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Player > Setting > Deities > Zon-kuthon
Starfinder Core Rulebook p.492
LE god of darkness, envy, loss, pa
Centers of Worship: Akiton, Apostae, the Diaspora, Eox, Verces
Symbol: A skull with spiked chains through its eye sockets
Ages ago, Zon-Kuthon was Dou-Bral, half-brother to the
goddess of love and beauty, but his envy over her talents
led him to journey into unknown regions beyond the edge of the
Great Beyond. There, he encountered something that changed
him for the worse, and when he returned, he had become a new
god of pain, suffering, and loss.
Zon-Kuthon is a twisted, cruel, jealous god who defiles
flesh to bring pain and misery. He represents debilitating loss,
consuming envy, emotional darkness, and ever-present pain.
Unrepentantly evil, he finds only brief joy in the pain he causes
others. His very existence is a corruption and parasite upon the
universe. His alien mind constantly seeks new ways to oppress,
humiliate, demoralize, and destroy others, but his true goals are
incomprehensible. The Midnight Lord offers no great wisdoms,
no promises of universal truth, and no guarantee of rewards in
the afterlife. It’s possible that this bleak nihilism may be part
of some more elaborate master plan unknowable to even his
greatest priests, but so far the method and message is that
existence itself is pain.
Zon-Kuthon’s faith attracts evil sadists, demented masochists,
and those whose spirits are so wounded that only overwhelming
pain distracts them from their sorrows. He whips the minds
of serial killers, guides the hands of torturers, and plays upon
the nerves of the suffering. He is the patron of slave masters,
back-alley surgeons, and those driven to madness by envy and
loss—people so injured that they come to revel in pain or joyfully
inflict the same upon others. His priests, known as the Servants
of Midnight, seek to pierce the veil of the Great Beyond and
expose themselves to what lies there, hoping to achieve the same
apotheosis as Zon-Kuthon himself. His church has no overarching
organizational tenets beyond bringing pain to the universe, yet it
still manages to remain a major presence due to the discoveries
of the Joyful Things—voluntary amputees whose lack of limbs or
sensory organs leaves them plenty of time to design ever more
sinister devices for Kuthite arms dealers (such as shadowdrives,
which were popular before the discovery of Drift travel among
those willing to trade excruciating pain for speed). Zon-Kuthon’s
temples are torture chambers, both in appearance and function,
and worship services always incorporate torture and self-mutilation,
blurring the line between pleasure and pain.
Of Zon-Kuthon’s sibling, Shelyn, much remains unknown.
Though not silent, her responses to worshipers are infrequent
and fractured, leading some to believe she’s traveling beyond
the known multiverse in search of a cure for her brother’s
ancient, yet still mysterious condition.
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