Protectors of Golarion (Wrath of the Righteous AP)

Game Master Sensen

Tragedy that we can overcome is fine. Narratively speaking, I'm a firm believer that for every fine cat there must be a fine rat. Otherwise you don't have a story. But like I've said, I've had a GM go waaaay too far in the grimdark direction when that wasn't what any of the players signed up for. So I'm communicating! Clearly (I hope)!

As for humor... well, Merixia's sense of humor tends to be much more dry and understated than the examples you've given. She does have one, it just comes out in sarcastic comments rather than shenanigans. I'm very proud of the fact that one of those comments made Joran Vhane do a spittake, hahaha.

1. My favorite things I've written for Verene are probably from the talk with the others after the Nyserian Manor mission, the post-Gray-Garrison party speech and scene, our talk with Queen Galfrey, and revealing Nurah.

2. Besides what the others have said, my favorite things I've read in the campaign include Sensen's rendering of the visions at the Wardstone explosion climax of the Gray Garrison, Merixia's investigation into the Aron Affair and the entirety of her crisis of self-doubt after fighting the brimoraks, Elliot's combination of light-hearted jokes and his seriousness about doing things like offering mercy to the cultist warriors in the battle for the courtyard, Azira's use of the ears of the city spell to search for her mother while we looked for survivors in Kenabres, and Thesius' continued concern for Nurah's redemption.

Validation? Validation for me? :D Yay! I'm so glad someone liked Merixia's self-doubt crisis, I wasn't sure about that scene but it was banging on the inside of my head demanding to be written. Sometimes it just be like that. And Merixia was very proud of herself for remembering how the detectives in her favorite pulp mystery novels solved crimes.

@Azira, raw not, but go ahead. I prefer you picking that feat line over something that will let you kill my lovingly handcrafted villains faster :).

@Merixia
Ohh, crime solving is going to happen. Especially if you are good at it.

Lets hope we can get to act 4 oh boy :).

Randomly occuring detective Merixia Conan-Poirot-Holmes solves a murder mystery, was it possibly not the Balor-Butler?

I'll need to find time to go back to look for the scenes that hit home. I do think Thesius' interactions with Verene earlier on as they expanded upon how they had interacted in the past along with his interactions with Nurah in his attempts to help her redeem herself are the ones that come to mind currently.

I'm also down for keeping this more hero orientated. Some dark is fine, but overall this is meant to be heroes overcoming the dark.

Sorry I haven't posted in gameplay yet- I've been distracted with updating Azira (which is all done) and Wulfric (who's mostly done on paper but not in his profile), and with a little side project for Lili (which is about 1/2 done on paper, but only 1/4 done in the link I sent you). I'm headed to bed now, but I'll take a break from the other stuff tomorrow to make sure I post over in gameplay.

For what its worth that trait is:
Wicked leader but you replace all "evil" in it with "good".

Although I would encourage you to not take too many cohorts, as it can slow down things and even with 20 point buys they will have a hard time surviving, especially if they are frontliners.

I'll be aiming to make posts/updates today. Going to continue to work on a post per weekday minimum.

Go on! You can Do it! Dont let your dreams be dreams!

:)

Also, GM cheatsheet:

Is this mostly accurate?

Thesius: 64ish AC low 20s, 5/11/8 saves (assuming 7/13/10 if buffed with some situationals), assuming to have mirror image up unless ambushed, low to mid 20s AC under combat buff situations.
Unlikely to deal deathblows against significant enemies

Azira:
HP 89ish (also Pally so effectivly more) AC30ish, Saves "Paladin", very significant damage, especially if smiting

Meri:
HP 70ish, AC buffed low 20s, 9/4/12 saves (assuming +2 on those if buffed),
significant damage

Verene:
HP low 60s, AC buffed high 20s, 8/9/11 saves (assuming +2 on those if buffed), offensive abilities most control based assume mirror image to be up.

For what its worth that trait is:

Wicked leader but you replace all "evil" in it with "good".

Although I would encourage you to not take too many cohorts, as it can slow down things and even with 20 point buys they will have a hard time surviving, especially if they are frontliners.

Yeah, that's the trait I linked to in my profile, I just called it "righteous leader" on the character sheet to reflect it being the good version. And, leadership only gives you 1 cohort- all of the other followers are much lower level and really only useful for things like maintaining a base of operations or doing background/behind the scenes stuff (not in combat). So, for example, if you wanted to have Korryn (or one of my other friends if/when we find any) tag along on a mission, that'd be cool but they would be a regular npc (since I already have Wulfric as my cohort).

