Demodand, Gristly DemodandThis obese humanoid has a wide mouth, batlike wings, and pale fluid seeping from rolls of black, greasy skin.Gristly Demodand CR 17Source Bestiary 5 pg. 72
XP 102,400
CE Medium outsider (chaotic, demodand, evil, extraplanar)
Init +10; Senses darkvision 120 ft., detect good, detect magic, see invisibility; Perception +25DefenseAC 32, touch 16, flat-footed 26 (+1 armor, +6 Dex, +15 natural)
hp 264 (23d10+138); fast healing 10
Fort +19, Ref +15, Will +15; +4 vs. divine spells
Defensive Abilities fortification (50%); DR 15/good and slashing; Immune acid, poison; Resist cold 10, fire 10; SR 28OffenseSpeed 40 ft., fly 50 ft. (average)
Melee +1 vicious maul +34/+29/+24/+19 (2d6+16/19-20/×3 plus 2d6) or 2 claws +33 (2d6+10)
Special Attacks faith-stealing strike (DC 25), sacrilegious spittle
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 17th; concentration +21)
Constant—detect good, detect magic, see invisibility
At will—dimensional anchor, fear (DC 18), protection from good, seek thoughts (DC 17)
3/day—quickened excruciating deformation (DC 17), greater dispel magic, quickened pain strike (DC 17)
1/day—mass pain strike (DC 19), summon (level 6, 1d4 tarry demodands or 1d2 stringy demodands 55%), waves of exhaustionStatisticsStr 31, Dex 22, Con 23, Int 17, Wis 14, Cha 18
Base Atk +23; CMB +33; CMD 49
Feats Combat Reflexes, Critical Focus, Improved Critical (maul), Improved Initiative, Intimidating Prowess, Lightning Reflexes, Lunge, Power Attack, Quicken Spell-Like Ability (excruciating deformation), Quicken Spell-Like Ability (pain strike), Staggering Critical, Stunning Critical
Skills Acrobatics +21, Bluff +22, Climb +25, Fly +29, Intimidate +40, Knowledge (arcana, planes, religion) +14, Perception +25, Sense Motive +20, Spellcraft +23, Stealth +29, Survival +25
Languages Abyssal, Celestial, Common
SQ heretical soulEcologyEnvironment any (Abyss)
Organization solitary or hunting party (1 gristly demodand plus 2-5 tarry demodands)
Treasure standard (mwk armored kilt, +1 vicious maul, other treasure)Special AbilitiesSacrilegious Spittle (Ex) As a standard action once every 1d4 rounds, a gristly demodand can spit acidic mucus in a 30-foot cone. Creatures in the area take 15d6 points of acid damage (DC 27 Reflex half), and are entangled on a failed save. Entangled creatures take 5d6 points of acid damage each round at the end of their turns. Creatures that take acid damage from sacrilegious spittle are also subject to the demodand’s faith-stealing strike. Each round on its turn, an entangled creature may attempt a new saving throw to end the effect, as a full-round action that provokes attacks of opportunity. The save DC is Constitution-based.DescriptionGristly demodands delight in inflicting pain and suffering, eagerly fulfilling their roles in demodand culture as assassins, executioners, and torturers. These fiends conduct special missions of reconnaissance, disruption, and violent destruction, frequently leading crack units of tarry demodands into hostile lands, where they attack key demonic installations in order to subject their captives to brutal and insidious torture for the purpose of extracting information.
A gristly demodand’s skin is stretched so taut over rolls of fat and cartilaginous flesh that it continually rips and splits, though a yellow-white mucus that oozes out from within heals these superficial tears, keeping its body intact.
