[3.

5 Epic Discipline] Primeval God-Monster

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This is the Epic Discipline expansion of the Infernal Monster Discipline.

The names and concepts for the maneuvers are stolen unabashedly from Revlid, and The
Demented One. I am not original, own nothing, and am a thoroughly reprehensible person.

Art (slightly cropped) by Sandara

Primeval God-Monster
Anger, malice, murder – this is what the Infernal Monster is. Whether one calls it insanity, or
righteous fury, or a just execution, or natural selection, or simple hate, it is always the Infernal
Monster. When the first Gods of Law took up their spears and stabbed at the chaos, slaying their
first demons, the Infernal Monster was there. And they shouted "Glory to the Monster, for these
wretched lowly things deserve death, and it is through the Monster that we deliver justice." And
when the demons retaliated, and the brothers and sisters and children of the Lawgivers fell into
bloodied heaps, they cursed the Monster, saying "What a terrible thing you are, that you would
smile on the death of our loved ones!"

So it was that when the most ancient of evil things was sealed within the Infinite Abyss, so too
did they lock away the Monster. But the Gods could not build their prison too great. They would
have to allow the Monster to bend his bars and claw at his freedom; for Law to prevail, there
must be much death, and much suffering. Such poetic notions are far too complex for the
Monster to contemplate. He does not care for whom his bloodlust benefits. He does not care that
he is caged. He does not care that he even Is. Blood and death and screaming and carnage must
happen, must happen. Now, if not sooner. That is all that he cares for.

To master the Infernal Monster Discipline is to take the Monster into yourself, and to become it.
One learns the philosophy, the motions; one feels the blood on their face, and nurtures death in
their hands. The Untamed Apocalypse Shintai is all one requires to feel what it is to be the
Monster.

But, there is a greater plateau for one to reach to. At their current pinnacle, they are the Monster
in miniature. They are a sculpture of the Monster, but hollow inside. The Primeval God-Monster
Epic Discipline fills that emptiness with the molten rage that always belonged there. As with
Infernal Monster, its associated weapons are unarmed attacks, natural weapons, and improvised
weapons. It should be noted that gazing upon the slaughter dealt by masters of this discipline (or
the Monster itself) is sufficient to be considered "tutored" for the purposes of training times for
its maneuvers. Being savagely beaten by them is similarly enlightening.

Perfected Rage-Saint Sarira [Epic, Initiation]

Prerequisites: The "Hands of Fury" feat, Martial Lore 24 ranks, Intimidate 24 ranks
Benefits: You lose access to the "Untamed Apocalypse Shintai" stance (although you are still
considered to know it for the purposes of qualifying for feats), and may immediately add any one
other Infernal Monster stance that you do not know (if any) to your list of Stances Known. The
effects of "Untamed Apocalypse Shintai" become natural and permanent aspects of your
character that cannot be negated or turned off.

Furthermore, the benefits of Hands of Fury extend to your entire body, just as the unnatural
scarring and inhuman flesh also spread to engulf you. Your new body (and improvised weapons
you wield) bypass up to your initiator level in points of damage reduction that can be bypassed
by some method (such as alignment, material, or being Epic).

Finally, you may learn maneuvers from the Primeval God-Monster discipline.

Flashing Blood-Knuckle Fury

Primeval God-Monster (Strike)
Action: Free
Range: Movement Speed
Target: One or More Creatures
XP Cost: 20,000
Training Time: 10 days

The Monster perceives anger. It perceives prey. It perceives violence. It does not perceive time,
except as anger that has infuriatingly yet to be released.

This maneuver may be activated even when it is not your turn. You may either immediately
move up to your speed and make a full-attack, or move up to twice your speed and make a full-
attack. The latter option is considered a Charge, with all the associated benefits and penalties.

Many-Armed Wrathful Deva Method

Primeval God-Monster (Counter)
Prerequisite: One Primeval God-Monster Maneuver
Action: Immediate
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: One encounter
XP Cost: 30,000
Training Time: 15 days

Who can say what form the Monster has, if any? What one can be certain of is that, regardless of
the number of deadly implements that its horrific body bristles with – typhoons of razor-sharp
teeth, claws that reap whole nations in their wake, titanic clusters of all-too-human fists that snap
bones and pound flesh until it weeps its deepest blood – it is only angry that it does not have
more.

This maneuver may be activated in response to you missing with a melee attack. You
immediately make four unarmed melee attacks against the same foe that you just missed. As you
make each of these free attacks, you grow an additional arm as your body convulses and remakes
itself in desperate longing to murder that which stands before it. These four extra arms are fully
functional, last for the remainder of the encounter, and act as if you possessed the Multiweapon
Fighting feat, if you did not already.

