Main Deities, Tian Xia Deities, Racial and Cultural Pantheons, Outer Gods, Empyreal Lords, Fiendish Divinities, Great Old Ones, Other Gods
Entities equivalent to demigods among the worship of the gods of the Dark Tapestry.
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Great Old Ones
In General
- Eldritch Abomination: Most of them were lifted directly from Lovecraft's works.
- Immortality: The exact nature of it varies between individuals, but none of them can truly die. Part of this is because they're older than Pharasma, and thus death itself.
- Lord British Postulate: Several of the Great Old Ones have stats and can be killed, albeit with extreme difficulty. Being what they are though, they don’t stay dead.
- Public Domain Character: Most of them except Mhar, Orgesh and Xhamen-Dor predated Paizo and Pathfinder by decades, having been originally created by H. P. Lovecraft or associated writers.
- Physical God: The Great Old Ones, though powerful, are physical beings.
- Time Abyss: Technically younger than the outer gods, but still older than the concept of death.
Atlach-Nacha
The Void Weaver
Great Old One of construction, futility, and spiders
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Atlach-Nacha dwells within a cavern large enough to hold continents, perpetually working to connect the two sides with an mindbogglingly complex web. It resembled a titanic spider with a human face.
Its stats can be found in Strange Aeons: The Whisper out of Time
- Ambiguous Gender: Played with. It’s referred to as female and male, depending on the source, but in truth it has no gender at all.
- Animalistic Abomination: An Eldritch Abomination in the shape of a spider.
- Giant Spider: Its general form.
- In a Single Bound: It's frighteningly good at jumping.
- Mythology Gag: According to the In Search of Sanity adventure, which introduced Atlach-Nacha to Pathfinder, he is portrayed as male in some tales but as female in others. This is a reference to how Clark Ashton Smith, its creator, introduced it as male but later writers referred to it as female.
- No Biological Sex: Gender is only an afterthought to a being like Atlach-Nacha.
- Public Domain Character: It's from the same story as Abhoth.
- Resurrective Immortality: It transforms into a swarm of spiders upon being killed, which consume each other twenty-four hours later, with the final spider becoming Atlach-Nacha. If all the spiders are killed, which can only be done by allowing them to devour an artifact of good, it is instead reborn from one of countless eggs hidden across countless worlds.
Bokrug
The Water Lizard
Great Old One of revenge, storms, and water
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
A titanic reptilian creature that spends most of his time slumbering at the bottom of a lake within the Dimension of Dreams, Bokrug is occasionally roused into devastating fury.
His stats can be found in Bestiary 4.
- Animalistic Abomination: Physically he could pass for some colossal lizard.
- Beware My Stinger Tail: His tail ends in a venomous stinger.
- Breath Weapon: His exhalations are toxic gas that causes hallucinations and madness.
- Combat Tentacles: He has a “beard” of tentacles that he can use to grab and crush foes.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: In Dreams of the Yellow King, he appears in person and attack the PCs (who will only be level 10-12 at the time). Thankfully, they are in the Dreamlands, so they can just wake up if they make a check, and even if they die, they just wake up with a negative level.
- Human Sacrifice: Although he does not demand the sacrifice of sentient creatures, many of his cults have nonetheless taken to sacrificing prisoners or criminals.
- Nightmare Sequence: If you ever hurt Bokrug or kill one of his clerics, you’ll get a lovely dream of being consumed by him and remaining alive, aware, and suffering as he digests you while killing everyone you love and destroying everything you care about.
- No Body Left Behind: His body melts into water and evaporates when killed.
- Pet the Dog: Unlike most of the Great Old Ones, he rarely bothers people who don't first try to harm him or his worshippers.
- Public Domain Character: He’s from the Lovecraft story The Doom That Came to Sarnath.
- Resurrective Immortality: If killed, he simply reforms back at the bottom of his lake.
- Taking You with Me: If killed, his death throes cause him to thrash and attack before he finally expires, allowing him a few more chances to kill those who struck him down.
- Weather Manipulation: Powerful storms often visit the lands Bokrug dwells within.
Chaugnar Faugn
The Horror from the Hills
Great Old One of blood, patience, and remote hill country
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
A being resembling an elephant headed humanoid with bat-like wings for ears and a lamprey-like mouth for a trunk, he has waited untold eons in a cave in a desolate area of hills for some unknown sign to signal his wait to end.
- Animalistic Abomination: Elephant-like, in this case.
