Kyton

"On pourrait pardonner l'attribution erronée du terme "kyton" aux velstracs, comme ils s'identifient eux-mêmes, car ce terme provient de nos premières tentatives de classification de leur espèce. Malheureusement, nous n'avons adopté que le descripteur de ces velstracs qui avaient à la fois l'intérêt et la capacité de communiquer librement avec les érudits. Pensez-y : si l'on m'avait présenté une espèce inconnue en m'appelant "professeur", elle aurait pu nommer mon espèce "professeurs", pour notre plus grand amusement. C'est ainsi que nous avons mal appliqué le terme "kyton" à toutes sortes de vélstracs, en aggravant l'erreur avec des désignations secondaires, telles que "évangéliste", qui caractérisent la fonction plutôt que la nature. Chers académiciens, il est temps pour nous de nous débarrasser des préjugés primo-centrés dans notre travail, tout comme ces créatures magnificentes se débarrassent de leurs faiblesses et de leurs défauts ! Je vous présente mon traité : Velstracs, la perfection atteinte !".

-Professeur Phaerenus Blasipputh-Dolabellio IV.

Les Velstracs, les créatures que les mortels appellent communément "kytons", doivent leur existence non pas à l'acte créatif d'un dieu bienveillant, mais plutôt à leur propre volonté indomptable et à leurs ambitions insatiables. Les Velstracs sont essentiellement des autodidactes, qui se sont libérés du gouffre de l'enfer, se sont installés dans les ténèbres du plan de l'ombre et ont passé les éons qui ont suivi à se perfectionner en se mutilant délibérément et en s'exposant à des rituels de plus en plus horribles. Ceux qui parviennent à l'illumination spirituelle grâce à un masochisme perfectionné acquièrent un statut plus élevé au sein de leur espèce.

Au sommet de cette hiérarchie de l'auto-transformation se trouvent les démagogues kytons. Représentant les plus hauts niveaux de puissance et de perfection - malgré des différences spectaculaires dans leurs formes - ces velstracs contrôlent de vastes étendues du plan de l'Ombre. Dans son propre domaine, chaque démagogue règne en maître, prenant tout ce qu'il désire pour maintenir sa position et imposer sa propre forme d'amélioration horrific aux autres. Tous ceux qui vivent dans le Plan des Ombres respectent le pouvoir des démagogues, mais espèrent aussi que leurs maîtres sadiques ne convoiteront jamais rien de ce qu'ils possèdent, car les démagogues se contentent de prendre ce dont ils ont besoin aux créatures inférieures, leur arrachant trophées, flesh et âmes selon ce qui est nécessaire à la réalisation de leurs objectifs.

Selon une règle tacite, les démagogues s'opposent rarement directement les uns aux autres. Ils agissent plutôt par personnes interposées pour se défier, voler des ressources ou parvenir à la domination. Ces luttes par procuration permettent aux démagogues d'observer et d'évaluer leurs subordonnés, de récompenser ceux qui sont performants ou qui anticipent leurs besoins, et de punir ceux qui échouent ou qui font preuve de trop d'ambition.

Comme chaque démagogue a perfectionné ses propres techniques de disfigurement et de transformation de soi, chacun porte une forme différente. Ils apprécient particulièrement les artistes du flesh et les tortionnaires qui partagent leurs passions, mais tous les démagogues adorent les spectacles d'agonie atroce.

Les entrées suivantes décrivent certains des démagogues kytons les plus puissants du plan de l'Ombre ; ce sont aussi ceux qui sont les plus susceptibles de permettre aux visiteurs de répandre la nouvelle de leurs perfections sadiques. Découvrir un démagogue isolé ou xénophobe est une entreprise périlleuse, car un explorateur est susceptible de présenter des traits qu'un démagogue désire coudre dans son propre être ou peut-être d'être utilisé comme flesh brut pour les terribles arts du démagogue. Au moins deux démagogues captifs sévissent dans des oubliettes au fin fond du plan de l'Ombre, bien qu'aucun des démagogues les plus connus n'admette avoir emprisonné ses pairs.

Les démagogues de Kyton ont tous des obligations qu'ils exigent de leurs partisans et des avantages qu'ils accordent à leurs fidèles, comme indiqué dans le Pathfinder RPG Book of the Damned. Les règles des sous-domaines se trouvent dans le Pathfinder RPG Advanced Player's Guide, de même que tous les sous-domaines listés ci-dessous, à l'exception de ceux indiqués comme apparaissant dans le Livre des Damnés.

