Asteria

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Pandaemonium by John Martin, accessed at Wikipedia here

Asmodeus, King of Hell, the Archfiend, feels as if he is losing control. And there is nothing he hates more than losing control.

What events have Asmodeus scrambling may differ from campaign to campaign. If running a game in a conventional Pathfinder setting, perhaps it is Cheliax’s dwindling territory and repeated defeats. If running a game with Pathfinder 2e’s War of the Immortals material, perhaps the deaths and departures of gods have Asmodeus feeling uncertain of his strength and permanence. If using the Age of Monsters material from this blog, perhaps it is due to Lamashtu’s position being assaulted by Mormo, Mormo’s victory over Lamashtu, or even the dirty little secret of how Asmodeus and Geryon have rewritten Hell’s history to erase Typhon and give Geryon all his accomplishments and none of his faults. It could be all of those things.

Whatever the impetus, Asmodeus seeks to reach out to the other great powers of the Lower Planes. The daemons and demons. Build a unified front for shared defense, and to promulgate the goals of evil throughout the cosmos. And of course, get more daemons and demons to play by his rules.

This unified front is the Pandaemonic Parliament. A gathering of 72 of the finest minds from Abaddon, the Abyss and Hell, all trying to further the corruption of the Universe. And their first plan is a winner. Each of the Parliament members has invested some of their power into a Seal, a magical sigil that allows those who draw it correctly to pull from that fiend’s power for their own uses. A much more immediate and tangible benefit than merely worshiping a fiend, and many mortals are skilled at deluding themselves into believing that their souls can remain unscathed despite tapping into fiendish power. Some of them may even be correct, as there is no alignment restrictions on these “binders”, as they call themselves, and some binders have learned abjurations and rituals to keep themselves safe from corruption.

Theoretically, the split between factions on the Pandaemonic Parliament is even: twenty four demons, twenty four daemons, twenty four devils. In the “spirit of cooperation” however, Asmodeus created a Prime Minister, Bael, to weigh issues from all sides, who has taken a neutral evil seat over from the daemons. Bael is a three headed fusion, a demon, devil and daemon all in one. Asmodeus brushes over any questions of Bael’s true allegiance and advocates for his neutrality. Most of the daemons and demons in the Parliament know that they’re being used, but hope to exploit their exploiter, gaining access to Hell’s resources while minimizing how many compromises they have to make.

In order to unify the squabbling fiends of the Pandaemonic Parliament, Asmodeus uses what he is best at. Fear. Asmodeus believes, or at least claims to believe, that the kytons, sahkils and qlippoth pose a threat to the devils, daemons and demons respectively. The kytons pose no such threat—they care much more for flesh than for souls, and even their demagogues are much more interested in pursuing their own projects than unifying and attempting anything so drastic as conquering Hell. Most of the daemons of the Parliament aren’t fooled: sahkils and daemons have more commonalities than differences, in their hatred for the River of Souls and their love of tormenting and devouring mortals. But they are happy to pay lip service to the idea at Parliament meetings and target sahkils with violence when they have the opportunity. It is entirely possible that Asmodeus’ fears of war between the fiendish subtypes will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

On the other hand, Asmodeus has a point about the instability of the Abyss and its power structure. The Abyss is an ever changing place, and the demonic members of the Pandaemonic Parliament are those who want to push back against those changes. New types of demons are emerging from larvae, taking over the places and roles of the old guard. The qlippoth do want to take back what once was theirs, and are doing so through a new and alarming angle. More and more, the boundaries of qlippoth and demon are blurring, as qlippoth lords grow more avid for worship and demons and qlippoth are more likely to cooperate, or at least tolerate each other, on a case-by-case basis. Most alarming is the work of Pale Night, a creature who actively bridges the realms, and her newest project, an attempt to unify qlippoth and demons under a single banner. A great divine beast with two heads, representative of his split nature. Demogorgon.

I was revisiting some of your divine entries, where you're breaking down the talents of the semi-divine. I was reading through Charon when a question posed itself to me.

Demigods encountered in their divine realms are treated as Mythic Rank 10, which makes them borderline unkillable at home, and that's just based on the standard mythic abilities everyone gets.

