Nightmarchers
Image © Paizo Publishing, accessed at Archives of Nethys here
[It's time to say goodbye to the World Tour. And so, the nightmarchers are going to watch it come to an end. At a safe, respectable distance.
I put that poll up about whether you guys thought whether using the nightmarchers as a tabletop monster was cultural appropriation or not. I did weigh all of your opinions, but the one that got weighed the heaviest was @abominationimperatrix, a good friend who I have made through this blog, and one of the people I know who knows more about monsters than I do.
She pointed out that the nightmarchers entry was written by someone with Hawaiian heritage as an homage to the stories their grandfather taught them. And the prohibition against looking them in the face is about respect to royalty and tradition. Some historical/folkloric entities there are legitimate prohibitions about representing in visual media (see Muhammed the Prophet). But there's plenty of art of the nightmarchers made by native Hawaiians. So, I decided to go ahead. This entry sticks pretty closely mechanically to the 2e version, and I made sure that my flavor text emphasizes respect and coexistence. ]
Nightmarchers CR 14 LN Undead (troop) This spectral precession contains dozens of men and women, standing proud and carrying regalia. Although they are transparent and clearly unearthly, the weapons, armor and torches they carry seem all too effective.
The nightmarchers are ancestral spirits. They patrol the royal highways on tropical islands, ensuring that the boundaries between nobility and the common folk are enforced, and that the hierarchy of societies is strictly enforced. Seeing the nightmarchers at a distance is seen as a weird omen by some, and a comforting one by others. But getting too close, regardless, can be dangerous.
It is said that to gaze directly upon the procession of nightmarchers, to scan their faces in the hopes of seeing the royal treasures they guard, literally or figuratively, is to invite disaster. One who supplicates themselves in apology, or who the nightmarchers recognize as kin and has not done them harm, is safe, although will often get a verbal warning. Those that try to fight or to gawk are admonished with fire, shot from a dozen torches and a hundred eyes. Anyone who survives this, but tries to strike back, is beaten down with phantom clubs and spears, showered with semi-real stones.
Because the power of royalty can be lethal or nourishing, nightmarchers can be dealt with in a constructive way—they know much of the Old Ways, and might tell those genuflecting of important secrets as they pass by. Even though the nightmarchers can walk on air and cross barriers with ease, they primarily stick to the royal roads. If they go off path, they are sure to avoid passing above certain sacred plants, those that they associate with their royal patrons. In order to ensure that the nightmarchers remain at a safe distance, many villages have these sacred plants growing around them as a territorial marker of mutual respect and boundary keeping.
