Retriever

Yesterday I referred to remorhazes as “skittering contradictions,” but maybe I should have saved that description for the retriever.  Spiders the size of elephants.  Made from the stuff of the Abyss, but not demons.  Constructs, yet with an extreme alignment.  And utterly loyal and relentless despite the chaos inherent in their creation.

Retrievers are constructs created by demons to terrify and capture other demons.  (It’s no wonder they resemble the demon-devouring bebiliths.)  After all, when you can’t rely on your servants’ loyalty, relying on your near-mindless eye-ray-beaming constructs isn’t a bad fallback strategy.  PCs will usually only run afoul of them if they get ensnarled in Abyssal politics—retrievers are too valuable to be spent chasing after mere mortals—but since they can be summoned as if they were demons by spellcasters with more wealth than common sense and Charisma, they might pop up in some surprising places.

Tambridge Meersin believed the rare stone he had quarried and shaped would form a prize-winning golem.  But the Abyssal basalt warped his conjurations.  When he pulled back the curtain for the golem’s first exhibition, the construct hatched a fully formed retriever that began to burn, freeze, zap, and petrify the helpless onlookers.

Dwelling in a needle-like tower that juts out of an Abyssal swamp, the tiefling loremaster Az Hokh Thul is loathed by his demonic neighbors.  They dare not move against him, though, as his four pet retrievers dance atop the perimeter moat like deadly water striders.

A vrock has earned Pazuzu’s ire.  He fled to the tunnels of the mortal world, the better to hide from the airborne eyes of the King of Wind Demons.  The retriever sent to recover him follows the vrock’s trail doggedly, attacking anyone whose essence the demon has corrupted…including some unlucky adventurers.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 234

Forgive me if I’ve been bad about answering your mail/comments— minneyar42, koboldbard, Bill, I’m looking at you—but I’m still #$%^ing sick.