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Characters / Dungeons And Dragons Fiends Yugoloths

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

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    Yugoloths in General 
  • Casting a Shadow: In 5E, nearly all yugoloths can innately cast the darkness spell at will.
  • The Chessmaster: Previous editions gave them the schtick of being supreme manipulators and schemers. There are still hints of this in 5E, but they've moved more to being mercenaries.
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Unlike demons, they can be negotiated with, but unlike devils, they have no sense of honor, and their loyalty only lasts until they receive a better offer.
  • Consummate Professional: Once hired, a yugoloth will complete its contract to the best of its ability (unless somebody else offers more money, but that's what you get for hiring embodiments of Neutral Evil). In fact, their contracts will feature clauses explicitly allowing them to switch sides if they receive a better offer.
  • Deal with the Devil: Yugoloths make these, but differently from actual devils; they take money instead of souls, and are only loyal for as long as the money lasts. Unlike devils, they're not bound to their word, and will gladly change side for a bigger payout. Even if correctly bound to a summoner's service, a yugoloth will complain about their servitude and seek ways to intentionally misinterpret their orders.
  • Dispel Magic: Most yugoloths can innately cast dispel magic in 5th edition.
  • Enemy Summoner: Like most "aligned" outsiders, yugoloths have a chance to summon more of their kind to aid them in battle. What sets them apart, however, is the fact that these yugoloth reinforcements are not considered automatic allies of their summoner, but are free to act as they please, and will usually demand payment before offering assistance... unless their summoner is an ultroloth, in which case the reinforcements know better than to disobey.
  • Flight: Arcanoloths and ultroloths may not have wings, but that doesn't stop them from flying.
  • Greed: This is their defining characteristic as of 5th edition. Yugoloths are described as embodiments of avarice and selfishness, and they never do anything for free. If you ask them to do something, their first question will always be "What's in it for me?"
  • Hermaphrodite: Faces of Evil: The Fiends state that yugoloths are either this or genderless, and any gender they chose to present is up to them.
  • Hufflepuff House: Compared to the "destroy everything" demons and "subjugate everything" devils, the yugoloths have struggled to establish a fiendish identity beyond being mercenaries. There were past attempts to present yugoloths as masters of conspiracy, focusing on vast webs of intrigue that spanned centuries rather than the devils' individual scheming, but this never quite took.
  • I Know Your True Name: All yugoloths have true names (save the General of Gehenna), written down in the Books of Keeping. Knowing a yugoloth's true name can allow you some degree of control over them.
  • It's All About Me: Yugoloths can be considered "selfishness elementals" in the same way Devils are "tyranny elementals" and Demons are "corruption elementals." They never take any action that will not first and foremost benefit themselves.
  • Only in It for the Money: Yugoloths don't care what they’ve been hired to do as long as they get paid to do it. If the enemy of their current employer offers better pay, they won't hesitate to switch sides.
  • Our Demons Are Different: Daemons (called yugoloths in 2nd, 3rd and 5th edition) are Neutral Evil fiends from Hades, and just want to spread suffering. They were merged with demons in 4E, although it's implied that there's something different about them. 5e makes them a a former Servant Race that broke free of their Night Hag creators, and plays up their selfish, mercenary attitude.
  • Private Military Contractors: Yugoloths will hire themselves out as mercenaries to anyone who can afford their services. They do their jobs well, but they're not very loyal.
  • Psycho for Hire: Some yugoloths consider the opportunity to inflict pain and suffering upon others as part of their payment for a job.
  • Restraining Bolt: If you find a Book of Keeping, you can use the true names contained within to control a Yugoloth and render it incapable of betraying you. Yugoloths hate this and make their displeasure known, but they can't actually stop it.
  • Retcon: 4th Edition made the drastic move of merging the entire yugoloth faction with the demons, complete with a Sudden Name Change that dropped the -loth suffix from their names and replaced it with -demon (mezzoloths to mezzodemons, for example). These changes were reverted with 5th Edition.
  • Servant Race: According to the 5th Edition Monster Manual, the yugoloths were created by a coven of night hags to serve them. The hags enforced this servitude with the Books of Keeping, magical grimoires which contained the true names of every single yugoloth except the General of Gehenna. They lost the Books, however, and now the yugoloths answer to nobody but themselves.
  • Teleportation: In 5th Edition, nearly all yugoloths can teleport at will. The only exception is the canoloth, which instead provides Teleport Interdiction.
  • War for Fun and Profit: While they earn a lot of money on the Blood War, some demonologists have theorized that they did in fact cause it.

