Demodand, Squamous DemodandThis titanic mass of flesh is covered in razor-sharp scales and has bony wings, four taloned arms, and a toothy, toad-like head.Squamous Demodand CR 20Source Book of the Damned pg. 244
XP 307,200
CE Gargantuan outsider (chaotic, demodand, evil, extraplanar)
Init +11; Senses blindsense 30 ft., darkvision 60 ft., detect good, detect magic, true seeing; Perception +43DefenseAC 36, touch 13, flat-footed 29 (+7 Dex, +23 natural, -4 size)
hp 362 (29d10+203)
Fort +23, Ref +23, Will +16
DR 15/good and magic; Immune acid, poison; Resist cold 10, fire 10; SR 31OffenseSpeed 40 ft., fly 60 ft. (average)
Melee bite +36 (2d8+11/19–20 plus bleed), 4 claws +36 (2d6+11/19–20)
Space 20 ft., Reach 20 ft.
Special Attacks Abyssal roar, bleed (2d6), faith-stealing strike (DC 27), rend (4 claws, 2d6+16), stunning descent
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 20th; concentration +23)
Constant—detect good, detect magic, true seeing
1/day—summon (level 8, 1d8 tarry demodands or 1d4 slimy demodands or 1 shaggy demodand 75%)StatisticsStr 32, Dex 25, Con 25, Int 6, Wis 24, Cha 17
Base Atk +29; CMB +44 (+48 bull rush, overrun); CMD 61 (63 vs bull rush, overrun)
Feats Alertness, Awesome Blow, Combat Reflexes, Critical Focus, Flyby Attack, Greater Bull Rush, Greater Overrun, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Critical (bite, claw), Improved Initiative, Improved Overrun, Intimidating Prowess, Power Attack, Stunning Critical
Skills Fly +33, Intimidate +46, Perception +43, Sense Motive +43
Languages Abyssal, Celestial, Common
SQ heretical soulEcologyEnvironment any (Abyss)
Organization solitary or battalion (2-5 plus 1 shaggy demodand plus 3-12 tarry demodands)
Treasure standardSpecial AbilitiesAbyssal Roar (Su) Once every 1d4 rounds as a standard action, a squamous demodand can harness the intense Abyssal power roiling within its body and release a furious roar upon its enemies. This functions like a breath weapon that deals 20d6 points of sonic damage in a 40-foot cone as pure cacophonous evil assaults the ears of creatures in the area. A target can attempt a DC 31 Fortitude saving throw for half damage. Creatures that fail the saving throw are also permanently deafened. Because of the evil and extraplanar nature of this attack, a remove blindness/deafness spell can negate this deafness only if the caster succeeds at a DC 31 caster level check, but limited wish or any stronger similar magic can cure the deafness without requiring such a check. The saving throw is Constitution-based.
Stunning Descent (Su) Three times per day, when a squamous demodand has used a move action to fly, as a standard action it can land on a solid surface and slam its feet mightily, releasing a wave of kinetic energy. All creatures within 60 feet (whether on the surface or in the air) must succeed at a DC 31 Reflex saving throw or be stunned for 1 round and staggered for an additional 3 rounds thereafter. On a successful saving throw, a creature is simply staggered for 1 round. The saving throw is Constitution-based.DescriptionSquamous demodands were among the last of the Abyssal demodands into which the thanatotic titans breathed life. As the Abyss began to crawl with the charred, melted forms of shaggy, slimy, tarry, and other demodands, the early members of this horrific race began to sense a missing element in their masters’ plans. The demodands knew that they were created as a race of worshipers meant to wreak as much destruction as possible on their progenitors’ behalf, and though they wielded great and disgusting powers, the demodands knew that they needed more sheer muscle to truly become a force to be reckoned with in the multiverse. And so the idea for the squamous demodands’ creation came not from their godlike creators but from these sycophantic servants that wished to see the titans’ will made manifest. After the demodands came to an agreement—an uncommon occurrence for the chaotic creatures—that they needed much more powerful allies, the shaggy demodands approached their creators with the idea. Suppressing the urge to quash their upstart creations, the thanatotic titans admitted the merit of creating an enormous, mighty, monstrous type of demodand to serve in their armies as wanton destroyers that would herald the titans’ vision of a godless multiverse. Thus the titans formed squamous demodands by fusing the flesh of shaggy demodands with armor-like scales pulled from the essence of the Abyss itself. Squamous demodands still stand today as the most terrible, hulking, and murderous of their kind.
Because each type of demodand had already found a distinct place in the scattered hierarchy of the titans’ armies— shaggy demodands as generals, slimy demodands as shock troops, and tarry demodands as grunts—the demodands worried that the new creations might supplant them all. To allay these fears and ensure that the mighty squamous demodands would actually obey orders, the titans made their new pets as dim witted as they were ferocious. Instead of serving any subtle tactical function in demodand armies, squamous demodands are pure, unadulterated muscle, and they almost always act at the behest of a higher-ranking shaggy demodand or a thanatotic titan. Towering blocks of claws, muscle, and scales, squamous demodands have four arms and a pair of wings ideal for causing maximum destruction. Squamous demodands stand over 50 feet tall and weigh around 120 tons.
Because they are far less savvy than others of their race, squamous demodands are guided by their baser instincts when left to their own devices. Although they delight in crushing mountains under their fists, their hunger for ever-increasing amounts of flesh and the visceral feeling of blood running down their gaping maws drives them more than anything else. Other demodands—particularly shaggy demodands, which have spent millennia learning how to focus these killer urges— have to make sure that squamous demodands first finish destroying structures that stand in their armies’ way before they are allowed to gorge on their kills.
Demodand generals typically outfit their larger armies with at least one squamous demodand. Adding more of these beasts is sometimes a challenge, for they can easily view each other as rival predators, and squamous demodands turning on each other puts an army at risk. Rarely, shaggy demodands or thanatotic titans put together a battalion of squamous demodands meant to visit abject ruin upon a wide expanse or an opposing army, but such strategic overtures are usually a sign of desperation. Most demodand generals would rather risk massive losses in their ranks than potentially deal with a battalion of their squamous kin blindly raging. That said, a few shaggy demodands still gamble on squamous demodand battalions, likely due to both their sheer destructive efficiency and a well-kept demodand secret: shaggy demodands that earn the most favor from the thanatotic titans are next in line for transformation into squamous demodands.
Due to their low intelligence and their animalistic focus on feeding and destruction, squamous demodands have very little society to speak of, even by Abyssal creatures’ standards. They are content following the orders of shaggy demodands, as long as they are provided with sufficient food and opportunities for obliteration. Occasionally, however, shaggy demodands get caught up in internal feuds or turn on each other. In these cases, squamous demodands typically follow the lead of the general that proves itself the strongest, although a squamous demodand that has followed the orders of a single commander for long spans of time may view its superior protectively, almost as an adult child would an aging parent. These are the situations that often turn most destructive for demodands, as the squamous demodand either defends its general or exacts vengeance on its behalf, causing a massive intrademodand war either way. When this happens, only the thanatotic titans can rein in their monstrous creations, and sometimes even they have trouble doing so if multiple squamous demodands are involved.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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