Description
The Scorpion’s Sting!
The City of Scorpions lies ruined and forgotten in the burning wastes, its goddess Selket forsaken by civilized people. But “she who closes the throat” is still feared and revered by those who lead their lives in sun-scorched lands. Her cult is strong among the desert nomads and her servants work toward the day when she once again takes her rightful place in the world. Those who worship her, have Selket’s protection. Those who refuse her feel her sting…
Demon Cults: The Cult of Selket for Pathfinder Roleplaying Game is by designer Jeff Lee and includes:
- 4 cultist NPCs and monsters with stats, including the high priestess Dakhamunza Sat Selket (CR 14) and cult assassin Sadiki Sefu (CR 12)
- Plots and adventure hooks for party levels 1 to 12
- 2 new monsters (venomous mummy and scorpion swarm), plus a new magic item, a new spell, a new subdomain and 2 new traits
- Using the cult of Selket in the Midgard Campaign Setting—and a variant campaign option where the cultists are the good guys!
The name of Selket will never be forgotten—not as long as her followers have poison in their blades. Show your players a new challenge with Demon Cults: The Cult of Selket today!
Megan Robertson –
In the third volume of the Demon Cults series, we learn of the cult of Selket, a deity revered by many desert-dwellers. With the scorpion as her sacred creature, she is a goddess of healing, death and the afterlife. Desert-dwellers look to her for protection against dangers such as venomous creatures, sandstorms, and the blazing sun, seeking her healing power for their afflictions, and her vengeance on their enemies.
All this sounds like a perfectly reasonable religion… if it wasn’t for the way in which devotees, organised in cell structures terrorist-style, hang out around oases and the outskirts of towns on desert fringes and seek converts through fear rather than through persuasion and love. Worship in hidden temples involves music, narcotic vapours and the handling of live scorpions… the faithful, should they survive, see it as a mark of divine favour. Somewhere deep in the desert lies the ancient and ruined City of Scorpions, which devotees want to see restored to its former glory.
The cult maintains a group of assassins, called the Desert Scorpions, who kill on command of the priests of Selket (and not for gain, like most professional assassins). Their leader, a dwarf called Sadiki Sefu, is presented with complete background and stat block, as is the Chief Pristess, Dakhamunza Sat Selket, Daughter of Selket. There’s also full details of the guardian of the City of Skorpions, about whom I shall say no more in case your party decides to go there!
These notes are followed by a selection of adventure ideas, organised by APL, which can be used as one-offs or in a campaign arc in which the party defends the land and whatever faiths they hold to be true against the cult. Should you use the Midgard campaign setting, there’s a sidebar explaining where the cult fits in; whilst for those who’d prefer to embrace the worship of Selket there are notes on ‘playing for the other team’! With a purview of healing, death and the proper passage into the afterlife, it’s quite plausible that a party might decide to help Selket’s devotees to restore her worship rather than fight against them.
Next is a new materials section, with new monsters (venomous mummies for starters…), a new magic item and a spell, and finally a couple of new traits: Selket’s Favour (remember the scorpion-handling – you’re good at it) and Expert Embalmer, the skill of mummification.
There’s not really anything demonic here, it’s a solid desert cult that should fit into whatever deserts there are in your campaign world nicely, with options to use them as allies or adversaries, a neat touch.
Endzeitgeist –
An Endzeitgeist.com review
This installment of Kobold Press’ Demon Cults-series clocks in at 15 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/ToC, 1 page advertisement, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 11 pages of content, so let’s take a look!
So, what is the Cult of Selket? Well, if the gorgeous cover was not enough of an indication, the cult is a kind-of Egyptian-themed cult, wherein the dread assassins of the desert scorpions execute those that dare to violate the divine mandate of Selket’s clergy – preferably via poison and a semblance of “divine retribution.” The cult’s cadre of leaders receives full statblocks – from the deadly current (multiclassed, btw.) leader of the desert scorpions to the eternal guardian (a nasty divine guardian gynosphinx, complete with sample riddles!) to the Daughter of Selket herself, the builds are nice to see and feel a tad more diverse than in previous installments of the series – good!
Now if you’ve been following my reviews of the series, you may have noticed that I’m a huge fan of the exceedingly numerous and detailed hooks provided, which generally are enough to utilize the cult in question for more than one module and potentially craft a whole campaign from it. This pdf’s hooks are no less diverse and intriguing, with the sidebox detailing the cult’s workings in Midgard falling in no way behind the great writing of the hooks – but the pdf does go one step beyond: What if your PCs actually work for the cult? Yup, while not as detailed as the massive array of hooks, the pdf actually manages to cover some basic points for the DM and present some concise orientation points. And honestly, I haven’t run a campaign like that and would love to. Nice to see this series going the extra mile here!
Speaking of which – we also receive a special kind of CR 5 mummy, which is not only poisonous, but should also offer a nasty surprise if cocky adventurers should try to set it ablaze: Toxic fumes. Yeah, I *like* that. We also get stats for a scorpion swarm and a greater swarm summoning spell. A bracer that can net limited tremorsense and quickly apply poisons and two cool new traits are also part of the deal, as is the vermin subdomain of the animal domain – while I have seen the concept of the vermin-friendly caster implemented via other means, the absence of such a (sub-)domain option is welcome here, though, when compared to even the traits, this constitutes the one piece of crunch I wasn’t that intrigued by.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn’t notice any significant glitches. Layout adheres to a modification of Kobold Press’ beautiful 2-column full-color standard, with the borders evoking the theme of the gorgeous front cover. The pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience.
Jeff Lee’s Cult of Selket brings the series home for me – for the first time, I read a Demon Cult-installment and thought “Yes, I want to run these as is.” Whereas the first two installments were certainly good supplements, this one feels just a tad bit more lovingly crafted – from the sample riddles to the builds to the supplemental crunch, almost every component of this cult feels like is has been polished to a shine, with little tidbits added here and there to make the whole thing feel more complete. If you’ve been doing this whole reviewing shtick as long as I have, you get a sense when a designer goes above and beyond, when heart’s blood oozes from the page. This is the case here. You find all those small, optional bits that inspire, that make a difference between a good file and a great one. This is the best Demon Cult-installment so far and well worth of a final verdict of 5 stars + seal of approval.
Endzeitgeist out.