As for the brief summary of combat ability- I think I'm still doing less damage than a standard 2-handed/power attack build, but your assessment seems pretty accurate.

Yeah, your party is much lighter on damage then the last parties I gmed for.

One had an Urban Bloodrager X mysterious stranger 2 who was like... really doing a lot of damage vs touch ac (spell cartridges and mythic arcane strike) as well as a blaster cleric who specialized in what he called "Goodsplosion of Desna". It was fun though

Token Sane Hellknight:This was to be a covert operation, but everyone saw your goodsplosion!
Desnan cleric:Yes, but now they are all blind so they cant see us !
Bloodrager gunslinger:Yes, so we are like, super sneaky! YOU ARE A GENIUS AT SNEAKING CLERIC FRIEND! Bloodrager unloads a massive two weapon spell catridges hailstorm shouting PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW

Ill definilty keep that in mind with encounter design, and I think my Semi gestalt (which doesnt neccessarily make the demons super more damaging, in practice, they do stuff that isnt a full attack more foten) will do well with this.

I really hope that Elliot will decide to keep going, but if he doesn't it might be worth having a conversation about whether we should recruit one more... I'd kind of hate to risk the dynamics that we have but I've always thought of myself more as our tank than a damage dealer... I mean, I do decent damage, but less than a 2-handed/power attack pally would do, let alone a barbarian or bloodrager. Meri can dish out some damage when she isn't busy healing/saving someone, but somebody more focused on damage could prove helpful (especially if you're looking forward to beefing up the encounters). Again- if Elliot decides to stop (obviously the best possibility is that he decides he can keep going).

It would be great if he keeps playing, send him a PM.

If not:
I have a short list of a few people (from one campaign I tried) who I think would gel well.
You can also reach out yourself.

I really hope Elliot returns as well, he's always been a joy to play with and an excellent writer, as well as the source of much DPS. One thing to keep in mind is that he is European (Dutch IIRC), and many European countries have summer holidays in August. People get four weeks off of work, everything shuts down or slows down, and we Americans get terribly envious. :P So I hope he's chilling on a beach somewhere having quality time with his kid(s).

As a side note, I would commit horrible horrible crimes for European working conditions and healthcare.

Is someone willing to bot Elliot for a couple weeks? If he doesn't come back after that, I suggest we put him on a bus, to use the TVTropes term. Just in case he ever does decide to come back.

I'd like to try it with just the four of us if Elliot doesn't return. Yeah, we'll be down a lot of DPS, but we were facerolling most encounters before. Poor Staunton Vhane didn't even get a chance to fight back. If it turns out we can't hack it with four, we can recruit then.

I haven't forgotten to update my skill points, promise! I've just been busy the last few days.

EDIT: Okay, so under Elephant rules, Power Attack is no longer a feat. Instead we have Risky Strike, which is a default combat option for everyone. Can I still have and use my beloved Mythic Power Attack?

And now I need to figure out a different feat to take. Maybe I'll take Extra Traits and cheese it with Fate's Favored. Plus maybe Crusader?

@Lili: Merixia's AC with her standard buffs: 21 armored + 2 deflection magic circle vs evil + 5 natural ironskin = AC 28. Saves are correct without buffs. With buffs, she has +2 resistance from magic circle against evil and +2 morale from heroism. (She got the knight's pennon of battle and hung it on her backpack.)

Ugh, Fate's Favored and Crusader are both Faith traits, I can't have both. Boooo.

Apologies. I got caught up in things today and tomorrow I'll be away most of the day with work and the in person game I'm running. I'll aim to get at least up a post each day, but more in-depth notes and posts may not be until Wednesday.

@Meri regarding mythic power attack, yes, but having "mythic risky strike" still costs you a mythic feat.

--Take fates favored and crusader, I dont mind at all (and they even make a whole lot of sense narratively for meri). Some of my bad guy/girls have traits and I sure has hell didnt check that for them. And I think for stuff taken with extra background traits the restriction doesnt apply anyway (I may be RAW wrong).

@General
In terms of fun mythic options:

--Mythic arcane strike is pretty strong, a swift action, one mythic power and le voila, you get a bane weapon for a minute!
Or a heartseeker weapon against massed mirror images.
Or you use it as budget martial flexibility, since training is among the weapon enchantments you can add!

