Inevitable, HykariutThis imposing anthropomorphic being comprised of stone and spiked steel armor hefts an intimidating hammer.Hykariut CR 18Source Pathfinder #131: The Reaper's Right Hand pg. 84
XP 153,600
LN Large outsider (extraplanar, inevitable, lawful)
Init +4; Senses darkvision 60 ft., detect chaos, low-light vision, true seeing; Perception +30DefenseAC 33, touch 13, flat-footed 33 (+4 deflection, +20 natural, –1 size)
hp 280 (20d10+170); regeneration 10 (chaotic)
Fort +23, Ref +10, Will +23
Defensive Abilities constructed, unimpeachable; DR 15/chaoticOffenseSpeed 40 ft.
Melee +1 axiomatic warhammer +28/+23/+18/+13 (2d6+9/19–20/×3)
Space 10 ft., Reach 10 ft.
Special Attacks disperse the rabble, drastic measures, smite chaos 3/day (+8 damage), trample (2d6+12, DC 28)
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 20th; concentration +28)
Constant—detect chaos, shield of law (DC 26), true seeing
At will—enthrall (DC 20), mark of justice, order’s wrath (DC 22)
3/day—dimension door, dispel chaos, fly, greater command (DC 23), greater dispel magic, plane shift (DC 23)
1/day—dictum (DC 25)StatisticsStr 27, Dex 10, Con 24, Int 15, Wis 24, Cha 27
Base Atk +20; CMB +29 (33 disarm); CMD 43 (45 vs. disarm)
Feats Cleave, Combat Expertise, Disarming Strike, Great Cleave, Greater Disarm, Improved Critical (warhammer), Improved Disarm, Improved Initiative, Intimidating Prowess, Power Attack
Skills Diplomacy +21, Fly +8, Intimidate +39, Knowledge (geography, history, nobility) +12, Knowledge (local) +22, Knowledge (planes) +15, Perception +30, Sense Motive +30, Stealth +9, Survival +20
Languages truespeech
SQ judiciousEcologyEnvironment any urban
Organization solitary, investigation (1 hykariut plus 4–8 arbiters), or mitigation (1 hykariut plus 5–10 arbiters and 2–8 kolyaruts or zelekhuts)
Treasure standard (Large +1 axiomatic warhammer, other treasure)Special AbilitiesDisperse the Rabble (Su) As a standard action, a hykariut can attempt a single melee attack with its warhammer against one creature within its reach. If it hits, it deals damage as normal and releases a suppressing shockwave centered on the target. This shockwave functions as order’s wrath (CL 20th, Will DC 22) unless the attack roll is a critical hit, in which case the hykariut can instead have the shockwave function as dictum (CL 20th, Will DC 25).
Drastic Measures (Su) Once per day as a swift action, a hykariut can condemn one creature it can see. The condemned creature’s alignment is treated as chaotic for the purpose of resolving the hykariut’s abilities and spell-like abilities for 24 hours. If the creature is already chaotic, it instead takes a –2 penalty on its saving throws against the hykariut’s abilities and spell-like abilities and it is treated as though it has an overwhelming chaotic aura for the purpose of the inevitable’s smite chaos ability.
Judicious (Su) A hykariut can show considerable restraint when suppressing riots. The hykariut can deal nonlethal damage with its weapons without taking a –4 penalty on attack rolls. When using dictum, a hykariut can choose for the spell to treat each affected creature as though its Hit Dice were no more than 9 below the inevitable’s caster level. When using order’s wrath, a hykariut can choose for the spell to deal nonlethal damage to affected creatures.
Smite Chaos (Su) Three times per day as a swift action, a hykariut can choose a creature it can see to smite. If the target is chaotic, the hykariut adds its Charisma bonus as a bonus on weapon damage rolls against that creature, and its attacks automatically bypass any damage reduction the creature might have. If the target has a strong or overwhelming chaotic aura, the bonus damage increases to twice the hykariut’s Charisma modifier on its first successful attack against that creature. The smite chaos effect remains until the target of the smite is dead or until 24 hours have passed.