Aroggus

THE ABBEY MAKER

LE male kyton demagogue of possibility, revenge, and sanctuary

Domains Evil, Law, Protection, Trickery Subdomains Deception, Defense, FearBotD, TyrannyBotD

Favored Weapon warhammer

Symbol a serpent eye within a keyhole

Aroggus is perhaps the oldest and most powerful of the kyton demagogues, tracing his origin back to before Asmodeus conspired with the asura Geryon to conquer Hell and populate it with devil-kind. After that betrayal, the velstracs were bound in chains. The infernal demigoddess Doloras set the velstracs free, seeing kindred souls in their remorseless sadism, but it was Aroggus who took up the warhammer used to forge his people’s chains and led them out of Hell to seek a more hospitable home.

Aroggus found the perfect habitat for his people on the Shadow Plane. This new domain offered close proximity to the Material Plane and the innumerable prey living there, but also deep shadows that the velstracs could mold into fortifications and hiding places. There, Aroggus formed his shadowy Abbey of Nevers, a twisting structure of innumerable halls and rooms folding back on themselves and twisting reality until all direction and space loses meaning. Although the Abbey of Nevers has sufficient space to house nearly all of the velstrac race, its inhabitants are few and its twisting halls echo emptily.

Once safely ensconced within his abbey, Aroggus cast off his physical form, uniting his essence with his creation. Aroggus therefore experiences all that happens within the Abbey of Nevers simultaneously. If he requires a physical representation to meet with visitors or to leave the abbey—a rare occurrence—Aroggus animates a massive suit of black armor whose pieces are kept scattered around the abbey. If he expects conflict, he also carries the same warhammer he carried out of Hell.

Within the Abbey of Nevers, Aroggus devotes his attentions to devising and simulating the perfect revenge against Geryon, Asmodeus, and the host of devils who supplanted the velstracs in Hell. Those who enter the abbey have their thoughts overwhelmed with this lust for revenge and cannot help but devise exquisite tortures in retaliation for every slight they have experienced in their lives. Aroggus feeds on these feelings of hatred and the desire for retribution.

Few cults venerate Aroggus for long, as such cults are prone to bickering and even bloodshed over perceived slights, but the demagogue hears individuals who are consumed with a desire for revenge.

Barravoclair

LADY OF THE FINAL GASP

LE female kyton demagogue of the elderly, fatalistic insights, and resurrection

Domains Death, Evil, Healing, Law Subdomains Murder, Restoration, Resurrection, Undead

Favored Weapon war razorBotD Symbol a dead tree with white roots

Barravoclair’s physical form reflects her principal interest: she appears as a body reclining on a black slab at the moment of expiration. Her transition from life to death stretches out interminably, as a black shadow over her form attempts to coalesce this single, perfect final gasp into quasi-physical form.

Although Barravoclair’s fascination with the obliteration of souls on the Outer Planes began long ago, her focus has crystallized on the profusion of life on the Material Plane. Watching so many creatures die, and seeing so few of them experience transcendent insights into reality as their lives were extinguished, compelled her to refine and perfect this ultimate moment. Barravoclair prompts her cults to control and refine these last moments of life. Although some work in secret as military surgeons, nurses, or even priests of Pharasma, most of her cultists operate in large flesh-factories, raising victims in appalling conditions merely to focus on their moments of death. Each of her cultists plans for his own final breath to be captured in service to the demagogue, thus preserving his immortality in Barravoclair’s domain of Everbreath

on the Plane of Shadow.

Fharaas

SEER IN SKIN

LE male kyton demagogue of experience, sacred murder, and patterns

Domains Evil, Knowledge, Law, Repose

Subdomains Ancestors, FearBotD, Memory, Souls

Favored Weapon battle axe

Symbol a circular maze carved in flesh

Fharaas appears as a tall, thin human with exaggerated features dressed in an impossibly white surgical smock. He wields a long, wide-bladed axe with the ease of a scalpel. Fharaas is obsessed with the close examination of flesh to find divine universal truths, seeking in particular clues about the psychic connections between murderers and their victims. His cults are sharply divided and focus on one of these two facets: anatomists and taxidermists work to preserve unique specimens of flesh or bone, while fanatics spin increasingly implausible conspiracy theories about the sanctity of slaughter. Both factions search for meaning and reason in flayed skin and slices of tissue, carefully preserved in disturbing fluids or encased in sheets of glass.

