Zelishkar of the Bitter Flame

Blazing up from the pages of the Inner Sea Bestiary, Zelishkar of the Bitter Flame is a fiery daemonic harbinger (a unique and powerful daemon still short of Horseman status, analogous to a nascent demon lord or Duke of Hell) with long ties to Golarion’s Egypt-like nation of Osirion.  In your campaign, Zelishkar’s stats could serve for any supremely powerful neutral evil spirit of flame and fire—perhaps only steps away from becoming the Horseman of War, and who will laugh as the multiverse burns.

The nascent demon lord of pyromania and the Hellduke of Arson meet on the field of battle, immolating each other.  Rising from the ashes of the conflict like some dire phoenix is a new entity, Zelishkar of the Bitter Flame—all trifling notions of law or chaos having been burnt away.  A band of heroes has been fighting agents of the nascent demon lord since their very first adventure, when they apprehended a firebug and his mephit sidekick.  While they arrive too late to stop their foe’s dread apotheosis, they might be able to kill this new Zelishkar before the flames of his fury can spread.

Fire rages throughout Utopia.  In the abacus-like region of Ordo Lucidus, adventurers race from ring city to ring city on a clockwork dragon, putting out the burning libraries and record halls of Law.  The culprit is an entity that once was the Cleanser, tender of the Plane of Law’s High Crematorium, but who has long since been disgraced and turned foul, becoming the resentful agent of evil known as the Bitter Flame.

They say the Firecat of Dubral was once a rakshasa (as evidenced by her fiery but definitely feline countenance) but she long ago became something else entirely.  Called onto this plane by the rune giant sorcerer Ysarn, the Firecat leads an army of fire giants, red dragons, and purrodaemons.  She herself rides an iron colossus powered by bound efreet.  Freeing these enslaved spirits of fire from their sarcophagus-like batteries is adventurers’ best chance to stop the Firecat.

—Inner Sea Bestiary 62–63

Thanks for all the support and great shout-outs on Friday!  Hello to any new readers we might have picked up (from Reddit or elsewhere)!  And (for my American readers at least) hope you had an excellent long weekend!  (I still feel gross.  I did nothing.)