--Mythic eldritch heritage is fun. A few Sorceror bloodline like f.e. Orc can totally be favored into f.e. Meri getting angry much more professionally. Inherent boni to str, immunity to fear and some natural armor, but it kind of costs 2 feats and a mythic feat (and a robe of eldritch heritage)

In terms of general worldbuilding:

--You will find out (in Verenes case already know), that the Kellids fought really hard, capably, and with great skill, Organized Kellid resistance only fully collapsed during the third crusade, when the twin threats of the Mendevian inquisition and infiltration by specifically Baphometan infiltrators put the Kellids, who against the Deskarites at least, fought very well became increasingly disorganized.

--While a sizeable part of the Kellids has been subsumed into Mendev, acrimony persists, although Hulrun, one of the third crusades chief instigators, being dead is... likely to improve things.

--Significant part of the Kellids became refugees and beggars elsewhere, but some also simply left, and now are significant mercenary companies.
If you spent decades fighting demons, you may well find that fighting mortal enemies is a lot easier and financially quite rewarding. A possible way of strengthening the crusade is to reinvite these companies.

--Some Sarkorian-Kellid remains still fight on, one centered around Gundrun (on the map, quite far to the south) and one around Storms End (not on the map, fairly close to the North and west of Drezen).

--Storms end considers itself at war with the Mendevian inquisition, owing to incidents during the 3rd crusade. Since there was little contact since then it was not particularly important. They are believed to be in a tributary agreement with the chaotic Evil Fey Eldest Ragadahn and/or the Erlking , whom the 3rd crusade opted to treat, giving that both have antipaladins and are chaotic evil/chaotic neutral, as no different then a demonlord. Needless to say that the proud Fey took this incredibly poorly.

I remember reading that Storasta, the last great city of Sarkoris, fell in 4644, near the end of the Second Crusade, but individual Sarkorian groups and warriors are certainly still fighting the good fight today, some with the Crusades and some independently. That makes sense with that you have above, GM. I can certainly incorporate a small holdout settlement of evil-Eldest-worshipping Kellids at Storms End that are also at war with the Crusades into that understanding.

I recall being confused over this when we first met Queen Galfrey, so I would like to ask for a point of historical clarification. Mendev, as a nation, existed long before the Worldwound or Crusades, right? We know this because Galfrey, then a paladin of Aroden, was crowned as its queen in 4601 AR, five years before the Worldwound first opened and 21 years before the First Crusade began. According to the Worldwound sourcebook (I think, don't have it on my phone), Mendev's people were ethnic Iobarians mostly, not Kellid, but shared some cultural similarities with their Kellid neighbors in Sarkoris. (I think basically that their folk religion incorporated druidism/the Green Faith, but don't remember exactly.)

So now there are lots of Taldans and Kellids and Chelish and Ulfen and so on in Mendev due to a hundred years of Crusade-related immigration/refugees, but there is also a core of native Mendevians who are none of those and have been in Mendev for centuries, and Galfrey is one. Does that sound right?

Wasnt Galfrey ethnically Chelish? I do need to double check that.

You are right though according to the wiki.

There may be difference between the CRPG (where I think it was stated that Mendev was founded in response to the worldwound), and the normal lore.

I am reasonably certain that Mendev expanded into "Sarkoris" by taking various Kellid-Sarkorian clans/tribes under its protection, and that pre worldwound mendev was a bit smaller.

I would also quite confidently believe that Mendevian nationalism, a "Mendevian melting pot" so to speak if likely quite potent in terms of "assimilating volunteers", and that Galfrey rules as queen, with relatively circumcized political powers outside of the battlefield, and she is not particularly interested in politics (which makes her very popular, as few Paladins are all that interested in that).

my headcanon and future plot point is that Raliscrad (whose wiki information contradicts itself), it did fall

The reason I prefer this is that by making the Kellids competent, capable and courageous, I make the demons competent and capable, and thus both increase the stakes and make the heroes even bigger heroes by prevailing anyway.

@Meri regarding mythic power attack, yes, but having "mythic risky strike" still costs you a mythic feat.

--Take fates favored and crusader, I dont mind at all (and they even make a whole lot of sense narratively for meri). Some of my bad guy/girls have traits and I sure has hell didnt check that for them. And I think for stuff taken with extra background traits the restriction doesnt apply anyway (I may be RAW wrong).

I already have Mythic Power Attack, so I'll just rename it Mythic Risky Strike.

