Aeon, BythosA shimmering, colorless mass congeals to form a four-armed humanoid shape with an eye-like pattern in its torso.
Bythos CR 16Source Bestiary 2 pg. 10
XP 76,800
N Large outsider (aeon, extraplanar)
Init +8; Senses blindsense 60 ft., darkvision 90 ft., low-light vision; Perception +30
DefenseAC 31, touch 18, flat-footed 26 (+4 deflection, +4 Dex, +1 dodge, +13 natural, –1 size)
hp 207 (18d10+108); fast healing 10
Fort +18, Ref +12, Will +20
Immune cold, critical hits, poison; Resist electricity 10, fire 10; SR 27
OffenseSpeed fly 40 ft. (good)
Melee 4 slams +23 (1d6+6 plus 1d6 cold and aging strike)
Space 10 ft., Reach 10 ft.
Special Attacks confusion gaze, temporal strike
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 18th; concentration +23)
At will—augury, greater teleport, slow (DC 18)
3/day—dimensional anchor, haste, plane shift (DC 20)
1/day—dimensional lock, moment of prescience, temporal stasis (DC 23)
StatisticsStr 22, Dex 19, Con 21, Int 24, Wis 28, Cha 21
Base Atk +18; CMB +25; CMD 44 (can’t be tripped)
Feats Combat Casting, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Great Fortitude, Hover, Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes, Mobility, Toughness
Skills Bluff +26, Fly +6, Heal +30, Intimidate +26, Knowledge (arcana, nature, religion) +33, Knowledge (history, planes) +36, Perception +30, Sense Motive +30, Spellcraft +28, Stealth +21, Use Magic Device +23
Languages envisaging
SQ extension of all, void form
EcologyEnvironment any (Outer Planes)
Organization solitary, pair, or tribunal (3 bythos)
Treasure none
Special AbilitiesAging Strike (Su) If a bythos strikes a living target with two slam attacks in a single round, the bythos ages the creature, causing it to advance to the next age category (Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook 169) if it fails a DC 24 Fortitude save. The victim gains all of the penalties from this aging and none of the bonuses. A venerable victim targeted by this ability dies if it fails a DC 24 Fortitude save. This process is reversible with greater restoration, limited wish, miracle, or wish. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Confusion Gaze (Su) Confusion for 1d4 rounds, 30 feet, Fortitude DC 24 negates. The save DC is Charisma-based.
Temporal Strike (Su) As a standard action, a bythos can touch a creature or object to displace it from time. If the target fails a DC 24 Fortitude save, it disappears from the present moment and reappears in the same location 1d4 rounds later as if no time had passed. If an object occupies that space, the creature appears in the closest available space to its original location—this displacement does not cause the creature any additional harm. The save DC is Charisma-based.
DescriptionThe bythos are guardians of time and planar travel—indeed, to bythos, the act of aging is nothing more than a highly specialized method of travel. Although bythos themselves have no additional method of traveling through time, they scour the multiverse, hunting for creatures that do have the ability to time-travel and may have abused this ability.
Far more often, though, bythos seek out abuses of planar travel, such as tears in reality, regions where planes overlap, or creatures that abuse the use of planar travel. In some cases, such distortions are ignored, but in others, a bythos or even a full tribunal comes to assess and repair the damage. In most cases, “repair” is analogous to the death of the creature responsible for the distortions, but placing such creatures in temporal stasis can also solve the problem.
While a bythos’s body may seem to be made of smoke and vapor, it is strangely solid to the touch, feeling not dissimilar to dry stone. A bythos is 13 feet tall and weighs 600 pounds.Creatures in "Aeon" CategorySource Bestiary 2 pg. 8
Beyond passion, beyond mercy, beyond reason, the faceless caretakers of reality toil without end, silently struggling to preserve the tenuous balance upon which all existence depends. These voiceless forces are the aeons, inscrutable shapers and eliminators of the multiverse. They exist beyond the understanding of most mortals, endlessly striving toward goals unfathomable even to many of the planes' eldest inhabitants. Aeons build order from the chaos of the Maelstrom, seed new life upon barren worlds, and halt the rampages of forces grown overbold. They rend nations to vapor, dismantle planets into cosmic dust, and pave the way for calamities. Their ways are at one moment beneficent and in the next utterly devastating, but always without ardor, compassion, or malice. Every aeon dispassionately but determinedly strives toward the same objective—an ever changing, amending, and readjusting pursuit of multiplanar equilibrium. United in this eternal and perhaps impossible pursuit, aeons embody the planes-spanning hand of a metaphorical omnipotent clockmaker, endlessly tuning and adjusting the myriad gears of reality in pursuit of ultimate perfection.
