venefica's page

Does anyone know which page specifies the benefits granted by Taldaris' 'royal gift' ability?

The Aroden and Norgorber minis are great! Does anyone know which other deities have been rendered as minis?

Hello all,
I thought I'd share a short article I wrote about the Black Butterfly for the Strange Aeons campaign I am currently playing. What little information we have about this empyreal lord can be found in Chronicle of the Righteous (and now, Bestiary 6), but my GM graciously allowed me to expand on it so I might have more to draw upon for my cleric. I mimiced the format and style of the entries found in Inner Sea Gods and Inner Sea Faiths, though this is considerably shorter. I hope that others might find a use for it in their own games if this interests them.

The Black Butterfly: The Silence Between

When Desna hung her stars in the sky, the negative space between them birthed a dark mirror of the goddess, known as the Black Butterfly. This empyreal lord is regarded by other deities as a twin sister of sorts to her creator. While the Silence Between shares Desna’s love of freedom and wandering, her areas of concern are distinct, and her worshippers follow a very different path.

After Desna brought her forth from the darkness, the Black Butterfly began exploring the far reaches of the cosmos with great curiosity. However, what she observed on her journey has chilled her passionate nature. Tabris recorded in the Chronicle of the Righteous that she took a vow of silence, so that she might never unleash her dangerous knowledge about the Dark Tapestry into the world. The most common myth about her recounts an incident early in her existence in which she naïvely led Zon-Kuthon back to heaven from the outer reaches of space, not recognizing the effects of his dark transformation until it was too late. Today the Black Butterfly is a wiser figure, if far more stoic, and she represents a respect for the unknown and caution in the face of danger.

The Black Butterfly is even more aloof and distant than Desna herself. Hers is a way of life far removed from that of her capricious sister; the Black Butterfly roams more out of duty than enjoyment, observing the world but rarely sharing what she knows of it. Though serious, she can occasionally be taken with whimsy, and often rejuvenates herself by observing the innocent and carefree at play.

The Black Butterfly values inner peace and generosity over strength and intelligence, and her followers hold her in high esteem for her embodiment of a steadfast heart in the face of life’s crushing indifference. She is commonly worshipped by the those who are blind, deaf, or mute. Individuals with anxiety, hallucinations, and other psychological ailments also turn to her for healing and support. Vows of isolation and silence are common among her clergy, and monasteries dedicated to her teachings are far more common than is typical for an empyreal lord. While she sees solitude as a virtue, she also provides relief for those suffering imprisonment or loneliness, recognizing that the company of others is a panacea to most beings. While her sister rules over all forms of travel, the Black Butterfly claims distance itself as part of her portfolio. Lovers separated from one another find themselves under her guidance, as do those who intentionally put leagues between themselves and someone they’d rather not see again.

Worshippers
Her worship is most common in Absolom, the Sodden Lands, Varisia, and in regions where stargazing and astrology are common. She is more widely worshipped on other planets in the solar system, especially by the Lashunta of Castrovel, while gnomes generally scorn her ascetic values as dangerous to their sanity. Cults of the Black Butterfly are generally small groups led by an oracle or mystery cultist who has taken a vow of silence. Worship services are usually modest meditations, though some scholars report cults partaking of secret rituals in which a worshipper floats in a dark saltwater pool to have out-of-body experiences. The study of abjuration is also common among initiates, who eventually earn the right to carry a special silver bell used for banishing spells. However, cultists spend most of their time doing charitable work for those in need, and eschew taking credit whenever possible. The Black Butterfly’s followers are frequent allies to the oppressed and mistreated for this reason, and have been known to support rebellions and abolitionist groups. Worshippers have no formalized garb, though dark colors and silver jewelry are favored. Fanatic followers sometimes adopt ornate blindfolds as everyday attire, while dark lenses are a less extreme way of distancing oneself from sensation. Holy symbols are often displayed conservatively, incorporated into garments in a subtle way to avoid ostentation. Those under vows of silence sometimes apply extremely dark or light pigment to their lips to communicate their desire to avoid speech.
Clerics of the Black Butterfly can heal the psyche as well as the body, frequently serving as counselors to help people overcome nightmares, trauma, and other psychological complaints. Spells such as restoration and unbreakable heart are favored by priestesses for this reason. They also preach a variety of ways to avoid mental contamination, though much of this advice is dismissed as paranoid superstition.

Priests are required to adhere to several general edicts to maintain their divine powers. Just as Desna forbids the casting of nightmare, the Black Butterfly abhors the casting of insanity and requires her vassals to undo the spell and destroy copies of it where they find it. Priestesses may not speak words intended to harm another, and may not engage in acts of vengeance. They must also maintain confidence, never sharing a secret willingly unless keeping it would truly bring another to harm. Those who stray from these ways egregiously enough or often enough lose their divine powers until they atone.

