Tear of Nuruu’gal

A slithering blob of amoeba-like protoplasm shines with flame, warping the air around it in a searing mirage.

Defense

Offense

Statistics

Ecology

Description

Symbiosis (Ex) As part of a constrict attack, a tear of Nuruu’gal can attempt to forcefully inhabit a humanoid victim’s body.

A DC 21 Fortitude save resists this intrusion and renders immunity to that ooze’s symbiosis ability for 24 hours; failure means the ooze spends a full-round action inhabiting its new host. Once absorbed, the ooze grants incredible boons to willing hosts, or slowly incinerates unwilling victims. A willing host ceases aging, is sustained as if wearing a ring of sustenance, and becomes sterile.

He or she also gains the fire subtype, spell resistance, and telepathic abilities of the tear of Nuruu’gal. A host can use the creature’s spell-like abilities, with save DCs calculated using the host’s Hit Dice and Charisma score, although daily limits of powers still apply. Damage dealt to the host body does not harm the ooze.

Unwilling victims are granted no abilities, and are instead tortured with searing pain. Victims take automatic burn damage each round, and must succeed on a DC 21 Fortitude save or become nauseated for 1d4 rounds. While this occurs, the ooze may telepathically appeal to the host for control of the body to prevent further pain (treat control as magic jar, with no receptacle required). The ooze may vacate the body of a host as a full-round action, bursting forth in a protoplasmic expulsion, dealing double burn damage.

A victim may attempt to expel the creature from his or her body as a full-round action with a DC 21 Fortitude save, but each attempt results in automatic burn damage from the ooze, and damage from the creature’s violent exit if successful (as if the ooze had left voluntarily). Remove curse expels the creature, if the caster succeeds on a DC 21 caster level check. The save DCs are Constitution-based.

First spawned by the primordial godling Nuruu’gal in the lost Azlanti city of Nal-Vashkin, these fiery, parasitic oozes contain a portion of the creature’s essence and foul sentience. The oozes hunt ceaselessly, seeking to force their amoebic protoplasm into the bodies of humanoids to turn their hosts to the service of their master, whether the hosts are willing or not. After many years of possession, the host and the symbiote may undergo a strange metamorphosis, exploding into a horrible light that catalyzes into a being known as a shining child.

Tumen Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Lost Cities of Golarion In the last days of the their rule, a new sort of madness consumed the Four Pharaohs. In the deepest deserts, miles from any spring, they commanded water. From the dunes and furrows, they raised a towering monument. In the middle of the ever-shifting sands, they demanded permanence.

In their power, the pharaohs realized this dream, a city built on the corpses of a hundred thousand slaves. When it was finished, Tumen stood as a monument to human will—but also to hubris. For the pharaohs’ great sin was not in the city’s construction, but in treating their wonder like a trifle. For all their power, the pharaohs had forgotten one thing: The desert is a living creature. And she will not be mocked. —Anak Mubara, The Fall of the Four Tumen O f all the fabulous works commissioned during the reigns of the great Osirian pharaohs, none claimed the lives of more slaves during its construction than the city of Tumen. When a conclave of four pharaohs set out to relocate their empire’s capital on a whim, they agreed upon the Heavenscape, an impressive vertical cliff in the middle of a trackless desert, to house their nation’s newest wonder. At the height of their arrogance, the sheer impracticality of building a city on vertical perches appealed to the Four Pharaohs of Ascension. Determined to rival the majesty of the very heavens with their creation, each pharaoh designed his or her own community and set it upon a separate ledge resting on the side of the mountainous cliff. But in order for their plans to be viable, the four ledges had to be interconnected by an underground complex of cavernous stairs so that goods could be transported from the outside world. As such, an entire generation of slaves labored in darkness to drill deep into the mountain rock and hand-carve the thousands of required steps. Finally, when the city was ready, the pharaohs unveiled a dark source of magic to supply their civic creation with life-giving water.

Today, Tumen lies in ruins. Impractical since the moment of its conception, the city collapsed as soon as the Four Pharaohs departed in death, yet rumors of its ancient secrets persist to this day. Whenever the desert sandstorms see fit to unearth the ruins of Tumen, invariably at least one group of treasure-hunters mounts an expedition to the Heavenscape—a voyage from which few return.

