Demons
(Tanar'ri)
Made with Hero Forge
(from 5th Edition Monster Manual - 2014 - [credits])
Spawned in the Infinite Layers of the Abyss, demons are the embodiment of chaos and evil- engines of destruction barely contained in monstrous form. Possessing no compassion, empathy, or mercy, they exist only to destroy.
Spawn of Chaos. The Abyss creates demons as extensions of itself, spontaneously forming fiends out of filth and carnage. Some are unique monstrosities, while others represent uniform strains virtually identical to each other. Other demons (such as manes) are created from mortal souls shunned or cursed by the gods, or which are otherwise trapped in the Abyss.
Capricious Elevation. Demons respect power and power alone. A greater demon commands shrieking mobs of lesser demons because it can destroy any lesser demon that dares to refuse its commands. A demon's status grows with the blood it spills; the more enemies that fall before it, the greater it becomes.
A demon might spawn as a manes, then become a dretch, and eventually transform to a vrock after untold time spent fighting and surviving in the Abyss. Such elevations are rare, however, for most demons are destroyed before they attain significant power. The greatest of those that do survive make up the ranks of the demon lords that threaten to tear the Abyss apart with their endless warring.
By expending considerable magical power, demon lords can raise lesser demons into greater forms, though such promotions never stem from a demon's deeds or accomplishments. Rather, a demon lord might warp a manes into a quasit when it needs an invisible spy, or turn an army of dretches into hezrous when marching against a rival lord. Demon lords only rarely elevate demons to the highest ranks, fearful of inadvertently creating rivals to their own power.
Abyssal Invasions. Wherever they wander across the Abyss, demons search for portals to the other planes. They crave the chance to slip free of their native realm and spread their dark influence across the multiverse, undoing the works of the gods, tearing down civilizations, and reducing the cosmos to despair and ruin.
Some of the darkest legends of the mortal realm are built around the destruction wrought by demons set loose in the world. As such, even nations embroiled in bitter conflict will set their differences aside to help contain an outbreak of demons, or to seal off abyssal breaches before these fiends can break free.
Signs of Corruption. Demons carry the stain of abyssal corruption with them, and their mere presence changes the world for the worse. Plants wither and die in areas where abyssal breaches and demons appear. Animals shun the sites where a demon has made a kill. The site of a demonic infestation might be fouled by a stench that never abates, by areas of bitter cold or burning heat, or by permanent shadows that mark the places where these fiends lingered.
Eternal Evil. Outside the Abyss, death is a minor nuisance that no demon fears. Mundane weapons can't stop these fiends, and many demons are resistant to the energy of the most potent spells. When a lucky hero manages to drop a demon in combat, the fiend dissolves into foul ichor. It then instantly reforms in the Abyss, its mind and essence intact even as its hatred is inflamed. The only way to truly destroy a demon is to seek it in the Abyss and kill it there.
Protected Essence. A powerful demon can take steps to safeguard its life essence, using secret methods and abyssal metals to create an amulet into which part of that essence is ceded. If the demon's abyssal form is ever destroyed, the amulet allows the fiend to reform at a time and place of its choosing.
Obtaining a demonic amulet is a dangerous enterprise, and simply seeking such a device risks drawing the attention of the demon that created it. A creature possessing a demonic amulet can exact favors from the demon whose life essence the amulet holdsor inflict great pain if the fiend resists. If an amulet is destroyed, the demon that created it is trapped in the Abyss for a year and a day.
Demonic Cults. Despite the dark risks involved in dealing with fiends, the mortal realm is filled with creatures that covet demonic power. Demon lords manipulate these mortal servants into performing ever greater acts of depravity, furthering the demon lord's ambitions in exchange for magic and other boons. However, a demon r~gards any mortals in its service as tools td use and then discard at its whim, consigning their mortal souls to the Abyss.
Demon Summoning. Few acts are as dangerous as summoning a demon, and even mages who bargain freely with devils fear the fiends of the Abyss. Though demons ,yearn to sow chaos on the Material Plane, they show no gratitude when brought there, raging against their prisons and demanding release.
Those who would risk summoning a demon might do so to wrest information from it, press it into service, or send it on a mission that only a creature of absolute evil can complete. Preparation is key, and experienced summoners know the specific spells and magic items that can force a demon to bend to another's will. If a single mistake is made, a demon that breaks free shows no mercy as it makes its summoner the first victim of its wrath.
Bound Demons. The Book of Vile Darkness, the Black Scrolls of Ahm, and the Demonomicon of Jggwilv are the foremost authorities on demonic matters. These ancient tomes describe techniques that can trap the essence of a demon on the Material Plane, placing it within a weapon, idol, or piece of jewelry and preventing the fiend's return to the Abyss.
An object that binds a demon must be specially prepared with unholy incantations and innocent blood. It radiates a palpable evil, chilling and fouling the air around it. A creature that handles such an object experiences unsettling dreams and wicked impulses, but is able to control the demon whose essence is trapped within the object. Destroying the object frees the demon, which immediately seeks revenge against its binder.
