Bishop

Bishop

(Creature)

Type

Outsider
(agathion, aquatic, extraplanar, good)

CR

4

Environment

Any water (Nirvana)

Alignment

LG	NG	CG
LN	N	CN
LE	NE	CE

Source: Shards of Sin, pg(s). 80

Ⅰ

Bishops are fish-like agathions who work as liaisons between Nirvana's celestial leaders on land and sea alike.

Appearance

Bishops have the traits of both humanoids and fish but only vaguely resemble either. They have colorful, glittering translucent scales, webbed extremities, thin draping layers of fins, piscine eyes, and beard-like tentacles dangling from their rounded heads. Most stand six feet tall and can weigh from 140 to 250 pounds, and mysterious enzymes make their skin always look moist.

While mortals might consider them to have strange, even unsettling, appearances, bishops see their bodies as among the multiverse's most beautiful and versatile forms—and any who disagree are sure to draw a bishop's ire.

Ecology

Among Nirvana's natives, bishops are renowned for their logical, diplomatic thought. Outside of Nirvana, they serve as messengers and liaisons to other beings, including mortals. They are nimble combatants who fight bare-handed or with enchanted quarterstaves, but rarely seek out combat unless to intervene to halt acts of cruelty (especially slavery and piracy) against innocents. Indeed, some legends among pirates and slavers speak of tentacle-bearded creatures who wrecked their ships.

They are said to be formed from the souls of mortals who struck a balance between lives on land and sea, such as sailors, ocean-traveling priests, and fisherfolk.

Habitat and society

Bishops are native to Nirvana and work alone or in pairs, though they will form groups of up to eight in order to complete especially important missions. When in large groups, they are animated long-winded debaters in pursuit of the best consensus solution to the problems they face, a trait less patient outsiders view as a waste of time.

On Golarion

Few on Golarion record sightings of bishops despite groups who actively seek them out, and those who do witness a bishop see only a single one who has business specifically with (or against) them. Ancient apocryphal stories claim that bishops with missions on Golarion fell in love with their mortal audiences, that the unions resulted in merfolk, and that sedacthys are distant relatives—all tales of dubious and debated veracity.

Bishop sightings are more common along the western coast of Tian Xia and eastern coast of Casmaron than in the Inner Sea region, leading to some theories that a portal to Nirvana might be located in the southern Embaral Ocean.