- Lamprey Mouth: One on a tentacle that superficially resembles an elephant’s trunk.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: This creature looks like a humanoid elephant with a trunk ending in a Lamprey Mouth.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Worship does nothing to deter his hunger; he feeds on zealots and unbelievers with equal disdain.
- Our Vampires Are Different: He sucks the blood of his victims, but he’s something much different than a vampire.
Cthulhu
The Dreamer in the Deep
Great Old One of cataclysms, dreams, and the stars
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Yes, that Cthulhu. A being resembling a dragon winged humanoid with a cephalopodian head imprisoned in a sunken city on a distant world.
His stats can be found in Beastiary 4.
- Combat Tentacles: He has a face full of them.
- Cthulhumanoid: As to be expected.
- Public Domain Character:
- Resurrective Immortality: If killed he dissolves into mist and reforms… exactly where he was when he was killed. If he’s killed again within a minute (or 120 seconds, or 6 seconds depending on chance and how screwed you are) he reforms in R’lyeh instead and is once more imprisoned.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: He’s imprisoned in R’lyeh, a city which is itself sunken deep beneath the Pacific Ocean on Earth, distant from Golarion.
- Telepathy: He is capable of reaching out to touch dreaming minds across the universe.
- Winged Humanoid: He has wings and could be considered humanoid.
Ghatanothoa
The Eternal Source
Great Old One of disasters, lost islands, and sacrifice
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Imprisoned on an island on a distant world, this monstrosity holds no fixed form.
Its stats can be found in Strange Aeons: Black Stars Beckon.
- Brown Note: Ghatanothoa’s form is said to be particularly horrific, and the merest glance is enough to transform the foolish viewer instantly into a desiccated, living mummy.
- Fate Worse than Death: Looking at Ghatanothoa will make the viewer still capable of observing the world and feeling the endless passage of time, but incapable of moving or otherwise interacting with the world. This form of immortality is said to be among the most horrific fates a mortal mind could endure.
- Nightmare Sequence: If you’ve every prayed to it or been hurt in a natural disaster, it can send a nightmare of a horrific apocalypse.
- Public Domain Character: It’s from ''Out of the Aeons’’ by Lovecraft and Hazel Heald.
- Resurrective Immortality: If killed, its remains compress and mummify before exploding one minute later. It is then reborn from one of its hidden cysts somewhere in its island prison. Destroying the remains before they explode does nothing to stop this process, but does cause Gatanothoa to become dormant.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: It’s trapped on an island on a distant world.
- Unknown Rival: Ghatanothoa cultists deny that their god is Cthulhu's son and fight against the cult of Cthulhu when they encounter it. Cthulhu’s cult, on the other hand, treats Ghatanothoa's cult as insignificant and not worthy of notice.
Hastur
The King in Yellow
Great Old One of decadence, disorder, and nihilism
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Imprisoned on a distant world known as Carcosa, Hastur may form an avatar known as the King in Yellow on any world touched by light from the star of his prison world. Such a feat requires great magic, but not the conscious intent of the one who brings it about.
His stats can be found in Beastiary 4.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: His endgame is to ascend into a full-blown Outer God.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: He can grant any creature one wish, but the results always manage to serve his agenda.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Of the Strange Aeons adventure path; he isn't directly involved with most of the plot but the majority of the villains are working for him.
- The Hedonist: His worship often involves this mindset.
- Humanoid Abomination: His avatar, the King in Yellow, looks unusually humanoid.
- In the Hood: He wears hooded robes that obscure his face.
- Manipulative Bastard: His cultists are masters of subtle magics that can trick unsuspecting victims into opening the way for the King in Yellow.
- Nightmare Sequence: Anyone who sees the Yellow Sign has dreams full of decadence and shame, all tinted a nauseating yellow.
- No Face Under the Mask: Hastur's avatar appears clad in what seem to be frayed and tattered yellow robes. Only upon closer inspection are the robes revealed to be the creature's flesh.
- Public Domain Character: The King in Yellow originally came from Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow, while the name Hastur originated from Ambrose Bierce's Haïta the Shepherd.
- Resurrective Immortality: If killed his robes drop empty to the ground. Any who don these garments are destroyed and Hastur is reborn in their place. If no one puts them on they fade away after 24 hours and Hastur is denied physical form until specific conditions are met.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: He’s imprisoned in the city of Carcosa on a far away world, though he has plenty of ways to manipulate mortals even while imprisoned.
- The Spook: He’s the most mysterious of the Great Old Ones.
Ithaqua
The Wind-Walker
Great Old One of cannibalism, cold, and the wind
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
A gaunt giant who wanders the north poles of every world.
