Inevitable, ValharutThis four-armed faceless woman has flesh that appears to be made of pale marble veined with traceries of blue lines.Valharut CR 11Source Planar Adventures pg. 237
XP 12,800
LN Medium outsider (extraplanar, inevitable, lawful)
Init +10; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +20
Aura inviolate aura (60 ft.)DefenseAC 25, touch 16, flat-footed 19 (+6 Dex, +9 natural)
hp 138 (12d10+72); regeneration 5 (chaotic)
Fort +14, Ref +10, Will +13
Defensive Abilities constructed; DR 10/chaotic; Immune transmutation effects; SR 22OffenseSpeed 50 ft.; air walk
Melee +1 valharut hook +17/+12/+7 (1d8+6/19–20/×3), +1 valharut hook +16 (1d8+3/19–20/×3), +1 dagger +16 (1d4+3/19–20), slam +12 (1d4+2)
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 11th; concentration +16)
Constant—air walk
At will—greater teleport (self plus 50 lbs. of objects only), order’s wrath (DC 19)
1/day—dispel chaosStatisticsStr 21, Dex 22, Con 22, Int 11, Wis 20, Cha 21
Base Atk +12; CMB +17; CMD 33
Feats Combat Reflexes, Improved Critical (valharut hook), Improved Initiative, Power Attack, Two-Weapon Fighting, Weapon Focus (valharut hook)
Skills Acrobatics +21, Intimidate +20, Knowledge (planes) +15, Perception +20, Sense Motive +20, Swim +17
Languages truespeech
SQ dimension slideEcologyEnvironment any (Axis)
Organization solitary, pair, or barrage (3–8)
Treasure standard (+1/+1 valharut hook, +1 dagger, other treasure)Special AbilitiesDimension Slide (Su) A valharut can teleport up to its speed as a move action, provided it has line of sight to its destination. This movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity. A valharut can perform this ability as a full-round action to teleport up to double its speed and make one melee attack against a creature at the end of this move.
Inviolate Aura (Su) A valharut radiates an aura of inviolate form, granting all allies within 60 feet a bonus to Fortitude saves to resist hostile transmutation effects (such as a protean’s warpwave) equal to the valharut’s Charisma bonus (+5 for the typical valharut).
Valharut Hook (Ex) Valharuts fight with an exotic weapon that consists of two hooked blades projecting from opposite ends of a shaft. A valharut hook is functionally identical to an orc double axe, but proficiency with the orc double axe does not grant proficiency with a valharut hook, or vice versa.DescriptionValharut inevitables are champions in Axis’s ongoing war with the Maelstrom and its protean natives. Unlike other inevitables, the valharut is not designed to protect or maintain a specific universal constant or planar law, but rather to act as a soldier against the ever-encroaching forces of chaos. As such, valharuts are more often seen outside of Axis, battling enemies of law under the direct orders of their axiomite superiors.Creatures in "Inevitable" CategorySource Bestiary 2 pg. 161
Originally invented and forged in the Outer Planes by the axiomites, inevitables are living machines whose sole purpose is to seek out and destroy agents of chaos wherever they can.
During the height of the first war between law and chaos, while the Outer Planes were still forming from the raw chaos of the primal reality, inevitables were constructed by the axiomites as an unflinching army—soldiers powerful and devoted enough to march on the madness-inducing hordes of proteans who sought to unmake reality and return it all to the primal chaos they so adored. While this war has long since cooled to a simmer, and the reality of the Outer Planes is now not so easily threatened by the entropic influence of the proteans and their home plane, the defense of the axiomites' home plane remains the inevitables' primary goal. Despite the proteans' subsequent adaptation and study of how best to make themselves more resistant to the inevitables' attacks, these constructed soldiers remain imposingly effective.
Today, many inevitables—almost all of those encountered on the Material Plane—pursue a new aspect of their original mission: tracking down those who flagrantly flout the forces of law and redeeming them or, more often, eliminating the threat they present to the ordered nature of the multiverse. Matched on the side of chaos by the manipulative imentesh proteans, new inevitables awake to find themselves locked in a proxy war, knowing that losing the Material Plane to chaos would place their masters in a dangerous position.
Genderless, incorruptible, and caring nothing for power or personal advancement, inevitables are cunning and valiant shock troops in the service of law. Though they regularly interact with their creator race on their home plane, they have no society of their own, and are almost always encountered singly on other planes, each more than capable of pursuing its own mission. These individual crusades range from enforcing important or high-profile contracts and laws to forcibly correcting those mortals who would seek to cheat death. How they deal with the guilty varies according to the transgression: sometimes this means a simple geas or mark of justice to ensure that the target works to right his wrongs or never again strays from the path of law, but just as often an offense worthy of an inevitable's attention is severe enough that only immediate execution will suffice. Such decisions are not always popular—for the kindly priest who transcends mortality and the freedom fighter who battles the evil-yet-rightful king are every bit as guilty as grave-robbing necromancers and demon-worshipers—but the inevitables are always just, and few dare stand in the way of their judgment. Those inevitables who have completed a given mission often wander through whatever society they find themselves in, seeking other lawbreakers worthy of their ministrations. Brave souls with a worthy cause are always welcome to approach an inevitable and present their case, but should be wary of invoking the help of such powerful, single-minded beings—for an inevitable may not see the situation the same way they do, and though all inevitables do their best to preserve innocent life, they're not above sacrificing a few allies or innocents in an effort to bring down a greater villain.
Physically, inevitables often have humanoid forms or aspects, but their bodies appear somewhere between clockwork constructs and fine statues in the greatest classical tradition. Constructed of stone, adamantine, and even more precious materials, each inevitable is brought to sentience in the axiomites' forges already programmed with the details of its first target. Though they know that all beings outside of the lawful planes harbor chaos in their hearts, inevitables also understand that such conflicted creatures may yet be forces for law as much as for chaos, and thus overlook all but the most flagrant offenses. The most commonly recognized types of inevitables are as follows.
Arbiters: Scouts and diplomats, often assigned to wizards as familiars in the hopes of directing such individuals to the cause of law.
Kolyaruts: Cloaked and stealthy humanoid warriors who track and punish those who break contracts.
Lhaksharuts: Juggernauts who search for permanent breaches and links between planes and invasions from one dimension to another.
Maruts: Towering beings of stone, steel, and storm who bring a fitting end to those mortals who try to cheat death in attempts to live forever.
Zelekhuts: Winged, centaur-like constructs who track down those who flee just and legal punishment, returning them to their rightful judges or carrying out the sentence themselves. Primal Inevitables While the lhaksharuts are generally thought of as the most powerful caste of inevitable, there exist others of even greater skill and strength—these are known as the primal inevitables. These goliaths were among the first weapons of war forged by the axiomites to fight the protean menace—the methods to create more have long been lost to the axiomites, and those few primals who remain alive to this day have become legendary. None have been encountered in living memory, but the possibility of a primal's emergence is enough to give the proteans second thoughts when ideas of invading the inevitables' home plane arise.
|