Help me make low CR cultists who worship Kytons?

[NihilsticBanana]

Just as it says in the title, I've got a new campaign coming up that heavily involved Kytons and all the creepy oddities that come with that, Now that's all well and good but my party is going to start out at level 4, Sure it be fun to spring a chain devil on them right away but I want a little mystery and build up before that, So I want to start them off easy with a few cultists, Problem is I'm not too sure how to handle that? Should they be fighters? Clerics? The god I have closest to the Kyton ideals in my custom setting is CE not LE. I need them to be weak fodder that I can throw a lot of at the party. Like CR 1 or 2. Masochistic cultists who basically torture themselves just like the Kytons.

How's best to handle this? Any ideas out there you can give me?

[Artofregicide]

There's the Kyton apostle template, but it's very strong. Tortured soul has the same issue. Without knowing more, you could create a humanoid cultist with say 3 class levels or 4 NPC levels and either template as a CR appropriate challenge (but likely much stronger due to the template, so be very careful).

If you want a gang of cultists, 4 clerics, warpriests, inquisitors, slayers or even rogues at 3rd level would do the trick.

Also, don't forget the lower level kytons like augurs. They're wicked creepy and surprisingly annoying at lower levels.

EDIT:

If you want CR1, just drop a class level and increase the number to 6.

[CBDunkerson]

Anything from simple commoners to Kyton-Spawn tieflings with a couple of levels in Fighter, Cleric, Oracle, etc. I'd have a mix of things.

You can really use ANYTHING low CR and just 'reskin' it to make it Kytonesque (though in that case, 'deskin' might be a better term).

For example, you could throw a second level wizard at them, but he 'casts his spells' by performing self mortification and scarification, his magic missiles look/feel like spectral spiked chains ripping the flesh from targets' bodies, and anyone hit with a sleep spell has horrible nightmares of being tortured by their friends (or vice versa).

Especially at low levels, I'll just pick up an appropriate CR stat block more or less at random and then describe the creature and its powers in ways that fit the scene I am going for. So long as you keep the damage/save/times per day and other numbers/limitations of abilities the same, the details of what is happening don't change the CR... so just revise them to whatever you want. Fast, easy, and results in players saying, 'what the hell was that thing!'

[VoodistMonk]

The leader of the cult should be level 7, and have an Augur Kyton protector familiar.

Probably a Dhampir Eldritch Guardian Fighter with a +1 Vicious spiked chain or urumi or scorpion whip.

The party should hack through the cult pretty easily up until they get to her.

Hopefully she lives to see multiple run-ins with the party, eventually leading them to the Chain Devil.