Demonic Possession. No matter how secure its bindings, a powerful demon often finds a way to escape an object that holds it. When a demonic essence emerges from its container, it can possess a mortal host. Sometimes a fiend employs stealth to hide a successful possession. Other times, it unleashes the full brunt of its fiendish drives through its new form.
As long as the demon remains in possession of its host, the soul of that host is in danger of being dragged to the Abyss with the demon if it is exorcised from the flesh, or if the host dies. If a demon possesses a creature. and the object binding the demon is destroyed, the possession lasts until powerful magic is used to drive the demonic spirit out of its host.
(from Fiend Folio - 2003 - [credits])
The Abyss holds an incredible diversity of demons. These evil denizens come in many forms with varied abilities. These creatures fight and manipulate each other, each striving for personal autonomy even as they seek to subjugate others. When not in conflict among themselves, demons battle various forces of good as well as the lawful evil inhabitants of the Nine Hells.
The largest and most diverse group of demons is the tanar’ri, unchallenged masters of the Abyss.
Combat: Demons enjoy combat. Those with spell-like abilities often use them from a distance. Many demons can create darkness, so they frequently do so before joining melee.
Outsider Traits: A demon has darkvision (60-foot range). It cannot be raised or resurrected (though a wish or miracle spell can restore life). In addition, all tanar’ri have the following abilities in common.
Tanar’ri Traits: Tanar’ri can communicate telepathically with any creature within 100 feet that has a language. A tanar’ri is immune to electricity and poison, and it has acid resistance 20, cold resistance 20, and fire resistance 20.
(from Planescape Monstrous Compendium Appendix I - 1994 - [credits])
In Sigil the streets teem with denizens of a thousand planes, and each claims to have visited a thousand more. In every back-alley gambling haunt in the Lower Ward, in half the tiefling halfway houses, in the incense-heavy air of vapor shops where old men debate weird philosophies, tales pass back and forth. Those tales debate the absolutes of the Outer Planes, the greatest and least, loftiest and most base, best and worst. Every tale that turns upon the worst inevitably stops with the place of despair, the infinite bleak layers that represent the suffering and toil of existence made tangible. There chaos and hopelessness reign.
There in the Abyss, where others endure endless torment, the tanar’ri thrive.
Like the baatezu, tanar’ri are fiends (lower planar creatures of enormous power), but they embody evil of a different type. Baatezu, lawful evil beings, pursue calculated doctrines as part of a grand plan to advance their race to dominion of all the planes. Most baatezu tempt mortals into intellectual evils such as pride, ambition, and subversion. Tanar’ri, chaotic evil personified, are motivated not by doctrines but by insane, violent inner drives. They tempt mortals into crimes of passion and vice, evils of appetite. Less intelligent tanar’ri often attack without question and fight until slain. True and greater tanar’ri roam the Astral and Ethereal planes, driven ceaselessly to seek fresh victims.
The tanar’ri have five divisions, listed here in order of ascending power with member varieties:
Least: dretch, manes, rutterkin
Lesser: alu-fiend, bar-lgura, cambion, succubus
Greater: babau, chasme, nabassu, water lord
True: balor, glabrezu, hezrou, marilith, nalfeshnee, vrock
Guardian: molydeus
These classifications actually mean little in their lives. They are merely broad estimates of destructive power. The tanar’ri have little use for anything besides power, and a strong lesser tanar’ri who bests a greater cousin gains higher status in the Abyss. Their petty battles for position are endless. The only class free from these power struggles is the molydeus, a guardian tanar’ri that seems curiously divorced from the tanar’ri power structure.
The tanar’ri are one of the two major factions in the Blood War. For as long as the tanar’ri have existed, they have waged war against their ancient enemies, the baatezu. The tanar’ri and baatezu wage war in strikingly different ways. The baatezu are organized and fight their battles with planned tactics for strategic goals. The tanar’ri, however, are a horde of chaos and disorder, using their endless numbers in wars of attrition. It is difficult to estimate tanar’ri populations, considering they inhabit an infinite number of infinitely large planes, but there are easily 100 times as many tanar’ri as baatezu.
This disordered race wages the Blood War only because true tanar’ri seem to have a primal urge to destroy baatezu. They force those less powerful than themselves to serve their wishes.
Most tanar’ri feed on either flesh or the life force of other living beings. It appears that they derive more nutrition from a victim by instilling terror in it before the kill. Whereas most predators simply stalk and then kill, tanar’ri add a third step: stalk, terrify, kill.
Combat: All tanar’ri (even the least) share the spell-like powers: darkness, 15‘ radius, infravision, and teleport without error. They also can gate in other tanar’ri at will, as defined for each type. Tanar’ri are affected by attack forms as noted below:
Acid - full
Cold - half
Electricity (lightning) - none
Fire (magical) - half
Fire (nonmagical) - none
Gas (poisonous, etc.) - half
Iron Weapon - full
Magic Missile - full
Poison - none
Silver Weapon - Full (Greater tanar'ri take half damage from silver weapons)
All tanar’ri have a form of telepathy that lets them communicate with any intelligent life form regardless of language barriers. Tanar’ri with Average or better Intelligence can converse. The Abyss-forged magical weapons of the tanar’ri dissolve upon the owner’s death. When one doesn’t, the weapon probably originated elsewhere.