Appearance At first glance, Tumen is four cities in one, each of them set upon a massive ledge jutting from the titanic face of a cliff. By careful design, each ledge bulges out of the cliff face in such a manner that its walls and underside form an enormous eye staring down at the desert below. Today, while the ledges themselves remain, time and erosion have reduced the once-mighty buildings upon them to ruins. While there are notable exceptions, typically only the foundations of the strongest buildings have survived.

Tumen’s single most omnipresent attribute is its endless volume of sand. While the Heavenscape is enormous, its presence in a natural sort of gully and the strange winds of the desert cause it to be periodically buried almost to its peak. For years or centuries, the city may be truly lost, only to reappear almost overnight due to the capricious nature of the wind and local elementals. The bones of those adventurers who have ignored or underestimated the speed with which the glorious city may disappear into the dunes lie bleached and blasted in sand-choked chambers.

History The Four Pharaohs of Ascension originally consisted of four feuding despots each contending for supremacy over Osirion: the Fiend Pharaoh, the Radiant Pharaoh, the Cerulean Pharaoh, and the Pharaoh of Numbers.

While the details remain uncertain, in –1498 ar, the Four Pharaohs formed an improbable alliance in which they used powerful magic to bind their fates together. If one grew stronger, so would the others. And if any one among them died, that fate too would be shared. In this way, the pharaohs immunized themselves against the possibility of internal treachery or assassination. With Osirion’s rulers united, the nation prospered both militarily and culturally. The pharaohs carefully guarded the source of their pact magic, sealing it in an ancient pyramid known as Ahn’Selohta. Rightly or wrongly, the pharaohs were eternally suspicious that would-be usurpers were seeking to steal the power of their pact magic in order to replicate the pharaohs’ success for themselves. As their paranoia grew, the Four Pharaohs quickly became discontent with how far away the capital of Sothis was from the pyramid that housed the foundation of their power. In –1476 ar, the Four Pharaohs decided to build a new capital, one closer to Ahn’Selohta, in order to better watch over it. As was typical for their dynamic, the Four Pharaohs were unable to agree upon a thousand details, but the quartet at last reached an accord when they hit upon the idea of having four interconnected sub-cities—one for each of them to design as he or she saw fit.

The construction required a truly mammoth and costly undertaking. Unable to afford the decades and generations such a project would normally require, the pharaohs supplied Tumen’s overseers with legions of slaves sourced from their constant military victories to the south and to the west. They also began with magic: the initial tunnels within the Heavenscape were carefully bored using charmed bulettes—giant land sharks capable of grinding through the mountain—as well as other burrowing monstrosities. Then followed the slaves. Typically, the slave masters would drug their slave armies or brainwash them with religious fervor so that the workers could toil well past the point of natural exhaustion. When possible, the pharaohs’ sorcerers hastened the slaves with magic and summoned bound elementals to spearhead the labor.

Tumen’s completion inspired a nationwide celebration, but the new capital’s reign was appallingly short. One pharaoh steadily grew ill from an unknown disease, and the magic of their pact slowly dragged down the health of the other three pharaohs. Indeed, although each had suspicions, the Four Pharaohs never learned which among them had truly succumbed to sickness and which three were simply sharing in the fate. Legends state that the pharaohs eventually accepted that their end was near and Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Lost Cities of Golarion THE HEAVENSCAPE RA-INI KA “THE PRIME”

RA-INI KA “THE PRIME”

NEBTITI “THE WAR PIT”

NEBTITI “THE WAR PIT”

SETEOPS “THE AURA”

SETEOPS “THE AURA”

HATIPHERES “THE CERULEAN CITY”

HATIPHERES “THE CERULEAN CITY”

KHIZA “THE PLEBIAN”

KHIZA “THE PLEBIAN”

Tumen feet Tumen ended their quarrel, arranging to entomb themselves in a separate pyramid of veinstone nearby.

