Zon-Kuthon

Zon-Kuthon
(formerly Dou-Bral)

(Deity)

Titles

The Midnight Lord

Adjective

Kuthite

Home

Xovaikain, Shadow Plane

Alignment

Lawful evil

Portfolio

Darkness
Envy
Loss
Pain

Worshipers

Sadists, masochists, murders, torturers, slavers, Servants of Midnight, Joyful Things, Akiton, Apostae, the Diaspora, Eox, Verces

Symbol

Skull with spiked chains through its eye sockets

Images of Zon-Kuthon

Source: Core Rulebook, pg(s). 492

More information about this subject might be available on PathfinderWiki.

Zon-Kuthon, also known as the Midnight Lord, is an evil deity of pain, suffering, and loss. His alien mind constantly seeks to degrade and destroy others, but his true goals are incomprehensible: he offers no great reward to his worshippers, and his central message is that existence itself is pain. Nonetheless, it is through suffering and inflicting such pain that his followers find strength, pleasure, and fearlessness.

History

Long ago, Zon-Kuthon was known as Dou-Bral and was the half-brother of Shelyn, goddess of beauty and love. When Dou-Bral grew jealous of his sister's talents, he took a journey beyond the known Great Beyond. He returned to Golarion forever changed: Dou-Bral as he had been known was gone, replaced with the twisted, malevolent Zon-Kuthon. According to a myth in his church, when the current incarnation of reality ends, Zon-Kuthon will escape beyond the multiverse to survive and infect the next existence. After the Drift Crash, this myth has grown popular due to the appearance of a black hole in the galactic periphery that drains light and life from nearby star systems to fuel its growth, and which is considered by many Kuthites as the sacred chrysalis which Zon-Kuthon is building to flee the forthcoming apocalypse.

Dogma

Zon-Kuthon is a twisted, cruel, and jealous god who delights in defiling flesh to inflict pain and misery. He embodies debilitating loss, consuming envy, emotional darkness, and constant suffering. Unrepentantly evil, he derives fleeting joy from the agony he causes others. His very existence corrupts and parasitizes the universe. With an alien mind, he relentlessly seeks new methods to oppress, humiliate, demoralize, and destroy, though his true intentions remain incomprehensible. The Midnight Lord offers no profound wisdom, promises of universal truth, or assurances of rewards in the afterlife. This bleak nihilism may be part of an elaborate master plan unknown even to his greatest priests, but his message remains clear: existence itself is pain.

Home

Zon-Kuthon makes his home in Xovaikain, a planet-sized fortress on the Shadow Plane that occupies the same space that Golarion once did on the Material Plane.

Relations

Zon-Kuthon's sister Shelyn's whereabouts are unknown and her guidance to followers is inconsistent, leading some to speculate that she is journeying beyond the Great Beyond as well in search of a cure for her brother's condition.

Church

Zon-Kuthon is worshipped by masochists, sadists, murderers, torturers, slavers, quack doctors and those driven to madness by sorrow. His worshipers embody his cruelty, jealousy, and nihilism by constantly inflicting pain, whether to others or themselves. His temples are torture chambers, and his rites almost always involve pain and self-mutilation. While Zon-Kuthon and most of his followers are evil, they tend to keep their word and usually are not wanton killers.

Some tell of those whose self-mutilation was great enough to earn Zon-Kuthon's attention and his blessing. His priests, known as the Servants of Midnight, seek to follow their patron's transformation by piercing the veil of the Great Beyond. Those who survive either feat are revered as paragons of the cult. Yet others, known as Joyful Things, voluntarily amputate their limbs and sensory organs, giving them time to develop various inventions, like the shadow engine, a propulsion engine that generates speed from pain and was popular before Drift travel or deadlier devices for Kuthite arms dealers.

There is no centralised church of Zon-Kuthon. Each individual sect's influence rarely extends beyond their planet or system. Kuthites who seek their fellow devotees' assistance can usually do this through clandestine clinics that practise surgery or body modification. However, the faith is inherently selfish, and such aid usually must be repaid in a literal pound of flesh.