Apocalypse Rider Dedication Feat 12

Source Pathfinder War of Immortals

In the darkest hour of the night, a fearsome and terrible steed arrives as a gift from a powerful daemonic patron. You gain an apocalypse mount, which is loyal and follows your commands as long as you work to spread death and destruction. Your apocalypse mount can be any mature animal companion with the mount special ability, though it is obviously touched by daemonic forces. Choose whether your apocalypse mount is a nimble or savage animal companion. During an encounter, even if you don't use the Command an Animal action, your apocalypse mount can still use 1 action on your turn to Stride or Strike.

You also gain the anathema "You forswear any plans to cheat death or build something that will last beyond your own death." If you break this anathema, you lose access to abilities granted by this archetype until you atone or make amends.

Special If you already have an animal companion with the mount special ability, it becomes your apocalypse mount as daemonic energies infuse its form. In such a case, one of your companion's unarmed attacks increases one die size.

Uncommon

From the mightiest empire to the smallest star, everything dies. Lowly mortals, ageless angels, and primordial gods all face the same inescapable fate—to fade beyond memory and join the litany of the forgotten. The hastening of all life into this oblivion is the ultimate goal of the daemonic harbingers and their forces, including those mortals who exploit hate and hopelessness to bring calamity on the world. Chief among these demigods are the Riders of the Apocalypse, powerful fiends chosen to deliver death, famine, pestilence, and war.

While neither the Riders nor their devotees feel obligated to make or keep promises, some mortals pledge their efforts to gain personal power and further the cause of entropy. Those destined to wreak the most destruction upon the world are known as apocalypse riders. Taking on such a mantle requires the utmost commitment to death and ruin.

You are such an apocalypse rider, and you have a terrifying ally in this fight, whether sent by daemonic overlords or spontaneously formed by Abaddon itself. This creature is a beastly mount with a form that matches your personality and goals, though its loyalties lie with Abaddon first. It will serve you faithfully as long as you continue to cause significant losses of life and inflict mass destruction. However, this apocalypse mount is more than just a way to monitor your obedience to the cause of misery. Your mount serves as a badge of office, signifying to daemons that you are effectively one of them.

From astride her ferocious riding drake, Arba Dwindletree (destructive female gnome druid) staves off her Bleaching by wreaking havoc on crops and pitting fledgling settlements in the River Kingdoms against one another. Her delight in this chaos is tempered only when meddlesome fey creatures try to join in on the “fun.”

Posing as an Order of the Nail Hellknight, Owyn Darkoath (manipulative male human warrior) pushes border tensions between Andoran and Cheliax, riding a pitch black destrier into battle. His goal is to force default on the Thrunes' contract with Hell, bringing even greater war when Asmodeus' forces come to collect what they're owed.

Deng Fo-Murk (cruel male human necromancer) uses his alchemical skills to reanimate the corpses of nobles and diplomats to sew political conflict between Hwanggot and its neighbors. He is poised to light the fuse on a powder keg of bloody consequences, through which he will gallop through on his terror bird mount.

In Abaddon, daemonkind sometimes demonstrates an odd mix of cooperation and hostility toward one another. This remains true of their mortal champions in the Universe. War creates both famine and pestilence, drought creates war, and all worshippers of the end of all things engineer death in one form or another. An apocalypse rider may specialize in a particular rubric of death, but all daemonic servitors understand that the categories of the Four Riders frequently overlap one another. A group of riders might even cooperate to increase the scale of their deadly designs, but their apocalypse mounts carefully track who is delivering on their oath and who is not.

Apocalypse riders who fulfill the full scope of their commitment to the Riders often prove to be among the mightiest creatures on their world. Such servants of death are hardly sated once a project reaches its desired number of casualties. Successful riders often indulge in a new sort of killing or initiate a plan larger and more lethal in scope than their original commitments. A truly ambitious apocalypse rider will turn their baleful gaze to their own master, enforcing one of the few dogmas observed by daemonkind—all creatures must die, including those immortal demigods who remain unchallenged for too many centuries. Several times over the millennia, an apocalypse rider or exalted deacon has laid waste to a presiding Rider and claimed the daemon's post. An individual who assumes the office of Rider immediately becomes a unique daemon and takes over the realm of the previous Rider on the plane of Abaddon.

Your Personal Apocalypse
Often your apocalypse mount brings with it a command to start a war or drive a nation to lasting hunger, but the Four Riders of the Apocalypse and their daemonic servants leave the nature of the calamity to you, their new champion. The daemons demand only that the resulting evil be historic in scope and unique in its nature. All mortals can start a war by virtue of hatred or greed; an apocalypse rider's war must offer something new. Apocalypse riders often demonstrate a significant degree of finesse as they engineer destruction. Servants of the Rider of Famine might employ magic to control the weather, breed a more voracious swarm of locusts, poison the soil or a city's water supply, or employ economics to hoard a food supply away from hungry mouths. Each Rider's promise offers multiple opportunities to bring calamity to bear, and every apocalypse rider has full authority to shape events for their desired effect.

Your Personal Apocalypse

Often your apocalypse mount brings with it a command to start a war or drive a nation to lasting hunger, but the Four Riders of the Apocalypse and their daemonic servants leave the nature of the calamity to you, their new champion. The daemons demand only that the resulting evil be historic in scope and unique in its nature. All mortals can start a war by virtue of hatred or greed; an apocalypse rider's war must offer something new. Apocalypse riders often demonstrate a significant degree of finesse as they engineer destruction. Servants of the Rider of Famine might employ magic to control the weather, breed a more voracious swarm of locusts, poison the soil or a city's water supply, or employ economics to hoard a food supply away from hungry mouths. Each Rider's promise offers multiple opportunities to bring calamity to bear, and every apocalypse rider has full authority to shape events for their desired effect.