Death Dog

This black-furred, two-headed dog is as large as a horse and has midnight-black eyes. Tiny worms crawl on its mangy hide.

Defense

Offense

Statistics

Ecology

Description

Disease (Su) Wormpox: Bite—Injury; save Fort DC 12; onset 1 day; frequency 1 day; effect 1 Con damage; cure 2 consecutive saves.

Death dogs are disease-ridden nocturnal pack hunters. Said to be the risen corpses of dogs or hyenas animated by monster-worshiping cultists, they are actually living creatures infested with symbiotic worms. Capable of tracking their prey for miles across barren terrain, death dogs surround stronger creatures, attacking and retreating, allowing their infected bites to wear down an opponent until it is too weak to fight. A pack’s territory may overlap with others of its kind without competition, though in lean times packs may skirmish over live prey or carrion. A death dog’s saliva contains hundreds of tiny eggs that grow into flesh-devouring worms. The worms don’t harm the death dog, but consume any creatures they come into contact with. A death dog’s corpse is contagious for several days after its demise and may infect creatures that touch or eat it. Remove disease can kill a death dog’s worms and remove its disease ability, but if allowed to associate with others of its kind, its quickly becomes reinfected. A typical death dog is 7 feet long, stands 4 feet tall at the shoulder, and weighs about 500 pounds. Death dogs may ally with hobgoblins and bugbears, though the goblinoids are not immune to the dogs’ disease. Thus these alliances are often temporary.

DEATH WORG In the scrub borders between forests and deserts or plains and badlands, worgs and death dogs may mix. If a worg pack is resistant to disease, or an outcast worg takes control of a death dog pack, crossbreeding may occur. Most of these two-headed pups die before reaching adulthood, but those that survive are larger, tougher, smarter, and able to speak as well as a worg can (add the advanced creature simple template). These “death worgs” have worms infecting their brains, driving them mad with rage.

Death worgs bully their packs into submission, raid caravans and humanoid settlements, and kill more than they can eat. Most death worgs live only a year or two into adulthood, slain in needless fights for dominance or dropping dead as their worm-ravaged brains stop working. Demon Lord The mightiest of all demons are the demon lords of the Abyss, influential entities of chaos and evil and powerful demigods who each rule vast realms of horror and vice. Each demon lord is a unique creature, a paragon of sin that exists only to further its own desires. The genesis of demon lords varies. The majority of them rise from lesser demons who have transformed into powerful entities (this was how Pazuzu became a demon lord). In rare cases, a demon lord transitions directly from being a powerful, sinful mortal into the role of demon lord (as is the case with Kostchtchie), or from a qlippoth into a demon lord as a result of unknowable influences in the Abyss (as is the case with Dagon).

When a demon gathers enough power, whether by gaining class levels, advancing in Hit Dice, gaining many mythic tiers or ranks, undertaking a vile ritual, or simply amassing a sufficiently large and devoted following, it becomes what is known as a nascent demon lord. It may remain a nascent lord indefinitely, but usually seeks to complete its transformation into a full-fledged demon lord. In order to do so, the nascent lord must build a cult among mortals, but more importantly it must claim and control a large enough Abyssal realm that the plane itself takes notice and elevates the nascent lord to the power level of a demon lord. In a few cases, demon lords have been known to ascend to the status of full deities. While there are likely thousands of nascent demon lords in existence at any one time in the Abyss, the number of full-fledged demon lords is more limited—known examples of demon lords number in the dozens.

The phrase “demon lord” is gender neutral—there are male, female, and genderless demon lords, as well as demon lords with multiple genders.

A demon lord may be contacted via commune, and can be conjured via a gate spell, but when so called, a demon lord is under no compulsion to come through the gate. Typically, a demon lord requires an enormous and significant offering or sacrifice before it deigns to answer a gate spell.

ABYSSAL REALMS Demon lords’ realms range in size, but even the smallest are as large as a continent, and the greatest are larger than some planets. The realms’ environments, themes, and traits are as unique as the demon lords themselves, presenting unusual challenges and dangers to creatures trying to explore them. Yet despite the close connection a demon lord has to its realm, it does not exert total control over the realm, and powerful adventurers can infiltrate such realms and accomplish goals without arousing the lord’s anger—if they’re careful.

A demon lord gains the following additional powers while in its realm (the statistics presented on the following pages do not include these abilities): • Mythic: A demon lord functions as a 10th mythic rank creature, including the mythic power ability (10/day, surge +1d12). It may expend uses of mythic power to use the mythic versions of any spell-like ability denoted with an asterisk (*) just as if the ability were a mythic spell. • Use of the following spell-like abilities at will—demand, discern location, fabricate, major creation, and polymorph any object (when used on objects or creatures that are native to the realm, the polymorph duration factor increases by 6).

• Use of the following spell-like abilities once per day—binding, miracle (limited to physical effects that manipulate the realm or to effects that are relevant to the demon lord’s areas of concern) • Heightened Awareness (Ex): A demon lord gains a +10 insight bonus on Perception checks and Initiative checks. DEMON LORDS IN A CAMPAIGN Each demon lord is a unique creature ranging in power from CR 26 to CR 30. Demon lords are generally beyond the reach of most mortal heroes, and should not be placed in an adventure without careful consideration. In most cases, they are best used as the final enemies of long campaigns—especially campaigns in which the PCs themselves are mythic characters—and even getting an audience with one should be a memorable event.

Yet even if demon lords are far outside the abilities of most heroes to combat directly, they can still be used as foes in campaigns of all levels, inspiring or directing monsters, mortals, and entire cults. Opposing and defeating a cult is a time-honored plotline for a campaign, and a climactic encounter where the PCs must close a portal before the cult’s demon lord manifests in the flesh can make an exciting capstone to a long-running campaign, especially if the demon lord in question appears for a round or 2 to fight the PCs before the closing of the portal forces it back to the Abyss. Alternatively, rather than having the PCs face the demon lord at full power, you can build a campaign where the PCs systematically undermine and destroy a demon lord’s resources, imposing increasing penalties on it and gathering potent weapons so that when the time comes for the final confrontation, the PCs are powerful and the demon lord is weakened to a state below its normal CR. An easy way to model weakening a demon in this manner is to assign negative levels to the demon—normally, a demon lord is immune to level drain, but in this case, the reduction of its resources and sources of power can bypass that immunity for a time... at least, until the demon lord can rebuild and recover.

Death Dog–Demon Lord Demon Lord, Dagon This demon’s body is a nightmare of writhing tentacles and slippery coils below the leering maw of a deep sea predator.

Source: Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bestiary 4