Aeon, LipikaShrouded in a dark cloak, this featureless humanoid has four forearms that each split off at the elbow, and an eye on each of its eight palms.Lipika CR 18Source Bestiary 5 pg. 8
XP 153,600
N Large outsider (aeon, extraplanar)
Init +10; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +34DefenseAC 30, touch 23, flat-footed 24 (+6 deflection, +6 Dex, +1 dodge, +8 natural, –1 size)
hp 300 (24d10+168)
Fort +23, Ref +16, Will +23
Defensive Abilities karmic defense; Immune cold, critical hits, poison; Resist electricity 10, fire 10; SR 29OffenseSpeed fly 60 ft. (perfect)
Melee 4 slams +29 (4d6+6 plus karmic link)
Ranged 4 force blasts +29 touch (10d6 force damage/19–20)
Special Attacks force blast, karmic strike
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 20th; concentration +26)
Constant—analyze aura
At will—plane shift (DC 23), telekinesis (DC 21)
3/day—geas/quest
1/day—reincarnateStatisticsStr 22, Dex 23, Con 24, Int 22, Wis 25, Cha 23
Base Atk +24; CMB +30; CMD 53
Feats Combat Casting, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Flyby Attack, Great Fortitude, Improved Critical (force blast), Improved Great Fortitude, Improved Initiative, Improved Iron Will, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Mobility
Skills Bluff +33, Diplomacy +30, Fly +41, Intimidate +30, Knowledge (arcana, history, nobility, planes, religion) +45, Knowledge (dungeoneering, engineering, geography, local, nature) +20, Perception +34, Sense Motive +34, Spellcraft +20
Languages envisaging
SQ extension of all, void formEcologyEnvironment any (Outer Planes)
Organization solitary
Treasure noneSpecial AbilitiesForce Blast (Su) A lipika can fire a force blast as an attack action or four force blasts as a full-attack action. These blasts are ranged touch attacks with a maximum range of 300 feet. Each force blast deals 10d6 points of damage and has a critical threat range of 19–20. This is a force effect.
Karmic Defense (Su) A lipika’s defenses shift according to the threats it faces. A lipika gains an insight bonus to its AC equal to its Wisdom modifier (+7) for 1 round after it has taken damage from a melee or ranged attack. If damaged by an attack that deals energy damage, the lipika gains immunity to that type of energy for 1 round. Additionally, when a spellcaster successfully casts an offensive spell that penetrates the lipika’s spell resistance, the spellcaster is also affected by the spell as if it were reflected by spell turning (even if the spell would normally not be affected by spell turning, such as a spell that affects an area).
Karmic Link (Su) A lipika’s slam attacks turn their enemies’ aggression back upon them. Each time a creature is hit by a lipika’s slam attack, it must succeed at a DC 29 Will save. If the creature fails, for the next minute, whenever it damages the lipika, the lipika takes only half the damage and the target of the karmic link takes the remaining damage. Multiple failed saving throws against karmic link increase the duration but have no other effect. The save DC is Wisdom-based.
Karmic Strike (Su) When a lipika is hit by a melee or ranged attack, it can make an attack of opportunity against the creature that attacked it. The lipika’s attack of opportunity must come in the form of a slam attack (if it was struck in melee and can reach its foe) or a force blast (if it was hit by a ranged attack or otherwise cannot reach).DescriptionLipikas—also known as the Lords of Karma—are among the highest order of aeons. Unlike other aeons, their duality springs not from opposition but from understanding that all actions and reactions are the crests and troughs of the same cosmic wave. While it may seem to a casual observer that the Lords of Karma simply wander the universe looking for random events of importance, from the momentous to the mundane, what they are actually observing is the rhythm of causality, the way that one action becomes another and affects everything in the grand scheme of reality. Whatever they find, they inscribe in the cosmic memory of all aeons, and occult scholars believe that this cosmic memory finds its way to the Akashic Record (Pathfinder RPG Occult Adventures 244), deep within the heart of the Astral Plane.
These powerful creatures not only observe and report; they also meddle. Lipikas consider themselves the judges of willful karma, sometimes manipulating the cycle of mortal lives and reincarnations. This often leads to friction with psychopomps, other agents of Purgatory, and those who would steal, use, or destroy souls—such as daemons and night hags. The reason for the aeons’ interest is difficult to ascertain. There seems to be no overriding philosophy concerning the nature or purpose of the souls lipikas manipulate. This has led many occult scholars to theorize that the lipikas’ connection to the Akashic Record is more direct, going so far as to suggest that these aeons are its agents.
Lipikas use their specialized abilities to interact with specific entities across the planes, especially ones who have been or are fated to be reincarnated—often at the lipikas’ own hands. Sometimes the aeons act as guides to such creatures, while at other times they set these subjects upon a new course entirely undirected. Unlike others of their kind, a lipika uses some bits and pieces of language to convey its messages—though often in a pidgin of all known languages that have existed or will exist—and takes considerable time and care when communicating with its subject, at least compared with other aeons. Lipikas give their subjects guidance on how to adjust their actions within their current forms to achieve some karmic imperative or progression of personal enlightenment. Often such advice seems to contradict any sense of intuition, reason, or cultural concepts of morality. A lipika is just as likely to chastise a righteous person for her charity and goodness as it is to scold an evil creature for its misdeeds. To the lipika, the balance of alignments and morality is inconsequential beside the realities of action and the bonds of cause and effect.
When not focused on performing a specific task, lipikas deliver messages, omens, and portents to both those who seek their wisdom and those who do not. These messages are often signs of enormous events of great significance that might not occur within the recipients’ lifetimes, but the lipikas maintain that the subjects’ actions are nonetheless inf luential. At other times, lipikas appear merely to guide reincarnated souls or spirits destined to be reincarnated. A lipika that is focused on a specific task—whether observing a significant historical event or delivering a message to another being—typically ignores other creatures unless they attempt to delay it from performing its assigned task, at which point it may become violent in its reactions. While it seems they would rather manipulate events subtly, lipikas are capable of great force when faced with those who would thwart their plans.
On rare occasions these aeons appear and create conf licts, claiming that great damage to the multiverse is being done by actions taken by a civilization—actions that are often so minute their consequences might seem arbitrary to the subjects of the aeon’s attention. Worse still, the appearance of a lipika can herald the coming of even greater displays of aeon power. Sages of occult lore theorize that the information lipikas inscribe into the Akashic Record directly informs the agenda of the concept or entity known as the Monad, and that this information is disseminated to pleromas (Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 2 12)—more powerful aeons who are direct representatives of the Monad. If this theory is correct, the information scribed by lipikas is of grave consequence to entire civilizations, as pleroma aeons are tasked with acts of creation and destruction that can sometimes impact entire worlds. Those who subscribe to more traditional theories of the multiverse see the connection between lipikas and pleromas in more direct terms. If a lipika cannot accomplish its goals, it calls in a pleroma to enact the strange and inexplicable will of the aeons, often to devastating ends. However, the goals of lipikas are typically so abstract that their intervention often seems random, and few mortals have figured out how to placate them.
Lipikas stand about 13 feet tall but rarely weigh more than 200 pounds—their bodies seem to be hollow. Little distinguishes one lipika from another except the patterns upon their forearms and the colors of their palm-eyes.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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