D&D 5E What's a Yugoloth?

[MerricB]

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

The wacky thing is they didn't go pure alphabetical!

See... Cultists, for instance, that get a group description and then have Cultist, Cultist Fanatic, Death Cultist, etc...

 

[Chaltab]

The wacky thing is they didn't go pure alphabetical!

See... Cultists, for instance, that get a group description and then have Cultist, Cultist Fanatic, Death Cultist, etc...

Reorganizing the DMG only to make the Monster Manual a mess.

Like I don't even disagree with some of the choices, like putting Gelatinous Cube in G and the Werebeasts in W, but Yugoloths are one of those monsters that you're probably not going to use unless you first know what the heck a Yugoloth is.

And I still see players use demon and devil interchangeably, so not having them grouped with their own kind is likely to exacerbate that.

 

[Bohandas]

yugoloths for example are mentioned in Gehenna: "Gehenna is the birthplace of yugoloths, greedy and selfish Fiends that dwell here in great numbers.").

Which is a retcon btw. originally they came from Hades but took over Gehenna

Oinoloth - pestilent siege breakers

another retcon. was originally the title of the lord of the Wasting Tower in Hades

 

[Sulicius]

There's some more info on Yugoloths in the DMG24 chapter on Gahenna.

As a more recent DM, the Yugoloth distinction by alignment is already a miss. I don't care about alignment as something to personify monsters with. Especially something as bland as "neutral evil". It's very easy to just ignore yugoloths. Now I have read some cool lore about them with that one book of names, but that still doesn't really set them apart from devils.

@the Jester thank you so much for the writeup! Some of this is interesting, but some of this just sounds like "The Gibbles are related to the Hooba's, who really don't like the Nabba's.

I do think the greed angle is actually interesting. We can all see how greed is a cause of great suffering. I can even imagine a yugoloth and a devil sitting at a table discussing why you'd rather want a soul coin or real coin.

I think I'd rather combine yogoloths and devils, and just call them all devils. Using contracts and caring about coin feels in the same ballpark to me.

The invention of yugoloths just sounds like someone believed alignment is what the game is about, and each needs their own aligned creatures with silly names, who are really scary!

 

[MerricB]

There's some more info on Yugoloths in the DMG24 chapter on Gahenna.

As a more recent DM, the Yugoloth distinction by alignment is already a miss. I don't care about alignment as something to personify monsters with. Especially something as bland as "neutral evil". It's very easy to just ignore yugoloths. Now I have read some cool lore about them with that one book of names, but that still doesn't really set them apart from devils.

@the Jester thank you so much for the writeup! Some of this is interesting, but some of this just sounds like "The Gibbles are related to the Hooba's, who really don't like the Nabba's.

I do think the greed angle is actually interesting. We can all see how greed is a cause of great suffering. I can even imagine a yugoloth and a devil sitting at a table discussing why you'd rather want a soul coin or real coin.

I think I'd rather combine yogoloths and devils, and just call them all devils. Using contracts and caring about coin feels in the same ballpark to me.

The invention of yugoloths just sounds like someone believed alignment is what the game is about, and each needs their own aligned creatures with silly names, who are really scary!

While the creation of yugoloths was definitely Gygax filling in gaps in the alignment chart - he had demons for Chaotic Evil and devils for Lawful Evil, and needed a Neutral Evil fiend, he didn't call them yugoloths. He called them "Daemons". Which has the slight problem of being pronounced exactly the same as "Demons" by many people.

(I don't know if Gygax ever did so, or if he said "Day-mons")

When AD&D 2E removed all the fiends to avoid the "Angry Mothers from Heck" - it was a real problem at the time - they vanished from the game for two or three years. When they were reintroduced, to keep the Angry Mothers away they were given new names. Demons = Tanar'ii, Devils = Baatezu, and Daemons = Yugoloths.

The first two Daemons were the Nycodaemon and Mezzodaemon in D3 Vault of the Drow (new monsters not in the Monster Manual!)

However, when 3E brought demons and devils back in full, no-one was really eager to bring back the name "Daemon". So Yugoloths they remained - Nycoloths and Mezzoloths, and the other types.

