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First of all, utterly brilliant archetype, I think; makes the Medium extremely interesting.
However, I am a bit confused; is the spirit a Fiend Keeper bonds with different from the astral echoes that a Medium normally bonds with beyond being a single individual? (With each of the six Legends being different aspects of the entity in question for the Fiend Keeper, as the fluff says) If so, how different? Are they actual fiends (like, say, a daemon, div, deivl, etc)?
Thank you for your time and consideration, and I hope that this is the right place for this.
To: John Compton
Hello. I hope you don't mind my contacting you like this; you seemed like the most likely to know given what little I know of Paizo and I was really curious.
First of all, I'd like to start by saying that I absolutely loved "Blood of Beasts" and especially the Fiend Keeper Medium archetype and I'm really glad that it was created. The question I had was about that archetype was "what kind of spirit does a Fiend Keeper have bound"? Astral echoes like a "normal" Medium? Ghosts? Actual fiends like demons, devils, divs, etc?
Also, how did they bind the spirit in question in the first place, and how are they transferred from generation to generation?
Thank you very much for your time and consideration.
Pathfinder Society Lead Developer
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I'm glad you enjoyed it.
The fiend keeper concept was new for this book, and I wanted to establish something that helps define and justify the gripplis' place in our campaign setting beyond "Well, we sure do need some anthropomorphic frogs." Fiend keepers primarily manage and control fiends and other evil creatures of extraordinary power (such as some legendary spirit that a medium might normally control but whose essence is kept locked away by the fiend keeper's ongoing devotion). A powerful demon would be a great candidate, as would a mighty villain such as the King of Biting Ants, a storied orc warlord, or a vile tyrant who might have otherwise risen as an undead monstrosity.
The fiend keeper description doesn't really cover what the actual state of such a villain is, and it quite reasonable to devise the exact flavor for your own campaign. I like the idea that some of these spirits would return to haunt the land, but nobody can truly exorcise them. Instead, the spirit is locked in a variant form of trap the soul or binding that keeps it safely contained so long as there's a fiend keeper who can dedicate his or her life to the task. From within the fiend keeper, the fiend is at least groggily cognizant of its surroundings, and the keeper might even have disjointed conversations with the fiend while the former tries to teach the latter compassion, and the latter tries to tempt the former down the path of darkness.
I suspect the transfer process is a ritual held between mentor and apprentice when the latter has proven his or her willpower and dedication.
"You know this story, but it is important that you hear it again so that you, too, might retell it a hundred times more to the next generation."When the skies had only then cleared of smoke, a powerful man walked this jungle and beyond. The humans remember him as Old-Mage Jatembe, and he visited our Krihirik tribe in our time of need to thwart a foul qlippoth that preyed upon our people and ravished our lands. He asked nothing in return but accepted our hospitality, explaining that so long as the good creatures of Golarion hid from the shadows, darkness would reign. So it was that he decided to travel the world—to light candles of hope throughout the world. He departed the next day, warning us that the beast was weak, but it would not both this land again for lifetimes more.
"It was Sirkopli, two-hundred and seventy-one times my predecessor, who swore upon the old mage's footprints that Jatembe would never walk alone. Sirkopli sought out the last whispers of the beast and called upon all gripplis—past, present, and future—swearing that as they had been saved by one who demanded no thanks, so too would his tribe spare the world the beast's evil ever more. We have done so ever since, the strongest of us always teaching another to accept the burden and bear it for our neighbor's sake...without complaint or demand. Even as humanity and misfortune encroach on our territory and bleed our livelihood, we endure in this, if nothing else. You have asked before why we do this, and the answer remains the same: the satisfaction of unleashing our charge to fight an evil with evil would only drown the world in sorrow. Like Jatembe, we spread the light, no matter the cost. We teach the beast to embrace that light, not hate it. One day, through living hundreds of grippli lives, it shall come to understand and love the world as we do.
"You are the jungle. You are the Krihirik. You were the apprentice. Now you are the keeper."
*Squee* That is absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing. I love how versatile it is, and I suspect that Sarenites and Shelynites would be amongst those most interested in learning and spreading the technique. Immonhiel seems like somebody who'd be proud of them for discovering and using that technique; marsh-dwelling amphibians (I suspect that the difference between frogs and toads is insufficient to deter her. :P) protecting people from evil and simultaneously healing them and "corrupting" them toward good.
