Yugoloths
Made with Hero Forge
(from Planescape Monstrous Compendium Appendix I - 1994 - [credits])
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In Sigil, City of Doors, many seek the door to a better life. Among them enterprise, even opportunism, is a cardinal virtue. Their stories offer many examples of the poor hero who, by luck and pluck and a strong sword arm, found his way to riches. If that hero happened to betray a scalawag employer along the way, or perhaps fell away from the restrictive ideals of his early faith, the tales reduce such shortcomings to mere idiosyncrasies; some even promote them as wisdom, as a necessary adjustment to a hard world.
Yet all these tale-spinners, who talk easily of shrewd oathbreakers and lovable roguish backstabbers, draw short and flare their nostrils at the insult that remains, even yet, unforgivable: “not worth a yugoloth.”
Yugoloths are fiends that inhabit the Lower Planes of Acheron, Gehenna, the Gray Waste, and Carceri. They act as mercenaries in the Blood War, but they display a complete lack of loyalty. These cunning creatures turn on their employers for greater payment by another. Those who use yugoloths as mercenaries must have power over them before entering battle.
Yugoloths fall into two categories. Greater yugoloths act as officers, ruling by strength alone. Lesser yugoloths, the rank-and-file, serve diligently for promises of power and wealth. They are divided as follows:
Greater: arcanaloth, nycaloth, ultroloth
Lesser: dergholoth, hydroloth, mezzoloth, piscoloth, yagnoloth. There are also various guardian yugoloths, and the lesser marraenoloths, which are not covered here.
The yugoloths quarrel among themselves. Individually ferocious, they are inefficient formation warriors. The baatezu and tanar’ri use yugoloths in the Blood War only because each fears the other might gain an advantage by using them.
Greedy and avaricious, yugoloths gladly turn on their employers for the right price. Fortunately for the yugoloths, battle reports rarely return to Baator or the Abyss. When they do, the offending yugoloths are hunted and punished with unimaginable torture. This does not deter further betrayals, for the greed of a yugoloth runs deep.
