#pf: nocticula

[l-uoxia]

why dis 👿 look so mad?

[fllagellant]

could you do nocticula & anevia for the NPC ask? any OC's chill

Ohhhh love these choices .. pulling out The Two of them ..

Zezil . Okay . They’ re a trickster and they met Socothbenoth first and found their rivalry .. funny . To a point . But they do side more with Socothbenoth and that kinda ended up with Zezil seeing Nocticula less as a frightening leader and more as like .. your “ friend’s “ old sibling that you annoy the hell out of . They go through with pranking her later and they do end up killing her but they did it all out of this idea of humour . They do not trust her at all and they know she’ ll never really care about them or their fate . But it was funny to fuck with her . Zezil voice I hope she likes pink teehee ! Very strange thing happening here it is impossible for others to read bc they are rather respectful to her and jumped to work with her in the abyss but then you got . Just completely disrespecting a leader of the abyss and overstepping everything like what a way to end the final council meeting

Obscure . Is unimpressed . THAT’ S KINDA IT … granted . It is like this with All authority . As soon as someone has a high title or is regarded as a true ruler then he becomes completely uninterested . Considering all the shit it had to do to get an audience in the first place .. and then finally getting there .. very uninteresting . She’ s another hand trying to play him as a pawn . That’ s kinda it . He does use what she offers ( more out of a knowledge it is running out of time to be safe down here , and she can make things happen ) but he doesn’ t enjoy her calling him her chosen and the like . It is more interested in what Ember has to say about Nocticula and watching what happens there .. but Nocticula herself is like . Eh . Cool house . Can I go

Zezil and Anevia are Friends ! Beyond professionalism I think they do like each other as people .. even if Zezil is a bit . Much . Sometimes … Anevia does enjoy being around them and they have good talks I think ! Like to believe that Zezil ends up defaulting to her opinion on a lot of things while managing the crusade effort , and those talks devolve into just hanging out . They also stuck very close to her when they could while she was injured , even after getting to the Defender’ s Heart , just making sure everything set correctly and in case she needed help .. great way to make a friend is to make sure they do not die

Obscure is a bit less involved with talking to her and their relationship is a bit more professional ( as professional as it can be with Obscure ) but it is still pretty lighthearted ! It respects her for her skills and her constant aid and presence and does value her thoughts . I don’ t think they go out drinking or anything but they do enjoy the time they have with eachother while doing their respective duties . Also she is cool with the dragon being in the meeting room so that means Anevia is liked by Aivu … meaning that Obscure is also going to like her . It makes the dragon happy therefore I will also like it <- this is his wisdom .

[monstersdownthepath]

Tracking stuff down for research and found out that Baba Yaga is actually the first CR 30 monster released in Pathfinder proper, with her appearing in the world in July 2013! Achaekek predates her by quite a bit (June 2008!), but he was released back when PF was still using D&D 3.5 rules.

2013 is where the big boom of CR 30 monsters began, it seems. Cthulhu, Pazuzu, and Cernunnos were all released in Bestiary 4 (November 2013), and Nocticula’s stats were revealed in December 2013!

The last CR 30 monster released in PF1e was the Leviathan, showing up in Planar Adventures in 2018. Just some fun facts for all of you!

[l-uoxia]

妹兄

[monstersdownthepath]

Ever thought about tackling other 'primarily Class-level monsters' like Tar-Baphon? Got curious since he seems to have a bit of jank to his statblock (only 14 Wis, what?) plus the Mythic Lich thing as opposed to the Archmage Path. Also, unrelated, but is there any record of any Evil acts Nocticula committed/orchestrated personally? She had an evil cult to her name, but on the 'personal' level nothing really pops to mind. She just seems to have spent her Demon Lord days killing her evil peers.

I've considered it, but for the most part, unless a creature can make unique use of having the same resources a player has, I don't tend to give "Critters But With Class Levels" a second glance. I made an exception for Dear Grandmother because the stars converged to give me a Mega Milestone on my birthday and I greatly enjoy Baba Yaga as a character in Pathfinder.