Yay, thank you! Fate's Favored is excellent for those of us who rely on divine favor/prayer/divine power, and Crusader is tailor made for WotR. Good stuff. Totally worth a feat.

Am I going to need Fly checks if I'm using shield of wings or angelic aspect to fly? The Fly skill description says you need to make a Fly check to avoid falling after being attacked if you're flying using wings.

RAW, as soon as someone flys you practically end up doing 1 to 2 fly checks per turn, often with relatively little results (you dont fall, you lose 10 feet of altitude, unless you fail by 5 or more, which however is going to be fairly likely for Meri).

The DCs are also static, so they do eventually become irrelevant, since fly is not something you fail on a nat 1.

Not a fan personally, in practice, these fly checks end up super restrictive for adenturers who just "start flying", even more so when they wear heavy armor and are low dex. And then you just go like "eh I am gonna do something about it", do a retraining montage, grab a bunch of griffon feather add ons, take a flying lesson and then you end up ignoring it again.

I will call for fly checks when like, you try to catch someone mid air, or to find out who is "higher" in an aerial dog fight, or when someone switches gravity around, summons a Sirocco etc.

Or when someone specifically targets (there is some swashbuckler/gunslinger stuff for that) your wings.

It's a relief to know I won't be making Fly checks every round! But it sounds like it will come up enough to be worth putting ranks in the skill. What's the point of having the ability to fly if you're not good enough at it to do cool stuff?

New and Improved Skill Ranks!

4 class + 1 FCB = 5/level

Adventuring Skills:
Fly 8 + 1 Dex - 3 ACP = 6
Heal 8 + 3 class + 5 Wis + 2 healer's kit = 18
Knowledge (religion) 8 + 3 class + 1 Int = 12
Perception 8 + 3 class + 1 trait + 5 Wis = 17
Sense Motive 8 + 3 class + 2 racial + 2 blessing + 5 Wis = 20

Background Skills:
Craft (armor) 8 + 3 class + 1 Int = 12
Linguistics (Abyssal & Celestial) 2 + 3 class + 1 Int = 6
Profession (chaplain) 6 + 3 class + 5 Wis = 14

Since Azira, Elliot and I have either Legendary Item weapons or class feature weapons, Craft (weapons) probably won't be that useful. Craft (armor) might be. Lili, I took your suggestion of Profession (chaplain) in hopes that it will be useful during the Kingmaker-ish phase of the game.

Another reason why I dislike fly as written is that is basically "roll good or fail". I like things were you "roll bad and fail, roll good and awesome".

I would absolutely also allow profession chaplain for righteous pre battle prep talks (both on a squad and on an army level), and for psychological counselling.

Both seem to be a very Merixia thing to do.

What it wont do is improve opinions of those who absolutely arent crusaders/fans of Ragathiel (some Kellids, Fey, etc.) or be all that useful in collecting rumors or information (although if you think Ragathiel has confession, he probably does, then yes), or be particularly applicable when courting foreign diplomats, unless said diplomats are likely to be fans of Ragathiel.

You could also use it for religious conversion of NPC, in lieu of knowledge religion or diplomacy (you typically need both a diplomacy and a religion check for that, and you can use profession chaplain for one of these instead, probably instead of diplomacy as this may be lower for you).

You are correct, those are both very Merixia things to do. I wouldn't expect Profession (chaplain) to improve hostile parties' opinions of her or to gather information, those are both jobs for our Diplomacy experts. I don't see Ragathiel as having confession, since there aren't enough Ragathielites in most parts of the world to have an organized religion. If you've violated his code, both you and he know it, shape up or suffer your patron deity's displeasure.

Could I use Profession (chaplain) for guiding an NPC's path to redemption, even if they're not interested in converting to Ragathiel? We already have several NPCs in the process of atonement. It would be nice to be able to help with that.

Wulfric and I haven’t really been involved with the redemption stuff yet, but we’re available to help if anyone asks us. Wulfric is currently at +15 to both diplomacy and know[religion], and my knowledge is only +11 but I’m at +21 to diplomacy.

Oh, dont worry, you will find someone you will be interested in... not technically redeeming, more like restoring, really soon.

As far as useing profession chaplain for redemption, yes, in some cases, no in some others. It depends on indidivual circumstances.

If someone is evil because he/she/it lacks the courage to not be evil (technically the case for interestingly enough many demons), then the example of Ragathiel, whose areas of concern very much include courage and bravery, can work pretty well.