Unimpeachable (Ex) Any weapon a hykariut wields cannot be disarmed or sundered by chaotic creatures.DescriptionWhereas most inevitables punish individual crimes such as oath breaking and murder, the mighty hykariuts quash rebellions and extinguish revolutions. These inevitables care little for petty uprisings, instead focusing on those upheavals that are at risk of spreading catastrophically, setting off a chain reaction of chaotic destabilizations. When such a riot reaches its critical mass, a hykariut stoically marches into its epicenter to scatter the rebellious citizens and crush the ideological leaders.
A hykariut is 14 feet tall and weighs 5,000 pounds.EcologyFor all their outward appearance as indiscriminate hammers sent to bludgeon rebels into submission, hykariuts are equipped to operate with all the finesse of a surgeon’s scalpel. Sometimes all that’s necessary to convince a crowd to disperse is a reasoned argument by a supernatural being. If that is insufficient, a hykariut’s feats of strength and booming voice can send dissidents fleeing. When all else fails, the inevitable can strike the ground with its hammer, sending resonating waves of pure law to wash over the disorderly masses. Even if words fail and a hykariut must resort to weapons, it defaults to nonlethal tactics, endeavoring to merely subdue rioters rather than massacre them.
As with all inevitables, hykariuts are forged rather than born. Dozens of willing petitioners contribute to the construction of a new hykariut, by nature of the inevitable’s sheer mass. The Adamantine Crucible’s smiths emboss hundreds of oaths against corruption and chaos into each layer of the inevitable’s armor as it is constructed, lending it an incorruptible defiance of the Maelstrom’s influence.
Habitat and SocietyHykariuts travel to locations requiring their intervention by using plane shift; however, due to that spell’s lack of precision, a hykariut often arrives many miles from its intended target. Without noteworthy resources for moving great distances overland, the inevitable embarks along the most efficient route, regularly questioning wide-eyed travelers for directions or relying on a host of arbiter inevitables it brings along to employ as scouts. Most assignments require additional intelligence to identify the epicenters of insurrection, so a hykariut often recruits teams of spies and informants to remain properly apprised. Although the inevitable might mentor some of these assistants—particularly if doing so would help steer them on the path to defend law in the future—these teams are ultimately temporary structures that the hykariut politely leaves once its mission is over.
Despite these ephemeral personal connections, hykariuts are fairly gregarious when between assignments. They spend considerable hours reviewing revolutionary literature to better understand and dismantle rogue ideologies, and a hykariut can spend hours engaged in “good natured debate,” which typically translates to its stubbornly arguing against unstable political philosophies. At its core, a hykariut views mortals as conflicted creatures with unpredictable moods that require regulation. Hence, the inevitables usually approach small-scale revolts with the firm but gentle hand of a scolding adult. Ongoing revolution, particularly that led by one or more demagogues, earns less mercy. A hykariut has no compunctions against publicly pulverizing a mutinous leader as an object lesson in civic obedience for wide-eyed onlookers.
Hykariuts work together only rarely, and only for far-reaching or tenacious rebellions. A pair of hykariuts has monitored Galt’s Red Revolution since its infancy, regularly meeting with and dispatching spies to measure scores of qualitative variables. Despite the immense amount of data collected over the decades, these inevitables haven’t moved against the Gray Gardeners or Revolutionary Council—much to the hykariuts’ mortal agents’ distress. It may be that the inevitables believe the Galtan incident contained, or that they have calculated the frequent upheavals that replace each Revolutionary Council serve as a lesson to other mortal societies to avoid the same mistakes.Creatures in "Inevitable" CategorySource Bestiary 2 pg. 161
Originally invented and forged in the Outer Planes by the axiomites, inevitables are living machines whose sole purpose is to seek out and destroy agents of chaos wherever they can.