Clenched-Fist Krodha Soul

Primeval God-Monster (Boost)
Prerequisite: One Primeval God-Monster Maneuver
Action: Swift
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: One encounter
XP Cost: 30,000
Training Time: 15 days

One would think that, such is the Monster's lust for carnage that, while he is inflicting grievous
destruction on the impotent bodies of his prey, perhaps he is momentarily sated. This is pure
ignorance. While the Monster is killing, he is only angry that he is not killing more. The pain he
feels at the entire multiverse not drowning in its own blood at this very moment is indescribable.
Why can there not be more gore, more death, more murder?

This maneuver may be activated in a round in which you have already expended your other
actions, but have not made a full-attack. You immediately make a single melee attack against
every creature within your reach. For the rest of the encounter, at the end of each of your turns in
which you have not made a full-attack, you may immediately make two melee attacks (six if
Many-Armed Wrathful Deva Method is active), which may be divided as you choose among any
creatures within your reach.

Fist Meets Fist

Primeval God-Monster (Counter)
Prerequisite: One Primeval God-Monster Maneuver
Action: Immediate
Range: Melee
Target: One creature
XP Cost: 30,000
Training Time: 15 days

Some prey stands against the Monster. They think to slay it, to end it, that somehow it can be
defeated. Defeated by what? Would they kill it? Use the very murder that it is? If prey runs, it
dies. If it does not run, it dies. If it fights, it is the Monster. And it dies.

This maneuver may be activated in response to an attack successfully hitting you. You gain two
Fist Points (or six, if you have Many-Armed Wrathful Deva Method active), which last until the
end of the encounter, or until expended. You may expend one Fist Point whenever an attack
successfully hits you (the attack that triggered this maneuver is a valid target). When you do, roll
damage as if you had hit your attacker with a normal melee attack. Reduce the damage from their
attack by the amount you rolled. If this would result in a negative number, the attacker suffers
the difference in damage.

Unholy Eucharist Appetite

Primeval God-Monster (Boost)
Prerequisite: One Primeval God-Monster Maneuver
Action: Free
Range: Melee
Target: One Creature
XP Cost: 30,000
Training Time: 15 days

When the Monster roosts upon its throne of gore at the end of all things, having maimed and
slaughtered everything that it may lay its grasp upon, it will not be alone. It will not be a sad and
lonely creature, bereft of purpose. It will be a singular legend. A story of brutality that
encompasses everyone that ever was, shattering those things that held them apart, and binding
them together, in unity, as the prey of the Monster. A grotesque beauty that will never occur to it,
as it gnashes its teeth, awaiting the birth of a new cosmos to torment.

This maneuver may be activated when you successfully deal damage to another creature with a
melee attack. In doing so, you steal part of their essence. For every 10 points of damage dealt,
the victim suffers the effects of one Negative Level. However, this is not a Negative Level in the
normal sense. It is not a result of negative energy, nor is it a form of energy drain, nor is it
magical in nature. It is an Extraordinary loss of potency that uses the term "Negative Level" as
short-hand for its effects. These pseudo-Negative Levels do not stack with multiple applications
of themselves, and never become permanent. They last until you are killed, which releases any
captured essence you possess. Those that have their essence stolen are constantly covered with
perpetually bleeding wounds (although they deal no additional damage from blood loss), and feel
a profound emptiness and impending dread.

If you kill a creature whose essence you currently possess, you subsume everything that they are
into the roiling maelstrom of your anger. They may be resurrected, sure, but any new rendition of
themselves is a mindless flesh-doll without purpose or agency, which quickly shrivels and dies
once more, having no effect on its true self, which remains locked within you until your death.

Creation-Swallowing Hellmouth Strike

Primeval God-Monster (Strike)
Prerequisite: Two Primeval God-Monster Maneuvers
Action: Standard
Range: Melee
Target: One creature
XP Cost: 45,000
Training Time: 20 days

The Monster is bound into a hellish prison, but not perfectly so. Occasionally, it extends a
horrific appendage and finds itself touching a far-away world. All of the creatures there have
been blighted by it already, but this is not sufficient to cease the Monster's lust for their utter
destruction. If it could, it would drag all of them down, down, into its waiting maw.

As part of this maneuver, make a normal melee attack. If you hit, you automatically deal a
critical hit. In addition, the victim is catapulted upward and (100 + damage dealt + 4d10) miles
away, which, unless you wish to do the calculations yourself, we will assume takes about five
hours for them to land. When the victim lands, they take an additional 20d6 from the impact, and
deal the same amount of damage to the surface they land upon (often leaving a crater at the site).
In addition, all creatures within 300 feet of the impact zone must make a Reflex save or fall
prone.

