enchantment will likely last multiple fights even if you only have it 1/day, but unfortunately it refuses to stack with any crit-boosting enchantments or feats the wielder may already possess, lessening its usefulness as your adventure goes on and your martial party members pick up increasingly fancy gear and pad out their collection of feats. Still, it’s useful for when you get it, and will remain useful for several levels after.

Vision is a whole different beast, and a dangerous one at that. It operates as the Legend Lore spell but vastly accelerated, allowing you to scrape the public consciousness for any information it may have on a specific person, place, or thing. I’ve complained about the general niche uses of Legend Lore before, but Vision grants the information in a much shorter time (a single standard action) at the cost of a potential for failure and a slap of fatigue whether you succeed or not. I don’t like 1/days that do nothing on a failure, but since Vision is purely a downtime spell (unless you need to know the boss’ weakness or info on the Evil Doom Artifact right now immediately), it’s not as much of an impediment to lose out on whatever information it could give you. That being said, the DM will likely have ways for you to do whatever plot-relevant research you need anyway, so Vision is more of a way to speed up the process than anything.

Which leaves Foresight, a spell whose main benefit relies intensely on DM cooperation, as I’ve ranted about here. Mechanically it’s fairly unimpressive, but if the DM reads the spell carefully, they should realize it gives whoever you cast it on a 6-second glance into the future at all times. Whatever horrors befall the victim 6 seconds from now should spring into your mind before they happen, making you the best trap radar on the planet, and the spell’s warnings for the best ways to protect yourself will urge the DM to grant you information about the enemy’s capabilities you may never otherwise know... but what do you expect from 9th level magic? It SHOULD be filling you in with details you’d never figure out!

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Inkariax, the White Death

Demagogue of Preservation, Absolute Cold, and Solitude Domains: Evil, Law, Void, Water Subdomains: Fear, Ice, Isolation, Slavery

Obedience: Inventory your collection of hoarded knickknacks, reciting your unique name for each item as you do Benefit: Gain a +4 profane bonus on saving throws to resist effects that would petrify or paralyze you.

God, finally, someone normal. At worst you’ll look like someone with a few obsessive issues, but at least you won’t look like a menace to society as you lay out your, I dunno, marbles or bone dice or dolls or what have you and make note that they’re still there, cooing to them with names only you know. It’s fitting for Inkariax, of all the Demagogues, to have an Obedience that requires no self-harm, physically or psychologically; unlike all the rest, he was born perfect and doesn’t need to chase after it. Instead, he pursues finding perfection in others, freezing and collecting people and items he believes represent perfection in whatever unusual way he desires that day (having perfect posture, or a perfect scream, or a perfect pair of eyes, etc). Much like him, you’re encouraged to expand a collection of whatever you deem perfect and desirable, which you’re often going to do just over the course of normally adventuring. I’ve yet to see a player character that doesn’t start amassing all sorts of junk in their pockets the moment they get a Bag of Holding or similar.

Indeed, you can just pick up whatever catches your fancy, be it stones, sticks, or severed bits of an enemy, though I’m sure Inkariax will ever-so-slowly raise a disapproving eyebrow if you just pick up any old junk. Make sure to curate your collection now and then! Being able to perform this Obedience with anything you happen to gather is especially helpful if you’re ever separated from your collection (always a danger) and need to start again, but note that each item you gain in your collection must have a completely unique name. That’s only really a danger for especially RP-heavy campaigns, but in such campaigns Worship of the White Death isn’t for everyone who just names all their collected bird feathers Jeffery. Start getting in the habit of stretching out your inventory sheet with names for all your items!

The benefit you get from lovingly counting up all your stolen statuettes and dusty books is resistance to two of the worst status effects in the game. While petrification is relatively rare it typically appears in Save-Or-Suck form, which makes protection against it far more valuable than, say, protection against something like the far more common fatigue or exhaustion. Paralysis is an ailment just short of a death sentence by itself, costing the victim their turn at best and their life at worst, so even a +4 between you and that is something you need to cling to with your entire being.

