Dark Empath

“As above, so below,” goes the off-referenced line from the Emerald Tablet.  (And holy crap I did not realize what a Wiki wormhole I was about to enter when I looked up the origin of that quote.  Appropriate, though, given that we’re looking at an occult monster.)  If your PCs have occult powers, it makes sense that your subterranean villains should too.  Thus dark empaths are the dark folk version of humanity’s (or halfling-ity’s) mentalists and mind readers.

Then again, dark empaths may work even better if your player characters don’t have access to psychic magic or occult power.  When PCs are used to slinging spells and chanting prayers, a creature that devours their emotions and spits their cause fear spells back at them as rage might give them pause.

(And, as we’ve talked about before, if you really want to highlight the difference between the sunlit and sunless worlds, making the magic different is one easy way to do so.  For instance, if the surface world is heavy with clerical magic and wizards’ spellbooks, make the depths full of sorcery, psychic magic, and occult rituals, emphasizing that beneath the earth the rules are different and the gods of good answer faintly…if at all.)

For all their mental powers, dark empaths aren’t masterminds.  In thrall to their own emotions and the emotions of others, they are easily manipulated by the dark callers and owbs that rule dark folk society.

Adventurers lead a sage (who happens to be an enchanter) and his necromancer assistant down into the bowels of the earth.  The sage isn’t supposed to join in combat, but when his assistant leaps to his defense with a wand of cause fear, he gets caught in the infectious psychic backlash.

Turbans and voluminous wrappings are traditional in the Kyaf region, allowing dark folk to mingle easily with humanity at night despite the day’s punishing sun.  This intrusion does not always go unnoticed—many Kyafar whisper of “the small dark ones” or “the night singers.”  But it is the repressive theocracy of Tomar’sh where the dark folk truly rule the night.  There dark empath assassins twist the minds of their targets, spreading paranoia until their panicked victims provoke the religious guard into putting them down without the dark empaths drawing a single blade.

Dark empaths are made to stay on the outskirts of dark folk settlements…for good reason.  But once a year—Unraveling Day—they are allowed to parade through dark folk towns, causing all the havoc they wish.  Dark folk know to prepare for such days…but members of other cultures don’t.  Adventurers are pursuing a bounty that has gone to ground in a mixed duergar and lizardfolk city that has recently seen an influx of dark folk, and they are caught in the middle of the chaos when the dark empaths hold their first Unraveling Day amid the unsuspecting crowds.

—Occult Bestiary 18

I spent much of grad school playing Vampire since that was my friends’ beloved system, and nothing terrified us players more than encountering new magical disciplines.  Out-of-game it was because Vampire’s magic systems tended to be horribly broken for anyone who had the slightest bit of forethought and preparation time; in-game it was because first encounters with magic you hadn’t planned for tended to be near-lethal almost 100% of the time. 

Over the weekend filbypott called me out for describing thanatotic titans as “strictly fantastic creations” rather than being inspired by the Greek myths.  I probably shouldn’t have used “strictly” and I totally see his point—they did rise against the gods, they were imprisoned, they do have the Godslayer (Su) ability.  But they still feel loosely inspired by the myths for me, rather than “ripped from the headlines” like the hekatonkheires. Part of it is the art choice, I think—that full-plate-suited warrior just doesn’t say “primitive forebear of the gods” to me.  (Thanks for the eyes, though, Filby!)

I have an even worse excuse for not mentioning the fomorian titan: I flat-out forgot about it!  …Buuutttttt that’s not 100% my fault, I swear!  As I’ve mentioned before the fomorian was left out of the online Pathfinder Reference Document index, so it didn’t show up when I went to research previous titan incarnations.  D’oh!

Caligni

I’ve been enjoying the way we've learned about dark folk culture in dribs and drabs throughout the Bestiaries.  It’s clear the folks at Paizo are fans of them—dark creepers and dark stalkers (and many other Fiend Folio monsters) got some love in the very first Adventure Path, Shackled City, back in Paizo’s Dungeon-publishing days—but the authors have shown a nice restrained touch in how they’ve dished out more dark folk subspecies and details over time.

Since Bestiary 4 revealed that owbs had a hand in perverting the dark folk race, it’s probably inevitable we got a prelapsarian dark folk species: the caligni.  A throwback to a nobler, less stunted phenotype, caligni are what dark folks were and could one day be again, were it not for the owbs.  They’re still dark folk, right down to the death throes, but they aren't the shrouded, rag-covered, disgusting messes so many of their fellows are.

Every caligni is a potential adventure—they are by their very birth chosen ones and messiahs, a challenge to the owb order.  They are also likely to be outcasts, murder victims, political prisoners, and just plan victims of the dark folk establishment.  A caligni encountered in dark folk society is either a leader or a target; a caligni found far from dark folk society is running from someone…or something.

