Cythnigot

Flytrap-mawed parasites, cythnigots are a great vehicle for introducing qlippoths into a campaigns early—a foreshadowing of Abyssal horrors to come.  They’re also perfectly creepy on their own, as their ability to rupture out of and mutate mundane animals (and even beloved pets) can be used to good horrific effect.

A bloom of cythnigots infests the local sewer rats and begins to migrate through the city.  The target of the bloom’s ire seems to be Omun’s church, just south of Applecart Square.  At night the cythnigots use their warp wood and soften earth and stone abilities to slowly undermine and ruin the lawful god’s house of worship.  During the day they hide in the garden, hoping for a chance to strike at the high prelate, a noted lover of marigolds.

Joshu thinks he’s going mad.  He must be—for surely the flytrap that appeared from nowhere in his garret apartment can’t really be talking to him, whispering fantasies of murder and lust and destruction.  In reality, the impoverished playwright, once a foundling, is actually a tiefling whose Abyssal heritage has never before manifested.  The flytrap is a cythnigot runt unable to manifest its powers reliably.  When the qlippoth detected the demonic stain on Joshu, it began speaking to him in Abyssal in an attempt to drive him to the mayhem it is too weak to wreak.

The jolly pirate and sea sorcerer Shem the Brash hasn’t been quite the same since prying the bloodstone eyes from an idol on Cairn Reef.  After weeks of growing unease, his parrot familiar seeks help from a local cleric.  She has just finished her appeal when a fungal growth and two new claws burst through her back—signs of the dark powers that hold Shem under sway.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 2 221

Update: Check out Brandon Hodge’s Feast of Ravenmoor for a great cythnigot reveal/encounter.