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All Fiends

Natives to the Lower Planes of the multiverse: Acheron, Baator, Gehenna, Hades, Carceri, and Pandemonium. They're an extremely diverse bunch, with the only thing different fiends have in common is that they are always bad news.


  • Always Chaotic Evil: Demons literally personify Chaos and Evil, while devils embody the tyrannical combination of Evil and Law, and the self-serving yugoloths are undiluted Evil. In very rare cases, a fiend may change their alignment, but that won't change their inherent Evil nature, leaving them vulnerable to smite evil and similar effects.
  • Balking Summoned Spirit: The planar ally spell line requests aid from an extradimensional entity but doesn't compel its obedience, so the entity is free to demand extra payment or outright refuse if the task would conflict with its nature.
  • Demon/Devil Distinction: The Trope Codifier and probably one of the biggest influences on this trope's prevalence in media. Both fall under the "fiend" category and come from an infernal lower plane. However, demons come from The Abyss and are Chaotic Evil, while devils are from an adjacent plain named The Nine Hells, also called Baator, and are Lawful Evil. While demons are native to the Abyss, devils are fallen celestials who became corrupted after years of fighting the demons and took up residence in Baator. The two hate each other and are constantly in an eternal conflict called The Blood War. While demons naturally spawn from The Abyss and have seemingly endless numbers, while devils have a finite number of troops and need to corrupt mortal souls in order to replenish their numbers (though souls trapped in The Abyss will become demons too). Even their societal structures are different, with Baator being run by a very strict caste system resembling feudalism or a corporate ladder, with centralized government headed by Asmodeus. Meanwhile, The Abyss has no centralized structure and is a loose conglomerate of kingdoms and territories run by the strongest demons called Demon Lords (if they control part of a layer) or Demon Prince (if they control one or more layers).
  • Demon Lords and Archdevils: The lower planes are ruled by various fiends who managed to bully or manipulate their way into positions of power over their fellows. Demon Lords rule various layers of the Abyss by right of conquest, while Archdevils are appointed to positions of oversight over large sections of the devilish heirarchy by Asmodeus, the ultimate ruler of the Nine Hells. The Yugoloths' equivalents are the General of Gehenna and, prior to 5e, the Oinoloth.
  • Enemy Summoner: Though the trait is downplayed into an optional feature in 5th Edition, fiends have long had the ability to summon more of their kind (who thankfully cannot in turn summon even more fiends), with varying chances of success. Most aren't keen to become indebted to another fiend, but will do so when pressed. Yugoloths are noteworthy because if they summon reinforcements, those other yugoloths are not automatically considered allies of the caster, as fitting for a race of self-interested mercenaries.
  • Evil vs. Evil: All fiends are in some way involved in the Blood War; though it's fought between demons and devils, the war's all-consuming nature means that everyone has done something in it, even if that something is running away and hiding. Yugoloths often serve as mercenaries, and Night Hags take advantage of the war to provide customers for their soul trade.
  • Fighting a Shadow: On any plane but their home plane, "killing" a fiend merely banishes it for a time, they can only be permanently destroyed on their home turf. Powerful demon lords and archdevils can go a step further and create "aspects," basically not-quite-divine versions of godly avatars.
  • Forever War: The Blood War has raged for as long as any but the oldest gods can remember, and it will continue to rage until the end of the Multiverse. It technically ended in a sort of cold war in 4th edition, when newly ascended Asmodeus exploited the unravelling of the World Tree to shove the Abyss into Chaos while taking the Hells up into the Astral Sea, but it's back to open hostilities in 5th edition.
  • Made of Evil: As Outsiders native to planes exemplifying the various evil alignments, they all embody their plane's alignment. The Big Three types are Demons (Chaotic Evil, from the Abyss), Devils (Lawful Evil, from Baator), and the Yugoloth (Neutral Evil, from either Hades or Gehenna), but there are a lot of fiends running around who don't belong to any faction, such as the Night Hags and, as of 5e, the Succubi.
  • Omniglot: The demon lords and archdevils are fluent in all languages in 5th edition.
  • Telepathy: Many fiends have the ability to speak telepathically with other creatures.

Demons

Classification: Outsider (3E), various Elemental (4E), Fiend (5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Outsiders native to the Abyss, the plane exemplifying the Chaotic Evil alignment, and exactly as nasty as that seems. Demons are a blanket term for all creatures native to the Abyss, and there are three notable subspecies; Tanar'ri, Obyriths and Loumara.


For information on Demons and Demon Princes, see here.

Devils

Classification: Outsider (3E), Immortal Humanoid (4E), Fiend (5E)
Alignment: Lawful Evil

Also known as baatezu, the outsiders residing in the Lawful Evil plane of Baator. These are the guys who usually make deals with mortals. Devils are part of a strict hierarchy, each individual subservient to the ones above it, but also constantly scheming to ascend the ranks themselves. At the top of the hierarchy are the Archdukes of the nine hells, and at their head is Asmodeus, god of vice.


For information on Devils and Archdevils, see here.

Yugoloths

Classification: Fiend (5E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Neutral Evil fiends who work as mercenaries for whoever pays the best... at the moment.


For information on Yugoloths, see here.

