Lamashtu

Goddess of madness, monsters, and nightmares

“Great is the daughter of Heaven who tortures infants. Her hand is a net, her embrace is death. She roars like a lion. She constantly howls like a demon-dog.” —Lamashtan prayer from Osirion
The Mother of Monsters is goddess of aberrance, monsters, and nightmares. She seeks to corrupt mortals and populate the world with her twisted and monstrous brood.

Lamashtu is the mother of monsters, devourer of infants, and source of all that is corrupted and bestial. A monstrous and terrifying deity born from the depths of madness, she is both fiendish queen and revered mother to the horrors that stalk the night. She is a fertility goddess, but though those who pray to her are certainly more likely to survive childbirth, their offspring will be inevitably tainted. Legends say that from her womb sprang many of Golarion’s monstrous races: goblins, gnolls, and other foul spawn too numerous to count. Her dominion over beasts makes the wilderness a fearsome place, while her nightmares invade the peace of sleep. The endless screams of the insane are glorious hymns to her, and the destruction of all things lies within her desire.
Lamashtu’s goal is to corrupt mortals and twist the entire world into her misshapen brood, an enormous monstrous family devoted to her. She’s neither an empire-builder nor a conquering warlord; if her world is full of warring tribes, so much the better, for it means there will always be a need for many births to replenish the ranks of the fallen. The primitive and desperate have long sacrificed others’ newborns to protect their own, and many stories of infants stolen and replaced with wicked faerie-kind are actually Lamashtu-altered infants who appear normal and then transform overnight into monsters. Lamashtu revels in destroying the most innocent, whether defiling their flesh or tainting their minds; to her, a nursery is a banquet.
The Mother of Monsters tore out her own womb and feasted upon it to gain power over the unborn, then regenerated her own flesh by consuming a thousand stolen infants. Her milk can sustain, poison, and even transform those who drink it. Lamashtu steals seed from men while they sleep and uses that to create half-breed monsters that she later sends to shame and wound their fathers. Her touch and breath cause stillbirth and infant deformities, and those who suffer this are usually plagued by nightmares.
Lamashtu has dominion over all unintelligent monsters. She murdered the god Curchanus and stole his dominion over beasts, which is why the untamed creatures of the wild consider humanoids their enemies. Many strange and unique monsters arise from her whim, as she enjoys molding the flesh of radically different beasts to create new terrors. Those plagued by monsters can pray to her for assistance, and in exchange for loyalty and offerings of newborns or infants (or sometimes merely breast milk or placentas, if she is in a good mood), Lamashtu sends her minions away to prey upon unbelievers. Her name can be invoked as a charm or prayer against nightmares, but using it might draw her attention and lead to monstrous births if the invoker is not a member of her cult or doesn’t make the appropriate grisly sacrifices.
Lamashtu’s worshipers believe that purity and perfection are temporary or illusory, while corruption and flaws are the natural and final state of things. While high-minded artists and philosophers might argue that change is a dynamic agent that prevents the stagnation of civilization, the followers of the Mother of Monsters only want to bend, tear, and break the blasphemous beauty they see in the world. Her true form is a pregnant woman with a three-eyed jackal head, taloned bird legs, and black hawk wings. The state of her pregnancy varies, but she is always visibly pregnant, and often hugely so, though this never affects her mobility. She carries two blades: one shrouded in fire called Redlust, and one crusted in frost called Chillheart. Her voice is deep and rich, and rises to a howl when enraged; her screams are like a lion’s roar that can be heard for miles.
When the Mother of Beasts is angry, her victims suffer painful joints, infections, or nightmares. For her worshipers, giving birth to an untainted child is a sign of great disfavor and shame, requiring sacrifices to atone, starting with that of the unwanted newborn. Her greatest disfavor results in monstrous parents giving birth to children of a people cursed with beauty, such as elves. Worshipers asking her for signs generally undergo physical changes: a priest asking whether to pursue a vendetta against an old foe might wake to find his canine teeth elongated into fangs. Such changes tend to last only a few hours and give no significant advantage. Lamashtu may also send messages through nightmares: a hunter might receive a vivid nightmare of Lamashtu biting the head off a dwarven infant, thus directing him to kill the dwarven captain (the head, or leader of the group) to force pesky dwarven soldiers to return to their base. In rare cases, injured worshipers deep in her favor might wake to find wounds half-healed or a lost limb regrown, though she is not a healing deity, and in these cases the result is meant to stand as testament to her unnatural intervention: a man with a belly wound might have pink scarring and strange hairy growths, a human amputee might have a gnoll’s leg, and so on.
Lamashtu’s holy symbol is a three-eyed jackal’s head. Though her favored weapon is the falchion, the kukri, with its murderous implications, is also valued and used by those of her faith. Most of her clergy are clerics, though many lesser humanoid clergy are adepts, a small number are rangers, and a handful are corrupted druids. She is called the Demon Queen, the Mother of Beasts, and the Demon Mother—but despite her titles, she isn’t the creator of the demon race as a whole, though many such fiends serve her and she herself once numbered among the demon lords of the Abyss. Along with numerous well-known demons, seven powerful demonic sorceresses serve her; called the Seven Witches, in some tales they are identified as her most powerful daughters.