A typical gristly demodand is 7 feet tall and weighs up to 600 pounds.Creatures in "Demodand" CategorySource Bestiary 3 pg. 68
In an ancient war forgotten by most mortals, the thanatotic titans rose up against the gods in a horrific war. When the titans who launched this war were defeated, the gods banished them to the Abyss for eternity, where the gods hoped the titans' immense power would be contained. For millennia, the exiled titans seethed and brooded, convinced that only they were truly worthy of the adulation and worship of mortals—the bitter seed that had grown into their rebellion. This festering hatred mixed with arrogance led the thanatotic titans to create their own race of worshipers. They kneaded together the dark earth and polluted waters of the Abyss into clay the color of a starless night. The greatest of their sculptors and lifeshapers sculpted the clay into humanoid likenesses of themselves, the size of men but more comely, with proud visages, great draconic wings, and chiseled frames. Then the creators cut themselves and let their own blood flow into the empty shells of their creations, and let their own breath act as bellows, pumping blood and air into the sculpted figures to awaken them. Deeming their own powers to be deific, the titans reasoned that they could craft life and existence as well as the old gods. They were wrong.
The titans' sculpted paragons of might charred and melted, oozing into twisted shapes. These shapes, however, clung tenaciously to the spark of life imparted to them.
Thus the demodands were born—a hideous race of creatures imbued with the fickle cruelty of their masters. Misshapen and foul to behold, demodands are known by some scholars as titanspawn. Despite their physical repulsiveness, however, all demodands possess a drop of their creators' titanic power. This trace of near-divine power makes them as formidable as they are vicious, and many demon lords have spent years, if not centuries, waging wars, foiling raids, and undoing the damage that demodands cause. As the thanatotic titans expand their influence and holdings in the Abyss with immortal patience, it is the demodands who act as their shock troops, generals, and slavers. Their preferred captives are mortals with some connection to the gods, such as clerics, paladins, or other believers. Demodands take great pleasure in torturing such captives before subjecting them to lives of abject servitude. During the countless years of ensuing labor, demodands slip foul, insidious whispers into the ears of their slaves, designed to challenge and ultimately erode their captives' faith. Those that succumb are taken before one of the thanatotic titans to be “redeemed,” and are then sent back into the world as new believers, spreading the “true” faith of the evil titans. Such mortals often form clandestine cults dedicated to thanatotic worship, and are closely monitored by the demodands who first captured them. For those mortal slaves whose faith will not break, the demodands ensure that their bodies eventually do.
Demodands have no such ulterior motives when they take demons as slaves, for they see their abyssal cohorts as little more than powerful servants to be used for their innate strength and spell-like powers. In particular, demodands prize powerful demons like glabrezus or nalfeshnees as status symbols if they can be held, and turn these slaves into bodyguards, or gladiators in the fabled thanatotic arenas. Shaggy demodands are also known to mount entire invasions into alternate planes of the Abyss to capture incubi and succubi to serve as pleasure slaves to themselves or their titan masters.
Unlike demons, who are created from the foulest of mortal souls, demodands procreate within the foul corners of the Abyss. Female demodands birth clutches upon clutches of eggs and then leave them to fend for themselves. Those that survive to the point of hatching then enter a gruesome race with their siblings, for demodands always hatch with a great hunger. With no parents to provide for them and no guaranteed source of food, they invariably turn on their brood mates for their first meal. Both the titans and the other demodands see this fight for survival as a necessity to make the race stronger. On occasion, more than one hatchling survives, usually by fleeing the dread hunger of its siblings.
When not gleefully carrying out the domineering orders of their masters, demodands rove the Abyss looking for foolish travelers and lost souls. Others use stealth to walk the Material Plane, where they can strike out in the name of their makers. Such demodands busy themselves defacing temples and holy sites, murdering religious leaders, or subverting entire communities.
Despite worshiping their masters like deities, all demodands are imbued with the same bitter hatred of the divine that cast their makers from the heavens. This heretical fervor makes them particularly resistant to divine magic in all its forms, and all demodands have a weaker form of their progenitors' godslayer ability. Demodands take particular pleasure in disrupting the link between gods and their servants, and on the rarest of occasions have let prospective victims live after such attacks, knowing that it was not just its enemy's power, but its very faith that was shaken.
The only hatred that eclipses the demodands' loathing of demons and the religiously faithful is their fury at the celestial races. Within these vessels of divine power—angels above all others—the demodands see the incarnate form of all they were crafted to despise and destroy. Indeed, powerful individuals and evil cults alike who seek to destroy a good-aligned outsider often find that the payments they need to offer to enlist the services of even the mightiest of demodands are greatly reduced.
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