With the loss of the Four Pharaohs of Ascension, the magic that powered Tumen’s eldritch aquifer disappeared, and the city’s days became numbered as its water supply was gradually depleted. For a time, laborers transported water up to the individual sub-cities by hand or pack beast, but such measures only forestalled the inevitable. The price of survival spiked beyond reason, and the people fled, leaving Tumen to the mercies of raiders and beasts. Residents Although the desert sands sometimes bury Tumen for years at a time, the city has never truly been deserted. The Carvesmen and the Voice: Deep within the darkness of the heart of the Heavenscape, the descendants of the ancient slaves who once carved its steps still struggle to survive. Now regressed into emaciated morlocks of neutral alignment, the “Carvesmen” still patrol their creation, barely subsisting off the mountain’s internal ecosystem. The savage survival of the Carvesmen is even more miraculous now that an unseen creature known as The Voice (NE advanced cloaker) has begun to hunt them. The Voice deploys a small team of elite dark stalker rangers, who call themselves “His Word.” The Voice seeks to exterminate every last Carvesman, holding them responsible for their ancestors’ invasion of the mountainous rock so many centuries ago. The Carvesmen have an unusual ally, however, in a lantern archon named Syara. Syara has made it her mission to protect the vulnerable Carvesmen from the predations of the Voice while she attempts to lead them out of their meager existence and into the light. While the Carvesmen appreciate their glowing sister’s aid, they so far have refused to leave their ancestral home.

The Finless: Overhanging each cave entrance to the Heavenscape are several armored bulette fins, mummified trophies from the enormous land sharks that once used to bore the mountain’s tunnels. The bulettes’ handlers eventually slew and reanimated the beasts with necromancy in order to direct their efforts more accurately, and once the bulettes finished the last of their tunneling, their handlers removed the creatures’ fins as artwork and buried their discarded remains under the sands. Recently, as a result of some unknown magical disturbance, the “Finless” have again risen, this time as fast zombies. The creatures now stalk the ruins of Tumen, surfacing only at night, to take their revenge on whoever they find.

The Cult of the Last Theorem: Tumen’s newest faction is an insidious cabal that seeks to unlock the dark powers of lost mathematics. The Cult of the Last Theorem is aware that one of the Four Pharaohs of Ascension was an unparalleled genius known only as the Pharaoh of Numbers—a figure of great interest to them. For the last several years, the cult has based itself on the outskirts of Tumen in order to plunder whatever secrets the Pharaoh of Numbers might have left behind. For reasons not yet fully understood, the integers 56 and 11 held deep spiritual and mathematical significance for the Pharaoh of Numbers— and now provide great importance for the cult as well. The cult incorporates these numbers into its daily activities whenever possible, hoping to unlock the associated power. Originally, the Cult bivouacked 56 members within each sub-city, and combed through the ruins in five groups of 11 with a single high priest as a leader. Recent losses, particularly from the predations of the Finless, have made it more challenging for the cult to maintain the necessary numeric patterns.

The cult’s current mission leader is Theorex Khai (see pages 52–53). The Theorex has recently divined the presence of the Aqualinth deep below the mountain, and has made recovering the dark artifact the cult’s new goal. Unfortunately, between the Carvesmen and the Voice, the cultists he has sent down the dark stairwells below the sub-cities have returned battered and bloody, if they return at all.

Relations and Trade Although it was only a brief flash in history many millennia ago, Tumen was the focal point of a vast amount of commerce and trade within Osirion’s empire, stretching well beyond what is now Thuvia and Geb. Camel trains spread from the great City of Slaves like a spider’s web, and local merchants were well versed in managing the inherent dangers of traversing Osirion’s eastern desert. In particular, Tumen lies close to the Underdunes: canyon-sized ridges of sand that shift and collapse in the irregular khamsin storms (powerful stormed augmented by battling elementals). Those skilled in navigating the maze-like trenches could extend the reach of their caravans, requiring far less water per mile once in the protective shade of the Underdunes. But just as today, inexperienced travelers needed to beware, as the risk of a sand slide was omnipresent.