Divine Domains

family, might, nightmares, trickery

Holy Books & Codes

Although most Lamashtan writings are clawed in stone or painted in blood, her holiest teachings can be found in a pair of profane references.
The Four Hides of Lawm: This text is a series of three leather straps stitched together and marked with simple runes telling the history and lessons of the Demon Queen. Lawm, a hero of the faith, created this item by pulling strips of flesh from her own body, tanning them to make leather, and painting them. Two of the strips have been torn and repaired, and legend tells of a fourth strip containing a heresy expunged from cult lore.
The Skull of Mashaag: This is the preserved skull of a yaenit champion slain by a cleric of Desna. The skull was found intact by a Lamashtan priest and empowered with the ability to speak the Demon Queen’s doctrine in several different humanoid languages, as well as in Abyssal. Every few years, a number of Lamashtan cults meet to hear the skull speak, and heroes of each cult face off in contests of strength to determine which cult holds the skull until the next meeting. On these occasions, the skull makes observations as if it were its own sentient being.

Tenets of Faith

Edicts bring power to outcasts and the downtrodden, indoctrinate children in Lamashtu’s teachings, make the beautiful monstrous, reveal the corruption and flaws in all things
Anathema attempt to treat a mental illness or deformity, provide succor to Lamashtu’s enemies

Holidays

The cults of Lamashtu celebrate no known regular holidays, though they engage in debauched hedonism to celebrate births, deformities, and demonic visitations. The entire month of Lamashan is sacred to them, not only because it is named for their goddess, but because it represents the transition from fall to winter, a time of year when the weakest offspring die from the first seasonal illnesses.

Social

Contacts & Relations

Relations with Other Religions

Lamashtu considers all other gods her enemies, although she focuses her energy on nurturing her children and expanding the lands for them to inhabit. She knows Desna hates her for killing the god Curchanus and stealing his power over beasts, as well as for her control of nightmares, but she treats the childless, flighty goddess as beneath her notice. She sees Urgathoa as a rival, as the Pallid Princess’s deathless followers can multiply quickly and have the potential to swarm the mortal world.
Lamashtu wars with Rovagug often over control of the various races and tribes of uncivilized humanoids that revere him. She has a vague interest in capturing Shelyn and transforming her into a hideous breeder of monsters, but such interests can wait until her offspring cover the mortal world.
Though she distrusts any beings that rival or approach her in power, Lamashtu does occasionally work with other deities and demigods when it serves her interests. She created a realm in the Abyss and gifted it to the four gods now known as the Goblin Hero-Gods (see page 189) in return for their help in ensuring that goblins worship the Demon Queen above all others.
Lamashtu also makes occasional deals with demon lords, but never with for Pazuzu, her former lover, for whom she brooks no quarter. Pazuzu is one of the most ancient demon lords, and his long conflict with Lamashtu has prevented him from achieving greater power or perhaps even ascending to godhood himself; this knowledge only serves as a goad for his hatred of the Demon Queen. Accounts differ as to whether the King of the Wind Demons and the Mother of Monsters began as siblings, lovers, or merely allies, but most agree that they slaughtered thousands of greater demons and claimed a large territory they ruled jointly. When the Demon Queen tore away Curchanus’s power over wild beasts, her ascent to greater power and status infuriated Pazuzu. When she returned from battle, he stabbed her with a shard of cold iron snapped from the heart of a mountain, maiming her wings and casting her into an infinitely deep chasm at the edge of their shared realm. It took her centuries to recover, but upon her emergence from the pit, she wrested control of their territory from Pazuzu.
She hopes to someday capture him, break his wings, and imprison him for a thousand years before finally eating his heart. To this day, his name is believed to disperse her influence, and mortals fearful of her corrupting touch put amulets with Pazuzu’s name or image around the necks of pregnant women and newborns to ward her away.
Her faithful are generally hostile toward other faiths, no matter how closely aligned their goals are. The rare exception comes from worshipers of those demons like Socothbenoth or Nocticula who claim (or seek) to be the Demon Queen’s servants or lovers. Particularly ambitious Lamashtans may infiltrate other faiths to corrupt them from within, sowing nightmares, suspicion, infighting, and even monstrous offspring among them, a tactic they particularly favor against worshipers of Pharasma because of their shared interest in births.