Other Fiends

Demons, devils and yugoloths are the most numerous and well-known of the fiends, but they are not the only creatures to call the lower planes their home. Other manifestations of evil dwell in these twisted hellscapes, ready to torment those who stumble upon them.

    Abyssal Drake 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_abyssal_drake_3e.jpg
3e
Classification: Outsider (3E)
Challenge Rating: 9 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

These creatures were bred to be mounts for demon princes, but proved too unruly to be tamed, and now roam the Abyss to prey upon anything they come across. They are considered more fiend than dragon, and thus classified as outsiders.


  • Dragons Are Demonic: They have a very draconic appearance, but are native to the Abyss and are more fiend than dragon.
  • Dragon Rider: Their intended purpose was to serve as steeds for the Demon Lords.
  • Hellfire: The abyssal drake's breath weapon deals half fire damage and half Non-Elemental unholy damage.
  • Hybrid Monster: The abyssal drake is the result of an ancient breeding program that combines the worst elements of demons, wyverns and red dragons.
  • Our Wyverns Are Different: Abyssal drakes resemble wyverns with dark red scaled hides, powerful batlike wings, a serpentine neck and razor-sharp claws.
  • Supernatural Fear Inducer: When an abyssal drake charges, attacks or flies overhead, it inspires terror in all creatures within 120 feet.

    Achaierai 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_achaierai_3e.jpg
3e
Classification: Outsider (3E)
Challenge Rating: 5 (3E)
Alignment: Lawful Evil

Quadrupedal flightless birds from the plane of Acheron.


  • Feathered Fiend: Achaierais are evil, clever predators with a penchant for torture.
  • Our Monsters Are Weird: They are giant, roughly spherical birds with four legs, useless little wings, and the ability to spew toxic gases.
  • Poisonous Person: Achaierais can release clouds of toxic smoke which ravage both body and mind.
  • Vertebrate with Extra Limbs: Unlike normal birds, achaierais have four instead of two legs in addition to their (vestigial) wings.

    Barghest 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_barghest_3e.png
3e
Classification: Outsider (3E), Natural Humanoid (4E), Fiend (5E)
Challenge Rating: 4 (3E-5E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil, Evil (4E)

Lupine fiends that can assume the forms of ordinary goblins, and are feared for consuming the very souls of their victims.


  • Asskicking Leads to Leadership: They often use the power of their fiendish forms to conquer goblin tribes. For their part, the goblins suck up to them in hopes of convincing the barghest they're of better use as slaves, or at least too pathetic to make a good meal.
  • Revenge by Proxy: According to Volo's Guide to Monsters, barghests were created by the General of Gehenna to get revenge on the goblin god Maglubiyet for stiffing him on payment for services rendered. They do this by devouring the souls of goblinoids, preventing them from joining Maglubiyet's armies in the afterlife.
  • Retcon: In past editions, barghests were fiends native to Gehenna that sent their whelps to hunt on the Material Plane, consuming souls and growing in power until they were able to plane shift home. 5th Edition instead has barghests be spontaneously grown to goblin parents as part of a yugoloth revenge plot.
  • Soul Eating: Barghests devour their victims whole, body and soul. It takes a barghest an entire day to digest a devoured soul, and killing it before then will free the soul, but once it's fully consumed, there's even odds that the soul is gone forever, beyond the reach of mortal magic.
  • Voluntary Shapeshifting: They can change between their natural form, some sort of horrible goblin-wolf hybrid, into one indistinguishable from an ordinary goblin, and in previous editions could take the form of normal wolves as well.
  • You Have Failed Me: Barghests inherently fear being banished to their home plane of Gehenna before they fulfil their purpose, as a stronger yugoloth is likely to slay or enslave them for their failure.

    Cambion 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cambion_5e.png
5e
Classification: Outsider (3E), Immortal Humanoid (4E), Fiend (5E)
Challenge Rating: As base creature +4 (3E), 5 (5E)
Alignment: Any Evil

The direct offspring of mortals and fiends, cambions are evil to the core.


  • Big Red Devil: Regardless of what fiend spawned it, a cambion always has horns, batlike wings and a tail, and they're often drawn with red skin in the 5th edition sourcebooks.
  • Charm Person: In 5th edition, a cambion can magically charm another creature into obeying its spoken commands for an entire day. A charmed creature can break free of the cambion's control if the cambion attacks it or gives it a suicidal command. Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes states that this power is specific to cambions born of incubi and succubi, and offers alternative powers for cambions born of other fiends.
  • Human-Demon Hybrid: One of a cambion's parents was a mortal humanoid, while the other was a fiend such as a demon, a devil, or a succubus or incubus.
  • Playing with Fire: 5th edition cambions can pelt their enemies with fiery rays.
  • Villainous Lineage: A cambion inherits the evil nature of its fiendish parent. Even if its mortal parent was a nurturing soul who raised the cambion with love and kindness, the cambion would still grow up to be evil.

    Demodand 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_demodands_3e.jpg
From left to right, a farastu, kelubar and shator (3e)
Classification: Outsider (3E)
Challenge Rating: 11 (Farastu), 13 (Kelubar), 16 (Shator)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil (2E), "often" Neutral Evil (3E)

Also known as gehreleths, these cruel fiends are native to the Tarterian Depths of Carceri, and are simultaneously inmates and the self-appointed wardens of that prison plane.


