Daemon, OlethrodaemonCrowned with a wicked array of twisted horns, this wide-mouthed, spherical behemoth stands on four stout legs.
Olethrodaemon CR 20Source Bestiary 2 pg. 70
XP 307,200
NE Gargantuan outsider (daemon, evil, extraplanar)
Init +12; Senses darkvision 60 ft., true seeing; Perception +31
Aura unholy aura
DefenseAC 38, touch 18, flat-footed 30 (+4 deflection, +8 Dex, +20 natural, –4 size)
hp 370 (20d10+260)
Fort +29, Ref +18, Will +26
DR 10/good and silver; Immune acid, death effects, disease, poison; Resist cold 10, electricity 10, fire 10; SR 31
OffenseSpeed 40 ft., burrow 50 ft.
Melee 2 bites +28 (2d8+12/19–20 plus grab), 4 claws +28 (2d6+12 plus grab), gore +28 (2d8+12)
Space 20 ft., Reach 20 ft.
Special Attacks drain soul, soul-drained breath, trample (2d8+18, DC 32)
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 20th; concentration +27)
Constant—air walk, true seeing, unholy aura (DC 25)
At will—greater teleport (self plus 50 lbs. objects only), telekinesis, wall of fire, wall of ice
3/day—quickened disintegrate (DC 23), wall of force
1/day—blasphemy (DC 24), summon (level 9, any 1 CR 19 or lower daemon, 100%), wail of the banshee (DC 26)StatisticsStr 35, Dex 26, Con 37, Int 12, Wis 26, Cha 25
Base Atk +20; CMB +36 (+40 grapple); CMD 54 (58 vs. trip)
Feats Awesome Blow, Cleave, Great Cleave, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Critical (bite), Improved Initiative, Improved Sunder, Iron Will, Power Attack, Quicken Spell-Like Ability (disintegrate)
Skills Climb +35, Intimidate +30, Knowledge (planes) +24, Perception +31, Sense Motive +31, Stealth +19, Survival +31
Languages Abyssal, Infernal; telepathy 100 ft.
SQ adamantine claws
EcologyEnvironment any (Abaddon)
Organization solitary, pair, or apocalypse (3–5)
Treasure standard
Special AbilitiesAdamantine Claws (Ex) Able to tear through stone, an olethrodaemon’s claws are treated as though they were adamantine. This ability also allows an olethrodaemon to make use of its burrow speed through stone.
Drain Soul (Su) A creature grappled by an olethrodaemon’s grab attack from its claws can be transferred to its mouth as a move action requiring no combat maneuver check. As a standard action, an olethrodaemon that begins its turn with an opponent grappled in either of its mouths can swallow the opponent by succeeding on another grapple check. If successful, the creature is swallowed into one of the olethrodaemon’s many stomachs. These stomachs grind their contents and drain the life force from living creatures. Every round a creature remains in an olethrodaemon’s stomach, it takes 4d8+18 points of damage and gains 1d4 negative levels. The creature can attempt to cut its way out of the olethrodaemon’s stomach, but it suffers the chance of just cutting into another stomach chamber. An olethrodaemon’s stomach is AC 20 and has 40 hit points. Once a creature deals enough damage to allow escape, it has a 50% chance to end up in another stomach chamber instead of escaping. Due to the multiple stomach chambers, an olethrodaemon can house and drain up to four medium creatures at one time. This ability otherwise functions as the swallow whole special attack. It is a DC 33 Fortitude save to remove negative levels gained in this fashion. This save is Constitution-based.
Soul-Drained Breath (Su) An olethrodaemon can convert life energy it has consumed into a potent breath weapon. Up to three times per day, but no more often than once every 1d4 rounds, an olethrodaemon can expel a 120-foot line or a 60-foot cone of shrieking black smoke and wind from one of its mouths as a standard action. Any living creature in the area of this attack takes 20d10 points of damage from negative energy, or half on a successful DC 27 Reflex save. Undead creatures caught in this negative energy are healed for the same amount instead of damaged. The save DC for this effect is Charisma-based.
