Archives of Nethys

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Source Bestiary 2 pg. 62
Harbingers of ruin and embodiments of the worst ways to die, daemons epitomize painful death, the all-consuming hunger of evil, and the utter annihilation of life. While demons seek to pervert and destroy in endless unholy rampages, and devils vex and enslave in hopes of corrupting mortals, daemons seek only to consume mortal life itself. While some use brute force to despoil life or prey upon vulnerable souls, others wage campaigns of deceit to draw whole realms into ruin. With each life claimed and each atrocity meted out, daemons spread fear, mistrust, and despair, tarnishing the luster of existence and drawing the planes ever closer to their final, ultimate ruin.

Notorious for their hatred of the living, daemons are the things of dark dreams and fearful tales, as their ultimate ambitions include extinguishing every individual mortal life—and the more violent or terrible the end, the better. Their methods vary wildly, typically differentiated by daemonic breed. Many seek to infiltrate the mortal plane and sow death by their own taloned hands, while others manipulate agents (both mortal and immortal) as malevolent puppet masters, instigating calamities on massive scales from their grim realms. Such diversity of methods causes many planar scholars to misattribute the machinations of daemons to other types of fiends. These often deadly mistakes are further propagated by daemons' frequent dealings with and manipulation of other outsiders. Yet in all cases, despair, ruin, and death, spreading like contagion, typify the touch of daemonkind, though such symptoms often prove recognizable only after the hour is far too late.

Daemons flourish upon the plane of Abaddon, a bleak expanse of cold mists, fearful shapes, and hunted souls. Upon these wastes, the souls of evil mortals flee predation by the native fiends, and terror and the powers of the evil plane eventually transform the most ruthless into daemons themselves. Amid these scarred wastelands, poison swamps, and realms of endless night rise the foul domains of the tyrants of daemonkind, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Lords of devastation, these powerful and unique daemons desire slaughter, ruin, and death on a cosmic scale, and drive hordes of their lesser kin to spread terror and sorrow across the planes. Although the Horsemen share a singular goal, their tactics and ambitions vary widely.

Along with mastery over vast realms, the Horsemen are served by unimaginably enormous armies of their lesser brethren, but are obeyed most closely by retinues of daemons enslaved to their titles. These specific strains of daemonic servitors, known among daemonkind as deacons, serve whoever holds the title of Horseman. Although these instruments of the archdaemons differ in strength and ability, their numbers provide their lords with legions capable of near-equal terrorization.

More so than among any other fiendish race, several breeds of daemons lust after souls. While other foul inhabitants of the planes seek the corruption and destruction of living essences, many daemons value possession and control over mortal animas, entrapping and hoarding souls—and in so doing disrupting the natural progression of life and perverting the quintessence of creation to serve their own terrible whims. While not all daemons possess the ability to steal a mortal being's soul and turn it to their use, the lowliest of daemonkind, the maniacal cacodaemons, endlessly seek life essences to consume and imprison. These base daemons enthusiastically serve their more powerful kin, eager for increased opportunities to doom mortal spirits. While cacodaemons place little value upon the souls they imprison, greater daemons eagerly gather them as trophies, fuel for terrible rites, or offerings to curry the favor of their lords. Several breeds of daemons also posses their own notorious abilities to capture mortal spirits or draw upon the power of souls, turning the forces of utter annihilation to their own sinister ends.

The Four Horsemen

Four dread lords, infamous across all the planes, rule the disparate hordes of daemonkind. Risen from among the ranks of their terrible brethren to displace those fiendish tyrants before them, they are the archdaemons, the End Bringers, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. In the blasphemous annals of fiendish lore, they are the prophesied architects of multiversal ruin, destined to stand triumphant over cadaverous cosmoses and infinities of silence before also giving way to absolute oblivion. Undisputed in his power among their kind, each Horseman rules a vast realm upon the bleak plains of Abaddon and a distinctive method of mortal ruin: pestilence, famine, war, or death from old age. Yet while each archdaemon commands measureless influence, daemons know nothing of loyalty and serve only those they cannot overcome. Thus, though the Horsemen stand peerless in their power and manipulations among daemonkind, they must ever defend their thrones from the machinations of ambitious underlings and the plots of other archdaemons.

