So I've been having a bit of writer's block lately. I picked up a copy of Inner Sea Gods and flipped around, landed on Lamashtu. I don't know why, but I've read through it a few times now.
This deity, even though primitive, is just complex enough to make me want to craft an entire campaign around her. Here's the brainstorming I just did - I gave myself exactly 10 minutes
Possible uses for Lamashtu:
1. Summoning monsters
2. Evil midwives
3. Summoning demons
4. Baby stealing
5. Sex cults
6. Fertility rites
7. Nightmare induction
8. Madness
9. Drug dealers
10. Masochism tyrants
11. Nihilist cults
12. Aberration handlers
13. Orphanages
14. Nannies
15. Corrupt and decadent politicians
16. Artists who depict monstrosity
17. Social justice anarchists
18. Serial rapists
19. Circus or carnival of freaks
20. Goblins
21. Gnolls
22. Hags
23. Medusae
24. Lamia
25. Minotaurs
26. Aberrant sorcerers
27. Ritual disfigurement types
28. Tattoo artists
29. Fighters devoted to strength, battle scars and disfigurement for power
30. Clerics
31. Druids
32. Rangers
33. Summoners
34. Oracles
35. Alchemists studying fetal development
36. Whores and courtesans
Anything you want to add/discuss/modify?
Oh, I could add a lot...
My mom is a *****.
You want something?
Here's a few...
A mother praying to lamashtu for her baby to survive, desperate, and when the baby is "born" it claws it's way out of the mother.
New species are often made by her. Not all are as successful as the gnolls, but they're all threatening.
Cults force-feeding victims waters of lamashtu until they break mentally, and brainwashing them to finish.
Don't even start on the gnolls as a whole.
Not to mention she can give birth to new heralds if she wants.
And don't forget the wonders you can accomplish with the Demon Mother's Mask. Though I have a feeling it is more geared towards the mask wearer's gender being female, because of the last line in the item's description. Still, I can see that playing a part in a Lamashtu storyline.
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** spoiler omitted **
In RotRL adventure Burnt Offerings an aasimar cultist of Lamashtu is responsible for the attacks on the town, desperate to be "reborn" as adaemondemon.
Daemon /= Demon in this setting.
And don't forget the wonders you can accomplish with the Demon Mother's Mask. Though I have a feeling it is more geared towards the mask wearer's gender being female, because of the last line in the item's description. Still, I can see that playing a part in a Lamashtu storyline.
I disagree as to the intended sex of the wearer, insofar as I read it as being meant for either sex. It just describes the result of any successful "interspecies union" accomplished while one of the two participants wears the mask.
It makes sense that a female gives birth to something that resembles her species (apart from the template and "monstrous aesthetic features of the father's race"). If the offspring were too far "off base", then it could either seriously damage the mother's ability to bear again and/or have trouble itself with surviving gestation and birth - and both such results would go against Lamashtu's doctrine of "having as many monstrous live births as possible". A dead mother cannot bear again. A dead offspring is per definition not alive. :)
So the mask-bearer could be a Lamashtan priest with some scary guard dog "children", or a Lamashtan priestess with some animalistic offspring.
And I can't believe that I just wrote a post on this subject ... O_o
The L 6 module "Broken Chains" (by Tim Hitchcock) offers a look at a particular Lamashtan cult in Katapesh. (Bonus fact: Adjule's current avatar picture comes from that module.)
And then there's Lamashtu's Flower. Originally appearing in "Osirion: Land of Pharaohs", it made a brief reappearance in "Osirion: Legacy of Pharaohs" (minus the more graphic art and details). ("Land of Pharaohs" was published before a clear dividing line was drawn between the Campaign Setting line for GMs and the spoiler-free Player's Companion line for players.)
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Also, heading into the realm of Mature Subject Matter...
"What!? Women shtupping women? They can't give birth that way! You! Correct them!"
It's a good thing that Paizo hasn't included any of that, because not only would it be found hurtful by survivors of sexual assault and homophobia (which leaves deep mental wounds), but also that it might be seen to glamorize that stuff.
I've also heard her get called, "The Queen of the Demon Furries" once. If I ever have to homebrew an antagonistic foil for that particular player, I know to go right for a Lamashtu-worshipping gnoll vivisectionist.
Lamashtu is probably among the most unfriendly deities in terms of appropriate content for the average Pathfinder group, but she and her faithful make for great villains, so I'm glad that she is included.
I wouldn't view Lamashtu as homophobic, not necessarily. I could actually see certain same-sex couples praying to Lamashtu for the ability to conceive a child.