    Arcanaloth 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_arcanaloth_5e.png
5e
Challenge Rating: 17 (3E), 19 (4E), 12 (5E)
The sly, jackal-headed arcanaloths are the mages and recordkeepers of the yugoloths. Whether leading their forces in battle or brokering treaties at the negotiating table, these fiends are a force to be reckoned with.
  • Cunning Like a Fox: Or near enough. The smartest, craftiest and most magically inclined of the yugoloths just happen to look like anthropomorphic jackals.
  • Evil Sorcerer: Every arcanaloth is a powerful spellcaster.
  • Omniglot: An arcanaloth can read and write all languages.
  • Playing Both Sides: An especially blatant example. An arcanaloth contacted by devils planning an invasion of the Abyss will likely go to the demons and tell them of the baatezu's intentions and planned payment, in order to raise the stakes and get an attractive counter-offer from the tanar'ri.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: 4th Edition replaces the jackal-headed arcanaloths with the fox-headed "raavastas," who similarly broker deals and pull strings. Sages believe that these raavastas (along with the rakshasas) descend from fiends called arcanaloths, who were expelled from the Abyss for their conniving ways, "though rakshasas are quick to dismiss such claims as evil slurs against their race's honorable nature."
  • Voluntary Shapeshifting: Arcanoloths can innately cast alter self. They use this power to take on humanoid form and set their negotiating partners at ease.

    Baernaloth 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_baernaloth_2e.jpg
2e
Challenge Rating: 17 (5E)

Gangly horned fiends who embody callous detachment, yet retain an insatiable need to inflict suffering and misery.


  • Cold-Blooded Torture: These fiends specialize in "agony for agony's sake," though they can also mix up their physical torture by inflicting psychological misery — foiling well-crafted plans, spreading vicious lies, or revealing damaging secrets.
  • Control Freak/Omnicidal Maniac: Some baernaloths known as "the Demented" have succumbed to a form of madness that allows them to embrace both ends of the Law-Chaos spectrum at the same time, leading them to try to simultaneously subjugate and destroy everything around them. They're usually found leading mixed groups of fiends across the Lower Planes, and due to their activity are the most likely baernaloths to be encountered by adventurers.
  • Cruel Mercy: Baernaloths can heal all the damage they inflict upon someone, as many times as they want. The fiends do this only to extend their victims' suffering.
  • Damage Over Time: An interesting variant; a baernaloth can, three times per day, cause the wounds dealt by their claw and bite attacks to painfully tear open, so that a nearby foe takes the same amount of damage as they did in a previous round of combat, with No Saving Throw.
  • I Know Your True Name: Averted; the baernaloths are wholly absent from the Books of Keeping, and so cannot be controlled in that manner.
  • Precursors: Some accounts claim that the baernaloths are not only the forebearers of the modern yugoloths, they also created the demons and devils when the baernaloths purged themselves of chaos and order. However, this story is told by the yugoloths themselves, and is contradicted by nearly every other origin story about demons and devils, so it is subject to scrutiny.
  • Retired Monster: Relatively speaking; most baernaloths have withdrawn from the Blood War and scoff at other yugoloths' efforts to manipulate the rest of the cosmos. Instead the bulk of the baernaloths dwell within twisted towers in the most remote and desolate reaches of the Gray Waste of Hades, passing the time by inflicting misery and pain on other creatures. Still, the baernaloths are afforded great respect from other yugoloths in the rare cases they interact.
  • Tears of Blood: Their distant, glazed yellow eyes constantly drip a fluid "far more vile than tears."

