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Brevoy
Capital: New Stetven
Ruler: King-Regent Noleski Surtova
Brevoy was once two separate nations: Issia and Rostland. The two countries quarreled often until they were both taken over by Choral the Conqueror, with the help of his Red Dragons. Choral and his descendants disappeared, leaving a unhappy Rostland and Issian noble families constantly posturing for the Dragonscale Throne.- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with a touch of Westeros.
- Interspecies Adoption: The sole heir of House Garess was engaged to a daughter of house Rogarvia and went missing during the Vanishing. His father, Lord Howlan, took the unusual step of adopting Toval Golka, his dwarven ward, as his own son. Toval is the youngest son of the Golka clan-chief and also lost contact to his family when their mines collapsed.
- Uncertain Doom: A whopping three times.
- In 4699 AR, the entire ruling House Rogarvia suddenly disappeared overnight in an event known as the "Vanishing", leaving Brevoy highly unstable.
- Similarly, contact to the Golka Dwarves living underground in the Golushkin Mountains was lost when their tunnels collapsed. Magical means have so far proven unable to reveal their fate.
- After their conquest, House Rogarvia took over the fortress-city of Skywatch from the Aldori. Concurrently to the Vanishing, Skywatch sealed itself off from the world. Recently, people managed to bypass the seal, only to find the city well maintained, yet eerily empty.
Choral Rogarvia
Chaotic Evil male human (red dragon?)
- Ambiguously Human: According to historical records, Choral was a human warlord who, with the aid of two red dragon allies, unified Issia and Rostland into a new nation called Brevoy. However, recently, numerous papers were discovered documenting dragon sightings and attacks, all of which matched times when Choral was known to be present and the royal red dragons were known to be absent. They were evidence that Choral was no human but was himself a red dragon.
- Shadow Dictator: As king, Choral was a remote and terrifying figure, little seen by his people and less loved.
Mendev
Capital: Nerosyan
Ruler: Chancellor Irahai
Just as Lastwall guards against the Orcs of Belkzen, Mendev was the last line of defense against the demons of the Worldwound. Now that the Worldwound has been closed, it struggles to recover in a post-war economy.- And Then What?: A major part of Mendev's history has been dedicated to the Crusades, that once the Worldwound was ended, the nation itself became stuck in a rut as they didn't know what to do.
- Witch Hunt: The natives there were practitioners of the Green Faith and were seen as suspect by more militant crusaders thanks to superficial similarities with the faith of Sarkoris. Tensions between indigneous Mendevians and former crusaders remain.
Terendelev
Lawful Good female silver dragon
A silver dragon residing in the border city of Kenabres, aiding the crusaders in holding off the demons of the Worldwound.
- Dracolich: In Wrath of the Righteous, the demons reanimate her corpse as a ravener, adding insult to injury by keeping her soul from moving on to Heaven, preventing her from being resurrected and netting themselves a powerful undead minion in one swoop.
- Off with His Head!: In Wrath of the Righteous, Khorramzadeh kills her by beheading her with a stroke of his blade once he manages to strike her from the air.
- Sacrificial Lion: She's defeated and slain by the balor Khorramzadeh at the very beginning of Wrath of the Righteous, setting the stage for the scale of the foes that the PCs will have to face.
Numeria
Capital: Starfall
Ruler: Black Sovereign Kevoth-Kul
Formerly a nation of savage Kellid tribes, Numeria was changed forever when a Space Ship crashed on Golarion and broke apart over Numeria, an event known as the "Rain of Stars". Now it exists as a strange combination of pre-literate tribes and highly advanced alien technology.- Science Fantasy: Numeria is a land where orc barbarians wield chainsaws and spellcasters craft golems out of old robot parts.
Kevoth-Kul
Chaotic Neutral male human barbarian 15
The Black Sovereign of Numeria. Kevoth-Kul was largely a drug-addled puppet of the Technic League for most of his rule, until the League's collapse allowed him to shake himself free from his addictions. The Black Sovereign has since turned his attention to strengthening his rule and uniting his fractured nation, including efforts to bring humans and androids together under a single banner.- The Ageless: His longtime consumption of Numerian had the unexpected side-effect of turning biologically immortal — he can still die by sickness, poison or violence, but no longer ages.
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: He became king by being the most powerful of the warlords in Numeria.
- The Caligula: Downplayed during his early rule, as he wasn't evil or insane but was still a drug addict with little interest in his duties as the Black Sovereign.
- The Hedonist: As a puppet of the Technic League, Kevoth cared little about anything other than partying and doing drugs and had pretty poor impulse control in general.
- Pet the Dog: A literal example: he has a strange fondness for dogs and lets the wild dogs in the land come into his palace and feeds them.
- Puppet King: The Technic League had been manipulating him for decades.
- Really Gets Around: He has a harem in his palace with both men and women in it.
- Recovered Addict: After the Technic League collapsed, Kevoth kicked his addiction to Numerian fluids and returned to actively governing.
- Ultimate Blacksmith: Invented a skymetal alloy called sovereign steel that shares its magic resistance with noqual but is more easily used to craft magic items.
