The deity Zon-Kuthon (pronounced ZONN-koo-THON) possesses one of the most twisted and evil minds in the Great Beyond. His position as god of pain is well earned, and he has been the root of countless tortures, murders, and worse throughout time.
History
Myths tell that at the beginning of time, Zon-Kuthon was known as Dou-Bral. The son of of the divine spirit-wolf Thron, he was a good deity who shared his appreciation of beauty, love, and the arts with his half-sister, Shelyn. During the Age of Creation, Dou-Bral was among the original gods who battled the Rough Beast who sought to destroy
Golarion, and were eventually able to contain him in the Dead Vault. When Dou-Bral grew jealous of his sister's talents, he abandoned Golarion for the dark places between and beyond the planes, and there was tormented and possessed by an alien being. Upon returning to our reality, Dou-Bral as he had been known was gone, replaced with the twisted, malevolent soul known as Zon-Kuthon.
When Shelyn saw that her brother was forever changed, and not for the better, the two battled, her pleas and tears met with a violence Dou-Bral would never have been capable of. Shelyn finally wrested the golden glaive known as the Whisperer of Souls the two had shared (a symbol of their power) from her twisted brother's fingers, and established a tenuous truce that held in place more by silence and avoidance than any desire to actually coexist.
A second myth speaks of how Zon-Kuthon first came into conflict with
Abadar, the god of culture, wealth, and stability. Seeing the crimes Zon-Kuthon committed in Golarion, Abadar knew that he must be punished, and made a bargain with the evil god. Zon-Kuthon agreed to go into exile on the
Plane of Shadowfor as long as the sun hung in the sky in exchange for an item of his choosing from
The First Vault. This imprisonment was not meant to be over as soon as it was, though, and when the sun stopped shining upon Golarion during the Age of Darkness, Abadar reluctantly honored the deal, giving Zon-Kuthon the first undead shadow, which the Midnight Lord has used to craft evil creatures in his realm of Xovaikain ever since.
Relationships
Zon-Kuthon has little concern for the dealing of other deities. As long as he can play with his many toys, the Dark Prince has no need for any alliances, wars, or diplomatic dealings. While often the target of vengeance from Golarion's good deities, Zon-Kuthon himself does little to instigate conflict. That said, he is not above torturing followers of other faiths, and does so whenever possible. The only one safe from his evil ways is his sister Shelyn, though he grants no such immunity to her faithful. Zon-Kuthon nevertheless considers the goddess Sivanah one of his greatest enemies, and she sees his use of shadow magic as corrupting and enslaving.
Appearance
As Dou-Bral, Zon-Kuthon was known for his beauty, but his body now resembles a work of art only to those like-minded individuals who find pain and torture to be the pinnacles of existence. Although his exact appearance is said to often change, he generally is depicted as pale, gaunt, and often hairless. He is often depicted wearing tight, sexualized leather clothing, exposing his many open wounds and body modifications. His lips have been removed, giving him a bloody, haunting grin, and hooks and piercings contort his face into revolting expressions, enhanced by the crystal which rests in the cavity where his left eye once sat. Atop his scalp, a vertical crown of spikes pulls his skin into a disturbing sunburst, and the back of his skull is completely gone, revealing his brain. His hands end in long, knife-like fingernails.[10] His appearance is simplified in most mortal representations of him, showing him as a pale, gaunt human with a single, significant wound.
Servants
Zon-Kuthon and his followers are more concerned with pain than they are symbols of the faith, but clerics are known to summon shadows and erinyes to do their bidding. His personal divine servitors are the lampadarius velstracs, creatures who embrace Zon-Kuthon's love of pain by continuously cutting off parts of their bodies and replacing them with the burning darkness from the Plane of Shadows.
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