If someone is evil out of genuine loyalty to an evil cause or extremely egotistic pragmatism, then Ragathiel is less effective.

If the motivation for evil is vengeance, Ragathiel is relevant to the conversation, but it will strongly depend on the individual circumstances.

Also, feel free to ping me if the links isnt working correctly!

Oh, dont worry, you will find someone you will be interested in... not technically redeeming, more like restoring, really soon.

As far as useing profession chaplain for redemption, yes, in some cases, no in some others. It depends on indidivual circumstances.

If someone is evil because he/she/it lacks the courage to not be evil (technically the case for interestingly enough many demons), then the example of Ragathiel, whose areas of concern very much include courage and bravery, can work pretty well.

If someone is evil out of genuine loyalty to an evil cause or extremely egotistic pragmatism, then Ragathiel is less effective.

If the motivation for evil is vengeance, Ragathiel is relevant to the conversation, but it will strongly depend on the individual circumstances.

Makes total sense, thank you for clarifying. :) I'm just glad to find a game that will make use of a Profession skill, haha!

Hey everyone, apologies for the silence. I've thought about it and in the end i would like to continue playing (if that is all right with everyone including our new gm). Speaking of which, Thanks lila for taking over the GM role. I have a lot of backtrack reading to do in the discussion it seems but i will try to get to it asap.

WELCOME!

Ok, I will chat you up on some possible plot beats!

Hey everyone, apologies for the silence. I've thought about it and in the end i would like to continue playing (if that is all right with everyone including our new gm). Speaking of which, Thanks lila for taking over the GM role. I have a lot of backtrack reading to do in the discussion it seems but i will try to get to it asap.

HURRAY! I’m so glad to have you back! :D

I am super happy as well, because writing you out at this point would have been super awkward, and a few of the things I intend to pull should be quite interesting.

Quick TLDR for Elliot:
--Elephant in the room is on. This means weapon finesse is free, and "risky strike", which is kind of like piranha strike, is something you also have available. In essence you gain one free feat and piranha strike (which was probably moderatly far up your stuff to be picked list)

--I do allow that you use mythic arcane strike to pick up the training enchantment, and thus get an extra feat as in "mini martial flexibility".

--A number of demons will be "gestalts", meaning that f.e. an 8 hit dice demon can have 8 class levels on the other side of the gestalt, picking the best features of both his racial and his "class level" progression. In essence it means that enemies with class features will be more frequent, enemies will have more feats available, but their overall stats wont be much higher (demon racial hit dice are full bab d10s with 6 skillranks fpr level and 2 good saves, so they are pretty good to start with).

Yay!! Welcome back, Elliot! :)

Hope our US players are having a good Labor Day holiday. Also, of course everyone should feel free to move their tokens around to wherever looks good to them. I just placed them so that if no one had any strong feelings about it we could get the party started.

GM, the stats you have for Verene look right, except that her saves in her status line are already incorporating the +2 bonus for heroism. AC in the mid-20s most of the time (vs. evil things, which is most of our opponents) is right. Right now it should be 24 vs. evil. Generally, I try to keep her status line numbers accurate for her current buffs, as well as the place where I list all current buffs with their remaining durations.

Is everyone ready? Do you cast additional spells before opening the door?

I believe your initial magical scouting showed some archers and brimoracks in the gatehouse, but that information may be out of date.

Apologies for the delay. I'm working on getting caught up. I'll be aiming to get back to my normal post a weekday.

I am most looking to kick things off soon, nothing to get to know one another like kicking some demons and other such things.

The visions did not take any particular time (perhaps 30ish seconds), rounds per level buff would be off most likely, but minute per level is still on.

Sorry I haven't posted for a few days- work got busy. Let's kick in some demon teeth.

I believe your initial magical scouting showed some archers and brimoracks in the gatehouse, but that information may be out of date.

I don't think we have scouted the gatehouse area yet, but we have fought brimoraks several times already here: on the siege weapon towers, and in the huge pillared room yesterday. So it makes sense to expect there could be brimoraks.

Abyssal accents:

--Baphometans tend to add "meeeeeeh" or "määäääähhh" into words with "me", particularly under stress or when making villainous monologes. While they claim this praises Baphomet, he is actually kind of annoyed by this (he prefers, internally, his more buff minotaur bull state that he had previous to his capture by Asmodeus). High ranking Baphometans do this only under serious stress as they know that.