    Battleloth 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_battleloths_3e.png
Crossbow and axe battleloths (3e)
Challenge Rating: 1 (arrow), 2 (axe, crossbow, pick), 3 (spiked chain, sword) (3E)

These specialized yugoloths can shift between humanoid forms and those of enchanted weapons, allowing their employers to wield them in battle as needed.


  • Blade Below the Shoulder: In their humanoid form, sword battleloths have blades where their arms should be, giving them two attacks per round.
  • Dirty Coward: Arrow battleloths are sniveling whiners adept at nitpicking the terms of their contracts to find ways to avoid service, and they'll often refuse to assume humanoid form after being fired as an arrow, unless their opponent is a Squishy Wizard or otherwise weak in direct combat.
  • Dumb Muscle: Axe battleloths are notoriously dense and singleminded in their pursuit of battle, so that their idea of business negotiations is to repeat their terms over and over until their would-be employer gives in or moves on.
  • Equippable Ally: Battleloths can take a standard option to shift between their Small humanoid form and that of a +1 weapon, allowing them to be used as a piece of equipment while the battleloth remains fully conscious of its surroundings. They can even take actions while being wielded as a weapon, so axe battleloths can bite foes their wielder strikes for some extra damage, sword battleloths can use the "aid another" action to help their wielders hit their foes or even strike independently while in sword form, and crossbow battleloths give their wielders the benefit of the Precise Shot feat and reload themselves, letting their wielders take multiple shots in a single turn.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: The battleloths were forbidden from assembling in groups of over thirty, or accepting contracts from mortals for a full three centuries, after an incident in which an entire army of battleloths accepted a bribe to turn on a baatezu force invading the Abyss. "While a few such actions were to be expected from time to time, the pervasive nature of the betrayal caused a precipitous slide in the employment offers that all the yugoloths received."
  • Hunter of Their Own Kind: Spiked chain battleloths amuse themselves by hunting and consuming other battleloths, with the exception of sword battleloths, which have earned their begrudging respect.
  • Needle in a Stack of Needles: Arrow battleloths make for effective spies because of their ability to hide in an archer's quiver to eavesdrop. Once the oblivious archer fires the arrow battleloth, it resumes humanoid form and returns to its employer to give its report.
  • Only in It for the Money: All yugoloths are known for this, but crossbow battleloths take it up a notch by blatantly telling opponents how much it would cost for the yugoloth to change sides mid-battle, if they've tired of their current employer.
  • Spike Shooter: Even in humanoid form, crossbow battleloths can spit bone shards at foes as a ranged attack.
  • Tentacle Rope: After hitting a foe in its weapon or humanoid form, a spiked chain battleloth tries to wrap around and grapple its victim.
  • Vampiric Draining: When a pick battleloth hits a target in either of its forms, it latches onto its victim and drains their blood, dealing Constitution damage each round, and the fiend won't willingly stop drinking until its victim is dead. "Many a victim has been horrified to see the pick head embedded in its flesh transform into the proboscis of a monstrous creature."