More significantly, historical writings corroborate that Tumen once had its own seaport. Even though the city itself was more than 30 miles inland from the Inner Sea, camel trains would head east to the coastline of the Burning Cape where Tumen had its own commercial and military launch point known as Shotep-Kara. According to those same texts, Shotep-Kara boasted secret sea-lanes: routes that would magically contract the distance required to travel to the far corners of Osirion’s empire and abroad. Many have gone in search of these secret sea lanes, but thus far, would-be explorers have yet to find even the port itself.

After Tumen collapsed, commercial evolution took hold and all aspects of trade migrated back to Sothis and its associated communities along the banks of the River Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Lost Cities of Golarion Sphinx. Adventurers in Tumen seeking to buy supplies or sell their treasures would do well to journey to the West to Osirion’s modern-day capital.

Sites of Interest Each of Tumen’s sub-districts is as unique as the pharaoh that oversaw its construction.

Nebtiti, “The War Pit”: The locals of the Fiend Pharaoh’s sub-city quickly nicknamed this district Nebtiti—“the War Pit”—a name that suited the deadly general just fine. Much of the district was comprised of barracks and armories, and in its prime, it hosted innumerable parades of the pharaoh’s armies.

A single structure towers above the rest, a titanic, panther-headed statue resting in a form-fitting niche carved into the mountainside itself.

Almost 100 feet tall, the creature is actually the Panthereon Ultima (N Colossal advanced shield guardian clay golem).

Osirion’s greatest golem-crafters constructed the Panthereon Ultima to defend Tumen against the rampage of the next Spawn of Rovagug, an event that the Pharaoh of Numbers had predicted would be Tumen’s most significant threat. Tumen, however, fell well before any such attack ever came, and the Ultima never proved to be anything more than an impressive statue. Many archaeologists and explorers have gone searching for the Ultima’s missing control amulet in order to seize command of the legendary creature. In particular, the Cult of the Last Theorem believes the Fiend Pharaoh embedded the amulet within his double crown, and that the pharaoh’s lost headgear now lies somewhere within the ruins of Nebtiti. As a result, the cult expends significant resources combing the ruins for it.

Seteops, “The Aura”: Once the most aesthetically appealing of the four districts, Tumen’s engineers constructed the Aura under the direction of the Radiant Pharaoh, a ruler whose beauty was surpassed only by her insatiable need to be worshiped by the masses. Those traveling within the Aura need to take special care when they rest. Anyone sleeping while inside this district has a 10% chance of experiencing an after-echo of the Radiant Pharaoh’s hold over her slaves. Sleepers who fail a DC 21 Will save rise in their sleep as somnambulists. The after-echo then forces the sleepwalkers to labor in the impossible task of restoring the dilapidated ruins of Seteops to their former glory. Assuming victims of the after-echo do not fall prey to a wandering monster, anyone sleepwalking awakes at dawn with his free will returned, though he gains the fatigued condition as a result of his exhausting nighttime labor.

It was within Seteops that Tumen’s artisans built what would soon become one of the Four Pharaohs’ most important monuments: the Radiant Call. Built in the shape of a giant open cauldron supported atop four great ankhs, the Radiant Call comprises thousands of colored stones, each enchanted with continual flame. When the cauldron’s mirrored lid was uncovered and positioned upright, the Radiant Call focused the stones’ flames into a sparkling beacon of light. Osirion’s subjects could spy the flickering of the Radiant Call from as far as Sothis and the River Sphinx to the west, and to the east from as far as the banks of the Obari Ocean. By raising and lowering the Radiant Call’s cover, Tumen could send signals to the cities and armies under its command using coded messages. Only those who spoke the “flash-language”

could decipher the pharaohs’ golden commands. Today, the Radiant Call has lost its radiance, thieves having long ago stolen its fiery stones, but the mirrored plate remains in place, hinting that someone might one day resurrect the device.