Unfortunately, I despise the name Yugoloth. Sigh. Stuck with it for now.

Cheers!

 

[kigmatzomat]

You know, the Yugoloths could be devils and demons who ceased to be Lawful or Chaotic and their physiology changed to match their new alignments. (Which fits with a fallen angel becoming fiend) Maybe a devil wants to break contracts or a demon wants to actually stick to a plan.

Yugoloths are now simply in it for themselves and refuse to be constrained by either strict laws or by whims and instinct (Squirrel!). The weird CR gaps are because weak fiends can't resist their natures and the strongest outsiders are embodiments of "something" and ceasing to be as "something" reduces their power.

This would mean somewhere there are some elder CR20 Yugoloths, but they probably create their own personal little demiplanes and ignore the rest of the universe OR disguise themselves as other races and go on millenias long self indulgent "vacations" around the multiverse.

Gordan Gano would be a Yugoloth. "This is all about me and what I want."

 

[Joshua Randall]

When 6E rolls round, it'd be great if we could get someone to be able to come up with a one-sentence description of each major monster type that isn't just recursively linking back to existing D&D lore or cosmology.

In fairness, if you try to do that with real-world animals of any sort, you end up with the need to recursively define every word in your animal’s definition, until you are back to, IDK, I’m not a language scholar, some kind of ur-language where a certain inflected grunt meant “hairy thing”?

One-sentence descriptions also would require readers/players to have some commonly shared understanding of culture and mythology, a (possibly problematic) assumption that was far more likely to be viable for the Gygaxian D&D audience in the 1970s than it is for the worldwide D&D audience today.

“A ghast is a bigger stronger ghoul.”

OK, what’s a ghoul? is it the demon of Islamic myth? (And what’s a demon)
Is a ghoul like Pickman’s Model in Lovecraft? Or is it Lovecraftian, but it’s the other ghoul, the heroic noble ones who help Randolph Carter in Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath?
Is a ghoul just a derogatory term for grave-diggers and thus we are to interpret “a ghast is a bigger stronger ghoul” as some way to rehabilitate that insult?

OK, sure, you’re going to define ghoul and clarify the above. How?

Etc. etc. etc.

 

[J-H]

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!

It does, thank you!
I am now questioning whether or not they're a good choice to include or if I'm just filling in the blanks by using them as a "faction." The Demon side at least has the Glabrezu as a spellcaster, while the Devil side has nothing other than the Pit Fiend's few spells and the Ice Devil's Ice Wall. I'm not sure why WOTC decided that the cunning and manipulative Devils needed to be the side with no subtlety or combat options aside from "I hit it with a stick."

 

[UngeheuerLich]

In fairness, if you try to do that with real-world animals of any sort, you end up with the need to recursively define every word in your animal’s definition, until you are back to, IDK, I’m not a language scholar, some kind of ur-language where a certain inflected grunt meant “hairy thing”?

One-sentence descriptions also would require readers/players to have some commonly shared understanding of culture and mythology, a (possibly problematic) assumption that was far more likely to be viable for the Gygaxian D&D audience in the 1970s than it is for the worldwide D&D audience today.

“A ghast is a bigger stronger ghoul.”

OK, what’s a ghoul? is it the demon of Islamic myth? (And what’s a demon)
Is a ghoul like Pickman’s Model in Lovecraft? Or is it Lovecraftian, but it’s the other ghoul, the heroic noble ones who help Randolph Carter in Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath?
Is a ghoul just a derogatory term for grave-diggers and thus we are to interpret “a ghast is a bigger stronger ghoul” as some way to rehabilitate that insult?

OK, sure, you’re going to define ghoul and clarify the above. How?

Etc. etc. etc.

Fun fact: the ghoul has multiattack as CR 1 creature, the Ghast has not as CR 2 creature.

The Ghast's claws however are way more damaging.

 

[Joshua Randall]

I'm not sure why WOTC decided that the cunning and manipulative Devils needed to be the side with no subtlety or combat options aside from "I hit it with a stick."

Ludonarrative dissonance.

There. Achievement Unlocked. I've waited YEARS for an opportunity to use that phrase.