Pooka

This creature combines the features of a sprightly girl and a black rabbit. A wicked, whimsical grin gleams on her face.

Defense

Offense

Statistics

Ecology

Description

Poison (Su) As a standard action, a pooka can blow across her palm and create a 5-foot-diameter cloud of intoxicating dust. The pooka decides when she uses this ability whether the dust acts as an inhaled poison or a mild intoxicant (equivalent to 1–2 glasses of beer).

Pooka Dust (Su): Inhaled; save Fort DC 13; frequency 1/round for 6 rounds; effect 1d2 Wis and 1d2 Cha (or intoxication); cure 2 consecutive saves.

Capricious in nature, pookas are always in search of fun, though they don’t often care who they inconvenience with their antics—they’re just in it for the whimsy. Always chaotic in nature, some pookas are cruel, some are good-natured, and others are slightly unhinged. There’s no way to tell which kind one is just by looking at it; only by interacting with a pooka does its nature become clear.

However, having a conversation with a pooka isn’t easy. Though they’re intelligent, pookas speak in choppy, simple sentences filled with obscure metaphors and nonsensical references. Most creatures who converse with a pooka usually misunderstand it the first time and have to ask the creature to repeat itself. Even their telepathy is filled with strange images and references, such as representing the word “elf” with the face of an elf it knew long ago, colloquialisms that only make sense to native speakers of Sylvan, and so on.

Pookas thrive when in the company of others, and they frequently find companionship in a particular individual whether the camaraderie is wanted or not. Pookas prefer creatures of chaotic alignments, don’t trust those with lawful alignments, and find most people with neutral alignments boring.

Pookas pull pranks to get to know a person and stay near them to observe the results, invisibly perched on a shoulder or clinging to an article of clothing. As they usually communicate with their unlucky target (whom they call “friend”) using telepathy, the person’s erratic reactions to the unseen pooka’s pranks and mental “voice” can make the target appear insane. The pooka doesn’t mind a little rough retaliation, but flees any attempts to kill it.

Some pookas can be helpful, and farmers often leave a portion of their harvest behind as a tribute for any resident pookas. A pooka who is satisfied with such a gift may leave that farmer alone for an entire year, while a pooka who feels slighted by the offering may relentlessly mock the farmer and cause minor accidents on the farm.

A pooka measures 1 to 2 feet from eartips to tail and weighs up to 15 pounds.

A non-lawful spellcaster of at least 7th level who takes the Improved Familiar feat can select a pooka as a familiar.

Psychopomp All life has its beginning and its end. From the moment of birth, everything that shrieks and struggles upon the Material Plane crawls toward a singular finale, that fatal climax that grants passage into the unimaginable infinities of the afterlife. As the spirits of the deceased flow from the confusion of mortality to their ultimate fates, they are each judged by the gods of death, who assure that all who die reach their prescribed afterlife. Yet with all the worlds of the Material Plane, the countless faces and exceptions of mortality, and all those who would turn fate and finality to their own devices, death as a system and institution requires more agents than a single deity or pantheon to uphold. These agents are the psychopomps—denizens of Purgatory and the dispassionate stewards, chroniclers, and guides of all that die.

Psychopomps preside over the flow of life. Their primary concerns focus upon souls in the vulnerable transition between death and their final destinations upon the planes. Psychopomps carry out their duties with the dispassion of veterans and cynics. In terms of service measuring in ages, psychopomps meet countless souls from innumerable worlds, and soon nearly every story, fate, plea, and exception becomes all too familiar. They care little for the histories or personalities of the souls that pass them by, concerned only for the efficient and unvaried processing of each spirit to its final unremarkable eternity. Damnation and paradise are the same to them, as are heroes and villains, and no psychopomp cares one jot for great deeds left undone, other fates hanging in the balance, or bribes worth even a world’s ransom. But while drudgery is the lot of many psychopomps—interrupted only by the diversions they sometimes create for themselves—their system is not without flaws. There are creatures who would seek to deny the natural order of death—fiends that prey upon souls, spirits lost in their migration, and undead abominations. To counter such abnormalities and preserve the flow of souls as the multiverse requires, numerous specialized psychopomps exist to protect the dead and counter any who would seek to pervert the state of death to their own ends.

Noteworthy among psychopomps are their masks.

Many who have dealings with the living wear some manner of grim face covering or funerary mask. While these masks are not part of a psychopomp’s body and grant them no special abilities, the legends of numerous cultures suggest that for a living creature to see a psychopomp’s unmasked countenance invites a premature death. Those psychopomps who deal predominately with the dead typically eschew such marks of station except as a formality.

As psychopomps help convey souls to all of the Outer Planes, and thus provide petitioners equally to each of those realms, they enjoy a special status among many planar races as respected neutrals. As such, most other planar races grant them a wide berth, with even archons and demons going out of their ways to avoid interfering with death’s emissaries. Soul-hungry daemons and reality-violating qlippoth are among the only races that actively oppose psychopomps. Consequently, the deadlier classes of psychopomps watch for and hunt disruptive members of these races, seeking to expunge the paths between the planes of any that would impede the certain cycle of death.

The death gods create the weakest psychopomps out of mortal souls, usually those who served Purgatory in life or worshiped deities of judgment. The gods may transform psychopomps which perform exemplary service into greater members of their kind, though rarely an exceptional hero or champion of Purgatory may become a superior psychopomp when she dies.

There is little competitiveness or jealousy among the ranks of these creatures, as their primary motivation is fulfillment of their eternal duties, and there is little point in coveting another’s rewards and responsibilities. The following are the most common types of psychopomps. Other varieties exist, tasked with more obscure duties for the gods of death, or responsible for alien worlds where the native creatures have radically different life cycles and outlooks compared to humanoids. Psychopomp Ushers Beings ancient and dispassionate rise above the psychopomp droves, emissaries of death who have presided over the dooms of whole nations, races, and worlds. These eldest and most efficient servants of death hold great respect for the gods of death, but are not necessarily their minions, striving to fulfill their own visions of death’s ultimate purpose and process over all other objectives.

Atropos the Last Sister Barzahk the Passage Ceyanan the Shepherd Dammar the Denied Imot the Symbol of Doom Mother Vulture Mrtyu, Death’s Consort Narakaas the Cleansing Sentence The Pale Horse Phlegyas, Consoler of Atheists Saloc, Minder of Immortals Teshallas the Primordial Poison Vale the Court of Ancestors Pooka–Psychopomp Psychopomp, Catrina With lengthy curling hair, a dancer’s dress, and a bouquet of flowers, this woman remains beautiful, despite having no flesh.

Source: Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bestiary 4