Hatipheres, “The Cerulean City”: Formerly the heart of Tumen’s commerce and taxation, this once opulent district has suffered worst from sandstorms, and now lies in near-total ruin. One structure, however, has defied both sandstorms and the onslaught of time: the Palace of Blades. When the ailing Cerulean Pharaoh abandoned Tumen and prepared to inter his body in the fabled veinstone pyramid to the south, he locked the gates of his palace behind him and ordered his priests to mine the palace with overlapping blade barrier glyphs. Consequently, it is impossible to walk within the palace without the individual rooms exploding into cascades of whirling, blue-tinged scimitars. One of the Palace of Blades’ guardians remains, the mummified Te Hapsu (LE male human lich cleric 14). If awakened, the lich stalks the corridors of the palace in safety, courtesy of his perpetual castings of air walk and spell immunity to blade barrier.

Sages hold that within the Palace of Blades, the Cerulean Pharaoh kept detailed records of the genealogy of all of Osirion’s nobility. Impossibly, the records are said to set out not only the history of the empire’s noble ancestors, but also the names of their unborn descendants eternally going forward. Many genealogists have come to Hatipheres in search of these legendary family trees, not only to see who can trace their lineage to noble blood of the Osirian Tumen Empire, but also to see what secrets the pharaoh’s magical lists might reveal as to the fate of the current ruler’s line. Ra-Ini Ka, “The Prime”: The most elevated of the sub-cities, this was the district in which the Pharaoh of Numbers constructed Tumen’s greatest places of learning. In its center is a small, unnatural wasteland, the result of a failed magical experiment that sought to manipulate both the power of electrical storms and the matrix of time. A series of 56 frozen bolts of lightning rip up from the ground, stabbing 30 feet toward the sky in a jigsaw pattern. Rather than dispel the experiment, the Pharaoh of Numbers commanded his numerancers to leave the frozen storm in place as a magnificent reminder of his dangerous and beautiful power. Thus, Tumen’s builders carefully walled off the so-called Lightning Fields. Anyone coming into contact with a frozen lightning bolt takes 10d6 points of electrical damage (no save). Forty years ago, a free-willed flesh golem named Barome the Spasmic (N male giant flesh golem) learned of Tumen’s fabled Lightning Fields and set out to make the Prime his new home. Whenever Barome is injured (or otherwise low on power), the golem simply wanders through the frozen bolts. Barome has made a makeshift home in one of the nearby ruins, and while he is suspicious of visitors, he is not overtly hostile. The golem has learned to evacuate from Tumen and take shelter at the top of the Heavenscape whenever the storms or elemental clans come to bury the city.

Khiza, “The Plebian”: Unlike the four sub-cities above it that the pharaohs carefully engineered, Tumen’s plebian district evolved naturally over time as housing for the slaves and paid laborers, expanding in order to meet the city’s day-to-day needs. Khiza consisted of masses of dwellings and slave markets for the lower classes that sprung up at the base of the Heavenscape once Tumen was constructed.

The Tumen Campaign For treasure-hunters, Tumen is a locale of legend. There are as many reasons for PCs to come to Tumen as there are rumors of long-lost treasures and artifacts. As just one example, many Osirionologists would pay significant coin to locate one of the mysterious relic-clocks that began their hieroglyphic countdown during the time of the Four Pharaohs of Ascension (see Pathfinder Module: Entombed with the Pharaohs for more information). If it is still possible to find these relics anywhere, Tumen is the best place to start. Similarly, sages largely agree that the art of Osirian mummification reached its apex during the time of Tumen’s rule. If one intends to recover these lost nuances of necromancy, the answers again lie in Tumen’s ruins.

But these days Tumen also holds promise of causes nobler than the plundering trinkets and secrets. Many organizations might have good reason to keep an eye on the dangerous Cult of the Last Theorem. Now that the cult has deployed itself in Tumen, someone needs to ensure they don’t complete their goals—goals that might include the end of civilization.

Low-Level Adventures As with many legendary locations, Tumen is a tough place for beginning adventurers to cut their teeth. Early on, traveling to the city through the dangerous surrounding deserts can provide plenty of challenges for parties— perhaps the PCs are part of a caravan attacked by cultists for supplies, or they become lost in a desert storm only to stumble upon the dubious safety of the city. If the PCs struggle at low levels, GMs might make them lucky enough to befriend Barome the Spasmic, who can teach them much about how to circumvent obvious dangers in the ruins.