Upon the poisonous expanses of Abaddon, lesser daemonic peers carve petty fiefdoms and posture as lords, but despite their world-spanning intrigues, all bow before the Horsemen—though most do so only grudgingly. Ancient myths also tell of a mysterious fifth Horseman, the Oinodaemon, though nearly all mention of such a creature has been scoured from the multiverse.

Creatures in "Daemon" Category


Daemon, Genthodaemon

Jagged bits of metal, armor, and sharp pieces of wire embed the flesh of this towering fiend.

Genthodaemon CR 5

Source Pathfinder #71: Rasputin Must Die! pg. 86
XP 1,600
NE Large outsider (daemon, evil, extraplanar)
Aura destruction (30 ft.)


hp 51 (6d10+18)
Fort +8, Ref +5, Will +3
Defensive Abilities barbed defense; DR 5/good or silver; Immune acid, death effects, disease, poison; Resist cold 10, electricity 10, fire 10


Speed 30 ft., fly 30 ft. (average)
Melee bite +10 (1d8+4), 2 claws +10 (1d6+4 plus bleed 1d4), tail slap +4 (1d8+2 plus bleed 1d4)
Ranged 4 shrapnel +5 (1d6+4/19–20)
Space 10 ft., Reach 10 ft.
Special Attacks penetrating slivers, trample (1d6+6 plus bleed 1d4, DC 17)
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 6th; concentration +8)
Constant—detect good
At will—cause fear (DC 13), lesser confusion (DC 13), message, obscuring mist
1/day—crushing despair (DC 16), dispel magic, meld into stone, move earth


Str 18, Dex 11, Con 16, Int 11, Wis 12, Cha 15
Base Atk +6; CMB +11; CMD 21
Feats Power Attack, Weapon Focus (bite), Weapon Focus (claws)
Skills Fly +7, Intimidate +11, Knowledge (engineering) +9, Knowledge (planes) +9, Perception +10, Stealth +5
Languages Abyssal, Draconic, Infernal; telepathy 100 ft.


Environment any (Abaddon)
Organization solitary or squad (2–18)
Treasure standard

Special Abilities

Aura of Destruction (Su) A genthodaemon can create an aura of pure carnage. All critical threats made against targets within the aura (including the genthodaemon) are automatically confirmed. Dying creatures within the aura take a –10 penalty on stabilization checks. The genthodaemon can activate or suppress this aura as a free action.

Barbed Defense (Su) A creature that strikes a genthodaemon with a melee weapon, an unarmed strike, or a natural weapon takes 1d4+4 points of piercing damage from the barbed wire and other pieces of jagged metal embedded in the genthodaemon’s body. Melee weapons with reach do not endanger their users in this way.

Penetrating Slivers (Ex) When a genthodaemon confirms a critical hit with a claw attack, pieces of its metal nails break off and enter the target’s body, working their way toward its heart. When the slivers reach the heart 1d3 rounds later, the creature takes 1d6 points of Constitution damage. The slivers are destroyed by anything that removes curses, diseases, or death effects. Likewise, creatures immune to curses, diseases, and death effects are immune to this ability.

Shrapnel (Ex) A genthodaemon can shake loose four large pieces of the shrapnel embedded in its body as a standard action (make a separate attack roll for each piece). This attack has a range of 180 feet with no range increment. All targets of this attack must be within 30 feet of each other. The daemon can launch at most 24 pieces of shrapnel in any 24-hour period.