What I'm curious about is what Mythic abilities they get that AREN'T mentioned. Can they reskin their mythic abilities every time they leave and enter their realm, which is why those abilities are never listed? Or do they only get a specific set no matter what?

And finally (because it wouldn't be a post from me if I didn't include my favourite demigod), what kind of mythic abilities do you think Lorthact would gain in a divine realm of his own?

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Each demigod gets its own suite of powers when in its own realm that make them far more powerful than usual. The Horsemen, for example, get this:

The ability to shape the realm to their whims, command its denizens from any distance with a thought, amplify their spell-likes with Mythic power, create anything they desire... It's rough stuff to contend with, which is why most people trying to kill a demigod only do so by luring them out of their realms first, and why every demigod tends to have a Get-Out-Of-Death Free Card that teleports them back to the seat of their power, where they can just set up an everything-proof shield until their card refreshes.

Unless otherwise stated, demigods of any kind only ever get the abilities listed under their lair powers; Horsemen, Demon Lords, and Empyreal Lords have their Realms, Qlippoth Primordials have their Sanctums, Archdevils have their entire Layer of Hell... the list goes on, but each of them has clear and pre-defined rules that only apply when they're in their lair. They don't gain things like Mythic Immortality or any path abilities, since all that stuff is built into them already.

Thankfully thanks to me scavenging Furcas out of Hell Unleashed, I've also found out that the rulings on the Infernal Dukes were also printed in that book, but NOT added to the Archives of Nethys for whatever reason. Sadly, it's not exactly more interesting than what we've seen so far aside from one standout:

(taken from Hell Unleashed, pg. 43)

The standout being that while in their demesnes, ALL of their spell-like abilities are treated as their Mythic versions, while basically every other demigod must use their Mythic power to use their boosted spells. This is quite a boon to the Dukes, but there's also an important caveat: since all demesnes' exist within Hell, they are also beholden to the will of the Archdevil that rules that layer, and thus their power when altering their realms or subjects is superseded by the might of their superiors.

I think a DM trying to run a Duke should also probably limit their gained spell-likes to 1/day, much like how Qlippoth Primordials work. The only reason they get these powers at-will in the book is because the description is directly copypasted from the Demon Lord's own statblock, as evidenced by the fact the writers left in the sentence "relevant to the demon lord's area of concern" when defining the limits of their Miracle ability.

Anyway, Lorthact actually has a demesne, which is discussed in a book I do not actually own: Academy of Secrets. His private demesne is Belzeragna, a demiplane nested in the Material Plane rather than Hell (allowing him total control over it; no Archdevil can reshape it). The exact layout and function of the demiplane is listed in Academy of Secrets, but it's incredibly tiny compared to a normal Duke's lair (less than 300ft long), likely because it was made as a safehouse for Lorthact when fleeing Eiseth. It serves as his personal laboratory and archive, as well as a prison for torturing mages and extracting their souls, but during the events of the module, he's not actually there to show off what he can really do inside. I can't imagine his lair abilities would be different than what was listed, aside maybe from losing access to a few of the power due to the size of the realm and his loss of status (like losing the Polymorph Any Object bonus duration factor, or losing some size on his Mythic Surge dice)... but this IS where he keeps his collection of mage souls, so it's very likely his ability to draw from other people's spell lists is at its peak here. Throwing the old man a bone, it's no stretch of the imagination to suggest that while in his demesne, he can cast every arcane spell.

And so we’re back to the top of the list, looking at our second of the core deities of the Inner Sea Region, and it’s perhaps one of the most important for humanity: Iomedae the Inheritor!

The youngest of the Inner Sea deities, Iomedae lives up to her title by being the one that inherited the title of God of Humanity after Aroden’s death after serving as his second Herald after the death of Arazni. However, she did not start out this way.

Indeed, Iomedae is our first example of a mortal risen to godhood (outside of Aroden himself) and the latest (confirmed) to have done so by way of the Starstone, the legendary artifact that granted Aroden his own divinity, which he sequestered away in the Starstone Cathedral, a dungeon meant to protect such a powerful object and test the mettle of those who would dare to seek divinity.