While Inner Sea Gods says that some men are envious of womens' ability to give birth (going to gross lengths to mimic it, such as being hosts for rot grubs, xill eggs, etc), and that women tend to have high ranks because they can bear children, it also mentions that some sects of her cult have discovered magical means of impregnating both men and women (see the module "Broken Chains").
Poof! Same-sex couples could theoretically have (likely monstrous...) children!
Such magical means of conception could also aid in fulfilling Lamashtu's Demonic Obedience, which has the devotee engaging in a tryst with the 'sincere intention' of being impregnated by or impregnating their partner.
Of course, it also gives the option to simply sacrifice a creature no more than a week old, and Lamashtu's Deific Obedience involves killing a creature in an awful manner, and then some. But there are options out there, for those who seek them! :P
On a side-note, I think the Demon Mother's Mask is a really interesting and flavorful (if horrifying!) item. A cultist dressed in a black-feathered cloak with a gold hyena/jackal mask, guarded by his/her fiendish children? A neat encounter, but also a disturbing one!
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+1 re the "extremely disturbing" description.
... I'm not even sure if my age 30+ gaming groups are ready to encounter cultists from the more hardcore Lamashtan side of things. Maybe if I test the waters gently with some extra description/items to be found in RotR? :)
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While Inner Sea Gods says that some men are envious of womens' ability to give birth (going to gross lengths to mimic it, such as being hosts for rot grubs, xill eggs, etc), and that women tend to have high ranks because they can bear children, it also mentions that some sects of her cult have discovered magical means of impregnating both men and women (see the module "Broken Chains").Poof! Same-sex couples could theoretically have (likely monstrous...) children!
Such magical means of conception could also aid in fulfilling Lamashtu's Demonic Obedience, which has the devotee engaging in a tryst with the 'sincere intention' of being impregnated by or impregnating their partner.
Its not that hard to get a man pregnant with just normal means. A fertilized eggs easily survives a few weeks in an environment that has a good supply of nutrients.
Women can have an out of utero pregnancy (the egg enters the belly cavity and nestles between the intestines where the large amount of veins provide ample sustenance).So you could plant a fertilized egg into the belly of a man.
(of course out of utero pregnancies fail at the point where the egg needs to develop the placenta).
Maybe really nasty lamashtu cults can use men that way. Just implant a fertilized egg and with some corruption a placenta might form?
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I have this idea for a campaign that I've been toying with that involves Lamashtu. The background being that at one point, Aroden did something to anger Calistria (haven't figured out what yet). Calistria, furious, plots her revenge and finds an ally in Lamashtu. With Calistria's aid, Lamashtu seduces Aroden and at the height of their union, Calsitria appears and the two goddesses kill Aroden. His power flows out of him and into Lamashtu's new pregnancy.
The result of the union is a mythic demon/human hybrid named Nazael that seeks to supplant his mother. He finds an artifact empowered by Azathoth while searching for ways to increase his power and it drives him insane. His insanity drives him to believe freeing Rovagug will grant him the desired power.
Nazael, through years of research, finds a ritual that will free Rovagug. The clues to it are hidden in the following verse:
The lifeblood of a virgin
And the beast that defiled her.
The get of their union,
Anointed by She who abhors it.
The irredeemable priest of the Dawn,
The unfaithful priestess of the Prince.
The Last Azlanti’s last,
And She who took it.
Ninshabur calls thee,
And the Rough Beast shall answer.
Each pair of lines refers to a requirement for the ritual:
The lifeblood of a virgin
And the beast that defiled her.
- A virgin’s lifeblood is not terribly difficult to come by. The best that defiled her refers to a horrific coupling after the virgin is already dead. Not immediately apparent is that the lifeblood of the beast is required, not the beast itself.
The get of their union,
Anointed by She who abhors it.
- The dead virgin becomes pregnant by the beast that defiled her, and an undead creature is born from her. This creature (some kind of unique ghoul?) must be anointed by Pharasma. The creature must be at the ritual, willingly taking part.
The irredeemable priest of the Dawn,
The unfaithful priestess of the Prince.
- A priest of Sarenrae fallen so far as to be irredeemable – he must now worship Rovagug.
- A priestess of Asmodeus who breaks contract by laying with the former priest of Sarenrae during the ritual.
The Last Azlant’s last,
And She who took it.
- This refers to Nazael himself.
Ninshabur calls thee,
And the Rough Beast shall answer.
- The ritual must take place at a specific location at the Pit of Gormuz.
The party would get different bits of the ritual at different times and not in order, so they'd only slowly begin to get an idea of what was going on. Since Nazael is seeking to supplant Lamashtu, at one point, they'd be all but required to ally with Lamashtu's worshippers for a time. There'd be an NPC cleric of Calistria that seems like an ally would eventually turn on them when it became clear they were getting close to discovering Calistria's role in Aroden's death.