During the height of the first war between law and chaos, while the Outer Planes were still forming from the raw chaos of the primal reality, inevitables were constructed by the axiomites as an unflinching army—soldiers powerful and devoted enough to march on the madness-inducing hordes of proteans who sought to unmake reality and return it all to the primal chaos they so adored. While this war has long since cooled to a simmer, and the reality of the Outer Planes is now not so easily threatened by the entropic influence of the proteans and their home plane, the defense of the axiomites' home plane remains the inevitables' primary goal. Despite the proteans' subsequent adaptation and study of how best to make themselves more resistant to the inevitables' attacks, these constructed soldiers remain imposingly effective.
Today, many inevitables—almost all of those encountered on the Material Plane—pursue a new aspect of their original mission: tracking down those who flagrantly flout the forces of law and redeeming them or, more often, eliminating the threat they present to the ordered nature of the multiverse. Matched on the side of chaos by the manipulative imentesh proteans, new inevitables awake to find themselves locked in a proxy war, knowing that losing the Material Plane to chaos would place their masters in a dangerous position.
Genderless, incorruptible, and caring nothing for power or personal advancement, inevitables are cunning and valiant shock troops in the service of law. Though they regularly interact with their creator race on their home plane, they have no society of their own, and are almost always encountered singly on other planes, each more than capable of pursuing its own mission. These individual crusades range from enforcing important or high-profile contracts and laws to forcibly correcting those mortals who would seek to cheat death. How they deal with the guilty varies according to the transgression: sometimes this means a simple geas or mark of justice to ensure that the target works to right his wrongs or never again strays from the path of law, but just as often an offense worthy of an inevitable's attention is severe enough that only immediate execution will suffice. Such decisions are not always popular—for the kindly priest who transcends mortality and the freedom fighter who battles the evil-yet-rightful king are every bit as guilty as grave-robbing necromancers and demon-worshipers—but the inevitables are always just, and few dare stand in the way of their judgment. Those inevitables who have completed a given mission often wander through whatever society they find themselves in, seeking other lawbreakers worthy of their ministrations. Brave souls with a worthy cause are always welcome to approach an inevitable and present their case, but should be wary of invoking the help of such powerful, single-minded beings—for an inevitable may not see the situation the same way they do, and though all inevitables do their best to preserve innocent life, they're not above sacrificing a few allies or innocents in an effort to bring down a greater villain.
Physically, inevitables often have humanoid forms or aspects, but their bodies appear somewhere between clockwork constructs and fine statues in the greatest classical tradition. Constructed of stone, adamantine, and even more precious materials, each inevitable is brought to sentience in the axiomites' forges already programmed with the details of its first target. Though they know that all beings outside of the lawful planes harbor chaos in their hearts, inevitables also understand that such conflicted creatures may yet be forces for law as much as for chaos, and thus overlook all but the most flagrant offenses. The most commonly recognized types of inevitables are as follows.
Arbiters: Scouts and diplomats, often assigned to wizards as familiars in the hopes of directing such individuals to the cause of law.
Kolyaruts: Cloaked and stealthy humanoid warriors who track and punish those who break contracts.
Lhaksharuts: Juggernauts who search for permanent breaches and links between planes and invasions from one dimension to another.
Maruts: Towering beings of stone, steel, and storm who bring a fitting end to those mortals who try to cheat death in attempts to live forever.
Zelekhuts: Winged, centaur-like constructs who track down those who flee just and legal punishment, returning them to their rightful judges or carrying out the sentence themselves. Primal Inevitables While the lhaksharuts are generally thought of as the most powerful caste of inevitable, there exist others of even greater skill and strength—these are known as the primal inevitables. These goliaths were among the first weapons of war forged by the axiomites to fight the protean menace—the methods to create more have long been lost to the axiomites, and those few primals who remain alive to this day have become legendary. None have been encountered in living memory, but the possibility of a primal's emergence is enough to give the proteans second thoughts when ideas of invading the inevitables' home plane arise.
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