  • Acid Attack: Kelubar skin is coated in a pale green acidic slime.
  • Back Stab: Kelubars can deal Sneak Attack damage like a mid-level rogue, which makes their ability to cast invisibility at will all the more dangerous.
  • The Berserker: Farastus can fly into a berserk rage during combat, which gives them a chance to vent their frustrations from being at the bottom of the demodand pecking order.
  • Enemy Summoner:
    • Like other races of outsider, demodands have a chance to summon others of their kind, to various degrees of success.
    • Their AD&D rules put an interesting spin on the notion by making gehreleths the "summoning stock" of the Lower Planes, so that a mortal summoner might accidentally call up one of them rather than a baatezu or tanar'ri. This is a bad thing, since gehreleths hate servitude, hold grudges, and are capable of disobeying their summoner. It also mentions that the shator like to write magical texts explaining how to summon denizens of the Lower Planes, particularly fiends that the author dislikes.
  • Fat Bastard: Kelubars and shators are obese, partly because they live fairly sedentary lives.
  • The Friend Nobody Likes: Farastus are barely tolerated by other demodands, who blame them for landing the race in Carceri.
  • Large and in Charge: The Large (and horribly obese) shators are at the top of the demodands' pecking order.
  • Noodle Incident: What exactly led to the demodands' exile to Carceri has been lost in the mists of time, but the kelubars and shators agree that it was the farastus' fault.
  • The Paralyzer: A shator's slime acts as a paralytic neurotoxin.
  • Sadist: Demodands have no interest in corrupting mortals, ruling the world, or imposing their particular notion of evil upon the cosmos. Their only real desire is to make others suffer in various ways.
  • Sticky Situation: Farastus ooze a tarlike slime that can aid in grapples, or cause attackers' weapons to get stuck fast.
  • Wardens Are Evil: Shators are unusually cruel wardens of Carceri, and secretly hope those that are bound to the plane will attempt to escape, just so they can hunt the escapees down.
  • Weaponized Stench: Kelubars' slime is so foul that it can nauseate other creatures within 30 feet.

    Demonhive 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_demonhive_3e.jpg
3e
Classification: Outsider (3E)
Challenge Rating: 2 (demonet swarm, attendant), 6 (queen) (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Insectoid fiends that originated in the Abyss, but have since spread across the Lower Planes.


  • Attack! Attack! Attack!: While foraging, demonhive attendants attack anything larger than a non-demonic insect.
  • Bee People: The demonhive is a species of eusocial, insectile fiends, with a reproductive queen giving birth to thousands of demonets, most of which grow up to be male attendants. Females remain immature as long as the queen lives; after this, they grow up and establish their own hive.
  • Big Creepy-Crawlies: Individual demonets are the size of rats, attendants the size of dogs, while the bloated demonhive queens are 10 feet wide.
  • Hive Caste System: Demonhive members are divided into three castes: demonets that gather in swarms, male attendants that hunt for the hive, and the hive's queen.
  • Hive Mind: All demonhive members within two miles of a queen are in constant communication.
  • Mama Bear: A demonhive queen lets out a "maternal scream" as her demonet swarms are killed, dealing sonic damage to anything within 60 feet (which won't affect other demonhive creatures, since they're immune to sonic damage).
  • Monstrous Cannibalism: When food runs out, a demonhive queen begins to starve, and starts to kill an attendant each day. The queen does not eat the corpse but instead leaves it for demonets and other attendants to feed on.
  • The Swarm: Demonets operate as such, allowing them to swarm around and distract enemies with the mind-numbing droning of their wings.
  • Turns Red: Should a demonhive queen enter negative hit points, her attendants fly into a frenzy similar to a haste effect.
  • Wolfpack Boss: A demonhive is intended to be encountered as a unit, and part of the challenge comes from how the hive's components support each other with their abilities. Optimally, the adventurers will defeat the attendants first, then the queen, and finally mop up the swarms.

    Hell Hound 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_hell_hound_5e.png
5e
Classification: Outsider (3E), Elemental Beast (4E), Fiend (5E)
Challenge Rating: 3 (3E, 5E), 9 (Nessian warhound) (3E)
Alignment: Lawful Evil (1E-3E, 5E), Unaligned (4E)

Fiendish dogs that serve the devils of Baator.


  • Breath Weapon: They breathe fire.
  • Elite Mook: Nessian warhounds, a particularly nasty breed of Hell hounds the size of draft horses, which were bred in the depths of Nessus at Asmodeus' command.
  • Hellhound: Hell hounds are huge, fire-breathing dogs literally from the Nine Hells of Baator, used by devils to hunt mortals or summoned by evil spellcasters as minions.

    Hellwasp 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_hellwasp_5e.jpeg
5e
Classification: Magical Beast (3E), Fiend (5E)
Challenge Rating: 8 (hellwasp swarm) (3E), 5 (5E)
Alignment: Lawful Evil

Intelligent and malevolent fiendish insects from the Lower Planes.