His stats can be found in Strange Aeons: In Search of Sanity.
- Alien Abduction: He’ll sometimes snatch people and take them to other worlds. Of course, being what he is, that just means they die in another world’s artic circle.
- Blow You Away: He has a number of wind based powers.
- Evil Is Deathly Cold: A Great Old One who rules over the cold northern reaches.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: Those who encounter him and live often only remember his glowing eyes.
- Grim Up North: He basically embodies this, haunting the arctic regions of not just Golarion, but every world.
- Humanoid Abomination: He appears humanoid in form.
- Human Sacrifice: Sacrifices to Ithaqua are traditionally performed by leaving a body draped in the highest possible boughs of a pine tree.
- I'm a Humanitarian: He embodies cannibalism and the practice runs rampant before and after his visits.
- Lean and Mean: He’s gaunt to the point that if he needed food, he’d probably have starved to death.
- Make Me Wanna Shout: His howl terrifies those who hear it and can reduce them to cowering in terror at close range. Even being immune to fear won’t protect you from its effects.
- Public Domain Character: He’s from August Derleth’s The Thing That Walked on The Wind.
- Resurrective Immortality: If killed he is reborn one year later at the north pole of a random world, though he can’t return to the world where he was killed for another decade or until someone lets him in.
- Was Once a Man: Some people abducted by Ithaqua are transformed into a wendigo and lose all memories of a previous life.
- Weaksauce Weakness: He doesn’t do to well outside of the artic or on planets without a magnetic north.
- Weather Manipulation: He can change the weather at will, usually calling up blizzards or shutting down attempts by others to calm the storms.
- Wendigo: He can turn people into these.
Mhar
The World Thunder
Great Old One of caverns, mountains, and volcanoes
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
A titanic being that attempted to enter Golarion by burrowing from Leng through the crust of the world. The attempt failed, leaving Mhar trapped halfway between planes. The mountain where it nearly emerged was named Mhar Massif and its petrified face reshaped to mask its presence.
- Always a Bigger Fish: In the non-canonical Bad Ending of Rise of the Runelords, where the PCs fail to prevent Karzoug from returning to the Material Plane and do not sabotage the Leng Device in time, the Runelord's entrance into the world completes an arcane ritual that allows Mhar to be born aeons ahead of schedule. Its cataclysmic birth annihilates Xin-Shalast — Karzoug himself survives, but all his followers there perish and he is forced to flee. The side-effects of Mhar's birth alone are cataclysmic enough to completely overshadow the threat of a reborn Thassilon, and the scenario explicitly mentions that the PCs and Karzoug may be forced to ally with each other to face the reborn Great Old One.
- And I Must Scream: In its natural form, Mhar is composed entirely of molten rock. Its most commonly depicted, mountainous appearance is the result of its lava cooling and solidifying in response to less-than-infernal temperatures, a process that causes Mhar agonizing pain. It tries to alleviate its suffering by sleeping within planetary cores, but these inevitably cool and reawaken it to its pain. Its current residence on Golarion is the result of a failed attempt to escape into the Plane of Fire, which left it trapped within Golarion's crust. As a result, Mhar has spent the last several thousand years trapped in a prison it cannot escape, being driven ever more insane by the agony of its solidified state.
- Back from the Dead: Mhar technically died when Sarenrae cut open Golarion's crust to create Rovagug's prison. This allowed it to escape from its pain for a while, but the near-impossibility of killing a Great Old One meant that it eventually reformed some time later.
- Beast with a Human Face: Not intentionally, but Thassilonian mages would reshape its visage to resemble the current runelord of greed, whose capital resided on Mhar Massif. Since the fall of Thassilon, that face has been of Karzoug, the final person to hold that office.
- Egopolis: Mhar is said to dwell deep under the tallest mountain in the Inner Sea region, a peak in the Kodar Mountains known as Mhar Massif.
- Elemental Embodiment: In a certain sense, Mhar is magma elemental of absolutely titanic proportions, having been created by the mingling of the influences of the Planes of Earth and Fire eons in the past.
- Fetus Terrible: Mhar's birth failed and it was stillborn, slumbering for uncounted ages. Mhar’s cult believes not that their god failed to be born, but rather that its gestation is merely one measured in eons.
- Foreshadowing: Mhar was first mentioned in Rise of the Runelords: Spires of Xin-Shalast with some vague mention of it being a Lovecraftian entity. It wasn’t until later that it was confirmed to be a Great Old One with a more fleshed out history.
