AFFILIATION WITH THE RED MANTIS
The Red Mantis are a secretive society that maintain a very public presence, a contradiction that sums up the complexities inherent in Golarion’s most notorious assassins’ guild. While they require oaths and the absolute loyalty of those who officially join their organization, the assassins are also quite comfortable in allowing their signature equipment, magic items, and spells out into the hands of non-members, since the spread of Red Mantis innovation only magnifies the group’s presence.
Achaekek is a lawful evil deity of assassinations, divine punishment, and the Red Mantis themselves. He grants access to the domains of Death, Evil, Law, Trickery, and War, and to the subdomains of Blood, Deception, Devil, Murder, Tactics, and Thievery. His favored weapon is the sawtooth sabre, and his symbol is a pair of crossed mantis arms.
Example Affiliation Encounter: One must seek out a member of the group and apply for affiliation. The Red Mantis accept all such requests if the prospective affiliate is willing to pay the price. These prices fall into one of two categories. The most common is the promise of aid in the future tailored to the affiliate’s capabilities and position in society. This might eventually entail building a magic item for an assassin, delivering sensitive political secrets to one of the cult’s agents, or even accompanying a group of Red Mantis assassins on a mission. An alternative price is for the prospective affiliate to provide a portion of her own body preserved with a dose of unguent of timelessness (the dose of unguent to be paid for and provided by the prospective affiliate). While this body part could well be only a fingernail or a hair clipping, most Red Mantis agents instead require a fingertip, an earlobe, a tooth, or another minor but painfully significant excision from the affiliate as a cruel token of intent. Once harvested, these body parts are placed in storage in the Crimson Citadel, in an ever-growing collection of parts that can be used as needed by the Red Mantis for their own needs, be it components for spells like clone or simulacrum or something more eldritch and sinister. In some cases, the affiliate dies before the body part is used, but in all cases the Red Mantis keep their options open for how to eventually utilize the offered flesh.
EQUIPMENT
The Red Mantis make use of the following equipment.
BREATH OF THE MANTIS GOD PRICE 1,500 GP
TYPE inhaled SAVE Fortitude DC 21
FREQUENCY 1/minute for 6 minutes
INITIAL EFFECT 1d4 bleed; see text
SECONDARY EFFECT 1d3 Con damage CURE 2 saves
The Red Mantis exist in a world rife with healing magic and all manner of supernatural ways to dodge death. With the society’s reputation based on its ability to bring death to any contracted target, what good would it be if a kindly cleric or wealthy relative paid for a victim to be brought back to life? As a matter of professional pride (as well as religious fervor), the Red Mantis go to great lengths to ensure that their victims remain in the grave once they are placed there. Breath of the mantis god is just one tool they’ve crafted to assure such ends.
This toxin is made only by Red Mantis assassins to ensure a target’s death, and the Red Mantis often task initiates with administering it to victims before their assassination. Once an affected creature fails its saving throw against this poison’s initial effect, if the creature dies before this poison is cured or runs its course, any spellcaster who attempts to raise the creature from the dead must first succeed at a caster level check (DC = 10 + the dead creature’s total Hit Dice), otherwise the spell fails.
SAWTOOTH SABRE PRICE 35 GP
TYPE one-handed exotic melee WEIGHT 2 lbs.
DMG (S) 1d6 DMG (M) 1d8 CRIT 19–20/×2 TYPE S
Crafted to evoke the barbed talons of the Mantis God himself, a sawtooth sabre may be used as a Martial Weapon (in which case it functions identically to a longsword). If you have the Exotic Weapon Proficiency (sawtooth sabre) feat, for the purpose of two-weapon fighting you can treat it as a light melee weapon; for all other purposes, it is a one-handed melee weapon.
MAGIC ITEMS
The Red Mantis use a wide range of custom magical items.
CRIMSON BLUFF PRICE 65,575 GP
SLOT none CL 11th WEIGHT 2 lbs.