  • The Paralyzer: The hellwasp's venom carries a paralytic enzyme that renders the victim helpless long enough for the hellwasp to grab its prey and flee.
  • Grand Theft Me/Possessing a Dead Body: Gehennan hellwasp swarms are capable of entering a dead or helpless creature via its mouth and other orifices and taking it over, animating it similarly to a zombie. An unfortunate creature inhabited this way is easy to spot due to how their skin crawls from the insects beneath it, leading the swarm to adopt loose clothing or cloaks to disguise itself. A living creature with a hellwasp swarm inside it will take Constitution damage each hour as they're Eaten Alive.
  • Retcon: 3rd Edition hellwasps are Diminutive insects native to Gehenna, and only gain a basic intelligence when forming a Hive Mind with each other in a swarm. Later hellwasps are Large-sized, full-on devils native to Baator, and are intelligent as individuals.
  • The Swarm: Their 3rd Edition incarnation.
  • Wicked Wasps: They're literally wasps from Hell, so yes.
  • You Kill It, You Bought It: Their revised lore paints hellwasps as former demons who joined the Archduchess Glasya after she killed their demon lord. After being reforged into devils, they were accepted as part of the Nine Hells.

    Howler 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_howler_5e.png
5e
3e 
Origin: Planescape
Classification: Outsider (3E), Elemental Magical Beast (4E), Fiend (5E)
Challenge Rating: 3 (3E), 9 (4E), 8 (5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil, Evil (4E)

Wailing pack hunters from the Windswept Depths of Pandemonium, whose howls can drive prey mad with fear.


  • Beast of Battle: Howlers are often employed as hunting dogs by demons and Abyssal orcs.
  • Horse of a Different Color: Alternatively, howlers are large enough to serve as steeds for Medium-sized riders, though an exotic saddle is needed due to the spines on a howler's back.
  • Spikes of Villainy: Howlers sport quills on their backs, particularly in 3rd Edition, in which howlers could even attack with them, dealing damage and imposing penalties on victims after the quills got lodged in their flesh.
  • Super-Scream: Their signature howl floods the minds of their victims, making complex thought impossible. In 3rd Edition, anyone without hearing range of the creatures' howling has to save or take Wisdom damage, while in 5th Edition, a howler's keening howl is a Supernatural Fear Inducer that reduces victims' speed and incapacitates them.

    Imp of Ill-Humor 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_sanguine_imp_3e.png
Sanguine imp (3e)
Classification: Outsider (3E)
Challenge Rating: 3 (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Small, winged fiends representing imbalanced emotions. They can be found across the Lower Planes, usually in the service of stronger beings, or as evil mages' familiars.


  • Affably Evil: Sanguine imps are jovial, genial and happy to engage in conversation with interesting company, and show equal glee when attacking those who fail to entertain them.
  • The Berserker: Choleric imps are angry at the world and relentlessly pick fights, with little regard for their own safety.
  • Beware My Stinger Tail: Each has a scorpion-like stinger to attack with.
  • The Eeyore: Melancholic imps are fatalistic pessimists who don't see the point in fighting, and try to talk their way out of conflicts by expressing their bleak viewpoint. Though they'll also try to stab someone in the back, given the opportunity.
  • Emotion Bomb: Anyone stung by an imp of ill-humor has to save or become afflicted with a humor imbalance, a condition that is permanent unless cured by magic such as remove disease or heal. Those afflicted by a choleric imp fly into a rage and attack the nearest creature, friend or foe, until everything around them is dead. Melancholic imps cause creatures to fall into a deep depression, imposing a penalty on rolls. Phlegmatic imps make their victims slow and unresponsive, while the poison of a sanguine imp makes someone unnaturally cheerful as per Tasha's hideous laughter.
  • Four-Temperament Ensemble: Each kind of imp of ill-humor possesses the negative qualities of one of the four humors, and fights differently depending on their temperament.
  • Frozen Face: These imps' faces are set in the emotion they embody, so sanguine imps are Perpetual Smilers, melancholic imps are Perpetual Frowners, etc.
  • Lazy Bum: Phlegmatic imps are more forward-thinking than their kin, but focused only on getting other creatures to work on their behalf. In combat, they'll hang back and only engage when there's minimal risk to themselves.
  • Plaguemaster: Imps of ill-humor can cast contagion once per day, spreading a disease that varies by the type of imp in question.

    Maelephant 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_maelephant_3e.jpg
3e
Classification: Outsider (3E)
Challenge Rating: 10 (3E)
Alignment: Lawful Evil

Bipedal, fiendish pachyderms with an instinctive need to guard something.


  • Cruel Elephant: It doesn't get more cruel than a literal elephant from Hell. In combat, maelephants prefer to fight defensively using spells like blade barrier and entangle, but on offense they can jab grappled foes with their spiked trunks, and can make a "frenzied charge" attack for bonuses to their movement and attack rolls.
  • Happiness in Slavery: Zig-zagged. The first maelephants were created by the Dark Eight of Baator as servants, but they've since escaped their servitude and proliferated across the Lower Planes. Maelephants still have an overwhelming urge to guard and protect something, and so long as a mighty patron is able to supply them with a great quantity of living flesh for consumption, the maelephants will readily serve as guardians, typically for a hundred-year term.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: A maelephant's fearsome Breath Weapon is a cloud of noxious vapor that causes complete memory loss to those who fail their saves. Those afflicted can't access their prepared spells, skills, feats and class abilities, no longer know who their friends and foes are, and can't remember their pasts or their own names. The victims can create new memories, but forget them as soon as they sleep or rest. The condition is permanent until cured with spells like heal or neutralize poison.
  • Stance System: Once per encounter, a maelephant can adopt a defensive stance for bonuses to its Strength, Constitution, Armor Class and saving throws, so long as it doesn't move.
  • Undying Loyalty: Maelephants fight to the death to protect their charges, and will never let them leave the maelephants' sight.