Boon 1: Sleet Storm Boon 2: Sequester Boon 3: Microcosm

Sleet Storm is a very simple spell with a decent number of functions. Its Long range means that any enemy in your line of sight can potentially be a target, letting you lash out easily at ranged enemies or dangerous casters by creating a 40ft-wide and 20ft-tall area of concealing sleet that’s impossible for any vision to pierce (except the rare and niche Snowsight or Fogcutter Lenses). Anyone inside will have to rely on Tremorsense or Blindsense (though the jury’s out on if the splashing of the sleet would confound those, as well) to navigate it, and 40ft of difficult terrain can feel impossible to clamber through when you start right in the middle of it with no idea which way is the way you need to go. It’s one of the strongest vision-blockers in the game due to its immunity to common tactics that thwart lesser spells (Gust of Wind, True Seeing, etc), forcing enemies to either blow their valuable uses of Dispel Magic or suffer for its entire duration. My only complaint is that you only get it 1/day and that it screws over your party just as hard if you use it incorrectly.

Sequester is as niche a use spell as there ever was for players, requiring a bit of forethought about what or who you’d want to hide with it. The target must be willing or inanimate to be affected, so tricking an enemy via Charm or Dominate into accepting the spell can keep them fresh as a daisy for weeks at a time if you ever have a reason to do such a thing. More often than not you’ll use it to conceal items you seriously don’t want seen or detected, such as a Bag of Holding or similar loaded with your collection of knickknacks or emergency supplies, a particular hostage, an NPC you need to keep alive, or your phylactery if you’re a Lich. If you’re especially sadistic, using it on an item someone else needs and throwing it into a well or a hoard of other objects will keep them occupied for a while. If you’re a more martial character, using it to hide your armor is viable, making it seem as though you’re invincible when enemy blows bounce straight off, or even your weapon to confound your enemies who seem to be taking wounds from an unseen item. Your mime routine will be killer, literally! Just... Just don’t drop the thing, because in the heat of battle you’re never going to find it.

Microcosm is one of the best spells you can hurl into a crowd of commoners or a swarm of foes meant to gum you up instead of actually threaten you. Its 30 HD limit will mean it likely will only strike one or two creatures capable of actually threatening you, but it’s brutal even then. The spell is permanent, trapping your victims in an illusory world in which everything goes right for them even as their bodies starve to death in the waking world. Anything with less than 10 HD is automatically affected with no saving throw, the spell easily mopping up mobs, while anything with 11~15 HD escapes automatically after 10 min... per level you have. On a successful save. There’s Save-Or-Suck, and then there’s the immensely rare Save-And-Suck! No wonder Microcosm is ONLY on the Psychic’s list! Anything with more than 16 HD is unaffected if they succeed their save, but all their allies are likely in an everlasting dreamland now. The big issue is that the HD restriction is way tighter than you may think; creatures, especially at higher levels, usually do NOT have HD matching their CR, but if you’re mainly battling level-appropriate Humanoid or Monstrous Humanoid creatures, Microcosm is fairly reliable in such battles, as those foes typically have HD that roughly matches their CR. But if you’re up against, say, Dragons or Outsiders, good luck bud.

Side note: Microcosm and Sequester used in combination make for excellent ways to start your own morbid collection of living creatures, just like your icy master! Just make sure you have some non-Divination means of seeing them, as Sequester blocks even True Sight.

[annotaremonstrorum]

The trick with velstracs (which I still desperately want to call kytons), I think, is that they are about Law in the form of purity, rather than in the form of unity. According to lore in Starfinder, velstracs sprang into existence when mortal life (or maybe any life) conceived the concept of cruelty. With that, velstracs were birthed into the emptiness of Hell as living exemplars of that principle. (One wonders if other such conceptual beings were also born as lifeforms first experienced them - beings born of abstractions like wonder, surprise, boredom, altruism, isolation, sorrow, joy, and so on; these may be the origins of various outsiders we are familiar with today.) Thus, the existence of each kyton is dedicated to the pursuit, exploration, refinement, and perfection of the concept of cruelty. Perfection and purity of a concept is perfectly lawful.