Genthodaemons are common troops of daemonic armies, resolutely obedient to any greater type of daemon that gives them orders. They personify death in hopeless or futile wars, genocide, and the despair created by long, bloody stalemates where the combatants lose their will to live and forget why they were fighting in the first place. They have almost no role in corrupting mortals, as they are devoid of interest in the fates of most other creatures, but are sometimes called by daemonologists or greater daemons for use in war or their ability to shape battlefields. Any daemon that can summon a ceustodaemon can instead use its summon ability to summon a genthodaemon.

A genthodaemon looks like a stereotypical fiend— basically humanoid, but with claws, a tail, batlike wings, and cloven hooves. Metal armored plates, barbs, and spikes cover its body, though these are part of the daemon rather than armor it wears. Its claws are jagged metal shards sprouting from its fingers where nails should be.

Genthodaemons are only slightly above cacodaemons and lacridaemons in the hierarchy of Abaddon. A greater daemon may create a genthodaemon from a cacodaemon or one of the hunted (a dead soul trying to survive on Abaddon); however, most arise naturally from war-battered souls who band together as hunted, transforming into true daemons simultaneously when the group has cannibalized enough souls. Genthodaemons show unusual loyalty to others in their band, though this doesn’t interfere with their obligations to more powerful daemons.

A typical genthodaemon stands over 9 feet tall and weighs 500 to 600 pounds (with much of this weight stemming from the daemon’s embedded metal).


Souls that become genthodaemons usually come from worlds where war technology has advanced to allow production of large amounts of metal armor and weapons—particularly worlds where firearms have been invented. When battle grows so such a scope that the enemy becomes a faceless tide, or killing becomes casual and easy at long range, the act of waging war becomes completely dehumanized and soldiers become mere pieces in a perpetual machine. In such grim instances and the seeds are planted to send soldiers’ souls to Abaddon.

These ties to the craft of war stain the dead soul and the daemon created from it, manifesting as armor plates fused with daemonic flesh, pieces of weapons embedded in its bones, or even remnants of siege engines or barbed wire sprouting from or wrapped around the daemon’s body. These elements are part of the daemon, not mere decorations, but any mechanical pieces merely resemble functional items and no longer work (for example, a daemon with a crossbow or rif le embedded in its arm cannot shoot it). Genthodaemons from the same band often resemble each other, including the shape of their metal parts, sometimes because their mortal selves were even in the same army and uniform.

Though genthodaemons serve in the armies of all four Horsemen, they are most strongly associated with Szuriel, the Horseman of War. Her military background, strong discipline, and focus on the brutality of war resonates with the core of a genthodaemon’s being. Those who (as mortals) were involved in acts of genocide have a morbid fascination with obscisidaemons and tend to follow them. Though genthodaemons were not the instigators of genocide in their mortal lives (which could have granted them higher status on Abaddon), those who participated in such acts feel a fawning admiration for the greater daemons who orchestrated such atrocities.

Like other daemons, genthodaemons hate all living things—and to an extent, themselves—and look forward to the death of the last mortal, for on that day they will have no other reminders of their bleak mortal lives and can focus all their hate inward.

Habitat & Society

Genthodaemons patrol the fortresses, cities, ruins, and wastelands of Abaddon looking for invaders, hostile non-daemons, and gangs of the hunted. Because they usually travel in groups, they are rarely preyed upon by other creatures and only have to face death when deployed as part of a Horseman’s army. They are of low status but fulfill a necessary role as soldiers of Abaddon. Greater daemons treat them with the formal respect due their relative difference in rank, much like how a general might treat a common soldier. However, in the wars against mortal life, the Horsemen understand the value of suicidal missions and brazen sacrifice, and are not above sending countless genthodaemons to permanent destruction if it advances the cause of Abaddon. The genthodaemons accept this as their lot and never complain, as protests require effort, will, and the belief that there is a possibility of change—three things these shell-shocked creatures lost long ago.

On the Material Plane, genthodaemons sometimes serve daemonic cults that are unworthy of a greater daemon’s attention or lacking the power to summon a more powerful creature. As their magic is suitable for war and destruction, they have limited use to mortal cultists not intent on violence.