As the PCs make their first forays into Tumen, they are likely to encounter patrols of the cult of the Last Theorem, eager to evict the PCs from the ruins with extreme prejudice. However, as adventurers are not entirely unknown in the region, low-level PCs are unlikely to garner the attention of the cult’s higher-level leadership. The PCs might also uncover an alien duplicate from the Aqualinth (see page 51) as it attempts to infiltrate the Cult of the Last Theorem, and be drawn in by the mystery of the doppelganger-like creatures serving a dark and ancient artifact deep beneath the city.

By levels 4–6, as the PCs grow in strength, they should be ready to face The Voice and His Word. The lantern archon Syara may take notice of the PCs and attempt to recruit them to rescue the Carvesmen, perhaps traveling all the way to whatever Osirian settlement the PCs happen to be in at the time in order to find aid. While the PCs may never be able to draw the morlocks from their self-imposed imprisonment, they might at least drive the Voice from the Heavenscape.

Medium-Level Adventures At levels 7–13, the PCs should be able to move more freely through Tumen and face most of its challenges. Now might be an appropriate time for the PCs to stand against the Finless and establish a proper base of operations within the city—perhaps this is precisely why they’ve come, recruited as hired muscle by a team of archaeologists terrorized by the undead bulettes. At this point, the cult of the Last Theorem may also decide to expunge any meddlesome outsiders—unless, of course, they were the ones who orchestrated the PCs’ arrival as part of their bizarre schemes. If the PCs expect to be free from the cult, they’ll eventually need to track down Khai’s lair (the Principium) and destroy the cult’s leadership. As they get closer to their Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Lost Cities of Golarion goal, the PCs should learn that the cult is actually rotting from within; the Aqualinth is slowly creating more and more replacements for the original cultists.

In the meantime, if the PCs spend significant time in Tumen, they risk stepping into the ancient war between the elemental tribes of the Aisi and the Goanron Triumvirate (see the sidebar). At some point the Goanron will return to Tumen and seek to restore the region to what the clan sees as its natural state: a ruined city buried under an avalanche of sand. If the PCs are not prepared to pack up and leave, they may have to fight off the Goanron—a nigh-impossible task unless the PCs are first able to join forces with the Aisi, or perhaps one of the Vosh Dune Prides. It may be precisely these elemental politics and their influence on surrounding settlements that first draw the PCs to the region, with the city of Tumen all but irrelevant—at least at first. Finally, PCs campaigning in Tumen might also uncover clues that the fabled pyramid Ahn’Selota is just to the south, buried under a thousand tons of sand. It was in this pyramid that the Four Pharaohs of Ascension hid the secret behind the powerful pact magic that leads to their historic rise to power. For more information, see Pathfinder Module: The Pact Stone Pyramid.

High-Level Adventures High-level PCs have their own unique challenges within Tumen. Though many Cultists of the Last Theorem would be easy marks for the PCs, perhaps the cult has at last managed to gain control of the Panthereon Ultima, and the PCs are hired by a rival organization or government to stop them before the cultists can use the weapon to its full potential. (Conversely, perhaps the PCs’ home community faces some threat so great that only finding and controlling the Ultima can give them the strength to win the day.) Things can become even more complicated if either the PCs or one of the Tumen factions accidentally awakens Te Hapsu. The mummy-lich might even overthrow Theorex Khai and take control of the cult, using it as a source of minions to throw at the PCs and reanimating them as necessary. If so, the presence of a second usurper conflicts with the plans of the Aqualinth. The dark artifact might seek to use the PCs as a tool to remove this newest threat to its expansion, and the PCs could find themselves with a disturbing ally (one that may be the shadowy puppet-master responsible for their arrival in the city).

Regardless of whether the PCs discover the location of the Aqualinth by invitation or through their own investigation, once they are at the peak of their powers, the PCs should be given the chance to uncover the secret of Tumen’s original source of water deep below the Heavenscape. Their discovery comes with a price, however, as the Aqualinth does not hesitate to use its power to create watery duplicates of the PCs, and the party may find themselves facing assassins with their own powers and abilities. Finding the means to obliterate the Aqualinth could become a capstone achievement to the PCs’ careers.

