Caligni

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Caligni Dark folk1E
(Creature)
Common Caligni Humanoid Level Varies Alignment LG NG CG LN N CN LE NE CE Adjective Caligni Images of calignis Source: Bestiary, pg(s). 50–51 Type Humanoid (dark folk) CR Varies Environment Any underground Alignment LG NG CG LN N CN LE NE CE Adjective Dark folk Images of calignis Source: Bestiary, pg(s). 53–54

Caligni^1E

(Creature)

Type

Humanoid
(dark folk)

CR

Varies by class

Environment

Any underground

Alignment

LG	NG	CG
LN	N	CN
LE	NE	CE

Adjective

Caligni

Images of calignis

Source: Bestiary 5, pg(s). 66

Caligni is both an ancient umbrella term for the humanoids that surface-dwellers call dark folk, as well as a word that specifically refers to genetic throwbacks among their kind who more closely resemble their Azlanti ancestors.

Appearance

Caligni, although separated into distinct forms, share certain characteristics. All are dirty humanoid creatures, although stalkers are taller than both creepers and dancers. Most wear tattered grey or black clothing and hide shiny small treasures within them. They have gaunt builds with pale complexions and white eyes.

History

Calignis are descended from the residents of the Azlanti settlement of Calignos, a trading outpost located in the Mindspin Mountains. Just a day before Earthfall, the seers in Calignos predicted their city's destruction and led their people into the Darklands for refuge. As Earthfall collapsed the tunnels leading to the surface, the citizens of Calignos were forced deeper underground.

They found the Darklands to be a terrifying and dangerous place, and relied more and more on the power of magic to help in their survival, particularly the magic found in the borders between light and darkness. Their prayers were answered by a mysterious pantheon of demigods known as the Forsaken, who bestowed upon them the Cradles of Night. These artifacts infused the citizens of Calignos with shadowy power, transforming them into a distinct race known as the calignis.

Unknown to calignis, the Forsaken were planning to draw upon their power in a plan to escape the Shadow Plane. Before this plan could be put in motion, the Forsaken suffered a mysterious calamity, shattering most Cradles of Night and leaving calignis once again without deities. However, after only a few years, the mysterious owbs appeared and offered their aid in exchange for devotion. Calignis switched to worshipping the owbs, who bred them into specialised sub-races. In time, tales of the Forsaken and the surface were forgotten, and their ancestral home became an object of myth and legend to calignis.

Ecology

Calignis subsist on rotting meat and fungi, supplementing their diet by being able to absorb light in small amounts and somehow converting it into nutrition. Intense light blinds and sickens them, as it overwhelms their ability to absorb it. Upon death, this stored light is released in a single blinding flash. This burst was said to have been part of a deal struck with the Forsaken demigods that shaped their underground adaptations; in return, a sliver of their soul's energy would fuel the Forsaken pantheon. However, the Forsaken by all measures disappeared long ago, and caligni soul energy is no longer tithed to them upon death.

Forms

During the Age of Darkness, calignis were split into several morphologically distinct groups, including the intermediary dark dancers, the more numerous dark creepers, and the larger and more commanding dark stalkers.

Ccalignis occasionally give birth to a child with an uncanny similarity to the humans from Calignos, their home before they escaped into the Darklands to avoid Earthfall and were transformed by owbs into specialised subraces. These individuals call themselves caligni, after the ancestral home that they have never seen. As they were born to caligni couples, their children are often also calignis, typically dark creepers. Calignis age at roughly the same rate as aiuvarins.

Society

Otishesk, a dark caller priest and cleric of Veilisendri.

The birth of a caligni is celebrated by many calignis, but usually annoys the powers that be in caligni society (whether owbs or dark stalkers). Because of this, calignis who do not leave their birthplaces tend to suffer an unfortunate accident before adulthood. Calignis who foresee this seek homes elsewhere in the Darklands or in shadowy Nidal, the only surface nation whose environment is friendly to the naturally light-sensitive calignis, where they can integrate easily into the darkness-worshipping society.

New Calignos, the southwestern district of the Nidalese capital Pangolais, is extensively inhabited by calignis who have put in considerable effort to replicate Calignos from what calignis scholars know about Azlanti cities. It is doubtful that the architecture and traditions of New Calignos are authentic to Azlant, but they have regardless become deeply ingrained into the calignis who grow up there.

Since calignis do not breed true, they usually prefer to adopt abandoned caligni children or steal them from their families. They revere Calignos, and consider themselves separate and distinct from calignis. The Shadow Caverns in Nidal, which connect to Nar-Voth, are home to a thriving market of caligni infants either given up by or stolen from caligni, to be bought and adopted by Nidalese calignis. The children gain families, underground calignis give up a potential source of trouble, and brokers turn a profit.

Religion

In addition to the caligni history of worship detailed above, some calignis worship Norgorber or Sivanah. Those whose homes lie below the surface-world nation of Nidal might follow that nation's official deity, Zon-Kuthon. Worship of Nocticula, Pharasma, and even Desna is not unheard of among those less malign caligni.

Language

All calignis share a common language also called Caligni.

On Golarion

Update needed This section should be updated to reflect canon changes by the Pathfinder Second Edition Remaster Project noted in Heavy is the Crown. Please help improve it if you can; the talk page might contain suggestions.

Calignis live primarily in the caverns of Nar-Voth, including the city of Sverspume, famed for its slave market, and the hryngar metropolis of Hagegraf. Although rarer in the deeper caverns of Sekamina, a small section of the drathnelar city of Dwimovel is inhabited by calignis, while others dwell in the drow city of Zirnakaynin. In the Vaults of Orv calignis inhabit the Land of Black Blood.

Nearer to the surface, a sizeable population exists in the Shadow Caverns beneath Nidal's Uskwood, in the abandoned dwarven Zolurket Mines in Katapesh's Barrier Wall mountains, and below the island of Antler Rock in the Lands of the Linnorm Kings.

In Tian Xia

Although less common than in the Inner Sea region, calignis are also present in the caverns below the continent of Tian Xia, especially in the underground community known as Deepmarket below the sprawling metropolis of Goka.

References

Caligni and dark folk were distinct but related creatures in Pathfinder First Edition. In Pathfinder Second Edition, "dark folk" is instead a synonymous moniker for calignis that calignis find distasteful.

For additional as-yet unincorporated sources about this subject, see the Meta page.