- Genius Loci: In images created by its cult, the Great Old One is generally depicted as a volcano-shaped leviathan.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Perhaps. Some theorize that it's trapped as it is until some cosmic alignment or occult ritual free it. Other think it's not trapped at all, but its "gestation" is simply so long the short lived beings who observe it fail to consider it by the lifespan of Mhar itself.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Mhar is a living cataclysm of planetary proportions — its past residences within young worlds inevitably resulted in their destruction once it awakened, and its current plan to enter the Plane of Fire will destroy Golarion should it ever come to pass. However, everything it does is motivated by the fact that its nature as a being of elemental fire means that it cannot bear to ever cool enough for its molten body to solidify — as a result, Mhar has spent the vast majority of its long, long life in indescribable agony, and will do anything to escape its pain. Its current plan is to escape into the Plane of Fire and all-pervading rock-shattering heat, and it's long past caring about the side effects of creating a planar rift large enough to accommodate its vast form.
Mordiggian
The Charnel God
Great Old One of darkness, ghouls, and the voices of the dead
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
One of the oldest Great Old Ones, Mordiggan is a living shadow, though he often takes the form of an enormous worm.
His stats can be found in Strange Aeons: The Thrushmoor Terror.
- Adaptational Villainy: In "The Charnel God", the story he's taken from for the game, Mordiggian is depicted as a scary and creepy but fair and non-malicious deity. Here his alignment is
Chaotic Evil. - Blob Monster: Mordiggian is a living cloud of darkness, capable of changing all or portions of his form to serve his needs.
- Casting a Shadow: He can absorb all light around him.
- Combat Tentacles: His main form of attack.
- Malevolent Masked Men: Priests of Mordiggian wear heavy cloaks and silver masks to hide their shapes.
- Nightmare Sequence: If you've ever taken negative energy damage in one of his temples or have been raised from the dead by one of his followers, you have a nightmare of spending hundreds of years trapped in a coffin or sarcophagus in total darkness.
- Our Ghouls Are Creepier: Mordiggian's primary followers in the modern era are humans who venerate him as a death god, yet to the untrained eye, these people are little more than ghouls themselves.
- Public Domain Character: He's from Clark Ashton Smith's "The Charnel God".
- Resurrective Immortality: If killed he becomes a shapeless shadow that seeks out and possesses an undead creature, bursting forth as Mordiggan 24 hours later. If it can't find a suitable host or is trapped by light, the shadow fades and Mordiggan is reborn on some distant world at a random point in time, whether the past, present, or future.
- Time Master: He has a habit of moving back and forth through time, making the matter of his age largely academic.
- To Serve Man: Priests of Mordiggian collect the bodies of the dead and offer them to their god as food.
Orgesh
The Faceless God
Great Old One of alchemy, hunger, and subterranean waterways
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Firstborn from the Black Blood deep within Orv, Orgesh is primarily venerated by the charda.
- The Blank: Very nearly. It still has a mouth, but it’s otherwise close enough to earn the appellation The Faceless God.
- Cannibalism Superpower: Some believe that by consuming the flesh and bones of a fellow devotee of the Faceless God, one can take in that devotee’s faith.
- Eyeless Face: Orgesh's only facial feature is its mouth.
- Fetus Terrible: In charda mythology, Orgesh ate its way out of its mother's womb.
- The Ghost: None alive have seen Orgesh, leaving only statues to describe its appearance. Strangely enough, these statues are impervious to erosion and thus fairly accurate depictions.
- God Is Evil: It used to hang around the charda, which screwed them up to the point that generations of neglect from it have had a positive effect on their behavior.
- Humanoid Abomination: Statues depict Orgesh as a vaguely humanoid figure.
- Interservice Rivalry: Orgesh's followers see each other as the greatest threat.
- Monster Progenitor: It's believed that when but one worshipper remains, Orgesh will return to use this final fanatic to unleash a new race upon the vaults of Orv.
- Slasher Smile: It has a gaping mouth full of shark’s teeth.
Rhan-Tegoth
Herald of the End Times
Great Old One of hibernation, immortality, and ruin
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Rhan-Tegoth spends most of its time hibernating as a statue, though legend tells of a time where it was more active and ruled an empire on a far away world. It resembles a six legged creature with a bulbous body and three bulging eyes.
Its stats can be found in Beastiary 6.
- Cosmic Keystone: The ancient texts agree that when Rhan-Tegoth does finally wake of its own accord, the End Times shall be upon all worlds. If Rhan-Tegoth could be eradicated, this apocalypse could be forever avoided.