Fharaas’s sanctuary on the Shadow Plane, Alhesthellia, is a massive hospital with impossibly tall spires. Within, Fharaas’s cultists perform surgeries on victims kidnapped from across the planes, preserving unique fragments of their bodies. Amputations and mutilations are so frequent that the halls perpetually run with blood and echo with screams. Other wings hold dreamscape sanctums sculpted from the thoughts of serial murderers.

Inkariax

THE WHITE DEATH

LE male kyton demagogue of absolute cold, preservation, and solitude

Domains Evil, Law, VoidBotD, Water

Subdomains FearBotD, Ice, IsolationBotD, SlaveryBotD

Favored Weapon spiked gauntlet

Symbol crisscrossed spiked icicles

Inkariax is an enormous humanoid, towering 70 feet high and crusted with ice. Bloody icicles pierce his skin in many places, particularly through his lips, stitching his mouth shut. Inkariax never speaks, but his expressive gaze is sufficient to communicate his curiosity or displeasure. Troubled by the impermanence of perfection, Inkariax seeks to preserve works of horrific art—whether ideal screams, exquisite tortures, or perfect examples of sadistic brutality—by sealing them in ice forever. Inkariax’s control over ice and snow is absolute, and he can freeze a victim into a solid block of ice with only a thought.

Frozen Tears, the demagogue’s realm, lies in the Shadow Plane atop a frozen sea and blanketed by an icy blizzard of razor-sharp crystals. The heart of his realm, White Death’s Diadem, holds his greatest treasures and most powerful minions. Its upper reaches, however, are reserved only for the demagogue himself and for his greatest horrors, which he has preserved for all time.

Inkariax has a long-standing connection to the infernal demigoddess Doloras, even beyond the debt all velstracs owe to her for setting them free from Hell. Doloras visited Inkariax before he built his realm, and the demagogue named it for Doloras’s gift of frozen tears from her crown. Indeed, Inkariax built much of his realm in honor of the demigoddess, and he strives to earn her further favor.

Kaikyton

THE STITCHWEAVER

LE female kyton demagogue of experimentation, physical merger, and stitches

Domains Community, Earth, Evil, Law

Subdomains Family, FearBotD, Metal, TyrannyBotD

Favored Weapon spiked chain

Symbol a curved surgical needle

Kaikyton is notable as a demagogue who was not formed in Hell, but rather ascended as a human from Golarion’s earliest days. In life, she was a ruthless warchief in Garund; she is associated with the city-state of Kagalko, which she founded as a velstrac in the Age of Darkness. Whether this region was her mortal home or a place that drew her attention after her initial ascension is unclear—and the hollow-eyed, stitch-lipped residents of modern Kagalko will not say.

Kaikyton was a committed—if merciless—leader, and she vowed to aid her people who were suffering under the endless darkness of Earthfall. Her search took her into the Shadow Plane, where she found the velstracs and their perverse arts. Kaikyton shared the lessons of stitching strong flesh to weak bodies with her subjects. The tortures she visited on the willing and unwilling alike echoed in the barren land known today as the Choir Vales, bordered by miles of sharp ridges called Kyton Lace.

Kaikyton’s enthusiasm for the velstracs’ teachings was legendary, and her skill at stitching together flesh was magnificent. Evangelist kytons flocked to her side to view the improvements she made to their traditional methods of delivering anguish and abhorrent exaltation.

When Kaikyton turned her methods upon herself, she was catapulted to the ranks of the kyton demagogues.

Morrobahn

THE PARASITE SEED

LE kyton demagogue of invasiveness, proliferation, and redundancy

Domains Animal, Evil, Law, Travel Subdomains Exploration, FearBotD, Feather, Fur

Favored Weapon heavy flail Symbol a cracked egg

While most velstracs seek to improve themselves to match their own concept of perfection, Morrobahn seeks perfection in others. Morrobahn inserts a tiny, latent spore of its own being into each perfect creature, thereby becoming part of the perfection it creates. By scattering itself across the planes in creatures of its own cultivation, Morrobahn ensures its continued existence despite any calamity.

