Qlippoth Lord, Isph-Aun-VulnA cloud of smoke the size of a human condenses, forming a clot of
tentacles and eyes surrounding a fanged mouth.Isph-Aun-Vuln CR 25Source Bestiary 6 pg. 234
XP 1,638,400
CE Medium outsider (chaotic, evil, extraplanar, incorporeal, qlippoth)
Init +16; Senses darkvision 60 ft., detect good, detect law, true
seeing; Perception +40
Aura cloak of chaos (DC 27)DefenseAC 44, touch 32, flat-footed 31 (+12 armor, +9 deflection, +12 Dex,
+1 dodge)
hp 546 (28d10+392); regeneration 15 (lawful)
Fort +34, Ref +27, Will +31
Defensive Abilities freedom of movement, incorporeal, reflect
compulsion, soul shell; DR 15/cold iron and lawful; Immune cold, death effects, mind-affecting effects, poison; Resist acid 30, electricity 30, fire 30; SR 36OffenseSpeed fly 100 ft. (perfect)
Melee bite +40 touch (destruction)
Special Attacks destructive commands, horrific appearance
(DC 33), insidious possession, toxic storm
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 25th; concentration +34)
Constant—cloak of chaos (DC 27), detect good, detect law, freedom of movement, tongues, true seeing
At will—charm monster (DC 23), desecrateM, greater command (DC 25), greater dispel magic, greater object possession (DC 26), greater teleport
3/day—dominate monster (DC 28), greater possession (DC 27), quickened mass suggestion (DC 25), quickened mind fog (DC 24), whirlwindM (DC 27)
1/day—summon qlippoth, wishM
M Isph-Aun-Vuln can use the mythic version of this ability within her sanctumStatisticsStr —, Dex 35, Con 38, Int 31, Wis 28, Cha 29
Base Atk +28; CMB +40; CMD 60 (can’t be tripped)
Feats Combat Casting, Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Flyby Attack, Improved Initiative, Improved Iron Will, Improved Lightning Reflexes, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Mobility, Quicken Spell-Like Ability (mass suggestion, mind
fog), Skill Focus (Bluff)
Skills Acrobatics +40, Bluff +46, Diplomacy +37, Fly +51,
Intimidate +37, Knowledge (arcana, history, local, nobility,
religion) +38, Knowledge (planes) +41, Perception +40,
Sense Motive +40, Spellcraft +38, Stealth +43, Use Magic
Device +37
Languages Abyssal; telepathy 300 ft., tonguesEcologyEnvironment any (Abyss)
Organization solitary (unique)
Treasure tripleSpecial AbilitiesDestruction (Su) Isph-Aun-Vuln’s bite resolves as a primary touch attack. A creature bitten by the qlippoth lord must succeed at a DC 33 Fortitude save or take 1d6 points of Wisdom drain and 150 points of negative energy damage. If the creature successfully saves, it takes 1 point of Wisdom drain and 20d6 points of negative energy damage. If a creature is slain by this damage, its body is immediately consumed in unholy fire, leaving behind only its possessions. The only way to restore such a slain creature to life is via true resurrection, a carefully worded wish spell followed by resurrection, or miracle. This is a death effect. The save DC is Charisma-based.
Destructive Commands (Ex) When Isph-Aun-Vuln magically controls a creature via a charm or compulsion effect, she may issue commands to the creature that are self-destructive or against the target’s nature. When such a command is issued, the magically controlled creature can resist the command with a successful Will save against the DC of the spell effect in question, but success at this save does not cause the effect to end and does not prevent Isph-Aun-Vuln from attempting to issue the same or a similar command on a subsequent round.
Horrific Appearance (Su) A creature that succumbs to Isph-Aun-Vuln’s horrific appearance becomes convinced that it has already succumbed to the qlippoth lord’s mental control and can take no action other than to approach. An affected creature gains freedom of movement and a fly speed of 60 feet (perfect maneuverability) that can be used only to approach Isph-Aun-Vuln. Once an affected creature is adjacent to Isph-Aun-Vuln, it becomes dazed as long as it remains adjacent to the qlippoth lord. This dazed affect ends as soon as the creature is no longer adjacent, at which point the compulsion to approach Isph-Aun-Vuln returns. If Isph-Aun-Vuln is not present, the creature is free to act normally, but as soon as Isph-Aun-Vuln reappears, the compulsion to approach returns as well. This is a mind-affecting compulsion and a curse effect. If not removed via magic, this curse ends only after the creature remains outside Isph-Aun-Vuln’s presence for 24 consecutive hours.