Unlike Desna’s bold and gregarious lot, adventurers who follow the Silence Between often have a skittish, world-weary air about them. Many of them have suffered unfortunate consequences as a result of involvement with eldritch occurrences, such as wizards touched by insanity from reading unspeakable tomes and investigators obsessed with the fate of lost loved ones. While their companions may find them mousy or stuck-up, these adventurers prove unyieldingly kind and brave in the face of fear. However, they have a strong tendency to keep things from even trusted friends, which can lead to devastating falling outs when secrets are revealed.

Relations with Other Deities

Desna and the Black Butterfly regard each other as twins and trust each other more than anyone else. The Black Butterfly shares her sister’s enmity for Ghalunder, a horror which should never have been unleashed from the cosmos, and often helps hunt him. Lamashtu’s twisted ways similarly displease her, although not as personally as they do Desna. The Black Butterfly feels the greatest hatred for the Outer Gods and Great Old Ones, whose works and aims she tirelessly opposes. Her cults frequently come into antagonistic contact with the insane worshippers of these dark powers, and the results can be explosive.

The Black Butterfly looks fondly on Pulura, Ghenshau, and Milani, whose company rejuvenates her when the howling horrors of the Dark Tapestry test her limits. She stolidly avoids the Boneyard, leading many to believe she does not respect Pharasma; in fact, it is Groetus she wishes to stay away from, and it is rumored that she may know what it is he is waiting for. Some mad prophets even claim that the Black Butterfly herself will usher in Groetus’s apocalypse.
Though most full-fledged deities do not regard the Black Butterfly as their equal, she is among the strongest of the empyreal lords, and her followers hope that she will one day achieve full divinity and become as well-known as her sister. Paranoid scholars of eldritch phenomena suspect that she has held many incursions by the Great Old Ones at bay already, and conjecture that she may yet defeat one and ascend in a manner similar to Sarenrae.

Servitors

Lavinia Helmin (human ghost, mesmerist 7) was an academic in Oppara some hundred years ago. She became obsessed with a mysterious outbreak of nightmares among the librarians of the university after they came into contact with a book unearthed in an Osirian tomb. Unable to relieve their nightly suffering, she eventually set out to investigate the root of the problem, and never returned. She responds to call planar ally or similar calls for aid from worshippers, though she takes offense to being asked about the journey that proved to be her end. As a reward for her aid, she asks only that her summoner provide her with a dream journal containing at least two weeks’ worth of dreams.

Flutterdust (unique celestial gloomwing): This enormous gloomwing flies through the sky on new moons, the dust from its wings bringing calm to creatures it rains down on. While it is capable of communicating verbally, it expresses itself in disjointed and heavily accented celestial, making it difficult to understand. Flutterdust is willing to aid the faithful in battle, but it requires that the recipients of its aid care for one of its pupa young until it cocoons. Thankfully these tenebrous worms are not nearly so violent as their counterparts from the Shadow Plane, though their size and grotesque appearance can provide a significant inconvenience for the month that this task requires.

Blueflame (unique yamah): This somber azata is the herald of the Black Butterfly. Perpetually silent, she communicates only through sign languages or written celestial. She detests being out in the daytime, and is easily disturbed by loud noises or bright lights. Cults that summon her bear no memory of her company afterwards, and are only able to determine that she was ever there at all through careful deduction.

Thanks for the great contributions, everyone. I really appreciate the help!

Well, before the final challenge, in a lot of myth, is the time for purification, and revelations. Not a comfortable time for a "passing" kitsune Ninja. With the importance of dragons in the celestial hierarchy, wouldn't it be more thematic to have the dragon turtle ferry them across? They will have to show they are worthy of the honor. You should be setting the stage for some rainbow imagery for the storm giving way to the sun in the finale. (Where of course, the seeds of the next cycle of the storm occluding the sun are planted.) Has the party tried to use the farmer analogy to calm the Sun Goddess and the Storm God? You know, it takes both Sun and Rain for life to grow.

This is a great way of rethinking it! You're right that this is far more thematic, mythologically; perhaps I've gotten stuck thinking in terms of western plot structures in the back half of this campaign, compared to the early stages. Thank you!

Hi all,

My homebrew campaign has been stalled a lot lately because I'm having trouble coming up with a good penultimate installment for the story. One player suggested perhaps online forums would be a good place to brainstorm and swap ideas about the issue,so I'm giving this a try.

