Named after the Roman shades of dead, lemures are the
protoplasmic building blocks of devilkind. As such they demonstrate the peril—and potential—of
evil. If villains (or characters)
are lawful evil in life, existence as a lemure is what awaits them once eons of
torture have expiated their sins and stripped the memories from their
souls. And even pit fiends fear
failing in their duties and being reduced to this primordial status. On the other hand, Hell is the
multiverse’s ultimate meritocracy—and once one is a lemure, there is nowhere to
go but up…
On a more practical level, lemures’ low CR and low summoning
cost make them an easy way to get PCs fighting the powers and politics of Hell
as early as first level.
Not everyone seeks
out adventure; sometimes it finds you. A freak alignment of the planes carries the village square
to the first layer of Hell for a horrific ten minutes. The village youths must join the
militia in warding off a mob of lemurs.
After the battle, their innocence lost, the youths begin their career as
adventurers to root out what happened—and why.
In the
devil-worshiping kingdom of Dis Proxima, lemure duels and ichorsports are a
popular entertainment for the well heeled. These acts of summoning of course raise the spellcasters’
risks of one day becoming creatures themselves…but the proud Proximans insist
that they are the masters of Hell, in this life and the next, and need not fear
such a fate.
An extortion racket
has a stranglehold on the Wharf District. A letter borne by a dead man (reanimated as a zombie and
sent directly to the Wharf Watch) fingers a novice group of inquisitors and
detectives. They must clear their
names before the Watch finds them, as well as handle the hired thugs, sewer
amoebas, and familiar-kidnapping swamp goblins the investigation throws their
way. Eventually, they uncover the
mastermind of the plot—a crime boss whose greed morphs him into a lemure before
their very eyes.
—Pathfinder Bestiary
79
Speaking of devils, just as this post was going to press
reader/blogger Will/filbypott went and did something awesome. Go see!
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