D&D 5E Succubi Queen Malcanthet in 5e

[Henadic Theologian]

Okay I was at Indigo today and was surprised at what I found in Drizzts Visual Guide, from a tidbit more Lorendrow info (mostly their hairstyle and that they are socholarly nature lovers and that still have Pifawfi), to the fact that it had a section on Planes, but the big one was two pages devoted to Succubi Queen Malchanthet and her surprisingly pleasant Abyssal Layer. Also it retconned the ending of her roll in a Drizzt novel. I forget how to do Spoiler Tags.

Now one could argue that RA Salvatore already reconned Malcamthet who in an earlier 5e novel The Godborn was shown as an Archdevil in Service to Asmodeus. (Erin M Evans solution was that Malcanthet made deals with her former rivals to impersonate her, allowing Malcanthet to functionally play for all teams.)

I'm just surprised that Malcanthet was treated as a major Drizzt foe, especially since unlike other Fiends she has not been statted up yet.

 

[TravDoc42]

I'd love to see Malcanthet get a stat block in 5e! She's such an interesting foe.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I'd love to see Malcanthet get a stat block in 5e! She's such an interesting foe.

Agreed,very different from other Archfiends.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

I know it's probably far too late to completely excise, but the lore ripple effects from the 4e succubi migration really annoy me...

"All 'seductive' demons are now devils. Except Graz'zt and Malcanthet, who are still demons, but it's okay, because now we're bending over backwards to note that they were originally devils, even though that's a blatant retcon from their in-depth Demonomicon articles in Dragon magazine from only a few years ago (at the time)."

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I think @dave2008 did a 5e statblock for her in his old Epic Monster updates. Obviously notnoffical

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I know it's probably far too late to completely excise, but the lore ripple effects from the 4e succubi migration really annoy me...

"All 'seductive' demons are now devils. Except Graz'zt and Malcanthet, who are still demons, but it's okay, because now we're bending over backwards to note that they were originally devils, even though that's a blatant retcon from their in-depth Demonomicon articles in Dragon magazine from only a few years ago (at the time)."

In 5e aren’t succubi simply fiends? They can be devils, demons, or something else?

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I know it's probably far too late to completely excise, but the lore ripple effects from the 4e succubi migration really annoy me...

"All 'seductive' demons are now devils. Except Graz'zt and Malcanthet, who are still demons, but it's okay, because now we're bending over backwards to note that they were originally devils, even though that's a blatant retcon from their in-depth Demonomicon articles in Dragon magazine from only a few years ago (at the time)."

Its not as bad in FR lore, where they didn't retcon Succubi past as Demons, they just made it a double cross, Succubi betrayed Demons to become Devils, and then betrayed Devils to go independant.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

In 5e aren’t succubi simply fiends? They can be devils, demons, or something else?

Succubi in 5e are fiends, but they are an independant type of fiends, they aren't devils, demons, Nighthags, Rakshasa, or Yugoloths.

 

[dave2008]

I think @dave2008 did a 5e statblock for her in his old Epic Monster updates. Obviously notnoffical

Yes, it is quite old now and it used my old Epic Update rules. I should probably update this to standard 5e rules. Anyway, here it is:

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

In 5e aren’t succubi simply fiends? They can be devils, demons, or something else?

Pre-4e succubi were demons, 4e made them devils (as part of 4e's cosmology overhaul), then 5e split the difference and made them an independent, "any evil" type of fiend, presumably to keep from invalidating as much as possible of what they had previously written on the subject.

They probably did the best that they could without completely throwing everything from the 4e era into the bin, I'm just something of a planar lore enthusiast and I've never liked how 4e shoehorned a devil connection into Graz'zt/Malcanthet's backstories, and the fact that those connections have, at least implicitly, been retained through 5e rubs me the wrong way.

Though, as much as anything, that may just be a matter of them not having done a proper deep lore dive on the demon lords in question, yet. Sooner or later, I expect we'll get a fiend-focused book, a la Fizban's and Bigby's...

Heck, go Fiendish Codex style and give us two: Iggwilv's Demonomicon and Elminster's Guide to the Nine Hells. Or even three - give Shemeska the opportunity to write about yugoloths again.

Do it, WotC!