Demon, UlkrethThis towering monstrosity is clad in cracked boulders, jagged shards of rock, spars of crooked metal, and shredded steel. Four immense arms end in rocky fists, and bony wings protrude from its back.Ulkreth CR 15Source Pathfinder #73: The Worldwound Incursion pg. 82
XP 51,200
CE Gargantuan outsider (chaotic, demon, evil, extraplanar)
Init +0; Senses darkvision 60 ft., tremorsense 60 ft.; Perception +30DefenseAC 30, touch 6, flat-footed 30 (+24 natural, –4 size)
hp 229 (17d10+136)
Fort +18, Ref +5, Will +12
Defensive Abilities rock catching; DR 10/cold iron and good; Immune electricity, poison; Resist acid 10, cold 10, fire 10OffenseSpeed 30 ft., climb 20 ft., fly 50 ft. (clumsy)
Melee gore +23 (2d8+10 plus 1d6 piercing), 4 slams +24 (2d6+10/19–20 plus 1d6 piercing)
Ranged 4 rocks +14 (3d6+10)
Space 20 ft., Reach 20 ft.
Special Attacks boulder barrage, ground pounder, punch through, rend (2 slams, 6d6+15), rock throwing (120 ft.), trample (3d6+10, DC 28), wrecker
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 15th; concentration +17)
At will—greater teleport (self plus 50 lbs. of objects only), shatter (DC 14)
3/day—move earth
1/day—earthquake, summon (level 5, 1 ulkreth or 1 omox 40%)StatisticsStr 30, Dex 11, Con 26, Int 7, Wis 14, Cha 15
Base Atk +17; CMB +31 (+35 overrun, +35 sunder); CMD 43 (45 vs. overrun, 45 vs. sunder)
Feats Charge ThroughAPG, Greater Overrun, Greater Sunder, Improved Critical (slams), Improved Overrun, Improved Sunder, Power Attack, Sundering StrikeAPG, Weapon Focus (slams)
Skills Climb +28, Intimidate +22, Knowledge (engineering) +18, Perception +30, Swim +23; Racial Modifiers +8 Perception
Languages Abyssal, Celestial, DraconicEcologyEnvironment any (Abyss)
Organization solitary or crew (2–4 ulkreths)
Treasure standardSpecial AbilitiesBoulder Barrage (Ex) An ulkreth can hurl up to four rocks as a full-round action or two rocks as a standard action. If rocks are available (as when the ulkreth uses its ground pounder ability to create rubble) it can pick up a single rock as a swift action, two rocks as a move action, or four rocks as a full-round action. If an ulkreth has a rock in each hand, it cannot use its rock catching ability.
Ground Pounder (Ex) As a standard action, an ulkreth can strike the ground with its powerful fists, turning the area within a 10-foot radius into dense rubble (Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook 412). Any creatures in this area at the time must succeed at a DC 26 Reflex save or fall prone. An ulkreth’s movement is not slowed by the rubble it creates.
Punch Through (Ex) An ulkreth can use a full-attack action to make its gore and slam attacks against the same opponent. The ulkreth then totals the damage from all hits before applying any damage reduction or hardness.
Wrecker (Su) An ulkreth’s rend special attack deals double damage to objects.DescriptionUlkreths are among the mightiest servants of the demon lord Xoveron, the Horned Prince of gargoyles and lord of ruination. They exist solely to destroy, carrying out his will of devastation to cities and civilization throughout the planes, tearing down monuments and buildings in the name of their unholy patron. Ulkreths are 25 feet tall and weigh 10 tons.EcologyUlkreth demons form from the souls of mortals who spread wanton destruction and vandalism, burning and tearing down what others have labored long to build up. Small-scale vandals do not earn damnation for simple graffiti and petty breakage; ulkreths arise from those who devoted their lives to bringing ruin forge their own chain of condemnation with every new act of malicious deconstruction. Some do so by targeting grand works of art, stately monuments, cathedrals, libraries, and historical edifices, destroying not just physical structures but also the artistic and cultural legacy of their own people, or of other cultures living among them. These targets are singled out for defacement as a sign of the vandal’s hate. The pinnacle of vandalism, however, is attained by those who not only cause damage to property but also murder via their sabotage—collapsing mines and trapping miners to die choking in the dark; breaching dams and dikes to unleash deadly floodwaters that wreak devastation; or bombing, burning, or otherwise destroying homes, businesses, and other gathering places. Whether done as an anarchic political statement, for revenge upon those who owned the buildings, or for pure psychotic joy at watching the world crumble, these are the blackest-hearted vandals of all.
The level of destruction perpetrated by mortals in life is important to their lord Xoveron because while his will is bent on the ruination of every civilization, tearing down the literal and figurative structures that hold society together, he is still only a minor demon lord. His power is insufficient to endow every servant with great abilities. Lesser vandals simply do not rate a major investment of his lordly power, and if made into demons at all, may be consigned to eternity as mere dretches, or as fiendish gargoyles rather than actual demons. It is only those whose acts of destruction are truly heinous that inspire him to transform them into ulkreths.
Ulkreth demons are unusual, however, in that they can also be formed not from one soul but from many, especially in the case of gangs that once worked together as mortals in their acts of destruction. These joint-souled ulkreths are, if anything, even more savage and destructive than their fellows, as the different soul fragments bound together struggle for mastery, trying to show their dominance by wreaking greater mayhem than their rivals.