Members of Morrobahn’s cults travel across multiple worlds, searching out perfect individuals—whether perfect athletes, prodigies, predators, or those who demonstrate other measures of excellence. Few creatures measure up to these exacting standards on their own, so the cults bring about this perfection through surgical improvements, alchemical infusions, and even enforced breeding. When the cult has established a specimen that is a peerless example of its kind, the cult performs a ritual to implant a bit of the demagogue pulled from the Plane of Shadow. This ordeal is rarely without pain or trauma for the victim, as Morrobahn’s inhuman memories and impulses forever after shadow the host creature’s thoughts. Yet each such victim ensures Morrobahn’s continued survival. When the host dies, the fraction of Morrobahn’s consciousness returns to the Shadow Plane with a copy of the host’s biological makeup, bringing with it an incremental improvement to the kyton demagogue as a whole.

Raetorgash

THE SKULL-HOARDER

LE female kyton demagogue of evolution, mutation, and skulls

Domains Evil, Healing, Law, Luck

Subdomains Curse, Fate,

FearBotD, Restoration Favored Weapon halberd Symbol a scale with two skulls

Raetorgash decided long ago that the planes and the creatures within them were unacceptably inconstant. Creatures that showed promise—whether in strength, beauty, or intelligence—too often fail to transmit these superior characteristics to future generations. Raetorgash looked for a way to evaluate whether a creature’s superior qualities would be constant throughout its lineage, or whether these qualities would falter and disappear in descendants. She found her answer in bones.

Raetorgash’s realm of Targothieh is an endless charnel house stretching out like roots from a bone tower overseeing its expanse. Within her realm, velstracs labor to present Raetorgash with new or exceptional skulls from their forays into the Material Plane. As each of Targothieh’s roots touches a different world, these velstracs have a nearly limitless expanse in which to find trophies for their mistress.

Many of the Skull-Hoarder’s velstrac worshippers establish cults on these worlds, scouring them for powerful creatures whose skulls they send back for evaluation. Raetorgash examines the bones offered by her followers, treasuring those with potential for perfection— and destroying those she finds lacking.

Sugroz

VOICE IN SCREAMS

LE female kyton demagogue of ecstasy, fleetingness, and incorporeality

Domains Air, Evil, Law, Nobility

Subdomains FearBotD, Leadership, Martyr, Wind Favored Weapon net

Symbol a hook with inward-facing spikes

All velstracs know that to become perfection, one must cut away imperfections. Sugroz has taken this philosophy to an extreme, even among the velstracs. For millennia, Sugroz focused on a diet of vanity and arrogance, stripping these qualities away from others and weaving them into her skin. All else, she cut away. Freed from the limits of flesh and bone, Sugroz preaches the pleasures of breath, thought, and voice. All that is required, she sings to her aspirants, are lips to scream in delight or agony and a mind to process pain and pleasure. Everything else is a distraction from these truths. Sugroz maintains several connections to mortal worlds, where her cultists labor in torture- chapels dedicated to her name.

Vevelor

THE BROKEN DREAM

LE male kyton demagogue of potential, transcendence, and Illusion of freedom

Domains Destruction, Evil, Law, Liberation

Subdomains Freedom, Revolution, SlaveryBotD, TortureBotD Favored Weapon whip

Symbol a bloody, broken chain

Much like Kaikyton, Vevelor began his life as a mortal and rose in power to become a demagogue. Vevelor is far older than the Stitchweaver, his mortal life so impossibly long ago that he earned his position as a demagogue even before the velstracs were chained in Hell. Vevelor was at Aroggus’s side when that demagogue led the velstracs to the Shadow Plane, and he has retained Aroggus’s favor.

Vevelor rules a holding on the Shadow Plane called Cliffgrip at the edge of the great chasm called Deeping Darkness. Deeping Darkness has religious significance to the worshippers of Zon-Kuthon: the Midnight Lord emerged from Deeping Darkness into Golarion when he was freed from his own imprisonment. Vevelor similarly focuses on attracting worshippers in Nidal, where he enjoys a fertile field of devotees in the imposing Hall to the Broken Dream near Ridwan.

Vevelor’s cult plays a dangerous game in Nidal, as its message of freedom by means of self-determination is considered blasphemous to the Kuthite dogma of joy in subservience. Vevelor’s cult has thus far been able to keep its more anarchistic beliefs quiet, and Nidal’s government tolerates but does not condone the cult’s activities. Vevelor wants to share his path to ascension with others, but he cares little whether his disciples actually desire their transformation. Cliffgrip rings with screams of agony and Vevelor’s soft assurances that exaltation lies just past the pain.