In her mortal life, Iomedae started as a Chelish paladin in the service of Arazni and served in the Shining Crusade against the Whispering Tyrant. It was during and after that campaign that she performed 11 miracles, some of which were merely impressive feats for a mortal, others showed a spark of divine favor. The exact details of which are lost to time, but it is generally considered that the lessons learned from them are more important than the particulars.

In any case, her final act was turning her cloak into a bridge across the bottomless span to the Starstone Cathedral, where she took the test and ascended to divinity, where Aroden took notice of her and offered her a spot as his herald, which was recently vacated by the death of Arazni.

However, Aroden himself later vanished, presumably dying, leaving his followers and humanity in general in the lurch, that is until Iomedae stepped into his shoes, becoming their patron.

That being said, Iomedae is a very different deity to Aroden, focused more on goodness and righteousness and the fight against evil than he ever was, which he actually found inspiring.

Iomedae is a goddess of honor, justice, rulership, and valor, and leads by example to encourage mortals to do the same. Whenever mortals show courage against evil, compassion to others even when it puts themselves at risk, and even hand in their use of authority, The Lady of Valor smiles upon them.

So yes, Iomedae is the deific embodiment of what a knight is supposed to be, and those that follow her genuinely can be expected to be devoted servants of law and order, both on the crusade and back home seeing to the people.

(Keep in mind that unlike the real world, the crusades of Iomedae’s followers are generally expected to actually be motivated by a desire to defeat evil, since such things are tangible and real in Pathfinder. That being said, even lawful good groups can make mistakes, and not everyone is comfortable with the association with the Crusades)

The Light of the Sword appears much as she did in life, being a Chelish woman with short dark hair, adorned in fine plate mail with her sword and shining shield in hand, and sporting an aura that strikes fear and unease into even most fiends.

Iomedae’s personal realm does not seem to have a unique name, but it is located on the second tier of Heaven, taking the form of a pastoral and peaceful land that is nevertheless dotted with several keeps. The militant nature of the realm makes it a useful support for the archon armies of the heavenly mount, with many archons training there and staffing it’s keeps in case someone ever dares to invade the celestial realm.

Naturally, humans make up the majority of Iomedae’s worshippers, though she accepts all with righteousness in their heart. Warriors that value honor, as well as civilians that try to live their less violent lives by the same principles are equally worthy to her. Additionally, there is a sizable population of halflings that believe in her message despite having a history of enslavement by humanity in the Inner Sea Region.

The Inheritor counts most lawful and goodly gods among her allies, and the chaotic and evil as her foes. She shares something of a rivalry with Irori due to the differences in their methods of ascension to the divine, and she holds a grudge against Pharasma for her secrecy concerning the death of Aroden. She typically has no friendly dealings with beings of evil, though she cautiously hears out Asmodeus and his cronies, sifting through the lies and corruption for nuggets of wisdom.

Her servants are composed of angels and archons in abundance, and she even has her own unique angelic servants in the form of the iophanites, small burning disc-like angels that can transform into shields. Her current herald is the mortal Queen Galfrey, who stepped down from her previous role as leader of Mendev in order to serve the goddess. Her previous herald was the Hand of the Inheritor, who was captured and corrupted by the Demon Lord Baphomet, leading to his death. Additionally, Iomedae is served by the likes of the superior iophanite Jingh, the celestial gold dragon Peace Through Vigilance, and Saint Lymerin, a former priestess of her goddess uplifted to an avian-headed celestial form.

Iomedae’s domains are Glory, Good, Law, Sun, and War, with the subdomains of Archon (by way of Good and Law), Chivalry, Day, Duels, Heroism, Honor, Hubris (by way of Glory), Light, Redemption, Revelation, Sovereignty and Tactics; all of which reflects her nature as a god of righteous warfare, but also of kindness and perhaps a little recklessness in the pursuit of what is right.

Meanwhile, her 2E domains are confidence, might, truth and zeal, which reflects those aspects as well. Additionally, she offers the alternate domain of duty, as well as magic of uncanny accuracy, increased size and might, and warding oneself with flame.

