Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Sepid


Sepids are the warlords of the divs, leading the lesser breeds into battle against both genies and the mortals whose oblivion they crave. In addition to being physically powerful, sepids’ array of spell-like abilities is dizzying.  They can also deflect magical rays, making them good mage hunters, and they can literally rain down destruction on opponents.

Sepids’ congenital flaw is that they are also pathological liars cursed (at least in their dealings with mortals; I’m guessing while leading their own troops they have more flexibility) with always saying the opposite of the truth and doing the opposite of what they’ve promised.  They’re ordinarily too intelligent (19) and wise (19) to let this fact trip them up, but in the right setting PCs might be able to turn this tic against them.

A sepid leads an attack on the minaret-studded city of Pesharv.  While his aghash soldiers content themselves with destruction and looting—hating beautiful mortals and their works, they take particular pleasure in molesting and scarring attractive citizens and putting the torch to sumptuous homes—the sepid works to eliminate influential members of the city’s suli minority, hoping to crush the spirits of the genie-blooded populace before rounding them up for deportation and slavery.

Born of the soul of a shaitan, a sepid still gravitates toward creatures of earth as siege breakers.  Currently it has a trio of blue dragons in its employ—the sepid has promised to help them take care of a society of troublesome wizards.  Adventurers might ally with the wizards against the sepid by manning their towers’ defenses.  They might also find a way to use the sepid’s own inability to tell the truth to sow discord among his lawful dragon confederates.

Two sepids guard a passage in the pyramid of the Never Pharaoh.  Bound to repeat a Knight and Knave riddle, one of them has been ensorcelled to always speak the truth—a stricture so against its nature it causes both spiritual and physical pain (they being largely one and the same thing for an outsider).  If the party cannot answer the riddle both sepids attack, but if the party does successfully pass the test, the truth-telling sepid will hunt them later—after having sewed its own mouth shut.

Pathfinder Bestiary 3 89

Edit: This post is a revision because I was slammed schedule-wise.  The original post contained no intro and only the first and third adventure seeds.

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