And best of all, they're a playable race—perfect for that player who wants the Dark Outcast™ character without all the in- and out-of-game baggage of the drow or the planar ties of a fetchling.  (Did I say perfect for the player?  I meant perfect for his beleaguered GM.)  Not only are they a pretty reasonable build for someone who wants a tough and nimble character (they make absurdly good rogues despite the hit to Intelligence), but also their death throes make combat just that little extra more risky and meaningful for the player—never a bad thing.

A caligni returns to Shroud, the subterranean city of his childhood, a rare melting pot of tolerance and trade amid the many mad and evil races of the Lands Below.  But all is not well in the city.  Dark folk militants are moving into Shroud in threes and fours, pushing out the more discreet and peaceable dark folk who have always called the city home.  These militants hunt the Dark Messiah, a rabble-rouser whose very existence is a rallying point for those who have rejected more orthodox dark folk ways.  Worse yet, the Dark Messiah is the caligni’s identical twin.

A strange gray-skinned half-elf has become the grandmaster of the Night Hands thieves’ guild.  As the previous grandmaster was a noted follower of the Cat Lord, the new half-elf has worked to eliminate all Cat Lord worshippers, catfolk, and even stray street felines from his territory.  In fact, the grandmaster seems to have a hatred of all extraplanar creatures, which makes him a deadly foe of summoners and conjurers but a potentially useful ally against both the selfish wizards of the Protean Tower and the angel-leashing martinets of the Golden Dome.

When Oliver Cromwell’s forces took over England, wags joked that he would paint the country as black as the robes of his Puritan followers.  They were more right than they knew.  For ever since he became Lord Protector and closed England’s borders and ports, the country has been shrouded in a figurative fog of secrecy and a literal fog of dark magic.  Adventurers who dare to cross the English Channel or slip down from the Highlands of Scotland discover a realm shrouded from the sun where every man, woman, and child has become one of the dark folk…and only a few brave caligni stand up to the Great Owb Crom of the Black Well’s armies, zealots, and spies.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 5 66

Full fridge.  $44.00 worth of alcohol.  Netflix, two Lego sets, and more unread role-playing books than I could get through in a month, let alone one weekend?  Provided I keep my power/heat/Internet (*knocks on wood*), I am ready for this blizzard.

How is it Friday already and I haven’t posted this week’s radio show yet?!?  Tuesday I braved 22 °F temps to bring you tons of new music, plus bands we expect big things of in 2016 and a few classics.  Get everything from Bossie to Blondie, Tove Styrke to Titus Andronicus, and Chance the Rapper to Beck.  Stream or download it now, though, because the file disappears Monday, 1/25, at midnight.

Dark Dancer

Somebody—the Internet says Leo Tolstoy, so we’ll go with that—once said, “All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.”

Dark dancers are the perfect strangers come to town.

How many fantasy stories start with a wandering bard’s tales of adventure, or a young maid falling in love with a traveling player?  Make the performer a dark dancer who only appears after dusk and vanishes by dawn.  You’ve just tuned that lute up to 11.

And how awesome are dark dancers for kicking off a campaign?  Forget that “You all meet in a tavern” business—honestly, what are the odds a priest, a mage, a burglar, and a brute are all going to be hanging out in the same bar?  But all four could easily happen upon the same troupe of street performers.  And when those performers suddenly attack without warning, or are attacked themselves by rival kobolds or morlocks bursting out of the sewers, and they flash with strange magic and drop interesting trinkets in their death throes…well now the whole party is interested and has a reason to band together. 

And, of course, it's made very clear in the Bestiary 4 that dark dancers move between dark folk clans and among the subterranean societies of other races with unmatched ease.  So even if PCs never cross swords with them, a troupe of dark dancers could be their passport to adventures all over the (under)world.

Seven years ago, a mysterious troupe of dark dancers came to town…and left more than a few brave or curious maids with fetchling babes in their bellies.  When the troupe passes through town again, the dark dancers reclaim their bastard offspring and spirit them away.  The distraught mothers beg adventurers to bring their children back.

Adventurers get their first job guarding a gated portal to the Realms Below.  They soon face more than the usual goblins or dire rats when a troupe of dark dancers demands passage.  A dark slayer has seized control of their clan, and they are determined to get as far away as possible—even if it means drugging or clubbing the adventurers senseless.

A barbarian has been cursed.  He believes he will never be free of the taint unless he can track down the dark dancer who laid it upon him.  The inheritor of a large fortune, he pays well for aid.  But adventurers who take the job will find it a challenging one.  The barbarian will not accept magical aid from a woman, has trouble ending his rages while underground, consults an astrological chart before making important decisions, and smells terrible.  Meanwhile, the dark dancer has found a comfortable place among a new delegation of dark creepers and is happy to sacrifice them to escape trouble of the barbarian sort.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 4 43

Behold: a dark dancer with the boss template.

