Div
Divs are one of the many, many races of fiends that Pathfinder has chosen to create to further flesh out their array of evil outsiders. Partly that was because they were no longer restricted to the Great Wheel; partly they recognised that the yugoloth always sucked, and that the "revived" daemons they had inherited were now servitors of Sheol, no longer of Platonic Evil.
The Divs were mooted first in the Legacy of Fire Adventure Path. They entered the Bestiary series at volume 3. Their origin is in Sasanian-era Iranian mythology... as remembered by the Muslim Samanids, after two hundred years of destruction and memory-loss. But then it's not like we have much of a grasp of Bronze-Age Greek beliefs after their Dark Age, either. This may explain the intermittent Quranic influence we'll be encountering in some of the below.
Divs are an array of deranged, nihilistic monsters born from the souls of evil genies, supposedly born out of an ancient war in which legions of genies rose up against ungrateful and abusive mortal masters, only to be defeated by the armies of the gods, who feared the genies would annihilate all mortals. Battered, humiliated and broken, they became servitors to Ahriman, a monstrous power that seeks the obliteration of the multiverse, who twisted them into their current hideous form and charged them with sowing misery and ruination in the material world. Each Div holds an eccentric compulsion that clever adventures can use to distract or repel that species of Div.
Doru[edit]
The imp of the Div family tree, doru are the smallest and weakest of their kin, usually used as messengers or expendable minions. They look like a floating orc or ogre head ringed in horns and with long, writhing hair. Doru are obsessed with secrets and can be manipulated by appealing to their love of hearing juicy secrets, providing you can figure out what kind of secret an individual doru is obsessed with, because that varies from div to div. Also, they're gourmands with a particular love of seafood, so a nice meal and a long nap on a comfy cushion makes them really happy.
Aghash[edit]
Resembles a bandage-wrapped goat-legged hag whose face consists of a fang-filled maw wrapped around a giant eye, from which they can inflict curses and supernatural diseases. They absolutely despise beautiful people, so the higher your Charisma, the more an aghash hates you, and they will always go after the most good-looking people first.
Pairaka[edit]
Embodying corruption and societal decay, pairakas are basically the succubus of the Div family, specializing in tearing apart relationships and communities, with one nasty little twist; part of their motif means they are also disease spirits. So basically a Nurgle Succubus. Yes, this is every bit as horrific as you're picturing. They absolutely loathe and despise the color red, and will not approach it - they'll even pick rubies out of their treasure piles and throw them away.
Sepid[edit]
Regarded as brutal tyrants even by other Divs, the bullying Sepids are 13ft tall ogre-like fiends renowned for their physical and mystical might. The great weakness of sepids is a love of deceit, to the extent of being incapable of saying a true statement. Because they adore breaking their word, they are reliably treacherous creatures. If a sepid gives a person two options, it is guaranteed that it will do the opposite of the option the person chose. This predictability can be manipulated, much to the annoyance of the sepid.
Bushyasta[edit]
A bushyasta is a gaunt figure with ashy yellow skin and a feathered mask covering most of its face, save for its wide, fang-filled mouth. These Divs exist to promote the sin of sloth, attempting to goad people into abandoning important work and just lazing about all day. Fortunately, they absolutely revile sweet scents, so blasting them with perfume will make them run away in terror.
Akvan[edit]
The largest and most powerful of the divs, akvans resemble 40ft tall rocky humanoids. They possess a deep and abiding hatred for "beings renowned for inspiring art and wonder", and they spend their time seeking out inspirational wonders, monuments from lost ages, or beings and establishments said to be invincible so they can destroy hopes and dreams as well as flesh and stone. Also, they really hate genies for some reason. Like, they will literally abandon anything else to find a genie, kill it, and turn it into a ghul. They won't commit obvious suicide for such a goal, but they're still hardwired to hunt genies first and do anything else later.
Druj Nasu[edit]
Druj Nasu are Div necromancers who resemble giant flies and who revel in tainting corpses by disrupting the progression of souls to the afterlife. They disrupt funeral rites and steal bodies, animating them and loosing the resultant Walking Dead upon the countryside for shits n' giggles (a likely inspiration for the druj in Companion Set). They have an obsessive hatred of dogs, often fleeing from them in fear or fixating on them while ignoring every other threat.
Ghawwas[edit]
The obligatory aquatic branch of the Div family tree, ghawwas resemble a horrible combination of prehistoric fish, gigantic humanoid, and shark. Whilst they largely focus on slaughtering aquatic humanoids such as merfolk and water elves, as well as bedeviling sailors, they sometimes go ashore and wander inland to put their talents for poisoning and desiccating water to murderous use. They despise the ringing of bells, but are equally likely to find the bell-ringer and rip them apart as to run away from it. Alone in the series, it has Arabic roots and Quranic origins: this is the water-djinn from verse 38:37, among those djinn whom Solomon enslaved.
Shira[edit]
Also known as "Shirs", these divs are an all-female branch of the family tree, appearing as 10ft-tall warrior-women who are also half lioness. They are haughty and arrogant hunters who are literally compelled to seek out only the strongest, most ferocious opponents they can find.
| The Fiends of Pathfinder | ||
|---|---|---|
| Lawful: | Asuras - Devils - Rakshasas - Velstracs | |
| Neutral: | Daemons - Divs - Sahkils | |
| Chaotic: | Demodands - Demons - Lilus - Nindorus - Qlippoth | |
| Any: | Oni | |
| Lords: | Ahriman - Archdevils Demon Lords - Four Horsemen | |