DescriptionWhile some of the more powerful daemons are servitors to one of the Four Horsemen, olethrodaemons serve as juggernauts for all of the Four. These massive creatures are the embodiment of death and destruction—the very vessels of apocalypse that daemons wish to see wrought upon the multiverse. These nihilistic behemoths roam the gray expanses of Abaddon, feasting on the souls of evil mortals damned to their realm. When on the Material Plane, olethrodaemons act as agents of destruction, spreading ruin and devouring mortal souls as they plow through cities and countrysides, bent on devastation. It’s rare for a mortal to be able to control such a potent force, but sometimes mad spellcasters utilize effects like gate to urge an olethrodaemon to visit a devastating holocaust upon an enemy region—the olethrodaemon generally does not hold a grudge against a mortal that asks such a service from it.
These immense creatures stand over 25 feet tall and weigh close to 12,000 pounds, their powerful, muscular bodies covered by durable plates and head thronged with dangerous, twisted horns. Olethrodaemons stand on four stout legs, and possess an equal number of arms, each ending in wickedly sharp claws able to tear through stone as easily as flesh. The creature’s eyes, as well as its two mouths, glow like coals in a kiln. The creature feeds on souls and has multiple stomachs to digest mortal essences.
While not as intelligent or scheming as many other powerful daemons (or other fiends who match their power, for that matter), olethrodaemons remain dangerous foes. They do not generally wish to lead armies and gain power by control, but rather to revel in the evil purity of annihilation. Among olethrodaemons, the greatest desire is to be the one to devour the very last mortal soul. They angle and shove for this honor, often ceding a city or group of victims to a rival if they believe that, in so doing, they might gain the advantage of positioning to consume the final soul once the multiverse has been devoured.Olethrodaemon Paragons
Just as powerful balors become lords and pit fiends clamor for positions as infernal dukes, olethrodaemons can achieve a unique level of power among their kin. These creatures are known as paragons, and gain this level of power by pledging their loyalty to one of the Four Horsemen as a chosen agent of apocalypse. These advanced olethrodaemons specialize in their patron’s particular method of annihilation, their abilities evolving to suit the method of ruin. An olethrodaemon paragon generally has from 4 to 8 additional Hit Dice, and is usually a CR 22 to CR 24 creature.
Some planar scholars postulate that olethrodaemons are actually the creations of the Four Horsemen, and that the Four worked foul rites upon a fifth Horseman, with these interactions spawning olethrodaemons to serve their will and spread oblivion throughout the multiverse. The abilities of these chosen spawn warp to the tendencies of their daemonic lords.
Olethrodaemons serving the Horseman of Pestilence can infect their victims with a powerful disease by means of all their natural attacks. Creatures who succumb to this attack are affected as if by a maximized contagion spell, heightened to 9th level.
Olethrodaemons serving the Horseman of War can imbue their natural attacks with additional properties. As a free action, an olethrodaemon can apply any special weapon property equivalent to a +2 enhancement to its bite, claw, gore, or trample attacks for 1 round—most of these olethrodaemon paragons elect to grant their natural weapons the unholy enhancement.
Olethrodaemons serving the Horseman of Famine gain the consumptive aura ability of the meladaemon, but the nonlethal damage dealt increases to 6d6 and victims who succumb become exhausted rather than merely fatigued.
Olethrodaemons serving the Horseman of Death gain the ability to inflict a negative level on a foe each time they strike with a claw attack, or else gain the ability to cause those they damage to age rapidly and grow old and frail with hideous speed.Creatures in "Daemon" CategorySource Bestiary 2 pg. 62
Harbingers of ruin and embodiments of the worst ways to die, daemons epitomize painful death, the all-consuming hunger of evil, and the utter annihilation of life. While demons seek to pervert and destroy in endless unholy rampages, and devils vex and enslave in hopes of corrupting mortals, daemons seek only to consume mortal life itself. While some use brute force to despoil life or prey upon vulnerable souls, others wage campaigns of deceit to draw whole realms into ruin. With each life claimed and each atrocity meted out, daemons spread fear, mistrust, and despair, tarnishing the luster of existence and drawing the planes ever closer to their final, ultimate ruin.