That's about all I've worked up on it.
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Lamashtu is probably among the most unfriendly deities in terms of appropriate content for the average Pathfinder group, but she and her faithful make for great villains, so I'm glad that she is included.
I wouldn't view Lamashtu as homophobic, not necessarily. I could actually see certain same-sex couples praying to Lamashtu for the ability to conceive a child.
While Inner Sea Gods says that some men are envious of womens' ability to give birth (going to gross lengths to mimic it, such as being hosts for rot grubs, xill eggs, etc), and that women tend to have high ranks because they can bear children, it also mentions that some sects of her cult have discovered magical means of impregnating both men and women (see the module "Broken Chains").
Poof! Same-sex couples could theoretically have (likely monstrous...) children!
Such magical means of conception could also aid in fulfilling Lamashtu's Demonic Obedience, which has the devotee engaging in a tryst with the 'sincere intention' of being impregnated by or impregnating their partner.
Of course, it also gives the option to simply sacrifice a creature no more than a week old, and Lamashtu's Deific Obedience involves killing a creature in an awful manner, and then some. But there are options out there, for those who seek them! :P
On a side-note, I think the Demon Mother's Mask is a really interesting and flavorful (if horrifying!) item. A cultist dressed in a black-feathered cloak with a gold hyena/jackal mask, guarded by his/her fiendish children? A neat encounter, but also a disturbing one!
I never thought of that. There are also aberrations and similar that can implant parasitic larvae into people, for another way to do it. Or Alter Self beforehand.
I just got the mental image of a Lamashtu-oriented antipaladin look proudly upon her Fiendish Companion's latest act of carnage: "That's my girl!"
Ew. I'm proud and disgusted by my own and the forum's contributions to this topic. Still the clergy of Lamashtu make for some really great villains.
Remember that the "Mother of All Monsters" doesn't always have to played up entirely literally. For instance, creating monsters doesn't always have to involve literal birth. There was one adventure back a long time ago in Dragon or Dungeon for one of the TSR-era D&D versions that had a guy selling some teeth and body parts from the corpses he killed. A dentist ended up with the teeth of a werewolf and put them unknowingly into a normal human. Normal human gets transformed into a werewolf and goes on a rampage, turning other people. I could imagine Lamashtu doing something like that with fiendish/half-fiend switching around people's teeth. Or having an alchemist dentist as a patsy.
Also, remember that motherhood not only involves giving birth to children but also RAISING them. As such, you can do a lot of really insidious stuff by playing up a cult that has a "Average Aldoran [or wherever] Family" on the surface but then is deeply debase at its core. You could play it like a cult with brainwashing and god-like Messiah complexes of the cult mother/father- but play up the seeming banality/averageness of their mannerisms to contrast with the twisted, sick rituals and beliefs of their cult. "Mother always knows best."- think maybe Granny Goodness from Superman (I particularly like the The Animated Series version). She had one plot that involved taking in wayward children off of the street and inducting them into a gang that gave them gadgetry and "family" of a sort- but also brainwashed them. If you're so inclined, you can explore/highlight a lot of social issues here- what lengths people are willing to go to find a surrogate family, what draws a person to a gang or a cult, how these might serve to give them a sense of order or purpose (despite being completely bonkers.)
A particularly twisted idea on the above would be to have a cult of Lamashtu worshipers posing as a convent of some LG deity (Demonic nuns, what's not to like?) Note that with the Martial Artist archetype, it is very possible for even a CE deity to have dedicated monks!
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In the immortal words of Jeff Goldblum, "Life, uh, finds a way."
Lamashtu doesn't care about petty things like "biological compatibility". If you can't birth something horrible in her name, you aren't trying hard enough. She's a goddess that rewards creativity, I'm sure.
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@ Dreaming: I agree. Not every Lamashtan plot has to be twisted and gory birth-horror. Lamashtan "mothers" might be interested in:
Schools
Sports teams for kids
Alchemists with mutagens
Fleshwarping
Seriously look at her domains: Chaos, Evil, Madness, Strength, Trickery. Add those words to the ones in her portfolio: Madness, Monsters, Nightmares. While childbirth is a major portion of her worship in the fluff of her write up, combining her domains and portfolio suggest even more villainous pursuits.
- Mother Mayhem, the Nightmare Vendor: she peddles treats for the kiddies and drives them mad with night terrors. The treats are laced with dream spider venom and once affected the children become slavering addicts. When she knows she's got a new kid on the hook she uses magic to visit them in hiding and promises to make the nightmares stop. All they need to do is... and you can add whatever level-appropriate details you want.