    Canoloth 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_canoloth_5e.png
5e
Challenge Rating: 5 (3E), 7 (4E), 8 (5E)
Hideous quadrupedal beasts, canoloths are the yugoloth equivalent of guard dogs. They keep an eyeless watch over important locations and valuables, repelling intruders with their long, spiny tongues and supernatural abilities.
  • Horse of a Different Color: Some arcanaloths or ultroloths put saddles on their canoloth minions and ride them into battle.
  • Monster Mouth: Traditionally, canoloths have Nested Mouths, one horizontal, the other vertical. 5th Edition instead gives them a Lamprey Mouth ringed with sharp teeth. In any case, their bites inflict a lot of piercing damage.
  • Overly-Long Tongue: Their tongues can hit enemies from up to 30 feet away.
  • Super-Senses: They have darkvision and True Sight, and their other senses are so uncannily sharp that it is literally impossible to surprise one in normal circumstances.
  • Teleport Interdiction: A canoloth emits a magical distortion field which prevents all teleportation within 60 feet: nothing can teleport into that area, and nothing can teleport out of it.
  • Undying Loyalty: Their AD&D write-up notes that canoloths are unusually loyal for their kind, following their master's orders to their deaths, though this is attributed more to the canoloths' lack of intelligence than any sort of virtue.
  • You Will Not Evade Me: If a canoloth hits someone with its spiky tongue, it will automatically grapple them and reel them into biting distance.

    Corruptor of Fate 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_corruptor_of_fate_3e.png
3e
Challenge Rating: 5 (3E)

Obese, skull-faced fiends who bring bad luck to those who oppose them. They usually work as assassins or as security, assuming they don't abandon their employer to find a new patron.


  • Curse: They can use a variant of bestow curse to give a victim 50-50 odds of taking no action on their turn.
  • Deadly Gaze: Corruptors of fate can make a gaze attack that deals damage and gives victims a minor penalty on rolls.
  • Dude Looks Like a Lady: It can be hard to tell male and female corruptors of fate apart, due to their obesity.
  • Skull for a Head: What little yellow skin they have is stretched tight across their skulls.
  • Winds of Destiny, Change!: Corruptors of fate are surrounded by an aura of "unluck," which means any attack or damage rolls made against them have to be rolled twice, using the lower results.

    Dhergoloth 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_dhergoloth_5e.png
5e
Challenge Rating: 12 (4E), 7 (5E)
Vicious, bloodthirsty brutes, dhergoloths are the bruisers of the yugoloth armies. Strong but not too bright, they excel at cutting a bloody swath through the ranks of their enemies.
  • Abnormal Limb Rotation Range: A dhergoloth's torso rotates independently of its head and waist. This allows it to perform a deadly Spin Attack.
    Mordenkainen: A dhergoloth's head doesn't turn along with its furiously-spinning torso, and its torso can spin a different direction from its dancing legs. I'd like to vivisect one at some point to find out how this can be.
  • Big Creepy-Crawlies: They resemble weird arthropods with three legs, five arms, and a barrel-shaped torso that can spin along a vertical axis.
  • The Chain of Harm: Dhergoloths suffer constant abuse from more powerful yugoloths, which only makes them more vicious fighters. Other yugoloths don't see a downside to this.
  • Dumb Muscle: Their Intelligence is 7, tied with the mezzoloth for the second lowest of all yugoloths in 5th edition. They can carry out simple tasks easily enough, but they inevitably bungle complex ones by either forgetting their instructions or not paying attention to them in the first place. Dhergoloths are also oblivious to the Blood War and the fact that their superiors are profiting from their fighting.
  • Multi-Armed and Dangerous: A dhergoloth has five arms, each ending in a hand with wicked claws.
  • Psycho for Hire: They revel in bloodshed and cackle as they tear their enemies apart.
  • Spell My Name With An S: Their names have also been rendered as "dergoloths" or "dergholoths."
  • Spin Attack: A dhergoloth can move forward while spinning its torso at high speed, savagely clawing anything within reach.

    Echinoloth 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_echinoloth_3e.jpg
3e
Challenge Rating: 8 (3E)

Fiends that resemble starfish and squid, with a central mouth atop two legs and surrounded by tentacles. These yugoloths' single-minded ferocity make them best suited for mop-up actions.


