BoscoDM's page

TLDR: Is Balenni the "Iconic Succubus?"

The first time I saw Balenni her headband struck me as an interesting design. Well today I was flipping through Bestiary 1 and something caught my eye (and not the usual eye catch on succubus images in ttrpgs). She's wearing the same headband!

Is this common Succubus gear? They don't have an items line so, apparently not as far as I can tell. Maybe someone more versed in the lore/items might recognize it? Is this a specific item? A symbol of some deity or belief? Is Balenni the Succubus from the Bestiary? We deserve answers.

Images for AFB comparison
Succubus
Balenni

I'm toying with adding an extra guise of Aroden as a Circus Performer. ExCurse is the circus AP and I'll be damned if I don't play that up at every chance I get.

I'm a bit of a Golarion noob, so idk what exactly that might impact in the lore, but it seems an easy enough change to the AP. Obviously that calls for an extra statue and mask in Moonstone Hall, then an extra trial later on.

For the Trial, I'm thinking of incorporating a Performance Duel as introduced in book 1. The opponents might be guardians placed by Aroden, a troupe of Xulgaths who bested the trial earlier, or most interesting imo, a handful of Celestial Menagerie performers. We know Dusklight was handing people over to the Xulgaths as sacrifices, it's not outside the realm of possibility that Sarvel took some for precisely this trial.

There's probably more little things I'm missing, but my final change for now is to make Clownish Curse a divine spell for followers of Aroden. Praise the god of humanity and clowns!

Whenever I read "the Hermitage of Blessed Lightning" my mind went to "Greased Lightning" the song from the movie Grease. My first inclination was to just call it that in my game as a minor joke. But then I saw the true potential.

So I wrote and commissioned a parody of Greased Lighting entitled Blessed Lightning and tonight I had the first retainers in the hermitage perform it as a song and dance number to exposit on their hatred of Abberton.

I hope this is alright to share here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha5EB8R7DQs