Campaign setting is East Asian fantasy, centered on traversing a country based on Tokugawa era Japan. The nation has been crippled by a terrible magical plague that is killing off only human men, causing social upheaval and political turmoil all over. The party, one kitsune monk and one "human" ninja (actually a kitsune who hasn't yet been noticed as such), are escorting a pregnant teenager to the mouth of the underworld to give birth to the newest incarnation of the recently missing sun goddess. The hope is that when the goddess is reborn, the plague will be cured (though presently they haven't quite pieced together whether the goddess actually caused the sickness in the first place). They're very nearly at their destination; after a variety of adventures and mishaps, they only have to get on a boat, cross the straits between one island and the next, and then they'll reach their ultimate destination. The finale is already planned, so I'm not worried about that.

However, I'm torn about how to handle the boat crossing portion. I don't want it to be too easy, but I also feel like at this late stage of the story I can't afford to be wasting time with side adventures any more. Still, there are a few loose ends I could pull in to make their seafaring more interesting:

- The party recently killed a popular cult leader, a warpriest of the storm god. This fight was *way* too easy due to me mismanaging the board, so the relatively tough boss went down with barely a whimper. The storm god is pissed off that his favorite disciple died a pathetic death at the hands of the heroes, and is also worried that if the sun goddess does return he'll lose his prominent new position in the heavenly order. He'll be looking for a chance to ruin the party's mission.

- The sun goddess being carried by their pregnant charge has been increasingly enraged; the goddess has started to posess her, causing violent magical outbursts and rapid deteriorations in her bodily health. The last time the goddess incarnated herself in a mortal form, she was betrayed and murdered, and thus has about the same level of emotional baggage you'd find on the average revenant. The heroes have missed several opportunities to mitigate this problem (mostly by being too cautious to confront an angry deity), and if they don't do something to address it before they reach their destination they might be doing more harm than good by returning the sun goddess to her full power.

If possible, I'd like to incorporate both these elements into the next phase of the game. The current plan is to make the party convince a local undine merchant to carry them across in her boat, risking attack by the infamous dragon turtle that lurks in the crossing. (However, the party is level 10, minus a bit for low number of players; this won't be too much of a challenge). With the storm god looking for revenge I have considered dropping the players into the middle of the ongoing feud between him and the ocean god, but I wouldn't want them to be staring these deities in the face, obviously. Dealing with a bunch of angry, feuding gods at the level of mortals has been a challenge for the whole campaign, and now things are really coming to a head.

Does anyone have any suggestions about what sort of challenges the party could face on the water, ideally including some of the recent plot elements? Any ideas are appreciated, thanks in advance!

Is there any chance that this class could get more archetypes later on to add the Tian elements of metal and wood in some form?

Over the moon with joy at seeing a Hwan Iconic! Cool story as well; I notice the majority of the occult iconics seem to have a "mysterious guardian" of sorts... I wonder if it could be the same entity?

-Firstworld/fey themed campaign
- Alkenstar/mana wastes, a little steampunk flavor
- Tian Xia, especially after Yoon's awesome backstory.
- Arcadia ; something exploring Native American story styles and narratives would be amazing

and my out-on-a-limb answer:

-Something involving Acavna's soul trapped in the Mordent Spire.

Though perhaps that's TOO big a thing to see involved in an AP!

Keep up the great work Paizo Staff, we'll love whatever you make!

The differences between magic spells and psychic spells are a great touch, I was really hoping for something like that. The additions to the Occultist make it much more appealing to me as well, it did feel like it was missing something and magic circles are it!

Hi everyone. I'm a first time poster here, so if this isn't the right forum I apologize. Some fellow players told me this was worth sharing in case others would find it useful. We're playing a campaign set in the Lands of the Linnorm Kings and so I designed a custom divination rune set for my character. I posted a photograph of them here.

Here are the various meanings and interpretations for the runes, in the order in which they appear. A slash mark separates the usual meaning from the inverted meaning.

I created these runes with the Ulfen and Erutaki's daily lives in mind. While casters will of course see greater significance in them, ordinary folk are looking for quick, concrete predictions and interpretations to guide their actions. The meanings of the runes focus on aspects of life important to the Ulfen and Erutaki. In our game these runes are used across the Linnorm Lands, and some Erutaki believe them to have been handed down by the norns. The runes are composed of straight lines and dots because these are the easiest to carve with knives, so the runes can be made quickly by anyone who knows them. They're not used as an alphabet though, just as a mean of clarifying a situation or telling the future.

I also worked in a few references to other parts of the campaign setting:
- The blackmoon rune refers to Acavna, the deceased goddess of the moon. Nobody is aware of this except the norns and a few others.
- The Rusalka rune's meaning has been shaped by common misconceptions about the nature of Rusalkas as vengeful ghosts.
- The worms rune refers to the frost worm and its natural enemy the remorhaz.

I made my runes out of cardboard, so they were quite cheap and fast to make. Feel free to make your own if you like them.