Daemons


5th Edition (And Beyond)

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In 5th Edition how do they fit in the cosmology?

How does their hierarchy work?

Who rules Daemonkind?

What motives the fiends?


I believe these are called Yugolothsin 5e. They are detailed in the Monster Manual. Basically they are greedy mercenaries. According to 5e lore the most powerful Yugoloth is the General of Gehenna. They were created by the night hags of Gehenna at the behest of Asmodeus but they lost control of them.

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So borrowing a bit from 2nd Ed.

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Yugoloths were my favorite fiends in Planescape. I made a Yagnaloth for my 3rd or 4th level PCs. It was a fun encounter. Vargouille were also involved, as well as NE earless orc cultists.

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I like the uniqueness of the cosmology. It makes me both appreciate the Golarion versions of these planes/creatures, as well as reminds me what was so good about the original (so to speak) versions.


Some of the older editions' yugoloths directly correspond to daemons actually. For example the Dergholoth, a three-legged, five-armed vaguely insect-like burrowing creature, is matches the description of the derghodaemon.


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It goes
Demons = CE = Tanar'ri
Devils = LE = Baatezu
Daemons = NE = Yugoloths

IIRC the fantasy names were introduced in 2nd edition as a way to slightly distance D&D from real-world religion and "Satanic panic."

Pretty sure the 5e MM does also say that yugoloths are also known as daemons. So you can still call em daemons if you want.


Actually the 5e MM makes no mention of Tanar'ri or Baatezu. They are just called demons and devils throughout.

And in 3rd edition Demon does not always mean Tanar'ri, there were also Obyrith for instance, which were also demons, in Pathfinder are mirrored by Qlippoth.

But what pathfinder calls a demon, would have been a tanar'ri in 3rd edition.


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It's odd but Wikipedia actually shows the daemon as originally benign household gods. Plato, however, had a grudge against the concept and started calling them bad things, and the later Chritian writers went with that flow. I think in AD&D they showed up in Vault of the Drow, since Eclavdra was I believe Neutral Evil instead of chaotic. A bedpost thingy summoned some daemon to a luxurious bedroom, and of course he was expecting a good time not adventurers. Also there was a guardian daemon that had variable powers, generally used to guard big locked treasure chests.

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