AURA moderate illusion
With a blade crafted entirely out of black metal, this +2 speed sawtooth sabreUE has only one hint of color: a red hilt. Once per day as a standard action, the wielder of the blade can utter a prayer to the god Achaekek to create 1d4+3 illusory Red Mantis assassins that last for 1 hour. These illusions confound the wielder’s enemies, allowing the wielder to flank an enemy with an appropriately positioned figment. The wielder can direct the movement of all figments as a single swift action, moving each of them up to 30 feet. Any creature interacting with (or being flanked by) an illusion can attempt a DC 16 Will save to disbelieve the effect. If an illusory assassin is hit by an attack, it disappears. (Use the wielder’s touch AC as an illusion’s AC.)
Three times per day as an immediate action, when the wielder of a crimson bluff is the target of an enemy’s melee attack, she can swap places with an illusory assassin that is adjacent to her.
CONSTRUCTION REQUIREMENTS COST 32,955 GP
Craft Magic Arms and Armor, creator must be an 11th-level cleric of Achaekek or be able to cast haste, mirror image, and mislead
EYE OF THE MANTIS PRICE 2,000 GP
SLOT none CL 9th WEIGHT —
AURA moderate divination
This 1-inch red marble statue depicts a tiny praying mantis. When the command word is uttered, the mantis comes to life and moves as its owner instructs, as per a sensor eye from a prying eyes spell. The mantis remains animated for up to 9 hours or until it returns to the bearer and replays what it saw, at which point it reverts to statue form for 1 day. If the mantis is destroyed while animate, it reverts to statue form.
CONSTRUCTION REQUIREMENTS COST 1,000 GP
Craft Wondrous Item, prying eyes
MANTIS BLADE MINOR ARTIFACT
SLOT none CL 20th WEIGHT 2 lbs.
AURA strong evocation
ALIGNMENT LE EGO 16
SENSES 60 ft., darkvision
INTELLIGENCE 10 WISDOM 12 CHARISMA 14
COMMUNICATION telepathy
SPECIAL PURPOSE slay all
SPELL-LIKE ABILITIES (CL 20th, concentration +22)
3/day—alter self, darkness, spider climb, true strike;
1/day—clairaudience/clairvoyance, deeper darkness, dimension door, greater invisibility
The mantis blade is an intelligent +2 axiomatic sawtooth sabreUE made of red chitin that forms a curved, serrated blade. It grants its wielder the ability to make a sneak attack that deals 1d6 points of damage. This ability functions as the rogue class feature of the same name, and the extra damage stacks with any sneak attack bonuses the wielder already has. When a creature is wounded with the blade, the wielder can activate the blade’s bane weapon special ability as a swift action (granting the weapon an additional +2 enhancement bonus and causing it to do an extra 2d6 points of damage, but only against the type of creature struck). The bane ability lasts for 10 minutes and is usable once per day.
Sacred to the faith of the mantis god Achaekek, a mantis blade also grants bonuses to a Red Mantis assassin who wields it. A Red Mantis assassin wielding a mantis blade gains a +2 bonus to the DC of her prayer attack and gains an additional use per day of both her red shroud and fading abilities.
To date, only one mantis blade is known to exist, after it was recovered from a lost city in the Mwangi Expanse, but ancient texts suggest others remain yet to be recovered.
DESTRUCTION
If a single wielder uses the mantis blade to slay nine rightful ruling monarchs, the weapon can be destroyed by a successful sunder combat maneuver.
MANTIS EMBRACE PRICE 50,000 GP
SLOT hands CL 13th WEIGHT 1 lb.
AURA strong evocation and necromancy
These stylized red gloves are often employed by agents of the Red Mantis for stealthy assassinations. If the wearer successfully pins an opponent with a grapple combat maneuver, she can perform a special coup de grace attack the next round with the gloves, treating them as if they were sawtooth sabres (1d8 points of slashing damage, critical threat range of 19–20) for the purpose of this attack. Should the wearer of these gloves slay her opponent with this attack, the target’s head erupts in a geyser of blood, preventing life-restoring spells that require an intact body. A creature that survives this coup de grace attack is immune to subsequent attempts from any mantis embrace for 24 hours.