    Marrashi 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_marrashi_3e.jpg
3e
Origin: Al-Qadim
Classification: Outsider (3E)
Challenge Rating: 5 (3E)
Alignment: Lawful Evil

Plague-spreading fiends that blend the features of humanoids, avians and jackals.


  • Art Evolution: In earlier editions, marrash are described as jackel-headed creatures, while 3rd Edition likens them to winged gnolls.
  • Multishot: Marrash are capable of firing two arrows at once, thanks to grasping their bows with their taloned feet and nocking an arrow with both hands.
  • Plaguemaster: They can fire arrows that spread a variant of filth fever, except the Constitution and Dexterity damage dealt can become fatal ability drain.
  • Spawn Broodling: Marrash can also shoot special taklif arrows that seem to spread disease like their other arrows, but those who fail their saves soon perish — then a few days later, their corpse transforms into a newborn marrashi. Since the new fiend consumes the spirit of the slain victim, normal resurrection magic such as raise dead or resurrection can't bring them back.
  • The Starscream: Like most fiends, marrash are not willing servants, and will typically use their taklif arrows to spawn more of their kind behind their summoner's back, in hope of creating a force strong enough to avenge the original marrashi's servitude. Other times they'll be more direct and shoot their "master" with a taklif arrow so that the newborn marrashi will free their parent.

    Nightmare 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nightmare_d&d.png
5e
Classification: Outsider (3E), Shadow Magical Beast (4E), Fiend (5E)
Challenge Rating: 5 (3E), 3 (5E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil (1E-3E, 5E), Evil (4E)

Monstrous horses from the Lower Planes marked by jet-black coats and flaming manes and fetlocks, nightmares are favored as steeds by fiends and certain exceptionally evil mortals.


  • Being Tortured Makes You Evil: The 5th Edition Monster Manual states that nightmares aren't a naturally occurring species, but an evil creature can create one by subjecting a pegasus to a humiliating ritual in which its wings are amputated and its mind corrupted by evil.
  • Flaming Hair: The equine version of this trope — their manes, tails and fetlocks are depicted as being made of blazing flames.
  • Flight: Nightmares are wingless, but can nonetheless fly at great speed.
  • Hellish Horse: A horse-like monster with a black coat and a burning mane and fetlocks, often found serving evil beings as steeds.
  • Pun-Based Creature: Nightmares are evil supernatural horses named after bad dreams, as a riff on the last half of "nightmare" sounding like the word for a female horse.
  • Summon a Ride: Nightmares can be bound using a magic item called "Infernal Tack", after which they must answer the summons of the tack's owner and serve them as a steed.

    Rakshasa 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_rakshasa_5e.png
5e
Classification: Outsider (3E), Fiend (5E)
Challenge Rating: 7 (naityan), 10 (standard rakshasa), 11 (naztharune), 15 (ak'chazar) (3E); 13 (5E)
Alignment: Lawful Evil

Tiger-headed fiends with reversed hands, a flair for illusions, and a hunger for humanoid flesh.


  • Animal-Themed Fighting Style: Naityan rakshasas take this up a notch by using their shapeshifting to adopt hybrid humanoid forms evoking various animals — a serpent, hellhound, eel or displacer beast — that grant access to associated martial maneuvers as well as changes to the naityan's combat stats.
  • Back Stab: Nztharune rakshasas are a black-furred variant that excel as assassins, and can deal Sneak Attack damage against surprised foes like a high-level rogue.
  • Cat Folk: Official art usually gives them the heads of tigers. They can have any kind of animal head, however, the tiger was simply the one that stuck.
  • Curse: In 5th edition, a rakshasa's claws inflict a curse which prevents the victim from resting, meaning they don't regain any hit points or uses of their class features when they take a short or long rest.
  • Great White Feline: The ak'chazar is a subspecies of rakshasa with white fur. They are more powerful than the typical rakshasa and are often master necromancers.
  • Human Disguise: Rakshasas can freely assume the form of any humanoid, typically that of a wealthy merchant, priest or noble.
  • Nigh-Invulnerability: In 5th edition, rakshasas cannot be harmed by nonmagical weapons and are not affected by spells of 6th level or lower unless they wish to be. Good luck fighting one if you don't have a magic weapon or aren't able to cast 7th-level spells.
  • Retcon: In previous editions, rakshasas were a race of malevolent spirits encased in flesh, with uncertain origins (though 4E did paint them as corrupted Devas), but 5th Edition portrays them as devils who cast their essence from the Nine Hells to feed their appetite for Material Plane humanoid flesh.
  • Shadow Walker: Naztharune rakshasas can do a short-ranged teleport from shadow to shadow.
  • Telepathy: They can detect thoughts at will.
  • To Serve Man: Rakshasas love the flesh of humanoids, treating it like a delicacy and often preparing grand meals with lots of spices using human flesh as the primary ingredient.