Tumblr readers, you can find the dark creeper on the original Blogger site.

Dark Caller

Among the races of the Realms Below, dark folk are odd, because they don't really have A Thing.  They have a gimmick—they’re fond of darkness and explode or otherwise cause mayhem when they die—but we don't know much about their aims, goals, or society. 

Drow, for instance, are evil elves (gimmick) who live in matriarchal societies and worship demons (Pathfinder Thing) or an evil spider queen (D&D Thing).  Duergar are vile dwarves who can enlarge themselves (gimmick) and slavers who serve a dark god of toil (Thing).  Derro are insane, stunted humanoids who burn in the sun (gimmick) and abduct surface dwellers to perform experiments upon (Thing).  Dark folk…we don't know.  Even flail snails have more of a Thing (epic poetry!) than the dark folk do.

That starts to change with the dark callers.  These dark folk lay priests are instrumental in summoning the otherworldly owbs, who in turn blanch the dark folk young and may even be able to alter their subspecies, in a circular ritual that pretty much guarantees some ancient pact or bargain was involved.  The more dark callers there are, the more owbs are summoned; the more owbs are summoned, the more the race is shaped away from humanity toward some mysterious end state.  So now dark folk have A Thing—but it’s still up to you to fill in the sketch of what that Thing is.

Interestingly, it takes three dark callers to summon an owb…and the owb, while free-willed, obeys the dark callers.  So owbs might be agents of the dark folk’s Shadow Plane masters.  But then again…maybe dark folk create the masters they need… 

Here’s what I mean: With war looming, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby created Captain America, giving form to the gestalt hopes and aspirations of the American reading public.  One could easily imagine dark folk society doing the same—only instead of an invincible Boy Scout, what if they created something far less wholesome?  Driven underground by some cataclysm, maybe the Triassic dark folk sought to banish their terror of the darkness by embracing it.  Maybe the first owb was summoned…or maybe it manifested out of the dark folk’s own need for a savior.  Just a thought.

One more note before we get to the adventure seeds: Dark callers are also highly superstitious and ritual-obsessed.  This might not come into play much if you’re running a surface dweller-focused, kick-down-the-bad-guys’-door campaign.  But if your campaign spends a lot of time below the surface—say, in a Pathfinder version of Downer’s Oubliette or the Forgotten Realms’ Skullport—then dark callers might get enough screen time so that this fact becomes useful for GM role-playing and PC scheming.  Also, it's a great excuse to use new/variant spellcasting styles—oracles, witches, summoners, or the new arcanists and shamans from the Advanced Class Guide all come to mind.

At night, Devon languishes in darkness.  Several colliers have recently been murdered, and the charcoal fires in their huts have all been put out.  The Lamplighter Guild’s members have all left town, save for one man drowning his sorrows at the Trout & Tankard.  A dark folk clan lives directly below Devon, and a zealous dark caller is directing his minions to make the nighttime streets lightless by any means necessary.

When a favorite dark dancer dies during the Feast of the Moth, a dark caller reads the signs and believes the clan must be purified by the burning cold touch of an owb.  She and her apprentice are not enough to call the dark spirit, however, so they make plans to abduct a conjurer or summoner who can complete their circle.

“Fear the white elf; the gnoll follows one step behind.”  So goes one dark caller superstition—and dark folk may honor or murder the elf as a precaution.  It is bad luck to harm a ratfolk, but nor will a dark caller touch one.  Signs may be read in the liver of a blind cave lizard or a troll.  Mushroom stalks may be used to cast hexagrams from the Book of Elements; adventurers attacked by dark folk in a mushroom forest are usually guilty of treading too near such sacred fungi.  No dark caller will shadow step in the presence of a black cat, changeling, or fey, for fear that a hag may follow him through the black portal.  And the blood of a dwarf woman cleanses all sins, according to many dark callers.  If adventurers are called upon to rescue such a maid, they had best act fast.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 4 42

Owbs also apparently hang out with doppelgangers.  This is super weird and unexpected and I can't wait to explore this once we hit the letter O.

I originally wrote, “One could easily imagine a fascist or communist dark folk society doing the same...” because not every evil society has to be about dark gods and Great Old Ones, and because I kind of love the idea of dark folk shaping themselves out of sheer civic drive.  Then that got me off into a tangent about how yes, I know these ideologies are on polar opposite ends of the political spectrum, but that the methods they employ in terms of social control and propaganda are often nearly identical.  But that then required me to clarify that I’m talking evil, oppressive, Soviet-style communists, not your local food coöp communists—those guys are awesome. (Except during zucchini season, because no one can eat that much zucchini.)  And that tangent drove me to tell you that if you’re ever in Baltimore these guys are worth looking up.  And then I realized that once I’ve spiraled so out of control that I’m recommending radical semi-anarchist coffee shops that are not within easy driving distance of most of you, it is probably time to contain all of the above in a note way down out the bottom.  Which I have now done.

