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Archives of Nethys

Archives of Nethys

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PFS StandardCacodaemon (Harvester Daemon)

These twisted embodiments of violence and spite are spawned from eddies of angry and warped souls amid Abaddon's mists. Cacodaemons constantly hunger for mortal souls and yearn to create suffering. As gnashing spheres of teeth, fins, and spines, they are the weakest of daemonkind, an amalgam of various petty forms of death without the strength that comes from focusing on a single cause of demise.

Recall Knowledge - Fiend (Religion): DC 15
Unspecific Lore: DC 13
Specific Lore: DC 10

Elite | Normal | Weak
Proficiency without Level

CacodaemonCreature 1

Tiny Daemon Fiend Unholy 
Source Monster Core pg. 72
Perception +6; darkvision
Languages Daemonic; telepathy 100 feet
Skills Acrobatics +8, Deception +5, Religion +6, Stealth +8
Str +0, Dex +3, Con +2, Int -1, Wis +1, Cha +2
AC 16; Fort +7, Ref +8, Will +6
HP 22; Immunities death effects; Weaknesses holy 3
Speed 5 feet, fly 40 feet
Melee [one-action] jaws +8 [+4/+0] (agile, disease, finesse, magical, reach 0 feet, unholy), Damage 1d8 piercing plus cacodaemoniaDivine Innate Spells DC 17; 4th read omens; 2nd invisibility (at will; self only); 1st fear; Cantrips (1st) detect magic
Cacodaemonia (disease) The cacodaemon can telepathically communicate with the afflicted creature at any distance on the same plane; Saving Throw DC 17 Fortitude; Stage 1 carrier (1 day); Stage 2 stupefied 1 (1 day); Stage 3 stupefied 2 (1 day)Change Shape [one-action] (concentrate, divine, polymorph)
  • Lizard Speed 20 feet; Melee jaws +8 (agile, finesse), Damage 1d8+1 piercing
  • Octopus size Small; Speed 20 feet, swim 30 feet; Skills Athletics +6; Melee tentacle +8 (finesse), Damage 1d8+1 bludgeoning plus Grab (page 359); Melee beak +8 (agile, finesse), Damage 1d6 piercing plus 2 poison
  • Scorpion size Small; Speed 30 feet; Melee pincer +8 (agile, finesse), Damage 1d6+1 bludgeoning plus Grab; Melee stinger +8 (agile, finesse), Damage 1d6+1 piercing plus 1d4 poison
Soul Lock [three-actions] (death, divine) Frequency once per day; Effect The cacodaemon ingests the soul of a sentient creature within 30 feet that died within the last minute. When they do, the cacodaemon grows a fist-sized soul gem (Hardness 2, HP 8) in their gut and can regurgitate it at any time as an Interact action. Destroying the gem frees the soul within but doesn't return the deceased creature to life. If a caster attempts to return to life a creature whose soul is trapped within a soul gem, they fail unless they succeed at a DC 30 Religion check. A success causes the soul gem to shatter so the creature is returned to life as normal for the spell.
A fiend can Interact to ingest a soul gem it is holding, condemning the soul to the fiend's home plane. The fiend gains fast healing 5 for 1 minute.

All Monsters in "Daemon"

NameLevel
Astradaemon (Void Daemon)16
Cacodaemon (Harvester Daemon)1
Leukodaemon (Pestilence Daemon)9
Venedaemon (Pact Daemon)5

Daemon

Source Monster Core pg. 72
Denizens of the bleak and terrible plane of Abaddon, daemons are shaped by and devoted to the destruction of life in all its forms. They seek the death of every mortal being by the most painful and horrible means possible, in service to the Apocalypse Riders. Each kind of daemon represents a different way to die, and their powers are nearly always aimed at spreading that particular form of death. Through the use of these powers, they seek to drag all existence down into a pit of hopelessness and despair, and to commit all souls to oblivion.

While mortals who summon daemons usually seek to use the creatures' destructive and corrupting powers for their own ends, daemons always look for ways to spread fear, doubt, and despair wherever they go. Often, daemons disguise their plots as the workings of other fiends, knowing that such confusion compounds mortals' fear and keeps those mortals from bringing the most effective weapons. As a result, learned mortals sometimes refer to daemons as “riders” after their leaders or “soul mongers” after their largest industry.

While many fiends seek to tempt mortals into lives of nihilistic evil to increase their own numbers and power on their native planes, daemons are further driven by a supernatural hunger for mortal souls and use a variety of methods—not least of which is the cacodaemons' soul gems—to entrap them. On Abaddon and in other forbidding places across the multiverse, souls are simultaneously a delicacy, a trade good, and a source of magical power, and the daemons are among the greatest gluttons, merchants, and abusers of this spiritual “resource.”

Sidebar - Additional Lore Daemonic Divinities

Numerous powerful and unique daemon demigods, known collectively as harbingers, rule over swaths of Abaddon. Above these demigods, though, are entities of even greater power—the four Apocalypse Riders. As the eons go on, the names and identities of specific Riders change. Currently, they consist of Apollyon (Rider of Pestilence), Charon (Rider of Death), Szuriel (Rider of War), and Trelmarixian (Rider of Famine). Of these, only Charon has never fallen to an upstart. Some hold that a “Fifth Rider” once ruled over the other four, while others maintain that the eternally eclipsed sun in the skies above Abaddon is all that remains of this long-dead god.

Sidebar - Related Creatures Other Daemons

As many daemons exist as there are awful ways to die. The bloody sangudaemon personifies death by blood loss, while the skeletal thanadaemon represents death from old age. The most powerful daemons are the olethrodaemons, who represent the massive deaths caused by apocalypses and the end of entire worlds.

Sidebar - Treasure and Rewards Soul Gems as Treasure

Soul gems are traded in illicit markets, a tradition celestials and psychopomps alike find vile. Soul gems' value varies, but they're generally worth an amount relative to the level of a gem's captive soul.

Sidebar - Additional Lore The Daemonic Paradox

Daemons embody a fundamental paradox—while they are incarnations of death and seek to devour all that lives, they are themselves living creatures. Some speak of a glorious end time after which reality will finally be free of the contagion that is life itself. Most daemons give no thought to this paradox.