--Deskarites replace *sh* or *ch* with something that sounds like the russian consonant ж (sounds a bit like dzhh, which in turn sounds a bit like a bug), they also tend to randomly skip vowels. They also use the word "bugtastic" to mean "really great". With one expection, nobody else in the Abyss uses this word. The one exception is Mazzmez, Qlippoth/Demonlord of spiders, whose realm neighbours Baphomets, and where "bugtastic" means *cheap but filling food of below average quality*.

--Nocticulans speak with a "totally not french" accent, especially the Succubi. Ironically, Galt has some of the highest rates of success in detecting Nocticulan Succubi. Both because the "deuxieme beurau", which is not related to the grey gardners and formally just deals with "matters of interplanar immigration" genuinely knows what its doing (it resolutely, and with the backing of the temple of Callistria, stays out of galtese politics otherwise) and because the "totally not french" accent of Nocticulans and the "totally not french accent" of the Galtese have very subtle differences in the pronounciation of certain words such as "merde" and "putain".
When made aware of this, Galfrey send some inquisitors to figure this out, but to a Mendevian, both pronounciations sound exactly the same.

Uups, Mazzmez realm neighbours Deskaris, not Baphomets. Baphomet, generally speaking, has an unusually large amount of *friends* as far as the Abyss is concerned, as he is able to position himself as the "great anti devil force". There is no "bloodwar" equivalent in pathfinders mythology, but devils and demons still dont get along even if neither has anything to do with specific grudgematches.

Deskari has somewhat fewer Abyssal enemies, partly because his land is at the border to the "deep Abyss" where the ancient enemies of the Demons, the even worse Qlippoths, live, and conquering that part from him, as another demonlord, means you now get to deal with the Qlippoth yourself.

Fighting Qlippoths is very very uneconomic. You lose a lot of troops, some of the more beastly Qlippoths can PTSD even demons by mere exhibitionism, and they drop like... no loot whatsorever.

Mechanically:
Had Azira rolled higher on the diplomacy, they would have been shaken, but they just twitched a bit because of the power of heroic monologues.

Villainous monologes may or may not empower villains who get away with saying them.

Note, the voices came from area F1, not from where the 4 gargoyles are.

It almost appears as if the cunning demon plan was to have you go to the door, open it, get hit by the demons behind it, and then the 4 gargoyles would reveal they are gargolyes and go after your backline!

Nice plan in theory

Apologies. I got caught up in things outside of the game. I'm going to work on getting a post up in the campaign section shortly. I believe tomorrow should be a bit more open for me so I'll plan to spend some time getting caught up on things then.

You all essentially have a surprise round against the gargyoles

Oh, my bad guys talk.

A lot.

Unless you cast silence on them.

Then they phantomime theatralically.

The talkativeness of some of them will even have an in universe explanation later on, if you find it.

Waiting on Elliot!

Hope all is well with Elliot. It may be time for a quick bot so we can move into full combat.

I will be botting him today.

Good morning. I hope everyone is doing well today.

I had a good day, hope you all did too.

Random things:

Soulgaze:

If you look, with detect evil being active, into the eyes of something evil which is simulatenously looking at you with detect good active, a soulgaze my happen.

A soulgaze is not a mental duel, but typically it allows both sides to glean on biographically important detail of the other. This takes no time in reality, other then the concentration/standard action to activate detect X.

For a soulgaze, you need to be looking directly in the eyes, which typically requires cooperation from both sides, unless one is restrained or otherwise helpless. If there is a strong differential of power, the stronger one may opt to have a soul gaze regardless of the other sides cooperation (who can still turn off the detect evil/detect whatever).

Auracrafting:

There are various ways of hiding ones alignment aura, but there are also ways to alter it in artistic aspects. Some Demons have personalized their evil auras to considerable degrees, sometimes in ways that proclaim their proudest or vilest deeds, and some angels even have done similar things. This has no mechanical effect whatsorever, but since it is a complicated process, the exact aura of an outsider who has crafted his own aura can be used to verify that this is, as a matter of fact, that exact outsider. If dealing with demons, who frequently have excellent tools to impersonate one another, this is quite important.

Generally speaking, the more standing a demon has, and the more he or she interfaces with other powerful outsiders, rather then primarily fighting mortals, the more likely it will have devoted resources to crafting its alignment aura.

That the average other demon cant actually see this demonstration of power is often part of the point.

Why do I do this?

I GET TO PLOT DUMP!