There are very few extra-planar monsters in the book, which itself notes that they kept them back for a future effort. So perhaps in a year or two we’ll be back here, talking about
Volo’s Guide to Ways to Make High Level Characters Cry. Until that time however, we have a few Demons here to use. They appear to have been selected primarily for their adjacency to the themes of the book; so we get one that combines well with the Bodak, a couple that go well with Gnolls, and one that… well, I’m not sure why the
Babau made the cut, to be honest, but it did. Maybe because the Xvart entry also mentions Graz’zt? Tenuous!
The art in Volo’s is basically the same as the above image, only he’s twisting a little to the left. These guys remind me mostly of DOOM, which I recently played; they have a fairly generic ‘demon’ look to them. Technically the image is fairly strong, though the thighs look distinctly undeveloped for a guy with 40ft move. I like the pile of rubble as backdrop, it gives a nice sense of desolation to the image. Overall though, the above image is the better of the two.
These guys arose when Glasya (of
Brimstone Angels fame, to me at least) and Graz’zt (of ‘not appearing in
Out of the Abyss’ fame) were trading blows. When Glasya slashed Graz’zt with her devilish sword, his demonic blood splattered the ground and rose up again as these guys; presumably why they have blood oozing from various pores in the image. They then helped turn the tide, rout Glasya, and establish Graz’zt as a preeminent Demon Lord. It does occur to me that their weapon attacks are non-magical, so it seems somewhat unlikely that they could have done real damage to an Arch-Devil, but plot trumps mechanics, so nevermind. They could have done lots of Grapple-Push Prone attempts, I guess?
They combine the “cunning of a devil and the bloodthirstiness of a demon”, but we are given little clue as to how that should work in practice, and they don’t have any of a Devil’s manipulation powers that I can see. In use, these guys primarily seem suited to spice up a wider Demon fight. I’m a firm believer in the use of Fiends as high level mooks; you can safely put a half-dozen different Fiends down against level 16 players and know that you’ll have a fun, challenging fight that won’t last all evening, unlike using fifty Gnolls or whatever. Though you could use one by itself for a low level party, I’m not sure that these guys have the personality and powers to suit being a solo bad guy - especially when the Cambion is available. Perhaps one could do as a surprise attack, following the players around and then getting the drop on them when they try and take a rest; that also seems like a viable option.
The combat stats on these guys are reasonably interesting. They’re tough, they move fast, they have stealth abilities; they have standard Demon resistances, and they can innately cast some useful spells -
Heat Metal is a particularly good one that doesn’t allow a save, so great for hurting a Paladin, Cleric or Fighter of any level. The Babau does little damage with its main attacks, (16 average if both hit), but it does have a rather odd
Weakening Gaze that can half the strength-based damage of a character, albeit it is based on a DC 13 Con save. I don’t see that being failed very often by people you’d want to affect, but the Babau can do it for free every time it makes an attack action, so I think that it is designed to be a minor rider to the damage of their attack, one that highlights their tankiness, rather than being a big deal by itself.
Overall, these guys seem good for adding into a combat to complicate matters for the players when they are trying to take down a more powerful Demon, or perhaps for stealthly hunting the players in packs. Their low damage, outside of
Heat Metal means that you’ll not really put much hurt on a party with them alone, I think, but they are tanky enough to be annoying to get rid of, and they bring a lot of intriguing abilities to the table. Since my homebrew campaign will be visiting the Abyss soon, I’ll make sure to use these guys to victimise the characters!