What velstracs lack is unity. Every velstrac pursues its own vision of the perfection of cruelty and its own vision of what that means and how cruelty fits into the multiverse. Similar visions band together, giving us the various types of velstracs, and deities (Zon-Kuthon) and demogogues (Aroggus, Barravoclair, etc.) impose hierarchy based on their particular visions of cruelty.

The Law of velstracs is present, but imperfect. The Law of velstracs is narrow - it is focused only on the concept of cruelty. The Law of velstracs is individual - it is a pile of sticks; each stick is perfect in its way and many are fused together, but the perfection of each piece does not make a unified whole.

The velstracs are Law 1.0. Asmodeus swept them aside and brought Law 2.0.

Which was why Asmodeus could drive the velstracs out of Hell so easily. He and his devils were better versions of the tenants that Hell naturally wanted. Velstracs are the rough draft, Asmodeus’ devils are the finished product. However, velstracs are still useful to Asmodeus (and perhaps Hell itself), so they are allowed to persist.

Asmodeus’ Law is not narrow; it is all-encompassing. Asmodeus’ Law is is not individual - unless that individual is him. Asmodeus’ will is the collective will of all devils, and all devils’ wills are one within Asmodeus’ will. Where velstracs are a pile of perfect sticks, Asmodeus takes the sticks and makes of them a perfect fasces the size of the multiverse.

Like Darkseid, Asmodeus is.

Sources: Book of the Damned, Pathfinder #137: The City Outside of Time, Starfinder Alien Archive 2

(This is all, of course, a very Watsonian view. The simple version Doylist view is that velstracs have been created in piecemeal fashion from roots in a Planescape monster mixed with a gigantic dose of Hellraiser material (in the Hellraiser mythos, the cenobite god, Leviathan, has strong themes of Law), followed by a lot of extrapolation and retconning to explain why velstrac act as written. Also, I find it amazing the much of the important parts of the Hellraiser mythos fits directly into Pathfinder simply by making Leviathan an additional velstrac demogogue.)

The Velstrac are interesting to me, but only because of their obvious inspiration in the Cenobites of Hellraiser.

Otherwise, while their motivations can be interesting, their methods are,.. a little dumb. They’re Lawful Evil, but their behavior–capturing and torturing people before tearing them apart and stapling their parts onto themselves–has very little Law in it. Yes, sure, some of them are at least polite enough to ASK you for your parts or even trick you into signing away your souls like a proper Devil, but most of them just take without asking, with the Eremite Velstrac having a very specific paragraphs that drives me up the wall:

“Bargaining with an eremite is not usually an option, though if a particularly powerful victim can offer an eremite advice or aid, or otherwise assist in harvesting an even more interesting catch, an eremite can sometimes be convinced to let the helpful victim escape. It’s worth remembering, though, that kytons as a whole have little patience for the petty pursuits of honor and pride, seeing such feelings as traits that ultimately spell the end for baser creatures.”

That’s not Lawful!!!!!!!!! And even if it was, ExCuSe me; “Kytons as a whole have little patience for the petty pursuits of honor and PRIDE?”  PRIDE????? Are you kidding me? Half their deal is being prideful and seeing themselves as better than everyone!

Velstrac in general are noted for just being pointlessly cruel, torturing those they capture for no reason but the crime of having a limb or feature they enjoy. That! Is not! LAWFUL! You have thousands of people who’d join your cause willingly, you don’t NEED to just yank people off the streets! What are you, demons?

And don’t even get me STARTED on Inkariax’s whole deal…

If I use Velstrac in my games, I personally will be playing them more akin to their inspiration, whose motivations I find vastly more interesting and which would greatly differentiate the Velstrac from other Evil Outsiders.