  • Combat Tentacles: Four tentacle attacks per round.
  • Damage Over Time: Said spiked tentacles deal bleeding damage as per wounding weapons.
  • Dumb Muscle: Their only battlefield tactic is to rush in and grab an enemy with their tentacles, at which point the echinoloth stops to feed, so long as nothing else immediately attacks them. They're so single-minded when chasing prey that they can't recognize when they're charging into a losing fight.
  • Status Infliction Attack: Echinoloths are surrounded by a magical aura that nauseates nearby creatures.
  • Super-Senses: The fiends lack eyes, but their bodies are covered with little hooks and tendrils that are quite sensitive to vibration, letting echinoloths detect anything nearby that's touching the ground or in the water with them.

    Gacholoth 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_gacholoth_2e.jpg
2e

Proud betrayers and terrorists who infiltrate an enemy or feign loyalty until it's time to stab them in the back. They particularly enjoy missions of bloodshed and mayhem on the Prime Material Plane.


  • Acid Attack: Their claws drip with a "stinging, acidic poison."
  • Deep Cover Agent: Gacholoths are known to "spend months, years, even centuries" faithfully serving a master, all while eagerly awaiting the order to drop the facade and go on a slaughtering spree.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Their claw and bite attacks hit hard, and gacholoths are as fast as a riding horse. They strike so swiftly and savagely, in fact, that other creatures have to save or be rooted to the spot in irrational fear.
  • Removing the Rival: Gacholoths despise erinyes and succubi as professional rivals, and will gleefully torture to death any they take captive. They clash with cambions for similar reasons.
  • Shark Man: Downplayed; there's something distinctly sahuagin-like about their faces, but no hard evidence regarding any connection between these yugoloths and the sea devils.
  • Vertebrate with Extra Limbs: They have four long, claw-tipped legs they use to climb and dash about.
  • Wall Crawl: Gacholoths can race up sheer surfaces without difficulty, and are comfortable fighting while hanging upside-down from a ceiling.

    Guardian Yugoloth 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_guardian_yugoloth_2e.png
2e
Fiends who specialize in protecting items on behalf of their summoners.
  • Breath Weapon: They can breathe 30-foot cones of fire, the damage depending upon whether the daemon is a least, lesser or greater guardian.
  • Compelling Voice: Greater guardian yugoloths can make a suggestion each round, even while in combat.
  • MacGuffin Guardian: Their purpose. A guardian yugoloth, once summoned and bound to service, must remain within 90 yards of the item their summoner wants protected. Least guardian yugoloths protect items worth less than 25,000 gold pieces, lesser guardians protect more expensive objects, and greater guardians protect the most exceedingly valuable treasures. However, guardian daemons are dangerous to trifle with, and even the most powerful spellcasters cannot be entirely certain the summoning will be successful, or that the yugoloth won't take offense and attack the would-be summoner.
  • Mix-and-Match Critters: Greater guardian yugoloths look like bipedal bears with bat wings, a ram's horns, and eagle talons for hands, while least and lesser guardians have bodies resembling frogs or apes, respectively.

    Hydroloth 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_hydroloth_5e.png
5e
Challenge Rating: 16 (4E), 9 (5E)
Amphibious fiends who are often found around the River Styx.
  • Blood Knight: It's noted that hydroloths are some of the most enthusiastic supporters of the Blood War among the yugoloths, not just because it's a chance to increase their wealth and prestige, but also because they enjoy the fighting, and draw strength from the fear they inspire in mortals.
  • Fantastic Medicinal Bodily Product: Several of a hydroloth's organs are valued as spell components or potion ingredients, so one's corpse can bring in a thousand gold pieces from some mortal buyers, while a live hydroloth can be worth 2,500 gp.
  • Frog Men: The hydroloth is yet another D&D monster which resembles a humanoid frog.
  • The Immune: Hydroloths are immune to the memory-erasing effects of the River Styx, allowing them to swim in it.
  • Stupidity-Inducing Attack: A hydroloth can steal another creature's memories, making it forget almost everything it knows. Mechanically this reduces the victim's Intelligence and Charisma scores to 5, takes away its proficiencies, and makes it unable to understand languages.