- Dr Albian Scornrend: the good doctor is the chief healer at a sanitarium where, predictably, he's experimenting on the patients. He's also an alienist wizard or summoner. Dr Scornrend is seeking to combine aberrant DNA with that of mortalkind to create a superhuman hybrid capable of adapting to any environment. The kicker is he's CONVINCED he's doing good work. Of course he's being pushed along this path by Lamashtu through a variety of sources - a nurse or orderly who is an oracle; voices from the beyond; some sort of Lamashtan artifact in the building or perhaps the sanitarium was once a worship site itself.
- The Pretty Haters Club: a group of young adults disaffected and cast off from the city, these knife-wielding brutes terrorize the populace. They are all horribly disfigured; club feet, cleft pallets, warts and skin growths. They have become a "tribe" of urban barbarians and rangers with a habit for mutilating their victims, some of whom they leave alive. In particular they attack the "beautiful people". Of course, with the upcoming beauty pageant there might finally be a way to draw them into the open...
- Mother Mayhem, the Nightmare Vendor: she peddles treats for the kiddies and drives them mad with night terrors. The treats are laced with dream spider venom and once affected the children become slavering addicts. When she knows she's got a new kid on the hook she uses magic to visit them in hiding and promises to make the nightmares stop. All they need to do is... and you can add whatever level-appropriate details you want.
This actually serves her pretty well, as Codex of the Damned II (Lords of Chaos) maintains that there's a place in her Abyssal lair where she uses nightmares as the inspiration for creation of her various monstrosities.
- The Pretty Haters Club: a group of young adults disaffected and cast off from the city, these knife-wielding brutes terrorize the populace. They are all horribly disfigured; club feet, cleft pallets, warts and skin growths. They have become a "tribe" of urban barbarians and rangers with a habit for mutilating their victims, some of whom they leave alive. In particular they attack the "beautiful people". Of course, with the upcoming beauty pageant there might...
She could very well play both sides in the "beauty divide". Aliening the extraordinary in appearance away from the rest of society is likely to drive them further to her worship, whether they be deemed hideous or whether they be deemed angelic in appearance (her cult has had some surprising success with the latter especially- see a certain young aasimar convert for example. Id think there would be a certain joy for Lamashtu in encouraging spiritual ugliness way more than physical ugliness.
Of course, I can see alienation/social isolation in general being a big theme for her because it lets her not only seperate individuals but whole segments of society. For example, Lords of Chaos hints at the possibility of her turning exiled Azlanti into Morlocks.
Any time a creature turns into something else, Lamashtu might have a hand in it. Is the new thing hideous, mad or nightmarish? If so then maybe Lamashtu. As a result you could also make worshippers out of:
Bio-terrorists
Transmuters
Alchemists
Summoners who use their eidolons on themselves
Ritual cutters, tatooers or folks that otherwise mar flesh
Doctors
Golem makers
Sculptors and artists
Imagine: a sculptor who creates creations from nightmares, is fascinated by them, and wishes they were real. Then along comes the Mother and gives him the ability to Animate Objects. Suddenly his creations have ambulation and, given more spells, might become awakened monsters of their very own. Of course she whispers to him in said nightmares that the only way his creations will love him as much as he loves them is if he jacks up his own face...
This is why I posted the OP in the first place. The other Golarion gods give some targeted inspiration here and there but Lamashtu? It just goes on and on what you could do with her!
Why did I look up the Demon Mother's Mask? Now I just think that it's a popular item for non-Lamashtu worshiping bards to pick up when they're looking to score. I'm not sure what humanoids in the game have cycles of heat, but I'll tell you I didn't ask that question before I knew about the item!
As for Lamashtu, why do we focus on the birthing process? You can get plenty of monsters through egg-laying creatures. And particularly sinister monsters through sheer mitosis. Plaguebringer had to come from somewhere, hmmm?
In the immortal words of Jeff Goldblum, "Life, uh, finds a way."
Lamashtu doesn't care about petty things like "biological compatibility". If you can't birth something horrible in her name, you aren't trying hard enough. She's a goddess that rewards creativity, I'm sure.
I'm certain there were a few more "uh's" in that line.
As for myself, Lamashtu's going to play a big part in a homebrew.
SPOILERS: DO NOT READ IF YOU'RE IN MY ONLINE ROLL20 DRYADIA CAMPAIGN.
I once had a plan for a cleric of shub niggurath, but I think it would work well for lamashtu, too. They seem similar enough in some aspects:
Take a tiefling with fiendish sprinter for goat's legs, prehensile tail and maw or claw for (if the GM allows it a gore attack (goat's horns) you managed to look like a satyr/goat man/beastman often seen as the symbol of monstrosity.
Campaign Setting sourcebook: Inner Sea Gods (the hardcover), p. 263. It's a wondrous item which uses the head slot.