Random Encounters Low Level d% Result Average CR Source 1–6 1d6 fire beetles Bestiary 33 7–12 1 venomous snake Bestiary 255 13–18 1 skeletal champion Bestiary 252 19–24 1 vargouille Bestiary 272 25–30 1 giant mantis Bestiary 200 31–36 1 shadow Bestiary 245 37–42 1 an-hetkoshu* page 52 43–48 1 mithral cobra Bestiary 182 49–60 1d6 gnoll raiders Bestiary 155 61–66 1 Finless (fast zombie bulette) Bestiary 39, 289 67–72 1 mummy Bestiary 210 73–78 1d6 Carvesmen (morlocks) Bestiary 209 79–84 1 basilisk Bestiary 29 85–90 1d6 Cultists of the Last Theorem (LE human cultists) GMG** 278 91–95 1 will-o’-wisp Bestiary 277 96–100 1 wyvern Bestiary 282 Medium Level d% Result Average CR Source 1–10 1d4 army ant swarms Bestiary 16 11–19 1 chimera Bestiary 44 20–28 1d6 Finless (fast zombie bulettes) 8 Bestiary 39, 289 29–37 The Word (dark stalker ranger 4) Bestiary 54 38–46 1 behir Bestiary 34 47–55 2d8 Priests of the Last Theorem (LE human clerics 3) — 56–64 1d4 medusas Bestiary 201 65–73 1 couatl Bestiary 49 74–82 2 dark nagas Bestiary 211 83–91 1 Aisi disciple (elder air elemental) 11 Bestiary 121 92–100 1 Goanron elemental (elder earth elemental) Bestiary 123 High Level d% Result Average CR Source 1–17 1d6 panthereons* page 52 18–34 The Enumerator* pages 52–53 35–51 1 phoenix Bestiary 227 52–68 1 xacarba Bestiary 2 288 69–84 2 black scorpions Bestiary 2 240 85–100 1 ancient blue dragon Bestiary 95 * Variant or new monsters detailed in this chapter. ** See the Pathfinder RPG GameMastery Guide.

Tumen The Aqualinth It would not have been possible for Tumen’s original inhabitants to settle in the first place were it not for the existence of a desert aquifer deep below the base of the Heavenscape. Although it was originally little more than a small, naturally occurring subterranean lake, the Four Pharaohs were able to augment the aquifer with an ancient, squat statue known as the Aqualinth. The Aqualinth was one of 11 unnatural gifts the pharaohs received at the start of their reign from an emissary of the Dark Tapestry, one of the lightless places that lurks between and beyond the stars. Each time the pharaohs or sorcerers under their command infused the Aqualinth with magic, the artifact responded by causing the central pool beneath the city to produce a massive geyser of water. The geyser would blast up through a vertical bore carved into the Heavenscape and then, as gravity took over, descend through a network of aqueducts into each of Tumen’s four districts.

Now devoid of empowering magic, the Aqualinth lies fallow, and with the passing millennia the aquifer has gradually evaporated down to a shadow of what it once was, though if the Aqualinth were to be discovered and reignited with magic, Tumen might once again become capable of sustaining a life-bearing ecosystem.

The Aqualinth, however, is more than just a powerful artifact that creates and distributes life-sustaining water. It is also a malevolent entity, one gifted with its own alien sentience. Any pool it inhabits acts as a Mirror of Opposition. Anyone who spies her own reflection on the water’s surface spawns a duplicate that is fanatically loyal to the Four Pharaohs of Ascension. With their masters no longer among the living, however, any duplicate doppelgangers instead work to further the baleful agenda of the Aqualinth. These duplicates might seek to replace their originals quietly, acting as the Aqualinth’s spies, or might violently assassinate anyone they perceive as a threat to the Aqualinth.