CONSTRUCTION REQUIREMENTS COST 25,000 GP
Craft Wondrous Item, explode headOA, suffocationAPG
MASK OF THE MANTIS PRICE 6,000 GP
SLOT head CL 3rd WEIGHT 1 lb.
AURA faint divination
A mask of the mantis is the traditional headgear of the Red Mantis assassin—a magical helm that evokes the eerie visage of a praying mantis. Designed both to mask the wearer’s identity while on a job and to enhance the wearer’s ferocious appearance, a mask of the mantis has 3 daily charges that can be used to gain additional bonuses. The wearer can spend a charge to gain darkvision to a range of 60 feet, the effects of see invisibility, the effects of deathwatch, or a +5 competence bonus on Perception checks. Once a charge is spent, the effect granted persists for 30 minutes before fading. Multiple effects can be active simultaneously. Charges expended from the mask replenish automatically in 24 hours.
CONSTRUCTION REQUIREMENTS COST 3,000 GP
Craft Wondrous Item, darkvision, deathwatch, see invisibility
RED STALKER ARMOR PRICE 3,035 GP
SLOT armor CL 3rd WEIGHT 15 lbs.
AURA faint enchantment
This dark red +1 leather armor is modeled after the armor worn by the Blood Watch guards in Ilizmagorti, the home city of the Red Mantis assassins. Vented and airy, the armor is suitable for wearing in dense jungles, humid rainforests, and other formidable environments. The wearer also gains a +5 competence bonus on Bluff checks to feint.
CONSTRUCTION REQUIREMENTS COST 1,598 GP
Craft Magic Arms and Armor, creator must have 5 ranks in Bluff
SPELLS
Over the centuries, the Red Mantis assassins have developed numerous magical means to facilitate their death-dealing worship of Achaekek. Below are a number of spells that casters within the society have created. Note that with the exception of Sarzari shadow memory (which is too high of a level for a Red Mantis assassin to learn), all of the following spells are available to Red Mantis assassins, being as they are illusion or transmutation spells on the sorcerer/wizard spell lists.
BONE FLENSE
School transmutation; Level bloodrager 2, cleric 3, druid 3, inquisitor 3, magus 3, sorcerer/wizard 3, witch 3
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components M/F (a jagged shard of bone from a humanoid creature)
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target one living creature
Duration 1 round/level
Saving Throw Fortitude negates; Spell Resistance yes
Choose a creature that you can see. When that creature is struck by a weapon wielded by a member of the Red Mantis, a sawtooth sabre, or by the claw of a giant mantis, the bone nearest to the wound instantly sprouts jagged, razor-sharp spurs that flense the muscle and flesh from the inside out unless the target succeeds at a Fortitude save. The creature takes 1d6 points of piercing damage per caster level. While the bone returns to normal immediately after dealing damage, the creature takes 1d4 points of bleed damage for 1 round per 2 caster levels. The victim is sickened by the pain for the duration of the bleeding. If the target creature has no bones, this spell has no effect.
CRIMSON BREATH
School transmutation; Level alchemist 4, cleric 4, druid 4, sorcerer/wizard 4, witch 4
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components S
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target one creature
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw Fortitude negates; Spell Resistance no
When you cast this spell, your salivary glands transform and instantly fill with potent venom. Make a ranged touch attack against a single target in range; if you hit, the target is affected by a dose of breath of the mantis god (see page 158). The Fortitude save DC for this poison is the same as the spell’s DC, not the standard save DC for the poison.
MARK OF BLOOD
School transmutation [curseUM]; Level bloodrager 2, inquisitor 2, sorcerer/wizard 2, witch 2
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, M (a drop of your blood)
Range touch
Targets one weapon touched
Duration 1 minute and permanent (see text)
Saving Throw Will negates; Spell Resistance yes
You place a drop of your blood on a weapon and charge it with magic so that you transfer a small amount of your life essence to the next living creature you strike with the weapon. Thereafter, you can spend a move action to know the direction and general distance of that creature. The target can negate this effect with a successful Will save. You must strike a creature within 1 minute of casting this spell or the magic is wasted, but once the mark of blood takes effect it is permanent until dispelled or removed via an effect like remove curse.