Tar-Baphon's powerset makes him much more of a background villain (fittingly enough) than one you should actually fight, though, since he gives up a bunch of the Mythic Lich's combat tricks (especially Creeping Paralysis) in exchange for being about to churn out minions at a pace that's downright mind-boggling. It also amuses me that he took Wild Arcana, which he absolutely does not need given that he has like 800 spell slots and a trillion magic items and scrolls, instead of Arcane Surge, which would be a vastly more potent choice for his build. An article on Tar-Bophades would be me ragging on a bunch of his build choices rather than his combat tactics.

As for the second half of this ask, net me recover from the neck-breaking whiplash. okay, there

Nocty's crimes against mortals are left fairly 'off-screen,' and with good reason; such evils will not be discussed on this blog. The joy she took in seducing and murdering mortals quickly gave way to her lusts for much greater prey, to the point that her every appearance after Pathfinder's earliest days focuses exclusively on her crimes against other demons instead. Whether you discard early lore due to the growing pains between 3.5 and PF is up to you; in most cases, I personally do... but whether or not you erase her earlier crimes, you still have to consider how you personally feel about her committing crimes of varying levels of severity against other Evil beings, which itself a moral debate this blog has no interest in delving deeply into.

It's a cop-out of an answer, I'm aware, but I have no interest in discussing the 'personal crimes' of the demon lord of lust.

[patentlyabsurdrpgideas]

Those subtypes aren't just for show; Good and Evil are physical, measurable qualities within their bodies! An angel committing a conscious, willing act of evil is the same as a human suddenly committing an act of crocodile. 

I have to reblog just for that quote, because it puts into perspective something I both love and hate about alignment systems. In D&D-type settings (I see Pathfinder as D&D-adjacent, IP laws be damned!) Good, Evil, Law, and Order are laws of their universe just like reality’s Strong Nuclear Force, Weak Force, Electromagnetism, and Gravity.

The part I hate about it is that in magical/fantasy settings this adds a ton of restrictions that make sense. It’s why PF paladins and antipaladins have those frustrating alignment restrictions, and why clerics must be at least within one step (aka 1 square on the alignment chart that isn’t diagonal) of their deity.

A Good deity cannot condone an Evil character and vice versa anymore that gravity can repel mass.

But the part that I love is that it underlines the power of free will in-universe. Taking Pathfinder as the specific example, you have Ragathiel, part-Devil and therefore partly made of Evil in-universe... but he’s Lawful Good, same as any Angel or Paladin. His desire to be better, to choose to be different, overcame his physical composition. And of course OP brought up Nocticula, who went from Chaotic Evil to Chaotic Neutral.

Pardon me for crossing fandoms, but to me the best quote that embodies this is one Skyrim fans will know well.

“What is better? To be born good or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?” ― Paarthurnax

Can you answer a question the pathfinder writers can’t seem to give a straight answer? Do any of the types outsiders have true free will or not?

Well that's a silly question, of course they [DO/N'T]

If outsiders didn't have free will, there would be no such thing as fallen angels, risen demons, or Nocticula the Redeemer Queen.

If you want more proof, the mere existence of Baraskal, a city in the Maelstrom where outsiders chafing against their own natures can go to explore their new potential selves, points directly at the 'free will' section.

The primary problem is that free will doesn't play well with the quintessence most outsiders are formed from. An angel isn't just good, and a demon isn't just evil; an Angel is literally Made Of Good, and a Demon is Made Of Evil. Those subtypes aren't just for show; Good and Evil are physical, measurable qualities within their bodies! An angel committing a conscious, willing act of evil is the same as a human suddenly committing an act of crocodile. Does that make sense? Of course not! And neither does a demon, devil, or daemon doing a good deed purely for the sake of being good! It is literally against their nature to do so. It should be completely impossible.

And yet it isn't! Because their will can push them through it! They have the freedom to do it, if they can figure out how.

... and the act is not only difficult, but it usually ends up destroying them, because if you remove Good from an Angel, that's not an Angel anymore. In most cases, there's nothing left of the Outsider in question once their alignment shifts, but in the best possible scenario, the act will turn them into something else, typically a completely new kind of Outsider, or into the closest equivalent Outsider of their new alignment. The lore of Baraskal implies that Outsiders that shift alignments while in the city keep their old shapes and forms due to some inherent chaotic magic of the Maelstrom holding them stable.