The Aqualinth (Major Artifact) Aura strong (all schools) [evil]; CL 18 Slot none; Weight — DescripTion A strange statue of some unknown dark material resembling unnaturally slippery stone, this idol is carved in the shape of something at once unrecognizable and terrifyingly organic, and possesses a number of unique abilities when touching liquid. Geyser: If four or more levels’ worth of spells are cast upon the Aqualinth, the artifact is capable of causing the water surrounding it to purify and multiply, generating thousands of gallons of water. At the same time, it creates an effect mimicking reverse gravity upon the water, causing it to shoot up in a geyser capable of reaching a thousand feet high. Moments later, the effect passes; the water comes crashing down, and can be captured or diverted in the process, though the water level of the original supply remains unchanged. Bath of the God-Kings: Bathing in a pool infested by the Aqualinth instantly refreshes the bather, removing any fatigued or exhausted conditions. In addition, the bather is treated as though he were wearing a ring of sustenance for the next 4 months. Regular bathing for 56 days results in a +1 increase to a single ability score of the bather’s choice—a Elemental Clans of Tumen Human politics are not the only kind shaping the deserts around Tumen. The barrens of Osirion are also the battleground of clashing elemental clans, and several have a particular interest in the fate of Tumen.

The Goanron Triumvirate: This ageless union of earth, fire, and air elementals acts as the self-appointed caretaker of the history and geo-lore of the desert shelf. Although the order behind their movements is often imperceptible, the Goanron constantly labor on carefully coordinated projects to slowly restore Osirion’s wasteland to a specific and sacred topography. Accordingly, the Goanron periodically return to Tumen to ensure that it remains deeply buried under thousands of tons of carefully arranged sand. Their leader is the powerful Ini-Kherit (LN advanced giant elder earth elemental), one of the oldest earth elementals to ever stalk Osirion’s sands. Ini-Kherit methodically times the Triumvirate’s more active campaigns so that they coincide with the seasonal khamsins, Osirion’s powerful sandstorms.

The Aisi: These destructive air elementals splintered from the Goanron Triumvirate back in a time now forgotten. Their leader, the charismatic prophet Aridiea (CN advanced elder air elemental), zealously believes that the desert has a hidden physical destiny that has been deliberately restrained by Ini-Kherit for millennia to further a secret agenda that he hides from the rest of elemental-kind. Aridiea has decreed that for the desert to advance to its true glory, Tumen must be uncovered and exposed, and every few years the Aisi return and uncover Tumen in all its lost majesty.

The Vosh Dune Prides: This loose federation of elemental tribes has no true agenda other than the exercise of their individual free will. Most individual prides are homogenous, consisting of a single type of elemental. However, when the Vosh Dune Prides successfully combine their membership, they are the largest and most powerful of the factions around Tumen. Nevertheless, as they lack true universal leadership, the prides are only able to muster themselves on an episodic basis. They typically converge for short periods in a self-defensive pact in response to threatening maneuvers by the Goanron Triumvirate.

Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Lost Cities of Golarion is obsessed with the discoveries of the Pharaoh of Numbers. He zealously believes that only by first retrieving the pharaoh’s lost numerical revelations can Osirion’s empire be restored to its previous glory. The Enumerator sees the current age as an era of barbarism in which civilization has declined into hedonism and ignorance, viewing most of his fellow humans as little more than cattle unless and until they can prove themselves his intellectual equal. Despite his meticulous organizational talents, Khai is notoriously reclusive, more likely to micromanage his members through scrying and message spells than to permit them to report directly. By casting mage’s magnificent mansion daily on the outskirts of Tumen, he has created a mobile extradimensional fortress of study, which he reserves for himself and the higher-ranking members of the cult. Khai’s traveling library has become known to the cult as “the Principium,” and it is from here that the Enumerator calculates how to best deploy the cult’s degrading resources as they slowly comb over every last corner of Tumen. Every few days, Khai reluctantly emerges from the Principium to fly up to the top of the Heavenscape in order to cast control weather. He knows the window of opportunity for his minions to search through Tumen is limited, and hopes to forestall the inevitably returning sandstorms as long as possible. Should he become aware of adventurers in Tumen, the Enumerator quickly calculates whether they are pawns that he can manipulate or a threat that must be eliminated.

Source: Lost Cities of Golarion, p. 44