    Merrenoloth 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_merrenoloth_5e.png
5e
Challenge Rating: 3 (5E), 10 (3E)
The boatmen of the River Styx, who will transport passengers across the Lower Planes, for the right price.
  • Domain Holder: The merrenoloths hold absolute power over their barges, or any other boat they are given command of, and are capable of ensuring smooth sailing or whipping up powerful waves to get rid of intruders.
  • Expy: A blatant one of Charon.
  • The Ferryman: Merrenoloths ferry people up and down the River Styx for a fee, and are the safest way of traversing the river. They can even be hired to ferry boats across all waters, not just the Styx, and they will protect the boat against any natural hazards. They are not warriors, however, and will only defend themselves if the boat is attacked. And since they are evil mercenaries at heart, there's a chance they'll betray their passengers by taking them to the wrong destination or leading them into an ambush — a chance that can be reduced and even negated if the passengers make additional payment to the merrenoloth.
  • Improbable Weapon User: They wield their oars as weapons, and are fully capable of dulling out some serious hits with them.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: A merrenoloth's eyes glow a fiery red when angered, and in older rules this caused those who met one's gaze to have to save against fear.
  • Spell My Name With An S: They've been rendered as "marraenoloths" and "charondaemons" in previous editions.
  • Telepathy: All merrenoloths are not only capable of telepathic communication, they're also in constant mental contact with every member of their kind. Someone who wrongs one merrenoloth won't be able to hire the services of another until they offer sufficient reparation.

    Mezzoloth 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_mezzoloth_5e.png
5e
Challenge Rating: 6 (3E), 11 (4E), 5 (5E)
The most numerous of the yugoloths, the insectoid mezzoloths are the grunts and foot soldiers of their mercenary armies.
  • Big Creepy-Crawlies: They resemble man-sized bipedal insects with four arms.
  • Deadly Gas: Mezzoloths can innately cast the cloudkill spell once per day.
  • Devil's Pitchfork: They typically wield a trident as their weapon of choice.
  • Dumb Muscle: They're dumb enough to accept their lot at the bottom of the yugoloths' pecking order, and the abuse they receive from their superiors.
  • Multi-Armed and Dangerous: A mezzoloth has four arms, allowing it to claw at you even as it stabs you with its trident.
  • Psycho for Hire: They crave violence as much as they crave pay. If you can guarantee lots of the former, they’ll work for free.

    Nycaloth 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_nycaloth_5e.png
5e
Challenge Rating: 10 (3E), 22 (4E), 9 (5E)
The gargoyle-like nycaloths are the scouts and aerial shock troops of the yugoloths. They use their mobility, strength, and magical powers to overwhelm landbound opponents.
  • Army Scout: Their wings and other abilities make them excellent recon units, and when they aren't serving in an army, nycaloths travel the Lower Planes, observing the demons and devils' moves in the Blood War and reporting back to the arcanaloths to aid their contract negotiations.
  • Big Red Devil: Nycaloths have the most traditionally devilish appearance of all yugoloths. They're big, horned, bat-winged humanoids with green skin.
  • Doppelgänger Spin: They can cast the mirror image spell at will.
  • Evil Virtues: According to 5th Edition, loyalty. While most yugoloths would betray their current employer if someone offered them a better deal, a nycaloth would only betray their evil master if the master was a jerk to them, or if the offer was ridiculously good.
  • Master of Illusion: They can turn invisible or surround themselves with mirror images to throw off an enemy's aim.
  • Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Nycaloths had four arms in 3rd and 4th editions. All other editions give them two arms instead.
  • The Resenter: Their AD&D write-up explains that while nycaloths are considered greater yugoloths, their actual status is low since the information they gather benefits others. They thus scheme endlessly to advance themselves and vent their frustration on their underlings, sometimes wiping out entire companies of dhergoloths and mezzoloths in a fury.
  • Teleport Spam: A nycaloth can teleport as part of its Multiattack action, allowing it to perform hit-and-run attacks.
  • Winged Humanoid: They have a pair of large, batlike wings which let them fly at high speed.
  • Wound That Will Not Heal: Their claws leave fiendish wounds which bleed constantly, inflicting Damage Over Time. They do not heal on their own, but magical healing and basic medical attention can both staunch them.

