Shaorhaz

Shaorhaz

(Person)

Titles

Glutton of the Green

Alignment

Chaotic evil

Ancestry/Species

Vrolikai

Class

Inquisitor 9

Gender

Male

Homeland

Greengrave Keep, Stonewilds, Worldwound

Deity

Cyth-V'sug

Source: Demons Revisited, pg(s). 44

Shaorhaz is a vrolikai inquisitor of Cyth-V'sug with a particular hatred of druids who was recruited by Deskari to raze the Green Faith in northern Sarkoris, and now rules over this region.

Associates

Shaorhaz once commanded a demonic army numbering thousands. Most of them were slain by the druids during the invasion of Sarkoris, and now the army is but a shadow of itself. Cultists of Cyth-V'sug frequently come to offer their service to him, and their numbers are replenished constantly, as their lifespans tend to be greatly shortened.

Background

From nabasu to vrolikai

The first time Shaorhaz came to the Material Plane to feed, he arrived as a nabasu in the Ustalavic village of Rookhill. He initially met little resistance before a cabal of druids responded and made his hunting grounds more and more dangerous. The stubborn Shaorhaz, refusing to move on, clashed with the druids many times. The druids constantly improved their tactics until Shaorhaz was nearly killed by their arobreal regent ally. In a desperate move, he tried to assassinate the druids' leader, who sacrificed his life to absorb the spiritual energies eaten by Shaorhaz and return it to the land. With the loss of this accumulated growth, Shaorhaz finally fled Ustalav. He nonetheless managed to achieve transformation into a vrolikai, though it took ten times as long as he had expected. During this time, his hatred of the Green Faith only grew.

Employment by Deskari in Sarkoris

During Deskari's invasion of Sarkoris, he recruited Shaorhaz to break the Forest of Stones whose druids had long been tenaciously resisting his assaults. For wiping out the Green Faith, Khorramzadeh would offer him control over the region. Shaorhaz accepted immediately, and brought his own army through the Worldwound. He surrounded the forest and brought down the sacred stones, slowly lessening the power of the druids. When it became clear that Shaorhaz had won, the druids absorbed the demonic corruption into their own souls and unleashed this power at the demons. Despite the loss of his army, Shaorhaz exulted nonetheless, as he saw that the Forest of Stones was almost destroyed. However, as he cannot come back to the Outer Rifts without an army, he decided to remain to rule over the newly-renamed Stonewilds, and built Greengrave Keep over a former Green Faith sacred site to serve as his home.

Eventually, Shaorhaz came to believe one of the teachings of the Green Faith: Golarion has its own life force, tied to all things in the natural world. The voracious Shaorhaz found the idea of feeding upon the soul of a planet, which would break down the entire Green Faith across Golarion, irresistible, but cannot figure out a way to do so. He has become obsessed with the idea that the key lies in one of the stones that he destroyed in his eagerness to wipe out the druids (much to his frustration), and he now spends most of his time painstakingly rebuilding them in the hope of deciphering their secrets.

Shaorhaz believes that the dungeon under Greengrave Keep holds the hints or solution to his quest, but he lacks the faith to open his way there. Experiments with captured druids always fail, but slowly bring Shaorhaz closer and closer to success. Few members of the Green Faith realise the true threat of Shaorhaz, but know that, if they make their way to the sacred site beneath Greengrave, Shaorhaz will certainly follow, so they have kept their secret, hoping that Shaorhaz will be driven off before he reaches his goal.