Insidious Possession (Ex) When Isph-Aun-Vuln tries to possess an object or creature via a spell-like ability, she automatically attempts to dispel any protection from evil or similar spell effect on the creature via greater dispel magic. In addition, once a creature fails a saving throw against Isph-Aun-Vuln’s possession spell-like abilities, it takes a –4 penalty on all future saving throws against mind-affecting effects created by any qlippoth. This lingering penalty is a curse effect.
Reflect Compulsion (Ex) Even though Isph-Aun-Vuln is immune to mind-affecting effects, when a creature targets her with a compulsion spell or spell-like ability and that effect fails to penetrate her spell resistance, that effect is reflected back upon the caster. Treat the compulsion spell or effect as if Isph-Aun-Vuln had been the caster, except that the save DC remains unchanged.
Soul Shell (Su) Isph-Aun-Vuln is constantly surrounded by a swirling vortex of soul fragments from the countless creatures that have perished while she was dominating or possessing them. This vortex is a force effect that grants Isph-Aun-Vuln a +12 armor bonus and serves to deflect incoming ranged touch attacks. All ranged touch attacks against this qlippoth lord have a 50% miss chance. The soul shell does not impede Isph-Aun-Vuln’s ability to move through solid objects as an incorporeal creature.
Toxic Storm (Su) As a standard action once every 1d4 rounds, Isph-Aun-Vuln can create a blast of hurricane-strength wind around herself. This blast of wind blows either outward from the qlippoth lord to a radius of 120 feet or inward toward the qlippoth lord from a radius of 60 feet, as chosen by Isph-Aun-Vuln. The wind affects creatures as described for hurricane force winds on page 439 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook. The blast of wind lasts for 1 round. These winds are highly toxic, and all creatures exposed to the poisonous winds are affected by the following poison effect. The save DC for the poison effect is Constitution-based.
Winds of Isph-Aun-Vuln: Toxic storm—contact; save Fort DC 38; frequency 1/round for 6 rounds; effect 1d6 Wis damage plus confused for 1 round; cure 2 consecutive saves.DescriptionIsph-Aun-Vuln appears as a human-sized mass of roiling tentacles arrayed around a large toothy maw. These tentacles slip in and out of reality, never fully existing as anything more than vapor, yet despite her immaterial form and relatively small size, she is among the most powerful of the qlippoth lords. Whereas others overwhelm their opponents through size and strength, Isph-Aun-Vuln opts for a more subversive and subtle approach, using possession and mental control of others to achieve her goal of slaughtering every creature with the capacity for sin—in other words, all free-willed mortals. Those she has no such use for she devours, adorning herself with fragments of their souls as vaporous, incandescent trophies—such will be the fate of all who remain should Isph-Aun-Vuln ever succeed at eliminating free will from the universe.Isph-Aun-Vuln's CultIsph-Aun-Vuln is perhaps the most powerful of the
qlippoth lords, so it should come as no surprise that her
cult is the most widespread among mortals on hundreds
of different worlds throughout the Material Plane. Many
who pay homage to Isph-Aun-Vuln, who is often referred
to only as the Feaster Within, do so without knowing
fully what sort of entity they worship, and only follow the
commands of a charismatic but insane cult leader. In many
cases, such leaders have been dominated or otherwise
mentally controlled by Isph-Aun-Vuln so often that they
have lost all remnants of their previous personalities. Isph-
Aun-Vuln’s worshipers venerate her amid standing stones
perched on the edges of towering cliffs or rugged, wind-scoured
mountain tops, and sacrifices to the demigoddess
generally involve using magic to hurl a victim into the sky,
where it is buffeted by winds before being allowed to fall to
the earth below, broken and ruined.