    Oinoloth 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_oinoloth_5e.png
5e
Challenge Rating: 12 (5E)

Formerly a title for the leader of the Yugoloths of Hades, in 5e Oinoloths are masters of biological warfare. If you want everyone in a five mile radius dead, or don't want to shell out the pay required for an ultroloth, you hire an oinoloth.


  • Anti-Magic: The 5e oinoloth can innately cast globe of invulnerability, shutting down all incoming spells of 5th level or lower.
  • Anti-Regeneration: Creatures that have been poisoned by an oinoloth's Bringer of Plagues ability cannot regain hit points until the poison is removed.
  • Gruesome Goat: An oinoloth is a sinister and malicious fiend with the head of a diseased ram.
  • Harmful Healing: The oinoloth's Corrupted Healing power restores health to the target and removes harmful conditions, but it also leaves the target exhausted and inflicts Maximum HP Reduction, which is difficult to remove and can potentially kill you.
  • Hypnotic Gaze: 5E oinoloths can temporarily immobilize someone just by looking at them.
  • Make Them Rot: The touch of an oinoloth's claws induces necrosis. In addition, their Bringer of Plagues ability blights their immediate vicinity for 24 hours, killing all plants and necrotizing/poisoning all other living creatures within the affected area.
  • Plague Master: They spread disease wherever they go.

    Piscoloth 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_piscoloth_4e.jpg
4e
3e
Challenge Rating: 14 (4E), 9 (3E)

These fiends largely resemble lobsters, and serve as sergeants and drillmasters in the yugoloths' armies.


  • Art Evolution: They fluctuate between being depicted with a squid for a head and having the head of a carrior crawler, complete with a tentacle "beard."
  • Mix-and-Match Critters: A lobster's torso, a fish's tail, bird-like taloned legs, small pincer arms, and a tentacled head.
  • The Neidermeyer: Piscoloths are cruel, hateful bullies, and thus perfect for driving weaker yugoloths into battle. As a consequence, piscoloths also suffer incidents of "friendly fire."
  • The Paralyzer: Their tentacle attacks can paralyze victims, just like carrion crawlers'.
  • We Have Reserves: They typically throw their minions into battle first before entering combat themselves.

    Skeroloth 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_skerroloth_3e.png
3e
Challenge Rating: 3 (3E)

Insectoid fiends that serve as infiltrators, spies, or highly-expendable infantry. Their lack of fighting prowess earns them the scorn of other yugoloths, while the skeroloths fawn over more powerful fiends up until it's more advantageous to betray them.


  • Back Stab: They deal extra damage against flanked or flat-footed foes, making them most effective as skulkers.
  • Cannon Fodder: When they appear on the battlefield, it's in mobs herded toward the enemy lines by their superiors.
  • Cower Power: They can cringe in combat, causing a mind-affecting effect that may cause opponents to falter and fail to attack such an obviously pathetic creature.
  • Dirty Coward: Quick to attack those they think weaker than them, and quicker to beg for mercy if combat turns against them.

    Ultroloth 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_ultroloth_5e.png
5e
Challenge Rating: 13 (3E, 5E), 22 (4E)

The cruel commanders of the yugoloth armies, ultroloths are ambitious and self-serving in the extreme. They are among the most human-looking of the yugoloths, save for their near-featureless faces.