The balance aeons seek in all things begins with themselves. Most aeons embody a powerful dichotomy sustained in equilibrium. From the potency of birth and death meeting in akhanas to the philosophies of fate and freedom embodied by theletos, the workings of existence take on form and will within their living manifestations. Even the lesser paracletus unite diverse elements of creation in their intricate orbits. Such stability reaches beyond the shapes of aeons to inspire and direct their minds, imbuing each with a singular purpose and area of control. Thus, each embodies the realm of reality it would seek to balance, attempting to enforce a harmony as perfect as that of its physical form upon all things. The forms of various types directly suggest their abilities and objectives, with pleroma aeons, for example, exhibiting the power to create or annihilate, and using such influence to alter that which has grown either too abundant or sterile.
While aeons are not malicious creatures, they care nothing for individual beings or the struggles and emotions central to most life. The ruin of an entire city or burning of a vast forest means equally little in their manipulation of symmetry. By the same right, creating new life or constructing defenses against impending calamities are equally characteristic acts. For aeons, only the final tally matters, and a land overpopulated by humanoids is just as much in need of culling as a land overrun by ravenous fungi. Just as a body's natural defenses have neither mercy nor malice for invading parasites, aeons don't muddy their objectives with emotion. Such impartiality extends to the interactions between aeons as well. Without culture, society, or even memory beyond the immediate needs of the multiverse, they build no relationships and, in general, have no personalities beyond an automaton-like directness. A vague caste system exists, with aeons that hold influence over greater multiversal principles acknowledged as superior by their lesser brethren. This caste system rarely translates to actual direction and obedience, though. Should the acts of a greater aeon jeopardize the works or even lives of a multitude of lesser aeons, the efforts of the more potent aeon proceed without hesitation. Only in matters of great existential concern do multiple aeons cooperate, directed into doing so by the united consciousness of their race and the multiverse itself, and even then rarely for long.
Many mistake aeons for friends or allies of nature and its creatures. While this might be true at times—and is definitely true if reality as a whole is considered a vast, united organism—aeons care no more for the trees of the forest than for the towers of civilization. For them, all life is life and all death is death, to be preserved or scoured regardless of its arbitrary shape.
In rare cases, aeons have been known to deviate from the whims of the multiverse. Such rogue aeons typically arise from interacting with other races excessively, living beyond their intended times, being exposed to unusual ideas, or being forced to perform acts they otherwise wouldn't contemplate. These aeons typically take on extreme personalities, coming to favor one aspect of their being over the other—an akhana is just as likely to become an artist of life as a mass murderer. Normal aeons perceive their rogue brethren as high-priority disturbances in the balance of the multiverse and seek the destruction of such rarities with all haste.Monad, the Condition of AllAll aeons are bound in a state they know as “the condition of all” or “monad,” a supreme oneness with all members of their race and the multiverse itself. Therefore, aeons exist as an extension of the multiverse; in a fashion similar to the way bones, muscle, and the various humors create a mortal, they exist as part of a greater being. When destroyed or upon accomplishing specific goals, their energies simply dissipate and become reabsorbed into the monad. They do not die, but are instead recycled. They have no discernible memories and seem to exist only in the present, arriving to repair balance. Relationships with non-aeons are generally nonexistent, and they feel no sense of affection, remorse, vengeance, or similar emotions. Aeons deal with each task as its own action, independent from all other tasks. Thus, an individual once at violent odds with an aeon may, upon their next encounter, have the aeon's full and undaunted support.Aeon SubtypeAeons are a race of neutral outsiders who roam the planes maintaining the balance of reality. Aeons possess the following traits.- Immunity to cold, poison, and critical hits.
- Resistance to electricity 10 and fire 10.
- Envisaging (Su) Aeons communicate wordlessly, almost incomprehensibly. Caring little for the wants and desires of other creatures, they have no need to engage in exchanges of dialogue. Instead, aeons mentally scan beings for their thoughts and intentions, and then retaliate with flashes of psychic projections that emit a single concept in response to whatever the other being was thinking. The flash is usually a combination of a visual and aural stimulation, which displays how the aeon perceives future events might work out. For instance, an aeon seeking to raze a city communicates this concept to non-aeons by sending them a vivid image of the city crumbling to ash. An aeon's envisaging functions as a non-verbal form of telepathy. Aeons cannot read the thoughts of any creature immune to mind-affecting effects.
- Extension of All (Ex) Through an aeon's connection to the multiverse, it gains access to strange and abstruse knowledge that filters through all existence. Much of the knowledge is timeless, comprised of events long past, present, and potentially even those yet to come. Aeons gain a racial bonus equal to half their racial Hit Dice on all Knowledge skill checks. This same connection also binds them to other aeons. As a result, they can communicate with each other freely, over great distances as if using telepathy. This ability also works across planes, albeit less effectively, allowing the communication of vague impressions or feelings, not specific details or sights. Due to the vast scope of the aeon race's multiplanar concerns, though, even the most dire reports of a single aeon rarely inspire dramatic or immediate action.
- Void Form (Su) Though aeons aren't incorporeal, their forms are only a semi-tangible manifestation of something greater. An aeon's void form grants it a deflection bonus equal to 1/4 its Hit Dice (rounded down).
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