D&D 5E What's a Yugoloth?

[I'm A Banana]

Ah, so their lack of lore is really just their actual lore manifesting.

To a certain degree, I like the idea that the reason that nobody knows quite what defines a yugoloth is because the yugoloths want it that way, and are broadly successful at it.

Like, 3rd level fiend warlock, finding out that their patron is a yugoloth for the first time: "A whatoloth? Who are you? Wait, no, my book doesn't say ANYTHING about this. What? I was expecting a balor or pit fiend or maybe a vrock, I have NO CLUE what you are."

Patron 'loth: "Exactly. Think of what other secrets you are painfully unaware of."

 

[Voadam]

Most fiends are just combat beasts.

Demons are destructive horde monsters.

Devils are infernal soldiers.

Daemons are summoned attack or guard monsters, yugoloths are blood war mercenaries.

The highest tier ones have some other characteristics - demon lords make plots, devils tempt and manipulate and punish, yugoloths have mysterious malevolent long range plans.

But mostly they are combat beasts from evil planes.

 

[TiQuinn]

They’re the “meh.” of demons.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Except if you say something is a ghoul, a new player will know A) this is a dangerous man-shaped thing and B) it almost certainly wants to eat me.

Are you sure about that? Because I honestly am not so sure these (formerly?) broadly known facts about D&D-ized terms that are also real-world terms -- are so broadly known. If they ever were.

Particularly once we get away from a term like ghoul which, almost regardless of culture/myth/story, wanted to consume you in some fashion.

If you say to a new player, "You see a kobold" -- what does that new player know about it? Quite possibly nothing! Quite possibly "kobold" is the trigger for the "yugoloth" / "gesundheit" joke.

"Goblin"? OK, what's a goblin? It's wildly different in folklore, and it's wildly different in editions of D&D, and its wildly different in videogames.

"Ghost"? This has to have thousands of different manifestations (seewhatIddidthere) across real-world human myth. Yet the D&D ghost is super specific and needs to be defined to make sense to new players -- it's probably not exactly like what they imagine.

I agree with your original point that we need to define our terms. The fact that all definitions of words inevitably consist of other words, each of which may also need to be defined, shouldn't deter us from making the attempt at all. But we should be quite purposeful in how we do it.

 

[Stormonu]

To a certain degree, I like the idea that the reason that nobody knows quite what defines a yugoloth is because the yugoloths want it that way, and are broadly successful at it.

Like, 3rd level fiend warlock, finding out that their patron is a yugoloth for the first time: "A whatoloth? Who are you? Wait, no, my book doesn't say ANYTHING about this. What? I was expecting a balor or pit fiend or maybe a vrock, I have NO CLUE what you are."

Patron 'loth: "Exactly. Think of what other secrets you are painfully unaware of."

Oh, the irony. In the game I was/am co-dming, the Warlock PC had a fiend pact and the patron turned out to be an Arcanoloth (who managed to keep its true nature secret until over half way in the campaign) ... working for a Lord higher up in the chain. And its interest in the Warlock was getting to help spread misery and discord.

 

[Yaarel]

It would have been possible to make the lovecraftian flavor of Aberrations, the NE Fiend. It would have brought salient flavor to the Fiends of this alignment. (And the many of the Yugoloths have an Aberration vibe as is.)


But now, the Aberrations are any alignment, such as the Lawful Good Flumpf. I like where the Aberration type is heading, being the cosmic unconsciousness, the thoughts that arent reinforcing reality, and can be any alignment.

In this context, the Gith as Aberrations also feel more salient.

It occurs to me, a Goo Warlock might have a Good patron − albeit still unraveling reality as we know it.

 

[ilgatto]

They’re the “meh.” of demons.

Today, perhaps. But they used to be quite a handful back in the day!

 

[I'm A Banana]

It would have been possible to make the lovecraftian flavor of Aberrations, the NE Fiend. It would have brought salient flavor to the Fiends of this alignment. (And the many of the Yugoloths have an Aberration vibe as is.)

Obyriths have strong aberration vibes, I'd figure if you want to give your fiends wriggling tentacles and alien geometries, that's where they'd go. FWIW, I think it'd be pretty neat to see obyriths back in some adventures.

I'm definitely into a D&D whose fiends are more than just demons and devils (even though those will always be the big ones).

 

[Stormonu]

Today, perhaps. But they used to be quite a handful back in the day!

View attachment 395450

Wow, I'd forgotten about this pic from D3 until I saw it.

Yeah - they're a handful, at least three!

 

[Chaltab]

I tend to think of Yugoloths as the ruthless capitalists of the underworld. They only care about the Blood War in so much as they can profit from it.