Planar Allies

Along with shemhazian demons, swaithes, and yaenits, the following outsiders serve Lamashtu and only willingly answer planar ally and similar calling spells from her faithful.
Bloodmaw (unique yeth hound): This beast leads a large pack in Lamashtu’s realm, and stands out because of his different-colored eyes (one glows green, the other has the normal red glow). He can’t use weapons that require hands and refuses to serve if offered such things as payment. He and his pack understand Abyssal and Infernal.
Yethazmari: This jackal-like beast serves as Lamashtu’s herald. As much as Yethazmari delights in the war-torn devastation of the Abyss, it exalts in every opportunity to rampage upon the Material Plane. On the rare occasions what Lamashtu sends her herald to Golarion, the servants of the Mother of Monsters flock to its side—an act of dangerous fanaticism, as the beast is just as likely to prey upon allies as foes. Worshipers of Lamashtu claim that no host joined by the Demon Queen’s herald has ever been defeated. Legends of Yethazmari often say that it is accompanied by a pack of powerful yeth hounds known as the Black Hunt. These yeth hounds claim direct parentage from the herald and are among the oldest and strongest of their kind. Should Yethazmari be killed on the Material Plane, it’s said that his essence chooses one from among this pack to bind with, resurrecting the ancient fiend.

Edicts bring power to outcasts and the downtrodden, indoctrinate children in Lamashtu’s teachings, make the beautiful monstrous, reveal the corruption and flaws in all things
Anathema attempt to treat a mental illness or deformity, provide succor to Lamashtu’s enemies
Follower Alignments CE

Devotee Benefits

• Divine Font harm or heal

• Divine Skill Survival

• Favored Weapon falchion

• Domains family, might, nightmares, trickery

• Cleric Spells 1st: magic fang, 2nd: animal form, 4th: nightmare

Centers of Worship: Belkzen, Irrisen, Katapesh, Nex, Osirion, River Kingdoms, Varisia, Worldwound

Aphorisms

Servants of Lamashtu extol the insane wisdom of the Mother of Monsters, often in the form of short mantras or savage truths.
Blessed Be the Mother: An oath to the Demon Queen and praise to mortal mothers, this invocation may be a battle cry, a plea for help, or a prayer of thanks, depending on the context. It is chanted during childbirth to link the expectant mother to Lamashtu so the goddess takes notice and brings forth a strong (though deformed) new life. In rituals where creatures are sacrificed, the victim is bled first and the blood used to spell this phrase on the ground in simple runes.
The Scars Are the Proof: Rival cultists of Lamashtu often challenge each other to a “duel of scars,” in which they compare scarring to see who has been in more battles or marked himself to a greater extent; the one with the most scars is considered the victor. If the decision is too close to call, opponents may take turns branding or cutting themselves until one concedes victory. Among women, the rough belly-scars from monstrous births are proof of the goddess’s favor, and are often the deciding factor in a scar duel.

Religions

• Church of Lamashtu

Realm

The Abyss

Church/Cult

Church of Lamashtu