D&D 5E What's a Yugoloth?

[Hexmage-EN]

Call them daemons. Problem (mostly) solved.

4E did roll them into the demon family, which IMO they might as well be.

 

[Corinnguard]

Devils, Demons and Daemons, oh my!

 

[MechaTarrasque]

For the NE Yugoloth, the flavor text would be:

Yugoloth. Fiends who seem like psychopaths, both manipulating group obligations and selfishly betraying groups, whichever happens to bring about the most personal gain.

(Lolth should be NE.)

I think it depends on edition. I would agree that most of pre-4e she came across as more NE than CE. 4e doubled down on the crazy and the CE (when the God of Torture thinks you are a maniac....). When haven't seen enough in 5e to know.

For my setting, I decided to go Kore-Persephone. Every year, she spends 6 months in the Abyss as demon lord and 6 months in Pandamonium as a goddess. Goddess mode is calculating and sneaky. Demon lord is magic pixie girl gone bad. I make demon lords all about changing creature types (damages the fabric of the universe and makes it easier for the Abyss to absorb stuff). In her case, anything that changes mortals (humanoids, fey, giants, or dragons) into an aberration, monstrosity, or fiend with spider climb, web sense, or web walk gives her a little more power even if she, her cult, or goddess mode's church had nothing to do with it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yugoloth. Fiends who seem like psychopaths, both manipulating group obligations and selfishly betraying groups, whichever happens to bring about the most personal gain.

Eh, that still doesn't feel like much from a thematic standpoint. All three major fiend types should have a strong hook that everyone can understand and which manifests in play.

Whether in combat or roleplay situations, it should be abundantly clear if a fiend is a demon, devil or daemon yugoloth.

 

[Yaarel]

Eh, that still doesn't feel like much from a thematic standpoint. All three major fiend types should have a strong hook that everyone can understand and which manifests in play.

Whether in combat or roleplay situations, it should be abundantly clear if a fiend is a demon, devil or daemon yugoloth.

Some musings ...


For the Fiends, the identity is almost exclusively, a personification of the alignment of the plane.

The meaning of LE, NE, and CE, are central. The flavors of species of Fiends are various ways the alignment can play out.


As you know, 4e (which unhelpfully deleted the LE and CG alignments) reconceived the Devils as being human appearing and personifying temptation and corruption the mind. By contrast, the Demons were monstrous appearing and personifying the destruction of matter. The approach didnt stick but it is an interesting distinction.


For the alignments, Lawful Evil is more about the excesses of groupthink, such as blind obedience and racism. Chaotic Evil is more about the excesses of extreme selfishness. Then Neutral Evil is the ability to resort to either groups or individualism, back and forth, which ever accomplishes the most benefit for oneself especially at the expense of others.


If the Aberrations were "always Evil", then they should be Fiends, indeed would make great NE Fiends.

If the Aberrations arent Fiends, there should be prominent examples of Good Aberrations. Or perhaps, by definition, all Aberrations are Unaligned, literally causing the ethical alignment plane to unravel.

 

[Kurotowa]

If the Aberrations arent Fiends, there should be prominent examples of Good Aberrations. Or perhaps, by definition, all Aberrations are Unaligned, literally causing the ethical alignment plane to unravel.

This does, in fact, exist. The ever lovable Flumph is a Lawful Good Aberration in the Revised MM.

 

[Chaltab]

The difference between a fiend and an evil aberration is that a fiend is doing what it does because what it does is evil. Evil is its nature, whether lawful, chaotic, or neutral.

Aberrations do evil things for reasons that are either alien to human thought or divorced from our notions of reality. One of my favorite bits of lore in Baldur's Gate 3 is that the Intellect Devourer called Us sees being given an illithid tadpole as a gift that will make the player character 'beautiful and powerful'.

To a person it's a violation of their bodily autonomy that will destroy their soul and make them another thing entirely, but to the aberration it's a gift.

