Shivaska

Shivaska

(Deity)

Titles

The Chained Maiden,
Lord of Prisons

Realm

Ticking House, Winding Wood, Abyss

Alignment

Chaotic evil

Areas of Concern

Aberrations
Clocks
Prisons

Worshipers

Aberrations (especially chokers), slavers, prison guards

Cleric Alignments (1E)

LG	NG	CG
LN	N	CN
LE	NE	CE

Domains (1E)

Chaos, Darkness, Evil, Madness

Subdomains (1E)

Demon, Insanity, Loss, Nightmare

Favored Weapon

Heavy flail

Symbol

Clock face with 13 hours

Sacred Animal

Tarantula

Sacred Colors

Brown, red

Images of Shivaska

Source: Book of the Damned, pg(s). 91

Shivaska is the demon lord of aberrations (especially chokers), clocks, and imprisonment. Her unholy symbol is a clock face split into 13 hours.

Home

Shivaska rules the Abyssal realm known as the Winding Wood from the Ticking House, a workhouse with a clock tower which accounts for 13 hours. It is whispered that this clock hides a second, secret, backward-running clock which only resets at the start of mass extinctions, and which is said to approach the end of an enigmatic countdown.

Appearance

Shivaska's essence is said to lie within a dozen long, thin chains, each ending in a barbed hook. Creatures that remain trapped in these chains are eventually transported to Shivaska's lair in the Abyss. Currently, Shivaska's chains grow from the body of a female, four-armed and four-legged choker, with glowing red eyes on her palms instead of head; in the past, she has taken the form of various chaotic evil aberrations, including a chuul, dwiergeth, grimslake, and spirit naga. Her first shell is said to be an immense clockwork roper with chains in place of tendrils and the face of a clock that records time in increments of six hours, minutes, and seconds.

Worshipers and cults

Shivaska is worshiped by all kinds of aberrations, especially those whose form she currently takes. She often transitions into a new shell during the course of a mass extinction on the Material Plane, whose build-ups usually see a sudden, disastrous rise in the aberration population and the number of attacks they commit on other races. No such event has taken place on Golarion.

Shivaska's non-aberration worshippers are usually slavers and sadistic prison guards. Her cults delight in running orphanages and boarding schools, where they use the children as slave labour and keep them in line by allowing aberrations (most often chokers) to roam the halls at night. The children are told that if they misbehave the monsters will get them, which, in this case, is perfectly true. Many parents who learn of these stories repeat them to keep their willful children in line, unaware that in doing so, they are praying to Shivaska and pushing the clock in the Ticking House a second closer to the choker apocalypse.

On Golarion

The kalavakus demon Yealek-Vor leads a cult of Shivaska in the long-forgotten dwarven Sky Citadel of Jormurdun in the Worldwound region of Frostmire. With the help of his hryngar servants, Yealek-Vor searches for ancient artifacts in order to boost his patroness' standing among the competing demon lords vying for control of the Worldwound.