Kul-Inkit
- Immortality Seeker: Kul-Inkit is one of the few aware of Kevoth-Kul's immortality and hopes to find a way to join him as perpetual corulers of a pan-Kellid nation.
Razmiran
Capital: Thronestep
Ruler: Razmir
- The Theocracy: Razmiran is a theocracy ruled by a self-proclaimed living god. Razmiri citizens take some solace in the constant reminders that they are personally protected by a deity.
Razmir
Lawful Evil male human wizard 19
- The Faceless: Wears a white mask, which hides the fact that he is aging.
- God Guise: He is actually a quite mortal wizard. His priests know this and play along by pretending to use divine magic despite using arcane magic.
- Immortality Seeker: Under his deception, Razmir knows that his days are limited, and seeks the sun orchid elixir from Thuvia to achieve true immortality. After Razmir's winning bid on the elixir was fraudulently rejected (at least in his own mind), rumour has it that he has sent agents to Thuvia to either steal the recipe or perhaps even kidnap Artokus Kirran.
- Scam Religion: Razmir is not, in fact, a god — his religion is a cult of personality, and his priests are wizards in on the scam using magic items and arcane magic to pretend they receive divine magic.
- Shadow Dictator: Few have seen the living god, but Razmir's presence in his kingdom is inescapable.
River Kingdoms
A loose collection of independent kingdoms on the Sellen river delta.
- Everyone Has Standards: The River Kingdoms have a tradition of six legal principles called the River Freedoms
, by which every warlord and petty king in the region abides lest their subjects dispose of them. Loosely summed up they are: freedom of expression, oathkeeping, freedom of travel, national self-determination, opposition to slavery, and the right to self-defense. - Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: The River Kingdoms may be lawless and amoral on the whole, but they don't tolerate slavery. For this reason the River Kingdoms traditionally forbid Hellknights of the Chain from holding office, but hold Andoren Eagle Knights in high regard.
Darukarex
Lawful Evil male variant contract devil
A contract devil who appears in the graveyard of the ruined town Nystra every year.- Deal with the Devil: As a contract devil, it's his whole shtick. Specifically he made one with a druid for revenge on the merchants of Nystra after they killed his family, granting the grieving man the power to imbue his natural allies with infernal power. The deal also stipulated that Darukarex would return every year on the midnight of the vernal equinox, where the druid hoped to renegotiate their terms. While he didn't live long enough to do so, others heard the stories and flock to the site every year in hopes of making a deal of their own.
Sarkoris Scar
Formerly the Worldwound, formerly Sarkoris. The Kellid realm of Sarkoris was destroyed in in 4606 AR by the opening of the Worldwound, which saw hordes of demons and worse overrun it until stopped — barely — by a series of crusades. In 4718 AR, the Worldwound was closed when the Fifth Mendevian Crusade succeeded in slaying its architect, the demon lord Deskari, leaving behind a land that, while still scarred, ruined, and crawling with surviving demons and mutated beasts, is at least no longer being actively overrun by armies of demons pouring from a tear in reality.
- Death World: The Worldwound was saturated with the energy of the Abyss and infested with demons and undead. Parasites and plague infect all potential food, rain smells like rotting meat and snow falls red, and any surviving creatures carry a fiendish taint. Even after the Worldwound was closed at the end of the Wrath of the Righteous AP, the area that became the Sarkoris Scar has enough remnants left that prevent many from attempting to resettle the area.
- Druid: Druids were at the center of Sarkoris's culture and were generally the most educated Sarkorians. The fact that just about any writings on the nature of their gods and magic in general by Sarkorians would be in a language known only to a small privileged class was part of what led to Sarkoris's demise.
- Expy: As with all Kellid cultures, Sarkoris draws inspiration from series about Barbarian Heroes like Conan, although it's a little more complex than that. The Black Stone, a Mythos story about a monolith created by a nameless cult of pagan nomads in the mountains of Hungary by Robert E. Howard has been cited as a major inspiration.
- Hell Gate: The Worldwound was a tear in reality that opened straight to the middle of the Abyss.
- The Remnant: Even after the Worldwound was closed, the Sarkoris Scar remains a wrecked, post-apocalyptic ruin, filled with demons who are now stranded there, away from their home in the Abyss. A number of the remaining Sarkorians decided not to try and resettle there due to the danger presented by the remaining damage.
- Summon Magic: Sarkorian summoners, known as god callers, are the embodiment of its culture's belief that power came from the gods and that a god could be anything. Their eidolons were worshipped as gods, and in the intervening centuries since its collapse some have survived.
- Unequal Rites: Sarkorians distrust wizards, but not for the usual reasons. The Sarkorians believe magic itself was divine and came from an external source, so wizards being able to use magic without any aid was seen as suspicious, and the lack of literacy of Sarkoris as a whole did not help.
Areelu Vorlesh
Chaotic Evil half-succubus human witch 10/demoniac 10/archmage 8
Once a prisoner of Sarkoris's Threshold for her use of arcane magic, she betrayed two of her fellows during an escape attempt and aided Deskari in tearing open the Worldwound. Today she's one of the most powerful beings in the region and holds favor with Deskari highly envied by her rivals.
