ECOLOGY

Environment any (Abaddon)
Organization solitary, pair, or harem (3–6)
Treasure standard

Erodaemons personify death by heartbreak. These fiends pose as mortals, insert themselves into the lives of their victims, and slowly destroy them. They break apart marriages, kill children or cause them to leave their families, destroy reputations, extinguish faith, curdle family ties, and bit by bit savor the slow disintegration of their victims’ emotional well-being and consequent physical deterioration. Every tear shed, every sobbing woman, and every grieving man brings a rapturous smile to an erodaemon’s face, because when a mortal dies of heartbreak and grief, the erodaemon feasts upon the tortured soul.

The typical erodaemon stands 6 feet tall and weighs 150 pounds.

Ecology

Erodaemons possess the visage of beautiful mortals, yet tainted with obviously fiendish traits and intentions. However, rather than inspiring wars based on lust or torturing victims ceaselessly, erodaemons seek to stoke the flames of mortal woe, causing many to fall into such pits of melancholy that they ultimately perish. When a mortal succumbs to death as a way to escape the pain of living without one’s love, an erodaemon ensnares the soul and feasts upon its anguish.

Though they can appear as either a man or woman to their victims, in their true form, erodaemons are predominantly female. Erodaemons freely adopt whatever guises they deem necessary to infiltrate and ravage the lives of the mortals they hunt throughout the planes, and when not donning mortal figures, they often shift between various forms as they so desire, honing their ability to adopt each particular gender’s behavioral quirks for when it matters.

Habitat & Society

Erodaemons know many traditions of different societies due to their intrusions into urban areas on other planes. Erodaemons practice their forms of seduction primarily upon the hunted, who may still have such base desires as intimacy and love. Erodaemons are rarely trusted by other daemons, who have no hearts to break but can be tricked all the same into thinking a supposed ally or leader has turned its back on them.

While infiltrating other planes, erodaemons prefer to hunt alone most of the time. Selecting a particularly susceptible victim—such as one whose heart already throbs for another—an erodaemon will assume the guise of its target’s lover and make the victim believe his or her partner is unfaithful, abusive, or worse. The devastation this causes for both of the real members of the relationship is delectable to the erodaemon, whose kiss snatches any life that still remains in the souls of those whose hearts it breaks. Similarly, an erodaemon might simply assume the form of a beautiful suitor, bewitching an already devoted mortal into relations which will ultimately be discovered suddenly by his or her mate. When the affair is revealed—often in the bedroom—the erodaemon assumes its true form to devour the emotionally shattered remains of both parties involved.

Erodaemons occasionally work together, but only if doing so results in a greater harvest of crushed mortal souls. This usually involves mesmerizing entire groups of people, often at a risqué performance or event, and seductively sapping the life from the unwitting spectators. While such ruses are elaborate enough to pique erodaemons’ peculiar tastes, the act of tricking mortals on an individual level often yields much more broken—and thus all the more delicious—souls.

Half-Erodaemon

Source PCS:DR

A half-erodaemon resembles a blue-skinned humanoid with a set of protruding, stub-like horns. Halferodaemon urdefhans have a full set of black ram horns and white blood instead of the traditional blue blood.

Abilities: Increase from the base creature as follows: Dex +4, Con +2, Int +2, Wis +4, Cha +6.

Speed: A half-erodaemon does not gain a fly speed.

Half-erodaemon urdefhans gain a +1 racial bonus to the Strength damage of their bite and a +2 racial bonus to the DC of the associated saving throw.

Change Shape (Su)

A half-erodaemon can use this ability to assume the form of the loved one of any humanoid creature affected by its detect thoughts spelllike ability. The half-erodaemon gains a +10 bonus on its Bluff and Disguise checks to impersonate a loved one of its target.

Wilting Bite (Su)

A half-erodaemon is treated as if it were one size category larger than its actual size for the purpose of its bite attack’s damage, and gains the grab special attack with its bite. A non-urdefhan halferodaemon gains the Strength damage special ability of a normal urdefhan (Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 2 276).

Alternate Spell-Like Abilities: Replace desecrate with detect thoughts. Replace unholy blight with unnatural lustUM. Replace poison 3/day with modify memory 3/day. Replace contagion with crushing despair. Replace unhallow with utter contemptUM.