Isph-Aun-Vuln’s holy symbol is a rune within a cloud of
tentacles, and her favored weapon is the longbow. She grants
access to the domains of Air, Chaos, Evil, and Trickery, and to
the subdomains of Deception, Fear, Venom, and Wind.Creatures in "Qlippoth Lord" CategorySource Bestiary 6 pg. 231
The creatures known as qlippoth (the singular and plural forms are the same) are as mysterious as they are horrifying, as one might expect of the first form of life imagined by reality. These monsters hail from a time when morality did not exist, when gods and mortals were unknown, when, perhaps, time itself had not yet begun to unfurl. Certainly, the qlippoth were old when the first proteans brought order to chaos and discovered the endless tunnels of the Abyss running through the underworld of the Outer Planes. What the race’s goals and desires may have been in that unimaginably distant past is unknown, and more to the point, cannot be known to minds that have the current reality as their only point of reference. Just as reality changes what it touches, so did the introduction of the qlippoth to the reality of the Outer Planes change them. Enemies of all they encounter, they warred on any who would dare encroach upon their domains. And when no enemies dared approach, the qlippoth took their wars to others instead, boiling up out of the Abyss in seemingly endless armies.
But as vast and potent as the qlippoth may be, there are those among them that eclipse the power of them all— unique and powerful qlippoth lords that rule the deepest and darkest Abyssal depths. The number of qlippoth lords active today represents only a small fraction of those that existed at the dawn of creation. As the eons wore on, the qlippoth lords were opposed by nearly all who learned of their existence. Demon lords, archdevils, empyreal lords, and the deities themselves have taken offense at the blasphemy of the qlippoth lords, and have destroyed many of the more powerful among them. Those who remain are either shadows of the qlippoth lords’ one-time glory or are so adept at hiding their true natures that none have yet glimpsed even hints of their forms.
The bulk of qlippoth lords range in strength from CR 21 to 25. More powerful creatures akin to the Horsemen or archdevils in stature may still exist in the deepest parts of the Abyss, but for now, these theoretical qlippoth demigods remain mysteries. Certainly, any active qlippoth lords are potent enough to threaten and endanger the bulk of mortal life when they choose to turn their attention to the Material Plane.
Some qlippoth have chosen to abandon their roots and accept the demonic as the new order of the Abyss. Qlippoth lords who accept sin and allow themselves to be transformed often gain a significant boost in power that catapults them out of this lower tier directly into the ranks of demon lords, but only at the cost of forever losing any tenuous alliances they may have had with the first lords of the Abyss. These former qlippoth lords are seen as the worst kind of traitors by the qlippoth and their masters, but for these qlippoth, the trade-off is more than worth it, as the power they now wield as demon lords is formidable. Demon lords who began existence as qlippoth lords include primeval entities like Dagon and Jubilex, but are hardly limited to these alone.
The four qlippoth lords presented on the following pages have interests in multiple Material Plane worlds. Others, such as the Polymorph Plague Yamasoth, the Warmonger Queen Shiggarreb, and the Enigma Clot Aonaurious, have focused their wrath on specific worlds or have yet to fully emerge from the deepest recesses of the Abyss to turn their attentions to the worlds beyond, and are not detailed in this book.
Qlippoth Lord SanctumsAlthough the qlippoth lords are powerful, their strength does not equal that of their most hated enemies, the demon lords. But in their deepest, hidden lairs in the most remote corners of the Abyss, qlippoth lords are much more potent threats. As long as they remain in these domains (or can at least retreat there in times of need), they are well protected from retribution. These lairs are known as sanctums, and while methods of reaching and entering them are occult and obscure, a sanctum can be vast in size.
Within its sanctum, a qlippoth lord gains the following additional powers (with the exception of the mythic ability, the statistics presented on the following pages do not include these abilities). - Mythic: A qlippoth lord functions as a 10th-rank mythic creature, including having the mythic power ability (10/day, surge +1d12). It can expend uses of mythic power to use the mythic version of any spell-like ability denoted with a superscript “M,” just as if the ability were a mythic spell.
- Rejuvenation: The mind of a qlippoth lord that is slain in its sanctum merges with a qlippoth of the lord’s choosing, selected from any living qlippoth within the lord’s sanctum. This functions as per major mind swap, except there is no save to avoid its effect and the typical qlippoth immunity to mind-affecting effects offers no protection. After 1d100 years, the qlippoth transforms into a new incarnation of its previous body as a qlippoth lord, but if slain before this transformation, the qlippoth lord is forever dead.
- A qlippoth lord can use the following spell-like abilities once per day: astral projection, binding, demand, discern location, fabricate, major creation, miracle (limited to physical effects that manipulate the sanctum or to effects that are relevant to the qlippoth lord’s interests), and polymorph any object (when used on objects or creatures that are native to the sanctum, the polymorph duration factor increases by 6).
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