Allip

From PathfinderWiki
Allip
Allip
(Creature)

Type
Undead
(incorporeal)
CR
3
Environment
Any land
Alignment
Source: Bestiary 3, pg(s). 12

An allip is the spectral remains of someone driven to suicide by a madness that afflicted it in life. Tragically, they are forever denied the eternal rest of the afterlife.1

Appearance

Being incorporeal, the allip's form is not stable or fixed. They generally appear as boiling, rolling clouds of angry shadow from out of which form numerous skeletal mouths that scream and gibber. When attacking mortals they manifest dark claws of shadow to grab at them. The very touch of these claws drive people insane, warping their mind and ego. Allips are usually roughly human size as it is from mad humanoids that allips most commonly form.1

Habitat and ecology

Allips are generally found near where their lives ended, but since madness and suicide can occur nearly anywhere, so can allips be found in a wide variety of locations.1 They are particularly prevalent in urban areas, where suicides are more common, where they haunt insane asylums, high bridges, prisons, and dangerous alleys.2 Allips are created when those who have completely succumbed to madness commit suicide, but their souls fail to find their way to the afterlife.1 They can also be created by very powerful arcane and divine spellcasters via the create greater undead and insanity spells.3

These undead are as insane as they were in life, but now have a driving hatred of the living. Some believe that they attack the living because they fail to recognise that they are dead; others theorise that they are driven into a rage by the horrified reaction of the living when they encounter an allip. It is known that allips have a vengeful streak, seeking out those who wronged them in life and draining them completely of their sanity until they slip into a coma-like stupor. Unfortunately, this vengeance achieves nothing and often realizing how hollow their vengeance was drives the allip even more insane.1

Allips in Golarion

As has already been mentioned, allips can be found wherever the mad succumb to despair and take their own life. While most have long left any shred of their mortal life behind, a few still cling to remnants of their former selves. One such creature is Carak, the Blade of Zyphus, a former cleric of the god of accidental death, who transcended his own ritual suicide to return as an allip and who continues to torment the living.4

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Jason Bulmahn & F. Wesley Schneider. Allip” in Bonus Bestiary, 4. Paizo Inc., 2009
  2. Amber Stewart, et al. “Spectral Dead” in Undead Revisited, 54. Paizo Inc., 2011
  3. Amber Stewart, et al. “Introduction” in Undead Revisited, 3. Paizo Inc., 2011
  4. Amber Stewart, et al. “Spectral Dead” in Undead Revisited, 57. Paizo Inc., 2011