    Rejkar 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_rejkar_3e.jpg
3e
Classification: Outsider (3E)
Challenge Rating: 5 (3E)
Alignment: Lawful Evil

Intelligent, caribou-like fiends native to Cania, though many have been driven out to frozen lands on other planes. They are not baatezu, and in fact despise Hell's current rulers.


  • Emotion Control: They can use crushing despair at will to demoralize enemies, or rage to rile up their minions.
  • Fighting for a Homeland: The rejkar's ultimate goal is to build up an extraplanar power base that will allow them to drive the devils out of Cania.
  • Harmless Freezing: A rejkar's gaze attack causes a creature to freeze in place, completely covered by a layer of ice until they make their saving throw or the frozen creature takes some fire damage. No matter how long a victim is frozen, they don't take any damage or suffer ill effects from it.
  • The Man Behind the Man: Rejkars like to appear to the leader of an arctic-dwelling tribe of humanoids as a "mystic caribou," using their abilities to aid the tribe — fabricate to make weapons and armor, augury to divine the future, and three rejkars working together can even cast heroes' feast to reward their pawns. With the fiend's help, the sponsored tribe is able to grow more powerful and conquer its rivals, bringing even more humanoids under the rejkar's indirect control.

    Scyllan 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_scyllan_3e.jpg
3e
Classification: Outsider (3E)
Challenge Rating: 13 (3E)
Alignment: Lawful Evil

These tentacled scions of the infamous Scylla can be found in the frozen oceans of Stygia, as well as more hospitable waters on the Material Plane.


  • Combat Tentacles: Scyllans have four tentacle attacks, which can also grapple and constrict victims.
  • Making a Splash: They can cast control water once per hour, lowering or raising the water level around them.
  • Our Mermaids Are Different: Though their monster entry art is ambiguous, a sketch of a scyllan's full body at the start of the chapter reveals that they fit the "squidfolk" variant, with a humanoid head and torso over a tentacled lower body.
  • Sea Monster: They exist as such, lurking around rocks and reefs to snatch sailors from passing ships, stuffing their maws with as many victims as possible.
  • Supernatural Fear Inducer: Scyllans can produce a terrible wailing by blowing air through the comb-like growths on their heads, a sound that can cause creatures that fail their saving throws to become panicked or shaken.
  • Swallowed Whole: These Huge monsters are capable of swallowing anything smaller than them, dealing constant crushing and acid damage until the victim cuts their way out.

    Space Clown 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_space_clowns_5e.jpeg
5e
Origin: Spelljammer
Classification: Fiend (5E)
Challenge Rating: 2 (5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Fiend-tainted clowns who prowl Wildspace in garish starships, or set up carnival tents on worlds to lure in victims.


  • Defeat Equals Explosion: When slain, space clowns pop like balloons, splashing adjacent creatures with acid.
  • Electric Joybuzzer: Not explicit, but they do have a "Shock" melee attack that deals a good bit of lightning damage.
  • Helpless with Laughter: Their colorful ray guns deal psychic damage, and can also cause victims to be incapacitated with laughter as they find everything they see or hear to be hilariously funny.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: They feed upon humanoid flesh.
  • Lie to the Beholder: Three times per day they can take on a phantasmal form, cloaking themselves in an illusion to appear to be something like a child or floating balloon, though one that won't hold up to close physical inspection.
  • Monster Clown: In SPACE! Once mortal worshippers of a god of revelry, they were transformed into fiends after becoming addicted to the elixir "Thrill Joy," distilled from demon ichor and the nectar of the bozo flower. An encounter with the dohwar led to the space clowns acquiring spelljammer helms and spreading across the multiverse, bringing the "love and fear of clowns" with them.
  • With Catlike Tread: Subverted; their squeaky shoes can be heard up to 30 feet away, and interfere with any attempts at stealth, except this squeaking is silenced when a space clown dons an illusory disguise.

    Succubus/Incubus 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_succubi_incubi_5e.png
5e
Classification: Outsider (3E), Fiend (5E)
Challenge Rating: 7 (3E), 9 (4E), 4 (5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil (1E-3E), Evil (4E), Neutral Evil (5E)

Fiends specializing in seduction and sexual temptation, able to assume whatever form and gender they believe appeals to their victims.