The obedience of the goddess is simple enough, being an hour long ritual of reaffirming one’s vows to follow her teachings while dangling your holy symbol from your preferred weapon. Those that do so are blessed with insight when it comes to diplomatic matters and recalling information about the upper echelons of society.

But of course, as a full deity her expanded powers are split into three. The first of which, her evangelist powers, reflect her courage and the fear she strikes into evil. She grants spells that dispel fear and imbue allies with the blessings of courage and heroism. From there, She grants power to pierce the magical defenses of fiends or protection from them if you are no caster, as well as the ability to infuse spells (or weapons for non-casters) with holy power to pierce the immunities of such fiends.

Meanwhile, her exalted ones draw upon her command of holy energies, able to cast protective wards, enthrall with words, or smite with rays of light. They can also learn to imbue their weapon with a deadly burst of holy wrath against their foes, and even summon mighty shield archons to aid them.

Finally, her sentinels reflect her history as a mortal paladin, first granting spells that bless weapons or armor, as well as bolster strength. Afterwards, she grants them an improved ability to smite if the sentinel is a paladin, or a lesser form if they are not. And finally, their blades are blessed to banish fiends back from whence they came.

Iomedae is actually very prevalent in Starfinder, retaining her role as patron of humanity, as well as any species that values honor and valor alongside warrior prowess. Her largest religious organization is the Knights of Golarion, which act as righteous defenders of the Pact Worlds and anyone else that calls out for aid with their mighty fleet of warships.

@murthingsblog got me hooked on pathfinder divine lore, and now this is your problem too))) Arazni when she was a herald of Aroden / Thalachos, herald of Sarenrae... "His metallic skin is as hard as steel to any that wish to do him harm, but as soft as velvet to anyone kind, merciful, and good"...

"He is on friendly terms with the heralds of Shelyn, Cayden Cailean, and Iomedae, and several sources show that he knew Arazni, herald-goddess of Aroden."

Whenever a Demon Lord dies, as in a permanent and final death, their essence is pulled into the Abyss and placed in a special layer called the Rifts of Repose, a titanic graveyard dotted with moldering statues of every Demon Lord that has ever died. Theoretically, it's possible to go to the Rifts and resurrect any if the slain fiends, though the graveyard is guarded by extremely powerful Mythic demons who, for their own purposes, may aid or hinder these endeavors. In addition, attempting to DESTROY the statues--to either put an end to a Lord permanently, or out of pettiness--will simply cause it to reform elsewhere... or, in rare cases, the Abyss itself donates enough quintessence to bring them back, which seems like an extreme response to vandalism but whatever keeps people from messing with the headstones, I suppose.

... well, I call them headstones, but it implies that the Rifts of Repose are a graveyard. On the surface it may be, but the truth of it is worse than what was initially believed: they're dead, but they're aware, and most are capable of small amounts of action. Many of them expend what pathetic dregs of their power they managed to cling to within the first few years just trying to move, which leaves them as impotent statues for the remainder of their new eternity. When the players enter the Rifts in Rasping Rebirth, they can actually speak with Deskari, who retains enough of his power to lash out at people who offend him and bless people who wish to work with him.

This raises a lot of questions about the Rifts of Repose and the relationship the Abyss has with its own foul powers, none of which have a concrete answer without a more in-depth look at the consciousness of the plane itself (which i hope we never get; i like the ambiguity). Normally when an Outsider dies for good, its quintessence is absorbed into its home plane... but for whatever reason, the Abyss keeps its Lords preserved in a quasiliving state, not devouring their quintessence (and even giving back in rare cases!) and not allowing them the true release of death... but it also takes no real steps towards bringing them back unless they're disturbed.

The Abyss is the only plane to treat its demigods in such a fashion, seemingly refusing to partake in their power, or perhaps it's the demons themselves who refuse to allow themselves to fade. Perhaps they are SO chaotic, SO antiethical to the proper order of the universe that they would prefer an eternity of torment with the tiniest sliver of a chance they may come back, to the peaceful oblivion of rejoining the Abyss and allowing other demons to flourish.

CR 28

Lawful Good Large Outsider

Bestiary 4, pg. 92~93 (art from Lost Omens: Knights of Lastwall, pg. 65)

Yes, Lawful Good.