Notorious for their hatred of the living, daemons are the things of dark dreams and fearful tales, as their ultimate ambitions include extinguishing every individual mortal life—and the more violent or terrible the end, the better. Their methods vary wildly, typically differentiated by daemonic breed. Many seek to infiltrate the mortal plane and sow death by their own taloned hands, while others manipulate agents (both mortal and immortal) as malevolent puppet masters, instigating calamities on massive scales from their grim realms. Such diversity of methods causes many planar scholars to misattribute the machinations of daemons to other types of fiends. These often deadly mistakes are further propagated by daemons' frequent dealings with and manipulation of other outsiders. Yet in all cases, despair, ruin, and death, spreading like contagion, typify the touch of daemonkind, though such symptoms often prove recognizable only after the hour is far too late.
Daemons flourish upon the plane of Abaddon, a bleak expanse of cold mists, fearful shapes, and hunted souls. Upon these wastes, the souls of evil mortals flee predation by the native fiends, and terror and the powers of the evil plane eventually transform the most ruthless into daemons themselves. Amid these scarred wastelands, poison swamps, and realms of endless night rise the foul domains of the tyrants of daemonkind, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Lords of devastation, these powerful and unique daemons desire slaughter, ruin, and death on a cosmic scale, and drive hordes of their lesser kin to spread terror and sorrow across the planes. Although the Horsemen share a singular goal, their tactics and ambitions vary widely.
Along with mastery over vast realms, the Horsemen are served by unimaginably enormous armies of their lesser brethren, but are obeyed most closely by retinues of daemons enslaved to their titles. These specific strains of daemonic servitors, known among daemonkind as deacons, serve whoever holds the title of Horseman. Although these instruments of the archdaemons differ in strength and ability, their numbers provide their lords with legions capable of near-equal terrorization.
More so than among any other fiendish race, several breeds of daemons lust after souls. While other foul inhabitants of the planes seek the corruption and destruction of living essences, many daemons value possession and control over mortal animas, entrapping and hoarding souls—and in so doing disrupting the natural progression of life and perverting the quintessence of creation to serve their own terrible whims. While not all daemons possess the ability to steal a mortal being's soul and turn it to their use, the lowliest of daemonkind, the maniacal cacodaemons, endlessly seek life essences to consume and imprison. These base daemons enthusiastically serve their more powerful kin, eager for increased opportunities to doom mortal spirits. While cacodaemons place little value upon the souls they imprison, greater daemons eagerly gather them as trophies, fuel for terrible rites, or offerings to curry the favor of their lords. Several breeds of daemons also posses their own notorious abilities to capture mortal spirits or draw upon the power of souls, turning the forces of utter annihilation to their own sinister ends.
The Four Horsemen
Four dread lords, infamous across all the planes, rule the disparate hordes of daemonkind. Risen from among the ranks of their terrible brethren to displace those fiendish tyrants before them, they are the archdaemons, the End Bringers, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. In the blasphemous annals of fiendish lore, they are the prophesied architects of multiversal ruin, destined to stand triumphant over cadaverous cosmoses and infinities of silence before also giving way to absolute oblivion. Undisputed in his power among their kind, each Horseman rules a vast realm upon the bleak plains of Abaddon and a distinctive method of mortal ruin: pestilence, famine, war, or death from old age. Yet while each archdaemon commands measureless influence, daemons know nothing of loyalty and serve only those they cannot overcome. Thus, though the Horsemen stand peerless in their power and manipulations among daemonkind, they must ever defend their thrones from the machinations of ambitious underlings and the plots of other archdaemons.
Upon the poisonous expanses of Abaddon, lesser daemonic peers carve petty fiefdoms and posture as lords, but despite their world-spanning intrigues, all bow before the Horsemen—though most do so only grudgingly. Ancient myths also tell of a mysterious fifth Horseman, the Oinodaemon, though nearly all mention of such a creature has been scoured from the multiverse.
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