MIRROR MANTIS
School illusion (phantasm) [mind-affecting]; Level bard 1, cleric 1, mesmerist 1, occultist 1, psychic 1, sorcerer/wizard 1
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components S, F (a hand mirror stained with a dried drop of blood)
Range medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Target one living creature
Duration 1 hour/level
Saving Throw Will negates; Spell Resistance yes
Whenever the target of this spell looks into a mirror or other reflective surface where it can see its own visage clearly, it sees a Red Mantis assassin (in full armor, face hidden by a mantis mask) looking back at it. The reflection is harmless and mimics the target’s motions perfectly; no one else can see this illusion. The first time the target sees the Red Mantis reflection, it must succeed at a Will save be or shaken and take a –2 penalty on saves against fear effects for as long as it can see the altered image and for 3 rounds thereafter. A new save must be attempted each time the creature views its reflection during the spell’s duration. Once a creature successfully saves, it becomes immune to being shaken by the caster’s mirror mantis spell for 24 hours, though it will still see the Red Mantis reflection until the spell ends.
SARZARI SHADOW MEMORY
School divination; Level bard 6, cleric 6, inquisitor 6, psychic 6, sorcerer/wizard 6, witch 6
Casting Time 1 hour
Components V, S, M (a work of art bearing your target’s likeness worth at least 1,500 gp)
Range personal
Target you
Duration 1 month
Saving Throw Will negates (harmless); Spell Resistance no (harmless)
While casting this spell, you slowly destroy a piece of art bearing your victim’s likeness and beseech Achaekek to grant you access to the knowledge and lore contained within the innermost sanctum of the Crimson Citadel, the Sarzari Library. This endows you with information that could facilitate the target’s assassination by your hands. This information must be chosen from one of the three following categories—back doors, character, or weakness.
“Back doors” informs you of hidden passages and other means of navigation within your target’s home. While inside your target’s home, you gain a +10 insight bonus on Perception checks and gain the constant benefits of detect secret doors and find traps. You automatically see through any illusory walls in the target’s home.
“Character” lets you know of a compromising detail about your target’s personal life, giving you a +10 bonus on Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate checks when attempting to gather information about your contracted victim from other people. Your target takes a –2 penalty on all saving throws against mind-affecting effects you generate, and you gain a +4 bonus on caster level checks you attempt to overcome the target's spell resistance.
“Weakness” grants you knowledge of physical vulnerabilities your target has, as well as information about the target’s damage reduction, immunities, and other defensive abilities. If these vulnerabilities and defenses change during the spell’s duration, you immediately know. You automatically confirm all critical threats against the target.
Once your victim is slain or a month has passed (whichever comes first), the information you gained from the spell fades. While you can recall certain elements of these memories, you no longer gain any of the benefits associated with the spell. You can only have one target affected by Sarzari shadow memory at any one time; if you cast this spell a second time while a previous casting is still active, the effects of the new spell replace the effects of the old one.
SAWTOOTH TERRAIN
School transmutation [earth]; Level cleric 5, druid 5, sorcerer/wizard 5, witch 5
Casting Time 1 round
Components V, S, DF
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Effect one 10-foot square of difficult and damaging terrain
Duration 1 round/level
Saving Throw Reflex negates; Spell Resistance yes
This spell targets an area of earth, metal, stone, or wood, causing long, serrated blades to shoot out from random points within the area of effect.
Any creature in the area when the spell is first cast must attempt a Reflex save to avoid taking 3d8 points of piercing damage from the blades and an additional 2d6 points of bleed damage. A creature that fails the save also has its speed reduced by half for 24 hours or until the injured creature benefits from a “cure” spell (which restores lost hit points as normal). Another creature can remove the penalty by succeeding on a Heal check against the spell’s save DC as a standard action.
The lashing limbs remain active in the area for the remainder of the spell’s duration, during which time the area is treated as difficult terrain, and any creature that moves into or through the area takes 1d8 points of piercing damage. The transformed area can be located on any visible surface within range, including floors, walls, doors, ceilings, or other generally flat surfaces.