- Evil Is Not a Toy: Certain chants are capable of temporarily stirring Rhan-Tegoth from its eternal hibernation. Those with the temerity to rouse it are invariably devoured.
- God Needs Prayer Badly: It became a statue when its worshippers abandoned it.
- Mistaken for Granite: A lot of statues of Rhan-Tegoth exist, making it hard to tell which is the real one.
- Nightmare Sequence: Anyone who’s encountered Rhan-Tegoth (even as a statue),
- Sealed Evil in a Can: It can't escape its statue form without others performing a ritual to free it.
- Resurrective Immortality: If killed, he simply reverts to being a statue. If the statue is destroyed his consciousness transfers to another statue of his likeness, one in the past or future if necessary.
- Telepathy: Its mind can reach out and influence lesser intellects than its own.
Tawil at’Umr
Great Old One
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Unusual and unique among the Great Old Ones, Tawil at'Umr is not a being in and of itself but the shadow of Yog Sothoth.
Tsathoggua
Father of Night
Great Old One of magic, outcasts, and the underworld
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
- Animalistic Abomination: Tsathoggua appears as a semi-humanoid creature whose features mix those of a toad, a bat, and a sloth.
- Beneath the Earth: Tsathoggua dwells in the same network of vast caverns where Abhoth, Atlach-Nacha and Orgesh live.
- Faux Affably Evil: Tsathoggua has a strange, almost whimsical nature; while evil and unpredictable, at times he can appear almost benevolent in his dealings with mortals. Yet such dealings are never long-lived as Tsathoggua tires of company and eats those who just treated with him.
- Monster Progenitor: Formless spawn emerge fully formed and aware from Tsathoggua himself.
- Mood-Swinger: Tsathoggua is mercurial and will attempt to eat those he had been aiding only a moment before.
Xhamen-Dor
The Inmost Blot
Great Old One of decay, parasites, and transformation
Alignment: Neutral Evil
- Botanical Abomination: Xhamen-Dor is a fungoid mass vaguely resembling a rotting reptile corpse.
- Devour the Dragon: If Hastur successfully transforms into an Outer God, Carcosa and all who dwell there (including Xhamen-Dor, if the Inmost Blot is within the city or its sewers at this time) are consumed in the making of the newest Outer God.
- The Dragon: To Hastur. Xhamen-Dor infests worlds and absorbs them to the parasite city of Carcosa, in the process slowly accelerating Hastur's ascension to an Outer God.
- From a Single Cell: Since some ancient catastrophe or miscalculation nearly destroyed and reduced Xhamen-Dor to a single blot of fungoid sentience, it has been slowly awakening.
- Keystone Army: When the Husk of Xhamen-Dor is destroyed, all seeded undead remain animate but become listless and lose their ability to infect other creatures. Those suffering from seedborne consumption are cured immediately.
- Recurring Boss: It's fought three times in total during the Strange Aeons adventure path, as the Husk in the fifth part; the Dream and the Star Seed in the final one.
- These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know: Simply knowing about Xhamen-Dor while in its area of influence is enough to allow the Great Old One to begin corrupting mortal minds, turning them into "seeded" individuals who spread the knowledge (and infection) further until the whole world is fit for Xhamen-Dor's consumption. One heretical group of Xhamen-Dor worshippers are called the Sentinels, who pray to him solely out of fear. Otherwise, they regularly erase their own memories to keep from becoming seeded, and only retain enough knowledge to keep anyone else from being infected.
- Undead Abomination: Xhamen-Dor usually generates its physical body from the corpse of a massive creature or the scattered bones left across a battlefield. Its weakest form, the Husk of Xhamen-Dor, is classified as undead.
- The Virus: When Xhamen-Dor's corrupting knowledge infects a living host, it spreads within flesh and mind alike. In time, these seeded are transformed wholly into undead servants of the Great Old One.
Yig
Father of Serpents
Great Old One of cycles, procreation, and serpents
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
- Animalistic Abomination: Yig appears as a scaled humanoid with a serpent’s head and lashing tail, or as an immense rattlesnake with a crescent-shaped mark upon the brow.
- Arch-Enemy: Yig has long been at war with the god Ydersius for the worship of the serpentfolk.
- Fetus Terrible: When a society has displeased or failed Yig, its children are born with crippling or monstrous deformities that leave mothers dead and fathers insane.
- Snake People: He resembles a reptilian humanoid with the neck, head and tail of a serpent.
- Token Good Teammate: Well, Chaotic Neutral technically, however the book says he is by far the most benign of the Great Old Ones. That said, it also says you have would have to be pretty stupid to expect him to be nice to you.
