She’s Giving You That “Come Zither” Look

At long last we come to the final entry among the A monsters of the Pathfinder Bestiary, and this curvaceous creature is one that makes sure this section ends with a bang. Let’s take a long look at the

LILLEND

What to say about the lillend? A picture is worth a thousand words, and really, they’re necessary. She’s a woman above the waist, a snake below, and she has wings to boot. The Freudian imagery is so thick here that I’m sure there must be a shrink somewhere using this picture as an aid in checking patients for psychosexual disorders.

Needless to say, we’ve come to yet another of the Bestiary’s pin-up girls. Far from the chaste aasimar or the ghaele, the lillend is the most prurient (in terms of appearance) creature we’ve seen yet.

Or is she?

Part of me (I won’t tell you which part) wonders if maybe the fact that the lillend is going around pretty much topless is her overcompensating. After all, most ordinary men are going to balk at the idea of fucking a girl who’s all scaly down there; hence, wearing nothing but pasties with the chain between them is her way of trying to make sure guys’ eyes stay up top.

The “I’m a sex object!” getup aside, the Bestiary talks about how the lillends are the artists of the azatas, giving us some fairly blase information about their love of music and protection of pastoral splendors and inspiration of artists, etc. It’s nothing to write home about, which is a shame, since I think they really could have put a more interesting spin on things.

Back in 2E, lillends were noted for all wearing masks that were heavily stylized, so much so that no two lillends’ masks were the same (this may have been specific to Planescape, I’m not sure). I think Paizo should have taken that concept and expanded upon it. Not the masks, per se, but rather the thematic idea that all lillends are artists who express and define themselves through body art.

My interpretation of the lillend is that she sees her own identity as an artistic abstraction – the idea of “who she is” is something that must be expressed rather than simply answered, and her body is the canvas on which that expression takes place. Hence, lillends spend their eternal existences looking for new ways to paint, pierce, modify, and otherwise alter their bodies in a way that defines them; a never-ending quest to find the perfect representation of who they are as art.

Of course, given that, the lillend pictured above must be uninspired at the moment. She’s not so much feeling blue as she is feeling blank, which is a shame.

Won’t someone grab his brush and apply a few coats to her?

Tags: azata, Bestiary, lillend, Pathfinder, pin-up girls