The Midnight Lord is god of darkness, envy, loss, and pain. Once a god of art, beauty, and music, like Shelyn, he returned from a sojourn in the dark spaces between the planes horribly changed.
Edicts bring pain to the world, mutilate your body
Anathema create permanent or long-lasting sources of light, provide comfort to those who suffer
Follower Alignments LN, LE, NE
Devotee Benefits
Divine Font
Divine Skill Intimidation
Favored Weapon
Domains ambition, darkness, destruction, pain
Cleric Spells 1st:
, 3rd: , 5th:Gods & Magic
The Midnight Lord embodies and glorifies pain, shadows, and mutilation, and he is one of the most twisted and malevolent gods on the face of Golarion. Once known as Dou-Bral, he crafted the immense Star Towers that still help keep Rovagug pinned in his prison at Golarion’s heart, lending his own skill and ability to the great deific alliance to bind that evil entity. Yet a divine argument between him and his sister Shelyn resulted in the god departing for parts unknown. Zon-Kuthon traveled beyond the edges of the multiverse and stared into the face of the incomprehensible things that dwell there. No one knows what he found in that place, but he returned—changed, but claiming to be strengthened by what he had endured. Likewise, the nation of Nidal on Golarion, which is bound to him, is a nation of survivors, founded by those few strong enough to do what they must so their people could survive the terrible aftermath of Earthfall and the Age of Darkness that followed.
Zon-Kuthon teaches that torment is the ultimate pleasure and sacrament, and that inflicting and enduring pain is the truest strength. Experiencing pain and learning to embrace it allows one to purge the weakness of their body and spirit. After all, much of mortal creatures’ fear is rooted in the struggle to avoid pain in one way or another. If a follower can learn to embrace that pain instead, the chains of fear fall away, becoming a tool to be wielded. Worshippers thus endeavor to inflict as much torture and misery as possible on themselves and others; they look to the cruel outsiders known as velstracs for inspiration, including the use of spiked chains as a primary weapon.
The anguish Zon-Kuthon teaches is not limited to physical injury. Zon-Kuthon teaches his followers to understand, overcome, and revel in psychological pain as well, breaking down morality and twisting compassion into numb pragmatism. This is best exemplified by his troubled relationship with his sister Shelyn, who hopes to redeem him despite all evidence as to the impossibility of this task, and his chaining of his own father, breaking the deity’s spirit and transforming him into the hateful servitor now known as the Prince in Chains.
Some worship Zon-Kuthon out of necessity, especially in Nidal, where veneration of the Midnight Lord is heavily interwoven into the culture and political landscape, and where deviation from this dark norm generally leads to tragic results. Outside those borders, some contemptible individuals gravitate toward a faith that allows them to embrace and practice their own sadistic desires. Still others find that Zon-Kuthon provides a level of understanding in the face of inescapable pain: to some, the bleak faith offers a means of finding release when faced with an inability to feel.
Zon-Kuthon is cruel, but he is patient, willing to collaborate with others, and unlikely to provoke conflicts with other gods. He keeps to himself, though one might argue that this is more a case of other deities keeping their distance from him. Likewise, his followers tend to keep their own counsel, perhaps seeming aloof to others, but they have no qualms about working with others to achieve shared goals. The god, his church, and his nation on Golarion all operate within a strict, unyielding hierarchy that followers understand and uphold, each playing their part as dictated by the Midnight Lord’s teachings.
Regardless of the worshipper or their reasons for following the Midnight Lord, his worship is terrible and merciless, often bloody, and sometimes deadly. The faithful are often easily identified by their countless scars—many of them self-inflicted in the course of regular prayers—and frequently piercings and other body modifications, though tattoos are relatively rare among Kuthites. More profound, perhaps, is the cold, detached gaze of a truly faithful worshipper, their unflinching calm in the face of imminent danger, and their rapturous acceptance of any harm that befalls them.
Though priests of Zon-Kuthon hold positions of power and respect within Nidal, they are few and far between beyond its borders. Somewhat more common are the infamous shadowcallers, who practice divinely inspired wizardry and other sorts of magic, and vicious itinerant clerics and champions who scour the land in an inquisition, seeking out naysayers and rebels.
Divine Intercession
Zon-Kuthon rarely intervenes directly in mortal affairs, but when he does take a personal interest in a creature, the effect is as terrible as the god himself.
Minor Boon: The Midnight Lord turns your blood and pain into chains of midnight darkness to destroy your foes. Once, for 1 minute, whenever you take slashing, piercing, or bleed damage, chains rip forth from your body, affecting creatures in a line from your position in the direction of the attack (or in the direction of your choice for bleed damage or if you deal the damage yourself) with the effect of a
spell whose level is equal to half your level rounded up, and whose DC is your highest spell DC (or 10 + your level + your Wisdom modifier if you have no spell DC).Moderate Boon: Each morning, during your daily preparations, scars gather into words on your flesh. The scars function as a scroll of a divine spell of Zon-Kuthon’s choosing. After you use the scroll or receive magical healing, the boon fades for the day, though some or all of the scars might remain as a reminder.
Major Boon: Shadows are deeper around you. Darkvision and greater darkvision cannot penetrate darkness within 60 feet of you, but you can see through it normally.
Minor Curse: You are surrounded by spectral chains that cause you to always be encumbered and that have the same effects as armor with the noisy trait.
Moderate Curse: You share the pain of others, and even minor wounds bring you incredible pain. Whenever you see (or otherwise sense) a creature take damage, you take 1d6 mental damage. Whenever you take damage any other way than from the first part of this curse, you take 1d6 mental damage from increased pain and are sickened 1. Mental damage from this curse ignores any resistance you have to mental damage.
Major Curse: Zon-Kuthon steals away your joy, leaving you with only pain. You lose that which you cherish the most forever, and lose the ability to feel joy. You can’t gain benefits from emotion effects based on positive emotions. If Zon-Kuthon feels you are ready to renounce, destroy, mutilate, or torture that which you once cherished most, he might return it to you to allow you to do so.