  • Bad Boss: Ultroloths cow other yugoloths into obedience through fear and intimidation, and they sit comfortably at the back of the army while their minions do all the fighting.
  • Battle Trophy: They're infamous for wearing necklaces of severed fingers taken from defeated foes.
  • The Blank: The only thing on their bulbous heads are a pair of blazing eyes.
  • Feet of Clay: Ultroloths are by no means harmless, yet they also aren't that much more powerful than the yugoloths they rule, and they also fall short when compared to the might of the balors and pit fiends. Instead, ultroloths are able to maintain an air of mystery and menace that keeps their underlings in line. 2nd Edition notes that "ultroloths also typically have enormous presence, shrewdness, and force of will, nonmagical qualities that often overshadow the most powerful enchantments."
  • Hypnotic Eyes: Ultroloths have a magical hypnotic gaze which can put other creatures into a temporary stupor.
  • No-Sell: 5th edition ultroloths are immune to being charmed or frightened, and their True Sight negates any attempt to trick them with illusions or sneak past them with invisibility.
  • Playing with Fire: 5E ultroloths can innately cast wall of fire and fire storm, letting them barbecue large groups of foes.

    Voor 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_voor_3e.png
3e
Challenge Rating: 4 (3E)

Large, armored creatures with a mass of secondary maws on the front of their torsos and whip-like tendrils extending from their clawed arms and hunched backs. These yugoloths usually find work guarding locations or more powerful fiends.


  • Combat Tentacles: A voor can make four tentacle attacks per turn.
  • Eyeless Face: Voors' heads have a bony dome where their eyes would be, but they have blindsense to compensate.
  • Signature Scent: Notably averted, unlike other fiends that smell of fire or brimstone. The only scent a voor will give off is the faint smell of blood if it's killed something recently.
  • Too Dumb to Fool: Voors aren't smart, but are very good at guard duty, and difficult to trick with orders that run counter to their original commands. The flip side of this is that they are Literal-Minded and incapable of looking beyond the letter of their original instructions.
  • Too Many Mouths: Their torsos are covered in little beaked mouths that rend anything they grapple and hold against them.

    Yagnoloth 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_yagnoloth_5e.png
5e
Challenge Rating: 10 (3E), 15 (4E), 11 (5E)

Masters of contracts, these yugoloths act as intermediaries between their kin and potential employers. Notable mostly for having one massively oversized arm.


  • Aristocrats Are Evil: Their older lore portrays yagnoloths as the nobles of their kind, ruling fiefs assigned them by the ultroloths — though "the rationale behind this arrangement is not clear, since yagnoloths are neither stronger nor brighter than many of their subjects." The yagnoloths abuse their position in every way possible, and particularly relish excuses to order the executions of more powerful yugoloths.
  • Deal with the Devil: If you want to make deals with the yugoloths, you go to these guys.
  • Hated by All: While any yugoloth would abuse a position the way yagnoloths do, the fact that the yagnoloths are given authority that exceeds their actual power has earned them a "special sort of resentment" from their kin. No yugoloth will pass up the opportunity to betray a yagnoloth, and yagnoloths are unable to summon other yugoloths.
  • Life Drain: The 5E yagnoloth's Life Leech attack drains health from a victim to heal the yagnoloth.
  • The Right Hand of Doom: They have a human-sized arm for drafting and signing contracts with their employers, and a giant-sized one for combat and for beating unruly subordinates into line. Whichever arm isn't in use at a given time is hidden beneath a cape.
  • Shock and Awe: 5E yagnoloths can electrocute people with a touch, and they can innately cast lightning bolt.

     The General of Gehenna 
The leader of the Yugoloth race, and the only one without a name in the Books of Keeping. The General has only been seen by those he wants to see, and brokers deals that affect the entire Yugoloth race. His type is unknown, but he's probably an Ultroloth, if not a uniquely powerful type of Yugoloth.
  • Monster Progenitor: He created the barghests to get revenge on Maglubiyet for stiffing him on pay. Barghests are charged with disrupting Maglubiyet's operations by devouring the souls of seventeen goblinoids (seventeen being the number of oaths Maglubiyet broke), the more influential the better, after which they may return to Gehenna.
  • Mysterious Backer: For anyone he chooses to aid.
  • The Nameless: The General has no true name, and thus can never be controlled even by someone with access to the Books of Keeping.

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