Ulkreths do not need to eat or drink, but they enjoy chewing and swallowing powdered stone and shattered glass, twisted metal and splintered wood. They consume the detritus of their destruction as a ritual of satisfaction after their rampages. Some say they gain sustenance from these shattered remains and claim that if ulkreths are prevented from destroying for too long, they can actually waste away and die of starvation, though planar scholars know that outsiders don’t need to eat to live. Ulkreths cannot reproduce biologically and are propagated only by the transformation of new souls into ulkreths.Habitat & SocietyMost ulkreths inhabit the endless ruins of Ghahazi, the hearth of their master Xoveron. There they tend groves of fiendish treants that wait amidst the ruins, crumbling foundation stones with their defiled roots even as they stand ready to batter and smash at the ulkreths’ command. Flights of fiendish gargoyles wheel constantly overhead, making aeries of the shattered spires of the Horned Prince’s city and flocking ahead of the ulkreths when they march. Xoveron often barters the service of his ulkreths with other demon lords or their generals, especially in siege situations where demonic teleportation is of no avail and defenses must be breached with naked strength. Ulkreths may be kept back as artillery, but they chafe under efforts to suppress their urges to sunder and smash and have often been known to abandon their orders and wade directly into a fray or smash down gates and walls with their bare fists.
On the Material Plane, the cultists of Xoveron and his gargoyle minions stand sentinel against the encroachment of civilization, ready to foil its ambitious reach towards eternity. When his minions report cities growing too great, too lovely, or too proud, Xoveron tempts mortals with a gluttonous hunger for power and a jealous pride and rage toward their fellows that drives them to call forth a ulkreth demon. Mortal gargoyles can sense the presence of one of their master’s favored servants and flock to its side to swoop hooting and screeching overhead as the wrecker commences a reign of terror. Of course, ulkreths are notoriously indiscriminate about their destruction, and those summoning them must be very careful not to become casualties of the ulkreth’s rampage.Creatures in "Demon" CategorySource Pathfinder RPG Bestiary pg. 57
Demons exist for one reason—to destroy. Where their more lawful counterparts, the devils of Hell, seek to twist mortal minds and values to remake and reshape them into reflections of their own evil, demons seek only to maim, ruin, and feed. They recruit mortal life only if such cohorts speed along the eventual destruction of hope and goodness. Death is, in some ways, their enemy—for a mortal who dies can often escape a demon's depredations and flee to his just reward in the afterlife. It is the prolonging of mortal pain and suffering that fuels a demon's lusts and desires, for it is partially from mortal sin and cruelty that these monstrous fiends were born.
Demons are the most prolific and among the most destructive of the fiendish races, yet despite what some lore might preach, they were not the first forms of life to rise in the stinking pits of ruin and cruelty known across the multiverse as the Abyss. Before the first fledgling deity gazed upon reality, before mortal life drew its breath, before even the Material Plane itself had fully formed, the Abyss was infested with life.
Known to many scholars as “proto-demons,” these wretched and deadly beings were the qlippoth. Today, because of the influence of sinful mortal souls upon the Abyss, mixed with unholy tamperings at the hands of the daemonic keepers of Abaddon and the cruel whims of fate and evolution, the rule of the qlippoth has receded. The proto-demons dwell now in the noxious and forgotten corners of the Abyss, and the far more fecund and prolific demons rule now in their stead. With each evil mortal soul that finds its way into the Abyss, the ranks of the demonic hordes grows—a single soul can fuel the manifestation of dozens or even hundreds of demons, with the exact nature of the sins carried by the soul guiding the shapes and roles of the newly formed fiends.
The Abyss is a vast (some say infinite) realm, far larger than any other plane save possibly the primal chaos of the Maelstrom itself. As befits such a vast and varied realm, the demonic host is likewise diverse. Some carry in their frames humanoid shapes, while others are twisted beasts. Some flop on land while others flap in air or sea. Some are schemers and manipulators of emotion and politics, others are destructive engines of ruin. Yet all demons work to the same goal—pain and suffering for mortal life in all its forms.
Yet despite this, mortals have sought demonic aid since the start. Be it an instinctual draw to self-destruction or a misguided lust for power, conjurers to this day continue to draw forth demons with forbidden magic. Some conjure demons for lore, while others call upon them to serve as assassins or guards. Demons view such summoners with a mix of hatred and thanks, for most demons lack the ability to come to the Material Plane to wreak havoc on their own. They depend on the mad to call them up from the Abyss, and while they gnash their fangs and rail against the commands and strictures enforced, most demons find ways to twist their summoners' demands so that even the most tightly controlled demonic slave leaves a trace of ruin and despair in its wake. More often than not, a foolish spellcaster makes a fatal mistake in the conjuring and pays for it with blood, unwittingly releasing a terrible blight upon the world as his conjuration breaks free of his control.
The truly mad call upon demons to offer themselves, both body and soul, in the misguided belief that alliance with the demonic can buy salvation and protection when the demonic apocalypse finally comes to call. Tales of desperate kings who sought to engage demons to serve as generals for their armies or of lunatics who seek demonic sires to gift them with horrific children are common enough, yet worst are those mortals who worship the most powerful demons as gods, and who pledge their lives in support of that which would bring destruction to all. Demon SubtypeDemons are chaotic evil outsiders that call the Abyss their home. Demons possess a particular suite of traits (unless otherwise noted in a creature's entry) as summarized here.- Immunity to electricity and poison.
- Resistance to acid 10, cold 10, and fire 10.
- Summon (Sp) Demons share the ability to summon others of their kind, typically another of their type or a small number of less powerful demons.
- Telepathy.
- Except where otherwise noted, demons speak Abyssal, Celestial, and Draconic.
- A demon's natural weapons, as well as any weapon it wields, is treated as chaotic and evil for the purpose of resolving damage reduction
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