Dark Stalker

As subterranean peoples go, the dark folk are comparatively decent neighbors—they aren’t degenerate savages like the morlocks, hedonistic demon-worshippers like the drow, slavers in service to dour gods like the duergar, or kidnapping mad sadists like the derro.  Compared to them, a race of chaotic neutral thieves and poisoners seem almost benign.  But the very fact that dark stalkers can’t be easily categorized by their goals or habits makes one ask: So what are they hiding?

At least one school of shadowdancers is actually a cover for a shadow school of dark stalker assassins.

The Watch corners a black-cloaked man and a pair of diminutive companions stealing artifacts from the town museum.  In order to escape, the man slit his own lackeys’ throats, then vanished in the flash.  However, he dropped a scrap of paper that seems to reference something called the Umbral Orrery.  Wanted posters for the man are now on every street corner.

The head of the thieves’ guild becomes alarmed when a new poison called Black Smear floods the town—and not just because it threatens his monopoly.  His men track the suppliers three levels down below the city, where the closes and basements give way to caverns peopled by dark folk.  Dark stalkers captured one of his men, but he can’t go to the authorities because he himself is a fugitive due for hanging.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 54

The closes of Edinburgh are awesome for sparking game ideas.

Dark Slayer

Dark slayers are the black sheep of an already dark family.  When dark folk plots escalate from theft and corruption to murder, a dark slayer is almost certainly involved.  Parties making serious forays into dark folk territory will likely battle dark slayer sorcerers, whose soul harvest touch makes them as deadly up close as they are from afar.  Dark slayers’ obsession with magical items and resentment of their dark stalker leaders could drive encounters as well.

Among the criminal classes, Professor Rags is known as the most reliable fence in town—a crazed coot who won’t turn down any item, no matter how hot.  The so-called “professor” is a dark slayer obsessed with the magic items his client brings him.  His underground warehouse is filled with the sad remains of wondrous items ruined by his tinkering.

A dark folk city is rocked by internecine warfare when the dark slayers rise up against the dark stalkers.  Sellswords attempting to negotiate a trade agreement for some surface merchants soon get embroiled in the struggle.

A tribune of dark slayers has taken over their tribe, but the trio cannot agree on their overall goals.  One wants more profits from dark stalker trade with the drow, one is secretly in thrall to an aboleth savant, and the third is a daemon-worshipper whose revivals have his dark creeper followers frothing at the mouth beneath their layers of rags.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 2 75

Edit: I was so sick when this entry was supposed to come out.

Dark Creeper

Like drow and duergar, dark folk are—possibly?—humans (and halflings?) who sought shelter underground and were irrevocably changed by the experience.

While attacking morlocks in the deeps, a party of adventurers unwittingly saves a gang of dark creepers, who swear their loyalty to the surface-dwellers in thanks.  For the next 48 hours, they serve as admirable guides, porters and foot soldiers—right up until the moment when a dark stalker appears and calls them to heel.  They obey immediately, and then immediately attack the party to boot.

The beggars of Hornmoth and the dark creepers in the sewers below have come to quiet understanding, sharing the rags and discards of the wealthy city. When beggars start to go missing, are the dark folk to blame, or are they victims as well?

Perched on the edge of the swampy moors of Perrin, Night Town is two cities in one.  By day, it is the lone large town in a backwater land, a place for farmers, trappers, tinkers, and swamp runners to eke out simple lives in a bleak landscape.  By night, it is the one place where dark creepers live aboveground, carrying on much the same as their daytime compatriots.  Being poor, the custom in Night Town is to share dwellings—humans and halflings work through the day, then return home just as their dark folk co-tenants are beginning their night.  Despite rarely even speaking the same language, the people of Night Town make their system work—a system of hand signs, scrawled pictograms, and dogged persistence bridges the gaps where language fails.  Unusually, there are no dark stalkers or slayers mingled with their smaller kin; in fact, Night Town’s dark creepers fear and avoid their cousins.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 53

You can tell that the Paizo folk love dark folk (or dark ones, as they’ve also been known).  I’m pretty sure they appeared in 3.5’s Shackled City Adventure Path (along with a number of other Fiend Folio selects), I know they showed up in the Downer comic, and they certainly got catapulted into first-volume respectability with their inclusion in the Pathfinder Bestiary.

By the way, Night Town is inspired by a Dragon Magazine story, but I’ll have to do some digging to remind myself which one.