  • Charm Person: Succubi and incubi can charm other creatures at will, but normally do so only in emergencies, such as confrontations with adventurers. Evil acts committed under mind-control don't properly corrupt the victim's soul, after all.
  • The Corrupter: These fiends first take ethereal form to visit their sleeping targets and whisper in their ears, encouraging them to give in to their darkest desires and filling their mind with debauchery. Then they will assume a physical form that appeals to their target to befriend or seduce them, encouraging further depravity and evil acts. Once their victim has fully embraced evil, the fiend kills them and claims their soul.
  • Humanshifting: Succubi and incubi can take the form of any Small or Medium humanoid to aid in their seductions.
  • Intangibility: Succubi and incubi can shift to or from the Ethereal Plane with an action.
  • Kiss of Death: A literal example; a succubus or incubus can drain the life force of a charmed or willing recipient with a mere kiss, or other "act of passion." In most editions this resulted in Level Drain, while 5th Edition makes the effect some heavy psychic damage that can't be recovered until the victim has a long rest.
  • Retcon: Succubi have consistently been fiends, but which type varies by edition. Through 3rd Edition they were considered demons, but 4th edition reclassified them as devils, until 5th Edition declared they were fiendish free agents found across the Lower Planes. Succubi and incubi were also considered separate creatures until 5th Edition clarified that these fiendish seducers can change sex as easily as they change shape.
  • Sex Shifter: They can change from male incubi to female succubi as they please, though most of them prefer one form or the other.
  • Succubi and Incubi: They're evil outsiders who use sex and seduction to damn mortal souls. Sometimes this results in the birth of a cambion.

    Tlacatecolo 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_tlacatecolo_5e.png
5e
Classification: Fiend (5E)
Challenge Rating: 5 (5E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Shapeshifting avian fiends who spread sickness and suffering wherever they go.


  • Ominous Owl: They look like bipedal owls stricken by disease, and are wholly malevolent, being patterned on the owl-headed tlacatecolotl of Aztec Mythology who bring illness and misfortune.
  • Plague Master: These fiends spread a supernatural affliction, a "chilling, disease-ridden wind" that deals cold damage and poisons victims. Worse, victims can't recover hit points while afflicted, and have to make another saving throw each hour to avoid taking a level of exhaustion. Attempts to magically cure this disease, such as lesser restoration, only function if the plague victim is in direct sunlight — similarly, being in sunlight allows a victim to automatically succeed their saving throw to avoid the exhaustion effect.
  • Voluntary Shapeshifting: They can shift between their natural form and that of an ordinary, Medium-sized owl.

    Unholy Scion 
Classification: Outsider (3E)
Challenge Rating: As base creature +1 to +3, depending on Hit Dice (3E)
Alignment: Any evil

Humanoids or animals who were corrupted in their mother's womb, leaving them fiends in mortal flesh.


  • Absurdly Sharp Claws: An unholy scion gains a claw attack if their base creature didn't already possess one.
  • Black Magic: They learn a variety of nasty spells as they age, from desecrate and protection from good to baleful polymorph and animate dead.
  • Charm Person: An unholy scion's mother is under a "familial charm," a charm person effect that has No Saving Throw. Worse, the scion's mother is fully aware that the actions she is forced to commit are wrong, and that her child is evil, but she cannot break her devotion to the fiend. The unholy scion also learns charm animal or charm person as they age, before moving on to full dominate person.
  • Demonic Possession: Some unholy scions are formed when a fiend possess an unborn child, merging completely with the developing mind and soul so that the two are hopelessly intermingled — it is thus impossible to exorcise an unholy scion, or for the fiend to revert to its original form until its mortal shell is slain. However, other unholy scions avert this trope and form spontaneously when a woman is impregnated by a fiend in an area of high taint.
  • Fetus Terrible: An unholy scion is fully intelligent and irredeemably evil even while inside its mother's womb, and already capable of seeing through its mother's senses and compelling her to commit evil acts. After being born, they graduate to Enfant Terrible.
  • Unholy Nuke: An unholy scion's melee attacks are considered evil-aligned for the purpose of overcoming Damage Reduction, and deal extra damage to good opponents.

    Vaath 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_vaath_3e.jpg
3e
Origin: Planescape
Classification: Outsider (3E)
Challenge Rating: 4 (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Sadistic horrors from the jungles of Carceri, these cruel and cunning predators are feared across the planes for their feeding habits.


  • Creepy Souvenir: Vaaths like to collect trophies from victims, either bits of equipment, or leftover body parts like hands, eyeballs or heads.
  • Eaten Alive: Once a victim has been paralyzed, a vaath burrows its feeder tendril into its victim to consume a vital organ. As the vaath's prey expires over the next few minutes, the creature delights in tearing out and eating its helpless victim's innards right in front of it.
  • Forced to Watch: As if the above wasn't bad enough, vaaths are also telepathic, and will "broadcast" what they feel as they feed to every creature within 20 feet (with a save to resist). Not only do witnesses experience the taste and texture of the vaath's meal, they also feel the pleasure it derives from feeding. This experience is enough to deal a bit of Wisdom drain to most witnesses, unless they regularly feed on what the vaath is devouring... but the vaath's current victim is also subjected to the same telepathic sensory conduit, and takes even more Wisdom drain from it, because "no creature, not even another vaath, is immune to the horror of experiencing what its own entrails taste like."
  • Happiness in Slavery: Their AD&D entry points out that vaaths are one of the few fiends that enjoy being summoned, as they get to sample a greater selection of victims. They'll also happily work as guards and torturers for more powerful fiends, so long as the vaaths are given regular victims.
  • Mix-and-Match Critters: They're some unholy blend of insect and reptile, with both scales and a thorny carapace.
  • Monster Mouth: Vaaths have a normal set of teeth and jaws on their faces, but also a second mouth on a tendril coming out of their heads.
  • The Paralyzer: A vaath's bite attack carries a paralytic poison, leaving its prey helpless.
  • Sadist: Vaaths were once assumed to need to feed upon the pain and suffering of others, but this was overly optimistic — they simply relish causing mental anguish.

