20 Soulslike Bosses

In imitation of a friend of the blog.

Source: Solid City, by Paul Klee

1. Wretched Mockery
   Two identical statues, wrought images of your g_d, joined ankle to ankle, wrist to wrist, crooning in a twin voice, "Don't you recognize me? I've been thinking about you every day I've been gone."
   
2. Hellbreaker Refugee
   He killed the sailors who pulled him from the sea, and the beachcombers who found his wreck, and soldiers who came to investigate the strange lights and song. There is no crime he would not stoop to, because there are no punishments left to menace him, save that which he is already sacrificing everything and everyone to flee. 
3. Incurious Manufactory
   Every conversation with him went poorly. Everything had to be about light; its properties, its influence, its limits. In a world like ours, men so devoted to knowledge should count themselves lucky if they are ever allowed to die.
4. Ten Lords Aulus
   His arguments proved conclusively that his neighbors owed him enough koku to feed a city, a suit beyond the dreams of avarice. He was left a fraction when they walled him in his own granary — a large fraction, yes, but surely, surely, not enough to feed him for all these years.
   
5. Heinke, Oubliette Crawler
   "What a fine piece!" Heinke said to himself, "and they just left it down here? Perhaps my employers don't even know what they've got..."
6. Horse-Faced Serpent
   The horses of Icorn are as large as houses, and mightier than ships. But not every behemoth that basks in the sunlight and snaps up crocodiles in its jaws is a horse.
   
7. Sporulating Army
   "And what of the spiders who lived under that hill, the kindly ones who would weave clothing for the poor, and lived only on the potherbs and the mushrooms they grew in their caves, and would not even drink blood?"
   "They found that there is more in the dark than men have forgotten, and that not all of creation is a kindness."
   
8. Gutter-Born Kensei
   He has it — the power — the madness. Look in his eyes. Sometimes they glow with light like gold that burns.
   
9. Zedek the Cupbearer
   Once there was a good servant, and he was so beautiful that his master placed him in the heavens so he would be admired for all time. But beauty fades, and gratitude fades, and heaven is a cold and lonely place where it is not lit by the stars. 
10. The Glorious Compact
    They swore with blood and ink that they would each discover a great secret, and each would share his discovery with his brothers, and so together they would know all things. But if they all meant to keep that promise, why does each member of this ring of dancers have a knife stuck in the back of his neighbor? 
11. Braquemard, Author of the Lilac Sutra
    In the days when the Aeshe (pbuh) traveled between the cities, preaching the Way, he had many followers. Some recorded his teachings, even those they didn't understand. You don't need to understand the Way to master it. The wicked, the greedy, the arrogant; the Great Sage came to instruct them as well.
    
12. Seven-Faced Nurhage
    What hot shame the seventh apprentice must have felt! To hear your master say "You have the skill, and you have the knowledge, but you lack the beauty to share in my immortality", ah! 
    
13. Headless Oksana
    Wise ones say that the dead did not always rise from their graves, as they do now. Does that mean there was some night, after the end of the old order, before the beginning of the new, where a murderer might have been punished by his own hidden crime? 
14. Alive, son of Awake
    Do you say to yourself, "I am the inheritor of the world, I am descendant of Ka"? But G_d could create descendants of Ka from these very trees. You are not safe, even on a far isle, hidden from the rest of mankind. You may not even be alone.
    
15. Emperor's Librarian
    "Live unknown if you would realize your ends.
    Follow the advice of your common sense.
    Good men are their own worst enemies.
    Oblivion is the reward of merit.
    In all the world, good and evil,
    joy and sorrow, are in fact
    only aspects of the void."
    
16. Magalis, Lunatic Poet
    To eyes that see only shades of light, the moon is a dark stone, moving along the ringing grooves of the firmament. But if your eyes could discern lumines of dark you would see a beauty that was hidden even from the g_ds. Don't meet her gaze.
    
17. Thief of Joy
    "Passed from hand to bloody hand, until it reached mine. What else besides a cursed sword could have driven me to do these things? You have to believe me, it whispers, I'm not just another innocent victim. Kill me! Let it end, I've done nothing wrong! But when I'm dead, you have to promise... you have to promise you'll take it from my body" 
18. Sunblind Zamburakchi
    An army set out one autumn morning to see if the lands to the North were full of gold. The rest of their story is long, and hardly worth recounting. Did their loyalty to their commanders extend beyond the border? Did the locals welcome armed strangers warmly? Are the streets of This paved with gold? What do you think? 
19. Royal Death Weasel
    Fed on the finest sweets. Shampooed every day. Wrapped in silk pajamas. Then there were tunnels dug beneath every room, for the weasel. Then there were hasty graves dug in the palace cellars, for the missing servants. And still it grew.
    
20. Cage, 50 Yarrow Stalk Composer
    "Lightning is born from heaven, music is born from the stars." The audience shifts and mutters. "Hierarchy is the nature of the world, music is the nature of time." Someone works a hand free, and tries to pull the hood from their face.