Lastwall might consider it to be of interest, too, as a contingency plan if Tar-Baphon got free (which he basically has to at some point; sealed evils basically never stay sealed indefinitely) and they can't stuff him back in.
I'd also imagine that in a lot of cases it's used without it being a last resort. "Sure, we COULD kill the guy... and then deal with him coming back as some sort of fiend who, with out luck, would remember us and hate our guts... OR we can bind his soul to us, convince him that life is wonderful and he should be on our side, and many years down the line have another ally." Still, needing a person from every... third generation (assuming human-like aging patterns where adulthood is approximately 1/4 of the way through their lifespan) for every single fiend you're keeping bound would be quite the cost. Especially with them being more tempted toward evil than they would usually be.
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Pathfinder Society Lead Developer
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Those are all possibilities, though some are more viable than others. Definitely some of the good-aligned faiths would be interested in the techniques, though gripplis might not be keen to share what has been their quiet responsibility. Given all that the gripplis have faced with human expansion, they might just view well-intentioned priests as insensitive vultures looking for some society to beat over the head and search for loose culture to appropriate.
There are also some evils that would be too powerful for a fiend keeper to contain. No doubt the likes of demigods, demon lords, and malebranches would be nearly impossible to hold (at least for all but someone like a mythic medium), so a fiend keeper trying to contain Tar-Baphon might become very ill for a few minutes before melting entirely. Perhaps a team of fiend keepers could each bind a portion of such a powerful figure--it depends a lot on the type of story you would like to tell. If that were the case, though, said villain's minions might try to systematically assassinate the keepers to weaken the seals and free their master.
According to Advanced Race Guide gripplis have a pretty short life span, reaching dying of old age around 50 years. Each keeper likely trains one or two apprentices from each generation, knowing that misfortune could lay low a prized pupil at any time.
From here on it's new content to the thread.
Pride of culture could certainly be an obstacle; hopefully using non-human negotiators (hello, halflings!) would help, as would offering other tools for good/against evil to them in an exchange. After all, one of the greatest advantages of Good is that they can work together much more effectively than Evil can by their very nature and exploiting that as much as possible is important.
Being unable to bind something that much stronger than the prison is certainly a reasonable limitation, though at least theoretically being able to share the load between many fiend keepers would allow for more options. (Including, say, first level fiend keepers only managing a portion of the seal of any evil of notable strength and gradually being able to handle a higher percentage as they learn and grow).
That short lifespan certainly complicates things; would definitely be helpful if they teamed up with some longer-lived races. And keeping fiend keepers alive when there's notable efforts to kill them off would definitely be tricky. Possibly lizardfolk? I seem to recall them being relatively long-lived, though I'm having trouble tracking them down ATM.
Edit: Found it! Lizard kings live for twice as long as other lizardfolk but only become leaders after a full century of life.
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I think the thing that would ultimately push the gripplis over the edge to teach their tradition would be an ongoing and escalating threat to their continued ability to survive in the Mwangi Expanse, such as the charau-ka of Usaro pushing ever westward (and into the Kaava Lands), a huge resource-grab by the Aspis Consortium, or some catastrophe that wipes out many gripplis (including several tribes' fiend keepers).
In less disastrous circumstances, I could see someone earning the gripplis' trust by living among them and proving both an awareness and respect of the gripplis' culture and values. I can imagine that over the millennia, some non-grippli students have learned of and tried to receive instruction in these techniques. Perhaps the reason the practice isn't so widespread is because many of those early students failed in some way, whether by abandoning their charge or by succumbing to temptation. It amuses me to think that gripplis might think that humans are impetuous and flighty, despite gripplis having the shorter lifespans.
It's worth noting that fiend keepers appear with some frequency among the Garundi gripplis, but not every settlement would have one. Rarely, a settlement might have several who manage a collection of evil spirits.
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Seems like what they really need is a strong alliance with others. Magaambya, lizardfolk, elves, Zenj tribes, etc. who will respect what the grippli need and their rights as individuals and as a group, and who will use the resources they can spare to help them stand for their mutual benefit. (Even if the grippli never gave them explicit aid, them holding territory in an environmentally sane way and not letting evils through alone would be enough to make it worth a lot to keep them going, much less them binding evils long-term while corrupting them toward good, trading opportunities, and whatever information they're willing to share)
Really, the fact that grippli and lizardfolk, amongst other peoples, aren't already being seriously courted for an alliance makes me lose a fair bit of respect for the peoples in the area. Finding as many allies as possible and doing what one can to build them up and keep them strong is only good sense.
