Pairaka
Pairakas are an embodiment of corruption and disease that sabotage the relationships and links that make up a community. They specialize in manipulating human sexuality and taboo desires.
Appearance
In its natural form, a pairaka looks almost human and stands just over six foot tall. It has a strange, lithe, androgynous beauty, with skin of a cool pastel tone (normally blue, green or turquoise). Though its skin looks smooth and alluring, a pairaka can choose to reveal its true form covered in oozing blisters, large pustules, and scabby rashes that get more prominent around the stomach and loin. Its head sports long lengths of black hair and several backwards-swept horns, and its facial features are sharp, almost monstrously so. A pairaka's mouth sports a predatory grin complete with sharp, bestial fangs.
Pairakas are rarely seen in their natural form. Instead, they usually take the form of an attractive members of either gender or of urban animals that go unnoticed among the hustle and bustle of a city.1
Habitat and ecology
Pairakas are natives of Abaddon but prefer spending their time corrupting and destroying mortal life on the Universe. On Abbadon, pairakas are not considered to be a particularly important type of div, which affords them a degree of independence. Groups of pairakas often ally with Apollyon, Rider of Pestilence, but for the most part they prefer life on Golarion.2
Like all divs, pairakas desire to make life on the Universe as miserable as the hellish afterlife awaiting them in Abaddon. They do this by corrupting and destroying the human relationships that form the basis of society, turning friends and lovers against one another.
Pairakas often infiltrate society in the guise of beautiful humans and take advantage of lust and sexuality to destroy human relationships. The combination of darkest lusts and the disease-ridden corruption that comprise pairakas is deadly one; they often use sex as a way to spread plagues that rot the mind and wither the flesh.
This alone would make the pairaka a deadly scourge on humanity, let alone its ferocious nature. However, like all other divs, pairakas possess an esoteric weakness—they cannot stand the colour red. In all the legends regarding pairakas, there is not one case when they have been able to tolerate the colour red, even discarding valuable rubies because of their colour.2
Worship by humans
Some cults of vengeful humans, particularly in Qadira and Katapesh, worship pairakas. While Sarenite warriors have hunted most of these cults—known as Usij—to extinction, they persist in small numbers even today.2
Abilities
Outside of their ability to take the shape of humanoids and even small animals, pairakas are well-known for their ability to enter and torment the dreams of their victims. Pairakas are also able to infect those they strike with their claws with a fiendish version of the bubonic plague.
References
- ↑ . “Bestiary” in House of the Beast, 84–85. Paizo Inc., 2009
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 . “Bestiary” in House of the Beast, 85. Paizo Inc., 2009
[[Category:CR 7 creatures]