Inevitable, ArbiterA sphere of bronze and copper set with a single eye, this winged creature has two clawed hands, one of which clutches a knife.Arbiter CR 2Source Bestiary 2 pg. 162
XP 600
LN Tiny outsider (extraplanar, inevitable, lawful)
Init +3; Senses darkvision 60 ft., detect chaos, low-light vision; Perception +5DefenseAC 16, touch 15, flat-footed 13 (+3 Dex, +1 natural, +2 size)
hp 15 (2d10+4); regeneration 2 (chaotic)
Fort +5, Ref +3, Will +3
Defensive Abilities constant vigilance, constructed; SR 13OffenseSpeed 20 ft., fly 50 ft. (average)
Melee short sword +7 (1d3/19–20)
Space 2-1/2 ft., Reach 0 ft.
Special Attacks electrical burst
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 2nd; concentration +4)
Constant—detect chaos
3/day—command (DC 13), make whole, protection from chaos
1/week—commune (CL 12th, 6 questions)StatisticsStr 11, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 11, Wis 11, Cha 14
Base Atk +2; CMB +3; CMD 13
Feats Flyby Attack, Weapon FinesseB
Skills Diplomacy +7, Fly +12, Knowledge (planes) +5, Perception +5, Sense Motive +5, Stealth +16
Languages truespeech
SQ locate inevitableEcologyEnvironment any
Organization solitary, pair, or flock (3–14)
Treasure noneSpecial AbilitiesConstant Vigilance (Su) An arbiter gains a +4 bonus to recognize and disbelieve illusions created by creatures with the chaotic subtype or possessing the chaotic descriptor.
Electrical Burst (Ex) An arbiter can release electrical energy from its body in a 10-foot-radius burst that deals 3d6 electricity damage (DC 13 Reflex half). Immediately following such a burst, the arbiter becomes stunned for 24 hours. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Locate Inevitable (Su) An arbiter can always sense the direction of the nearest non-arbiter inevitable on the plane, the better to help it report back to its superiors. It cannot sense the range to this inevitable.DescriptionStealthy, observant, and frequently persuasive, arbiter inevitables are the scouts and diplomats of the inevitable race. Found throughout the multiverse in courts and on battlefields, arbiters keep a close eye on the forces of chaos and do their best to keep the lawful from straying, while simultaneously winning over the hearts and minds of those who might yet be saved. Though their assorted abilities make them extremely useful, arbiters see themselves less as servants than as advisers and counselors, preferring to ride around on their summoners’ shoulders and help guide their “partners” on the path of law. They detest being summoned by chaotic individuals, and when teamed with such a creature, they aren’t above using Diplomacy to try to influence the summoner’s friends or refusing to undertake actions that seem contrary to their programming.
An arbiter who comes across evidence of a significant insurgence of chaos upon a given plane does everything in its power to rally its allies against the dangerous instability, and in situations that are clearly beyond its ability to handle, it may refuse to continue onward until the group agrees to help it reach the nearest greater inevitable and make a full report, or else may travel to Utopia itself and present its urgent information in person.
Arbiters typically bear the shapes of tiny clockwork spheres with shiny metal wings. Generally peaceful unless combating true creatures of chaos, arbiters prefer to cast protection from chaos on their allies and use command to make opponents drop their weapons and run. Their most powerful weapon, the ability to release their internal energy as a deadly burst, is reserved for dire need and battles of the utmost service to law, as the resulting period of darkness while they’re powered down is the only thing that seems to truly scare the tiny automatons.
An arbiter inevitable can serve a spellcaster as a familiar. Such a spellcaster must be lawful neutral, must be at least caster level 7th, and must have the Improved Familiar feat. Arbiter inevitables measure 1 foot in diameter but are surprisingly heavy, weighing 60 pounds. Their ability to fly on metal wings is as much a supernatural ability as a physical one.Creatures in "Inevitable" CategorySource Bestiary 2 pg. 161
Originally invented and forged in the Outer Planes by the axiomites, inevitables are living machines whose sole purpose is to seek out and destroy agents of chaos wherever they can.