Anyway, humans being less well-suited for the techniques in question (or at least how they're taught to a human who did not grow up in their tribe) leading to failure would certainly explain a lot. Halflings, gnomes, dwarves or elves might be better suited.
An idea I had: Only in a community does a Fiend Keeper stand a solid chance of keeping their prisoner bound and resisting temptation. Without encouragement, reminders about what they're fighting for, and how things can and will get better people tend to succumb to temptation, despair, or otherwise stop fighting the good fight.
And the number of fiend keepers is very useful knowledge. :) Thanks again!
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The Magaambya and Nantambu as a whole would be great prospective allies, though I strongly suspect the city-state has greater resources--certainly from the perspective of who can do what on a regional scale--than the combined grippli settlements of the Kaava Lands. Even so, the Magaambya's dedication to holy and druidic magic make them natural ambassadors on the fiend keeper front.
That's a really good idea that a fiend keeper might bear the fiend, but the community keeps the keeper spiritually and socially sound to perform that duty. It really makes it more of a collective goal (in addition to any other goals the gripplis might pursue, as this isn't the only one) rather than the burden of some hermit whom the other gripplis rarely talk to.
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I'm making a grippli fiend keeper for PFS, and I could use some suggestions for back story, personality, and stuff.
Since it's a role that requires training, I'm assuming he'd have to be a fairly good and reliable person, probably LG or NG alignment. Not strictly necessary, but those would make the most sense. Other than that, I'm not sure what personality traits to give him.
I'm assuming he'll be from the Mwangi Expanse, or one of the nearby areas. I'm going Weapon Finesse build with Piranha Strike, which is a feat from the Sargava book, so there's actually a reason for a geographic link to that end of the Expanse. So maybe I can build some sort of contact with that country into his back story. I haven't chosen traits yet (though I have an idea for one), despite having worked out most other mechanical details, so there's room for connecting him to a geographic region or fleshing out his back story while adding something interesting through a trait.
I guess what I'm mostly missing is a reason why he would suddenly leave home to go join the Pathfinder Society.
I'm thinking maybe he's on a quest to find a way to permanently destroy the fiend that his tribe has been keeping contained for hundreds of years. Or maybe something happened where he almost lost control of it, so he decided to leave his tribe to keep them safe and find a way to re-secure the magic bonds holding the fiend captive.
Either of those would seem to go well with joining the Dark Archive, which is slightly ironic for a good PC. But I've actually seen a few people (usually with arcane casters) do that since the faction switched from Cheliax to Dark Archive. It seems to be the popular place for characters to learn more about magic, regardless of moral standards. And in the case of a fiend keeper, he's already used to drawing power from an evil source, so working with Zarta Dralneen and her infernal servants wouldn't phase him.
Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions?
A few possibilities: The fiend keeper in question has only geographically left the tribe, and still keeps in regular contact with them. (Sending spells, maybe? They're not perfect, but they're something, especially if you already have code words to convey common phrases)
One really good reason to go to the Pathfinder Society is to access their information. They have a lot of it on basically every topic, and getting what information is relevant to the village (without the Society ever finding out) could easily be a huge help to the village.
Still, there are two related reasons why it's a very dangerous choice: First, without that continual reinforcement from the tribe losing control is more likely, at least in general. Second, in the fairly likely event that your character dies (Pathfinders have an abysmal survival rate) who's around to continue binding the fiend?
Something to consider: Who would your FK be hanging out with? There are plenty of people there who could be trusted, and your FK almost certainly needs a lot of friends. One of the religious groups? (Shelyn? Sarenrae?) One of the teachers there? A group whose cause he believes in, at least enough to join for the comradery and mutual assistance?
I hope you have fun making, and playing, a fiend keeper. :)
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Something to consider: Who would your FK be hanging out with? There are plenty of people there who could be trusted, and your FK almost certainly needs a lot of friends. One of the religious groups? (Shelyn? Sarenrae?) One of the teachers there? A group whose cause he believes in, at least enough to join for the comradery and mutual assistance?
That's why I was considering Silver Crusade as my other faction possibility besides Dark Archive. As a good and noble person, he'd fit in better there. But if his goal is magical knowledge, the Dark Archive makes more sense.
