Four Horsemen
In the Pathfinder RPG, the Four Horsemen are the lords, rulers, and exemplars of the daemon race of outsiders. Their lore draws on mythological sources, including the descriptions of the tribulation in the Bible's Book of Revelations and the concepts that have grown up around that, and ancient Greek depictions of the Underworld and Tartarus, among others. They represent War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The Bible mentions Conquest instead of Pestilence, but this horseman has been turned into Pestilence because of a translation error and because the imagery of a dark horseman spreading disease is more evocative than someone who's superficially way too similar to War.
"Horseman" is an office, not an inborn status - Horsemen can die or be deposed, and lesser daemons can eventually rise to the position and power it carries. The names and natures of some previous Horsemen are known to some mortal sages, but exactly how many there have been and how they changed is unknown.
The current Horsemen are:
- Szuriel, the Horseman of War, who looks and behaves something like a twisted, psychotic angel. She wields a horrifying black sword believed to be a corrupted weapon from Heaven.
- Apollyon, the Horseman of Pestilence, who spends a lot of his time creating new diseases to weaken and kill mortal beings.
- Trelmarixian, the Horseman of Famine, who spreads slow deaths such as starvation and cancer. He is the youngest of the current Four Horsemen.
- Charon, the Horseman of Death, who plies the River Styx much like his mythological namesake and collects lost souls. He also has the distinction of being the only daemon to have ever held the dominion of Death.
Bestiary 6 stats out the Horsemen, and they are BEEFY. They possess Challenge Ratings in the 27-30 range, over 30 hit dice, are rank 10 Mythic monsters, have special abilities out the ass, two of them possess potent artifacts and have several powers that fit their theme. Befitting their name the Horsemen of course have horses, and these are CR 25 beasts in their own right, with several abilities meant to keep them in the game: not only do they flat-out refuse to die if within 300' of their Horseman, if they were to die outside of that range the Horseman could can just raise their horse from the dead. They are the main vehicle of the Horsemen to travel the planes, being able to Plane Shift themselves and their rider. Sometimes the horses get lended out to favored servants, a great honor but also a great risk to have a Horseman's most loyal servant at your side.
| 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 | |