Demon, SwaitheThis creepy ash-gray goblin-like creature has empty eye sockets and scraggly, stained teeth.Swaithe CR 4Source Inner Sea Gods pg. 297
XP 1,200
CE Small outsider (chaotic, demon, evil, extraplanar)
Init +7; Senses blindsense 30 ft., darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +8DefenseAC 18, touch 14, flat-footed 15 (+3 Dex, +4 natural, +1 size)
hp 37 (5d10+10)
Fort +3, Ref +9, Will +4
DR 5/cold iron; Immune electricity, gaze attacks, poison, visual effects and attacks relying on sight; Resist acid 10, cold 10, fire 10; SR 15OffenseSpeed 30 ft.
Melee bite +6 (1d4), 2 claws +6 (1d3)
Special Attacks hexes (cackle, evil eye [–2, 4 rounds], misfortune [1 round]; DC 13)
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 5th; concentration +6)
Constant—speak with animals
At will—cause fear (DC 12), detect magic, ray of enfeeblement (DC 12), read magic
3/day—charm animal (DC 12), invisibility (self only)
1/day—rage, waters of LamashtuISWGStatisticsStr 11, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 13, Wis 11, Cha 12
Base Atk +5; CMB +4; CMD 17
Feats Combat Casting, Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes
Skills Handle Animal +9, Intimidate +9, Knowledge (arcana) +9, Knowledge (planes) +9, Perception +8, Ride +11, Stealth +15
Languages Abyssal, Goblin, Gnoll, Orc; speak with animals, telepathy 100 ft.
SQ eyeless, witchcraftEcologyEnvironment any (Abyss)
Organization solitary, pair, or gang (3–5)
Treasure standardSpecial AbilitiesEyeless (Ex) A swaithe has no eyes, but can sense its immediate surroundings (within 60 feet) as well as a human can see.
Hexes (Su) A swaithe has the cackle, evil eye, and misfortune hexes of a 5th-level witch.
Witchcraft (Su) A swaithe can use spell completion and spell trigger items as if it were a 5th-level witch.DescriptionDedicated to Lamashtu, the eyeless swaithes are skulking agents of fear and unprovoked beast attacks, formed from sinful souls who, in life, used animals as tools of violence and murder. Swaithes often lure those who seek their aid and advice into falling victim to the darkest secrets of demonology and forbidden magic.
If left unsupervised, a swaithe charms animals and drives them toward villages, often under the influence of rage, further stoking the flames of fear and distrust between settlements and the wilderness.
Swaithes prefer stealth and subterfuge to direct confrontation, and these foul creatures delight in creating a sense of dread in their prey. Swaithes have been known to slip into a village under the cover of night, use their slumber hex on lone villagers, leave a grisly token (such as a bloody organ or strange twig doll) on its body for the victim to discover later when they wake clueless as to why they fell asleep in the first place. They delight in later repeating these attacks with strange cackling noises, invisibly “haunting” a victim’s home at night, and driving the target to paranoia and outright panic.
Swaithes can join hag covens and contribute to the coven’s cooperative magic. Because of its smaller size and weaker power, a swaithe is often treated as a little sister or daughter by the rest of the coven. Any coven that includes a swaithe can add giant vermin, animal growth, and insect plague to the spells the spells they can cast together.
Small and slight, most swaithes stand about 3-1/2 feet tall and weigh 50 pounds.Creatures in "Demon" CategorySource Pathfinder RPG Bestiary pg. 57
Demons exist for one reason—to destroy. Where their more lawful counterparts, the devils of Hell, seek to twist mortal minds and values to remake and reshape them into reflections of their own evil, demons seek only to maim, ruin, and feed. They recruit mortal life only if such cohorts speed along the eventual destruction of hope and goodness. Death is, in some ways, their enemy—for a mortal who dies can often escape a demon's depredations and flee to his just reward in the afterlife. It is the prolonging of mortal pain and suffering that fuels a demon's lusts and desires, for it is partially from mortal sin and cruelty that these monstrous fiends were born.
Demons are the most prolific and among the most destructive of the fiendish races, yet despite what some lore might preach, they were not the first forms of life to rise in the stinking pits of ruin and cruelty known across the multiverse as the Abyss. Before the first fledgling deity gazed upon reality, before mortal life drew its breath, before even the Material Plane itself had fully formed, the Abyss was infested with life.
Known to many scholars as “proto-demons,” these wretched and deadly beings were the qlippoth. Today, because of the influence of sinful mortal souls upon the Abyss, mixed with unholy tamperings at the hands of the daemonic keepers of Abaddon and the cruel whims of fate and evolution, the rule of the qlippoth has receded. The proto-demons dwell now in the noxious and forgotten corners of the Abyss, and the far more fecund and prolific demons rule now in their stead. With each evil mortal soul that finds its way into the Abyss, the ranks of the demonic hordes grows—a single soul can fuel the manifestation of dozens or even hundreds of demons, with the exact nature of the sins carried by the soul guiding the shapes and roles of the newly formed fiends.
The Abyss is a vast (some say infinite) realm, far larger than any other plane save possibly the primal chaos of the Maelstrom itself. As befits such a vast and varied realm, the demonic host is likewise diverse. Some carry in their frames humanoid shapes, while others are twisted beasts. Some flop on land while others flap in air or sea. Some are schemers and manipulators of emotion and politics, others are destructive engines of ruin. Yet all demons work to the same goal—pain and suffering for mortal life in all its forms.
Yet despite this, mortals have sought demonic aid since the start. Be it an instinctual draw to self-destruction or a misguided lust for power, conjurers to this day continue to draw forth demons with forbidden magic. Some conjure demons for lore, while others call upon them to serve as assassins or guards. Demons view such summoners with a mix of hatred and thanks, for most demons lack the ability to come to the Material Plane to wreak havoc on their own. They depend on the mad to call them up from the Abyss, and while they gnash their fangs and rail against the commands and strictures enforced, most demons find ways to twist their summoners' demands so that even the most tightly controlled demonic slave leaves a trace of ruin and despair in its wake. More often than not, a foolish spellcaster makes a fatal mistake in the conjuring and pays for it with blood, unwittingly releasing a terrible blight upon the world as his conjuration breaks free of his control.
The truly mad call upon demons to offer themselves, both body and soul, in the misguided belief that alliance with the demonic can buy salvation and protection when the demonic apocalypse finally comes to call. Tales of desperate kings who sought to engage demons to serve as generals for their armies or of lunatics who seek demonic sires to gift them with horrific children are common enough, yet worst are those mortals who worship the most powerful demons as gods, and who pledge their lives in support of that which would bring destruction to all. Demon SubtypeDemons are chaotic evil outsiders that call the Abyss their home. Demons possess a particular suite of traits (unless otherwise noted in a creature's entry) as summarized here.- Immunity to electricity and poison.
- Resistance to acid 10, cold 10, and fire 10.
- Summon (Sp) Demons share the ability to summon others of their kind, typically another of their type or a small number of less powerful demons.
- Telepathy.
- Except where otherwise noted, demons speak Abyssal, Celestial, and Draconic.
- A demon's natural weapons, as well as any weapon it wields, is treated as chaotic and evil for the purpose of resolving damage reduction
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