I have some other cultural questions, as well. Do gripplis have any interesting quirks that are worth playing up? An unusual way of speaking? What types of names are common for the race? I was thinking of naming my guy Grrprr, just because it sounds like a frog croaking, and try to play up the "croaking" style of talking. Too cheesy?
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Pathfinder Society Lead Developer
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One really good reason to go to the Pathfinder Society is to access their information. They have a lot of it on basically every topic, and getting what information is relevant to the village (without the Society ever finding out) could easily be a huge help to the village.
On that note, perhaps your fiend keeper doesn't even know the nature of the fiend he guards, as the knowledge has been diluted over many generations (or there was a break in the generations that another fiend keeper only narrowly managed to step in and fill). You grippli might want to learn what he's really agreed to do and what's at stake, and the Pathfinder Society is the best route to discovering that which was lost to the past.
I do wonder, what does happen if a Fiend Keeper dies, for example in battle?
I do wonder, what does happen if a Fiend Keeper dies, for example in battle?
As I understand it: The captured fiend would slowly work its way out of confinement. Until that happens, another fiend keeper can step in and reinforce the prison once again and continuing the work of corrupting the fiend toward good. No idea how long the grace period is, nor what's required for a new fiend keeper to step in.
It's possible that there are multiple fiend keepers reinforcing the prison, though, and losing one might just mean that they have a smaller set of things needing to go wrong before it can start breaking free.
What are grippli naming conventions? If they were ever written up I don't know where to find them.
When using spells like planar ally, should a Fiend Keeper receive help from the deity they actually worship, or from one connected to their prisoner?
When using spells like planar ally, should a Fiend Keeper receive help from the deity they actually worship, or from one connected to their prisoner?
That is a good question.
I mean, on one hand, your divine spellcasting comes from said fiend, so it would make sense if you called said fiends servants - on the other hand, would those affiliated with the fiend be willing to help its captor?
I'm pretty sure humanoid babies are universally true neutral (though possibly not dragons and native outsiders) and thus completely ineligible for bound bound by a fiend keeper.
There are plenty of options that have been brought up for this dilemma, including adopting them all oneself (adventurers could certainly afford to hire as many assistants as needed to care for them all).
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So as mentioned above, I made a Grippli Fiend Keeper for Pathfinder Society. I've only played him once so far, but he has two GM credits, so he just hit level 2, and an interesting thought occurred to me.
Now that I have shared seance, I can give my allies my seance boon every day, which is almost always going to be the +2 to all non-spell damage from the Champion spirit.
But because of the archetype, the source of that power is an evil fiend. I'm assuming that accepting power from such an evil source would probably violate just about any paladin code, and possibly be rejected by other lawful good types, too.
Just a random thought that hadn't occurred to me before. But since my PC is for PFS, where I play with random other players each time, it could certainly come up.
I don't know... the purpose of accepting the fiend's powers in this case is, according to one interpretation of the fluff, to show that it can be used for good and to slowly convince the fiend that good/neutral is better than evil.
As such, accepting the boon from evil does not advance the cause of evil, and thus is probably not against most codes of law and good. Heaven, at least, would probably be warily okay with it.
How would you play a Fiend Keeper who has inherited the custody of a fiend who has actually begun the Heel-Face turn process?
Ventnor, probably with a fiend keeper who's notably more optimistic and upbeat about things. After all, the work of generations is actually coming to an end, and they're likely to get a new ally out of all of this work. Proof that it's all worth it, and more determined than ever to not slow down/reverse that by performing evil deeds. And, instead of containing concentrated malice/selfishness/arrogance, having something approaching moral neutrality which is far less draining.
Also, perhaps planning on finding a new fiend to bind soon.
I rather like the concept of an unwilling/unknowing keeper. The trope of some sort of ancient entity bound/cursed into a person.
One idea for a mythic level character would be for Ydersius to be bound in such a way after the events of Serpent's Skull. In the AP it says
The only way to destroy the Skull of Ydersius is to reunite it with Ydersius’s mindless, decapitated body. Doing so returns Ydersius to life, though in a weakened state. This manifestation can be combated and even slain, though it regenerates from nearly any wound short of re-decapitation. For an instant, before the whole body begins to regenerate, Ydersius’s spirit is untethered from his form.
Whether because the PCs don't want to kill him, or can't figure out how to, it still works really well for character development and roleplay.