 

[Charlaquin]

Eh, you can discern from any Yugoloth’s stat block that it’s a type of fiend, and that it’s Neutral Evil. And that alone answers the question. What’s a Yugoloth? A type of Fiend that are Neutral Evil. That’s literally what they are.

 

[the Jester]

I am using a few sometime soon. What you've said is about all I know. They also come in a really weird CR band of 5, 11-13. Nothing higher, nothing lower. There is no unifying biology. It's like someone said "I want to make a fox wizard and an evil Grey and an intelligent mosquito. Let's put them all on the same team!"

If there's more good info on them I'd like to know.

Since nobody has really given you the lore on them, I will do my best. Note that I am not an expert on Planescape, which is where I feel the most and best lore regarding them comes from. I am sure that what I am posting will be incomplete and will likely have some errors in it.

Yugoloths are the incarnation of Neutral Evil, as devils are Lawful Evil and demons, Chaotic Evil. They are quite mercenary; they hire themselves out to both sides in the Blood War, but almost inevitably betray their employers when a better offer comes along. They are from the NE planes of Hades and Gehenna, and appear also on their neighboring planes. According to Planescape lore, one might say that the upper echelons of yugoloths are obsessed with determining the true nature of evil, and whether LE or CE is closer to being pure evil or, looked at another way, a better path to evil.

The 'loths trace their origin to creatures known as the baernoloths- primeval antecedents of the yugoloths (and maybe most of the other fiends) who maybe created the rest? It's fairly certain that they (or at least one of them) are at least responsible for the creation of the demodands/gehereleths, yet another branch of non-demon, non-devil fiend (the faratsu, kelubar, and shator). These are shunned even by other fiends.

Yugoloths are known for Byzantine plots spanning eons, being deeply manipulative, and- as I said- being obsessed with determining the true nature of evil. There are a number of types other than those in the MM; some appear in the Mordenkainen's Multiverse of Monsters book. There might be a few others. Also, I think there are some from an old Dragon Magazine article that masquerade as weapons that fall into the hands of mortals in order to manipulate them into evil. (Memories hazy, it has been well over a decade since I read that article.)

There are also another group of yugoloths, the guardian yugoloths, which have not appeared since 2e as far as I know; these are usually found bound by mortal spellcasters as guardians, and IIRC are sometimes depicted as neutral in alignment. I seem to recall some lore about them being kind of like the golems of the 'loth world- maybe not true yugoloths at all, but instead creations of the 'loths.

I hope this helps a little bit!

 

[Stormonu]

This was kinda why I didn't want them to go pure alphabetical.

At the least, having a half page for the monster groups (Yugoloth, Demon, Devils, (Chromatic) Dragons, Giants, etc.) would have been good. Use the half page to give an overview of the group as a whole, and then at the end, give a quick list of who belongs to the group.

"Yugoloth is a term for a group of mercenary fiends from the fires of gehenna. Considered duplicitous by nature, they sell their services to other fiends. There are legends that the greatest of these fiends keeps a great ledger of the various mercenary contracts the Yugoloths are bound to, and that this book also gives insight to the true and secret aims of these fiends. Were these pages of plans and schemes to fall into the hands of those outside Yugoloth hands, surely the Yugoloths would hound the thief to the end of worlds, while there would be many Demons - and especially Devils that would pay handsomely for the Yugoloth's secrets."

Yugoloth Subtypes:
Arcanoloth - jackal headed spellcasting diplomats and negotiators
Baernoloth - creators of discord and keepers of secrets
Canoloth - guardians of treasures and locations
Dhergoloth - butchering whirlwinds of destruction
Hydroloth - stealers of memories
Merrenloth - ferriers of the interdimensional fiendish river Styx
Mezzoloth - insectile brute enforcers
Nycoloth - elite airborne shock troops
Oinoloth - pestilent siege breakers
Ultroloth - rapacious commanders of yugoloth armies
Yagnoloth - contract negotiators and enforcers