During the height of the first war between law and chaos, while the Outer Planes were still forming from the raw chaos of the primal reality, inevitables were constructed by the axiomites as an unflinching army—soldiers powerful and devoted enough to march on the madness-inducing hordes of proteans who sought to unmake reality and return it all to the primal chaos they so adored. While this war has long since cooled to a simmer, and the reality of the Outer Planes is now not so easily threatened by the entropic influence of the proteans and their home plane, the defense of the axiomites' home plane remains the inevitables' primary goal. Despite the proteans' subsequent adaptation and study of how best to make themselves more resistant to the inevitables' attacks, these constructed soldiers remain imposingly effective.
Today, many inevitables—almost all of those encountered on the Material Plane—pursue a new aspect of their original mission: tracking down those who flagrantly flout the forces of law and redeeming them or, more often, eliminating the threat they present to the ordered nature of the multiverse. Matched on the side of chaos by the manipulative imentesh proteans, new inevitables awake to find themselves locked in a proxy war, knowing that losing the Material Plane to chaos would place their masters in a dangerous position.
Genderless, incorruptible, and caring nothing for power or personal advancement, inevitables are cunning and valiant shock troops in the service of law. Though they regularly interact with their creator race on their home plane, they have no society of their own, and are almost always encountered singly on other planes, each more than capable of pursuing its own mission. These individual crusades range from enforcing important or high-profile contracts and laws to forcibly correcting those mortals who would seek to cheat death. How they deal with the guilty varies according to the transgression: sometimes this means a simple geas or mark of justice to ensure that the target works to right his wrongs or never again strays from the path of law, but just as often an offense worthy of an inevitable's attention is severe enough that only immediate execution will suffice. Such decisions are not always popular—for the kindly priest who transcends mortality and the freedom fighter who battles the evil-yet-rightful king are every bit as guilty as grave-robbing necromancers and demon-worshipers—but the inevitables are always just, and few dare stand in the way of their judgment. Those inevitables who have completed a given mission often wander through whatever society they find themselves in, seeking other lawbreakers worthy of their ministrations. Brave souls with a worthy cause are always welcome to approach an inevitable and present their case, but should be wary of invoking the help of such powerful, single-minded beings—for an inevitable may not see the situation the same way they do, and though all inevitables do their best to preserve innocent life, they're not above sacrificing a few allies or innocents in an effort to bring down a greater villain.
Physically, inevitables often have humanoid forms or aspects, but their bodies appear somewhere between clockwork constructs and fine statues in the greatest classical tradition. Constructed of stone, adamantine, and even more precious materials, each inevitable is brought to sentience in the axiomites' forges already programmed with the details of its first target. Though they know that all beings outside of the lawful planes harbor chaos in their hearts, inevitables also understand that such conflicted creatures may yet be forces for law as much as for chaos, and thus overlook all but the most flagrant offenses. The most commonly recognized types of inevitables are as follows.
Arbiters: Scouts and diplomats, often assigned to wizards as familiars in the hopes of directing such individuals to the cause of law.
Kolyaruts: Cloaked and stealthy humanoid warriors who track and punish those who break contracts.
Lhaksharuts: Juggernauts who search for permanent breaches and links between planes and invasions from one dimension to another.
Maruts: Towering beings of stone, steel, and storm who bring a fitting end to those mortals who try to cheat death in attempts to live forever.
Zelekhuts: Winged, centaur-like constructs who track down those who flee just and legal punishment, returning them to their rightful judges or carrying out the sentence themselves. Primal Inevitables While the lhaksharuts are generally thought of as the most powerful caste of inevitable, there exist others of even greater skill and strength—these are known as the primal inevitables. These goliaths were among the first weapons of war forged by the axiomites to fight the protean menace—the methods to create more have long been lost to the axiomites, and those few primals who remain alive to this day have become legendary. None have been encountered in living memory, but the possibility of a primal's emergence is enough to give the proteans second thoughts when ideas of invading the inevitables' home plane arise.
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