- Create Your Own Villain: Areelu began life as a fairly run-of-the-mill arcane magic-user. She went into the service of demons and became the architect of the Worldwound chiefly as a result of Sarkoris' intense persecution of wizards and sorcerers, which saw her imprisoned in a Hellhole Prison for the crime of using magic, where she stewed in her growing hatred for Sarkoris until she broke free.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: From a prisoner in Sarkoris to one of the strongest spellcasters in the world and directly responsible for the single greatest threat to Golarion before it was closed.
- Mouth of Sauron: Areelu served as Deskari's voice in the Worldwound, an honor envied by other demon leaders.
- Orcus on His Throne: She doesn't get involved with the war efforts of the demons, focusing instead on her own hidden goals in service to Deskari.
Minagho
Chaotic Evil female lilitu rogue 6
A lilitu demon who controls the town of Ralsicrad in Riftshadow, notable for being the only town in the region to be so ruled.
- The Corrupter: Her town serves as the main rallying point for newly corrupted crusaders.
Yealek-Vor
Chaotic Evil male kalavakus cleric of Shivaska 10
A kalavakus cleric of Shivaska assigned the unenviable task of increasing the Chained Maiden’s cult on Golarion. He dwells in a dwarven sky citadel called Jormurdun in Frostmire.
- Cult: He converted the duergar dwelling in the citadel to the faith of Shivaska, a worship they took to avidly under his merciless gaze.
- Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Yealek-Vor isn't a particularly powerful demon compared to most demon leaders at the Worldwound, but because so little attention is paid to Frostmire he's at the top of the foodchain.
- Psycho for Hire: He served as a mercenary in Deskari's army before claiming Jormurdun for himself.
- Religious Bruiser: He doesn't just follow Shivaska, he's dedicated enough to her worship to become a cleric. The brusier part comes from the fact that he's still a CR 10 demon even without the class levels.
Enivuni
Chaotic Evil female fungus queen cleric of Cyth-V’sug 11
One of the first fungus queens and a cleric of Cyth-V'sug. Her domain is the Frostmire Fen in Frostmire.
- Monster Lord: She rules a sizable convocation of fungus queens.
- The Starscream: Like most demoninc creatures, she schemes to put herself on top. In her case, she plans to infect the entirety of the Worldwound and bring all demons in the area under her thrall.
Glungur
Chaotic Evil male marsh giant cleric of Kostchtchie 9
The leader of a tribe of marsh giants that inhabits Dyinglight, once the largest town in Frostmire.
- Hybrid Monster: He's a fiendish creature due to the effect of years of Abyssal energies on his ancestors.
- You Kill It, You Bought It: His ancestors killed a group of frost giants in service to Kostchtchie, only for the leader of the slain giants to rise again and inform them that they now bore the burden of spreading the demon lord's word.
The Tarnshiavs
Once a powerful and affluent family, the Tarnishiavs led a group of people to take shelter at the Shadow Spring sinkhole in Frostmire, refusing to evacuate and hoping to escape the notice of the demons. While they managed to escape destruction, years of inbreeding and Abyssal influence have taken their toll.- Hillbilly Horrors: They have a lot of the traits, all while marinating a crumbling imitation of the aristocracy they once were.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Their menu includes their own dead members and captured prisoners, though they don't depend entirely on it for food.
- Typhoid Mary: They're all carriers of demonplague, though they're immune to the effects themselves.
- Villainous Incest: Their gene pool isn't particularly broad.
Ghalcor
A cleric of Iomadae who set out to create a powerful weapon against demons.- Gone Horribly Right: The safeguards he set in place to ensure his weapon couldn't be used by demons worked too well. When they came for him and his men its complex failsafes prevented them from using it to save themselves. In the present day, the web of misdirection and deception he put in place to protect its location and function have prevented others from finding and retrieving it, as no one even knows what kind of weapon it is.
- Posthumous Character: He died during the second incursion.
Fiendsplitter
Lawful Good +1 demon-bane battleaxe
A battleaxe forged from the combined fury of an Ulfen village slaughtered by demons.
- Living Weapon: A magical axe with a grudge against demons.
- Tomato in the Mirror: It was forged by a blacksmith called Njali Janisdottir who woke as the sole survivor in the ruins of her village. She set about making a weapon to seek vengeance, during which the other villagers would enter the forge to briefly touch the weapon before departing. She realized they were nothing but spirits imparting their righteous anger, but it was only when the weapon was complete that she realized she was as well.
- True Sight: Not a visible version, but it automatically knows if demons are nearby regardless of their disguise.
- Voice of the Legion: It speaks in a chorus, though the voices typically don't do more than whisper or yell.
Alunelsheas and Caedaynenlo
A pair of mythic unicorns that lead the remnants of what was once the largest herd of unicorns in the world. They live in Frostmire in the ruined forest known as Shroud of Unicorns.- Uncertain Doom: Neither of them has been seen for some time, leading to concerns that they're dead or corrupted.