This is one of the good guys, and an Empyreal Lord! Though anyone who’s ever met Vildeis or spoken to her at length may see things slightly different. Vildeis was born THE perfect angel, so pure and beautiful and Good that the thought of evil could not occur to her, the existence of it brought her physical sickness and pain, and the sight of it was so stomach-churningly disgusting to her that she stabbed out her own eyes just to stop herself from seeing it. Unable to cope with the existence of Evil, Vildeis now travels from world to world, plane to plane in an eternal quest to destroy Evil at any cost. There is no sacrifice Vildeis wouldn’t make if it meant ending the machinations of the devils, demons, and daemons, and the highest honor any of her followers can achieve is martyring themselves to assure the defeat of the heartless and cruel.

While her intentions are noble enough, her methods are… questionable. Even among the Lawful Good Archons, Vildeis’ crusades often seem fanatically extreme; whereas most Archons wish to create a world in which Evil cannot find reason to exist, Vildeis seemingly has little concern with improving the world enough to prevent Evil’s growth and instead destroys Evil as it arises (like the Chaotic Good Azata) with all the passion and mercy of a guillotine slamming inexorably downward and with approximately as much subtlety. Evil Outsiders are destroyed with impunity while Evil mortals are given only two choices: repent or die. Her quest to destroy all Evil is used, both by herself and her followers, to justify any sacrifice, though as her title may suggest she’s more than willing to use herself as this sacrifice, heedlessly throwing herself into the heat of battle regardless of the danger if it means scoring a telling blow against the forces of fiends.

She is, unfortunately, the shining incarnation of what too much Lawful Good can do to one’s mind, but instead of leaning into the restrictive authoritarian beliefs common to Archons or other LG Angels who go off the deep end, she is the merciless executioner and ‘The Greater Good’ visionary for whom there is no sacrifice too great if it means permanently weakening Evil’s grasp on the universe. While this makes her an unnerving but incredibly direct ally to parties hoping to destroy a threat to their world, it makes her an even more powerful foe as her extremist methods put her at odds with people hoping for less violent solutions, even those who themselves are Good. 

It makes her a great final boss or even post-final-boss for a Good party that defeats an evil foe but becomes terrified of what else she may do… but what can she do? Let’s find out…

I was asked to draw them. There aren't many fanarts anyway, and that's sad ;D

Iomedae (The Inheritor):

Calistria (The Savored Sting) and Cayden Cailean (The Accidental God):

I love seeing them together.They're the noisy neighbors in Elysium 🌚

Uh, speaking of Elysium…

Sarenrae (The Dawnflower), Shelyn (The Eternal Rose) and Desna (The Song of the Spheres):

Nocticula (The Redeemer Queen) ;D :

Brigh (The Whisper In Bronze) and Casandalee (The Iron Goddess):

Very unusual goddesses associated with technology.

Mahathallah (Dowager of Illusions). Queen of the Night:

Ragathiel (General of Vengeance). Empyreal Lord:

Aroden. The greatest prankster in history. Made trouble and died ;D :

A little bit of column A, a little bit of column B.

In the "A" column, it's important to understand that Dungeons & Dragons isn't anything close to being a generic fantasy game: it's very specifically inspired by American literary sword and sorcery fantasy in the period roughly spanning the 1930s through the 1970s, with a particular emphasis on the late 1960s and early 1970s strand of the genre. Other inspirations have crept in over time, but that core has remained largely unchanged.

Like most Western pulp fiction, sword and sorcery fantasy frequently featured scenes of lantern-jawed heroes manfully slaughtering their way through nameless hordes of jabbering, spear-chucking, dark-skinned savages. Even at this early date, however, the explicitly racist dimension of this trope wasn't necessarily playing well with contemporary audiences, so over time, depictions of these groups tended to drift away from direct stand-ins for real-world "races" and toward fictional ethnic groups, eventually culminating in the tribes of swarthy hobgoblins and degenerate lizard-men and such populating the pages of the Monster Manual. Such literature freely invoked the assertions of race science to explain why these creatures were morally okay to kill, and that carried over into Dungeons & Dragons.

Selûne and Shar

Art for Baldur's Gate 3