While hurtling through the air, a creature's body is completely buckled from the force of the
punch, preventing movement of any kind, including that required to complete somatic
components. In addition, spells without a somatic component require a concentration check with
a DC equal to (10 + 1/2 your character level + your Strength modifier) or the amount of damage
they took from the initial strike, whichever is higher, to be performed properly.
If the victim somehow alters their position, such as via "Plane Shift" or a Teleportation spell,
their velocity is maintained.

Finally, this maneuver grants an additional option. If you wish, after applying damage, you may
choose to send the target to the Abyss. When this version is utilized, any magic that would
teleport or shift the plane of the victim while they are in flight automatically fails. About halfway
through their travel time, they shatter through the planar barrier, and arrive (still hurdling through
the air) on a random layer of the Abyss.

Beating The Messiah Bloody

Primeval God-Monster (Boost)
Prerequisite: Two Primeval God-Monster Maneuvers
Action: Free
XP Cost: 45,000
Training Time: 20 days

The Monster seeks to kill. It does not care if you are a penniless street urchin, or the living
embodiment of a god's will. It kills because that is what it does. Curiously, it observes, that some
prey are effected by its choice of victim. It does not seek to understand, although it is perfectly
happy to take advantage of the ensuing chaos, and revel in the frightened screams.

This maneuver may be activated when you kill an Epic-level creature. Every other creature in the
multiverse that knew of them, and had a positive relationship with them, is stricken with a
moment of fear as they suddenly know with unnerving certainty that their hero has died. This
may include friends, loved ones, followers, worshipers, benefactors, adoring fans, or even pets.

The next time any affected creature finds itself in an encounter with you, it becomes Panicked
for one minute, a primal fear awakening in them, telling them that you are the one responsible
for their loss. Epic characters are allowed a Will save to resist.

Gods have a special connection to those few believers that have transcended into Epic level. The
Panick inflicted on a god from killing an Epic character that it granted spells to bypasses any
immunity to fear they might have. And, for that one minute, they lose access to any divine
spellcasting that they have, as their confidence in their own power wavers before the hideous
reality that is the Monster.

If a character defeated by you is returned from the dead, the hearts of those that believed in them
are lightened once more, and you will no longer Panick them upon encountering them. The half-
life given to resurrected beings whose essence you have devoured via Unholy Eucharist Appetite
is not sufficient.

Hero-Breaking Horror
Primeval God-Monster (Strike)
Prerequisite: Two Primeval God-Monster Maneuvers
Action: Standard
Range: Melee
Target: One creature
Duration: Instant / One Encounter
XP Cost: 45,000
Training Time: 20 days

There has not yet been made any thing that the Monster cannot break. No rock, no mountain, no
world. No man, no hero, no god.

As part of this maneuver, make a grapple attempt against an enemy within your reach. This
attempt ignores the target's size-based bonuses on grapple checks, and any bonus on grapple
checks they might receive from divine magic, or the spell-like abilities of Outsiders. It is also
similarly unaffected by divine spells that completely invalidate a grapple check, such as
"Freedom of Movement", and arcane spells that do the same up to 9th level.

For the remainder of the encounter, the first grapple check you make in a round shares these
benefits (or up to the first six grapple checks you make in a round, if you have Many-Armed
Wrathful Deva Method active).

Pummel The Horizon

Primeval God-Monster (Stance) [Pinnacle]
Prerequisite: Eight Primeval God-Monster Maneuvers
Action: Swift
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Stance
XP Cost: 100,000
Training Time: 50 days

It is a violent world that we live in. Was it the violence that begat the Monster, or the Monster
that begat the violence? The truth – the simple truth – is that no such distinction matters. It is all
the same. The Monster is the world, it is us, it is everything. Since the first proto-demiurge
crawled forth from nothingness before the infinite time before infinite time, to the final
meaningless void far beyond the collapse of everything that will ever be, The Monster Is.

While in this stance, your Reach is considered to be equal to your perception. All you require to
attack something is to be able to perceive it (via normal sight, magical senses, or something
exotic like Blindsight), be on the same plane of existence as it, and to have Line of Effect to it.
Attacks made at extreme range are accompanied by obviously unnatural phenomena, almost
always utilizing blood, flesh, and bone as visual effects. Sometimes, a half-coalesced phantom
image of yourself might appear before the target, composed of red mist, and disembowel them.
Other times, a typhoon of splintered bones could descend from the skies and eviscerate the
target. The victim's own flesh might twist hideously in upon itself, forming an effigy of clawed
hands out of the ruined gore, only to rake madly at any healthy meat surrounding them.