    Vaporighu 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_vaporighu_3e.jpg
3e
Classification: Outsider (3E)
Challenge Rating: 9 (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Foul humanoids from the Bleak Eternity of Gehenna who ambush anything they come across, and often lurk around planar portals or rare watering holes.


  • Breath Weapon: Every few rounds, a vaporighu can exhale a 15-foot cone of corrosive green vapor, which can linger for more than a minute. Anything inside the cloud takes acid damage every round they remain, and has to save against poison — the initial effect is paralysis, with a secondary effect of heavy Constitution damage.
  • Enemy Summoner: Vaporighu can summon a night hag once per day, but hate to do so, since they're entitled to reward the hag for her service.
  • Evil Smells Bad: A vaporighu "reeks of all the decay and sulphurous stench of Gehenna."
  • Horror Hunger: It's said that the only thing motivating them is their insatiable hunger, "a gnawing pain that tortures vaporighu throughout eternity."
  • Mooks Ate My Equipment: The corrosive slime that covers vaporighu's bodies can dissolve weapons used to strike them, or ruin the armor and clothing of anyone they hit with their slam attacks. In their AD&D rules it took hours for this slime to eat through chainmail, but in 3rd Edition, destruction is complete in only one round. Thankfully, spending a full-round action to wash the slime off with a pint of water or wine will save an item.
  • The Pig-Pen: Vaporighu's flesh is likened to "living gore," with pulsing veins of bile visible beneath their mottled skin, all covered in long hair matted with filth.
  • Supernatural Fear Inducer: Anything that comes within 30 feet of a vaporighu has to save or become frightened.

    Vargouille 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_vargouille_3e.png
3e
Classification: Outsider (3E), Fiend (5E)
Challenge Rating: 2 (3E), 1 (5E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil (1E-3E), Chaotic Evil (5E)

Fiends resembling disembodied human heads with wings.


  • Bioweapon Beast: The prevailing story about the vargouilles' creation has them as the minions of Rozvankee the Strategist, a wizard and later lich who released them behind enemy lines before sending her soldiers to overrun her panicked, demoralized foes. Rozvankee took a population of vargouilles with her when she retired to the Abyss, and the monsters can now be found across the Lower Planes, or in dismal places on the Material Plane.
  • Flying Face: A vargouille's body consists of a severed head and bat-like wings in place of ears.
  • Kiss of Death: The kiss of a vargouille transmits a deadly magical disease.
  • The Paralyzer: A vargouille's stunning shriek can paralyze other creatures with fear.
  • Viral Transformation: Vargouilles reproduce by infecting people with a magical disease through a kiss. This disease makes the victim's head gradually take on a fiendish appearance and, if not cured, will ultimately make the head sprout wings and tear itself free of the body to become a new vargouille.
    Elminster: Until ye've seen a king's head tear off his shoulders and flap aloft amid fountaining blood, only to turn and lap his own dying gore as his body totters and falls, ye haven't lived. And if ye want to go on living, ye might want to stop watching in favor of fleeing.

    Vorr 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_vorr_3e.jpg
3e
Origin: Planescape
Classification: Outsider (3E)
Challenge Rating: 4 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Intelligent hunting animals native to the Abyss, adept at stalking prey from shadow to shadow.


  • Back Stab: They can deal sneak attack damage like a rogue.
  • Hell Hound: Vorrs are usually encountered in packs, and some powerful denizens of the Abyss like to use them as hunting hounds.
  • Living Shadow: Once per day, a vorr can assume a shadowy form for up to 10 minutes, allowing it to avoid most damage, blend in with dark surroundings, and move effortlessly up walls, on the underside of ceilings, or across the surface of liquids.
  • Mix-and-Match Critters: They're described as canines, but have hyena-like features, a feline build, and a rat-like tail.
  • Shadow Walker: They can jump between shadowy areas as per the dimension door spell.

    Windblade 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_windscythe_3e.jpg
Windscythe (3e)
Classification: Outsider (3E)
Challenge Rating: 1 (windrazor), 4 (windscythe) (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Winged fiends who claim the Windswept Depths of Pandemonium as their own, and relentlessly attack anything that intrudes upon their domain.


  • Hit-and-Run Tactics: They make extensive use of their Flyby Attack feat, swooping in, slicing foes with their claws, and retreating out of reach all in the same turn.
  • Large and in Charge: Standard windrazors are Small creatures and treated as second-class citizens in what society the windblades have, while the ruling windscythes are Large. Even though the windrazors outnumber the windscythes, the former's fear of the latter keeps them in line.
  • Razor Wings: Windblades have razor-sharp bone claws on the ends of their wings, which they can use to slash foes they fly past, or latch onto and rend their flesh.
  • The Theocracy: Windblades believe that they were created by Erythnul (or a similar god of slaughter, depending on campaign setting), and many windscythes become clerics, using their spells to spill blood in their lord's name and keep the lesser windrazors in line.


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