Yugoloths: Do They Have an Identity Beyond the Blood War?

[Quickleaf]

Resurrect thread! I thought this post by @Shemeska a few pages back was insightful.

One exercise I use when trying to understand a monster – or the current iteration of a monster & the designers' perspectives on that monster – is to look at its stat block independent of story writing, and see what sorts of narrative implications are suggested through the stats. I then compare my read with the actual story writing to see if it lines up or if there are discrepancies.

I noticed an interesting trend in 5e's stats for the fiends:

Yugoloths seem to be defined – mechanically – by creating magical darkness (and secondarily dispelling magic), teleporting, and being able to hurt magical creatures. That's what makes them unique from devils & demons. "Moving through darkness" might be a theme for these fiends, if only there weren't a sight caveat on their teleportation.

However, it is devils with Devil's Sight allowing them to see in magical darkness.

If the yutholoth's ultimate aim were, for instance, moral turpitude (e.g. "No, that's not evil. That's not evil. And that's not evil either. When nothing is forbidden, all is permitted.") and leading others into spiritual darkness, then it would make sense for yugoloths to be the ones that can see in magical darkness, not devils.

That one change would also double down on their identity of being uniquely suited to thwarting other planar beings (dispel magic, being able to hurt magical creatures, and now shutting them down in darkness). Plus it would synergize with their teleportation in a "now you see me, now you don't" way, which works equally well for leading sinful mortals into a trap, or as a mercenary strategy.

 

[billd91]

Resurrect thread! I thought this post by Shemeshka a few pages back was insightful.

One exercise I use when trying to understand a monster – or the current iteration of a monster & the designers' perspectives on that monster – is to look at its stat block independent of story writing, and see what sorts of narrative implications are suggested through the stats. I then compare my read with the actual story writing to see if it lines up or if there are discrepancies.

I was also thinking that, in an effort to better understand perspectives on a monster, one of Shemeska's other posts incorporates something that I would love to have - more designer notes and sidebars describing their sources, why the designed something the way they did, and so on.

 

[tetrasodium]

Yugoloths are mentioned pretty extensively on exploring eberron 178-181 in the mabar section talking about mabar & the amarthine city. Other fiends are mentioned in other planes.
edit: The role of fiends in eberron is very different from FR & the blood war is kind of a poor fit for various in setting reasons a quick glance at the timeline will highlight without going into detail so their role described there in EE is definitely "beyond the bloodwar"

 

[MechaTarrasque]

Resurrect thread! I thought this post by Shemeshka a few pages back was insightful.

One exercise I use when trying to understand a monster – or the current iteration of a monster & the designers' perspectives on that monster – is to look at its stat block independent of story writing, and see what sorts of narrative implications are suggested through the stats. I then compare my read with the actual story writing to see if it lines up or if there are discrepancies.

I noticed an interesting trend in 5e's stats for the fiends:

Yugoloths seem to be defined – mechanically – by creating magical darkness (and secondarily dispelling magic), teleporting, and being able to hurt magical creatures. That's what makes them unique from devils & demons. "Moving through darkness" might be a theme for these fiends, if only there weren't a sight caveat on their teleportation.

However, it is devils with Devil's Sight allowing them to see in magical darkness.

If the yutholoth's ultimate aim were, for instance, moral turpitude (e.g. "No, that's not evil. That's not evil. And that's not evil either. When nothing is forbidden, all is permitted.") and leading others into spiritual darkness, then it would make sense for yugoloths to be the ones that can see in magical darkness, not devils.

That one change would also double down on their identity of being uniquely suited to thwarting other planar beings (dispel magic, being able to hurt magical creatures, and now shutting them down in darkness). Plus it would synergize with their teleportation in a "now you see me, now you don't" way, which works equally well for leading sinful mortals into a trap, or as a mercenary strategy.

I figured yugoloths' dispel magic was so you couldn't magic circle them at the spell's base level (thus getting them to work for free).

 

[Gadget]

I kinda wish they had reclaimed their 1e moniker of "Daemons" like their fiendish brethren. But then again, I've never been particularly enamored with the fill-in-the-alignment-matrix design of fiends to begin with either, and the Daemons in particular seem to lack a mythic sense of purpose and identity, obscure Planescape lore notwithstanding.

 

[Alzrius]

My suspicion has always been that the problem with yugoloths/daemons is an alignment issue. It's easy to point to the Lawful Evil devils as being corruptors, and the Chaotic Evil demons as being destroyers, but the issue with the Neutral Evil fiends is that it's hard to strike a balance where they don't seem like they're doing one or the other of those things, except less effectively. The old takes on them as "guardian fiends" and "greedy mercenaries" failed to make strong impressions, for that matter.

There's also the fact that "daemons" sounds too close to "demons" to be distinguishing, and "yugoloths," while unique, doesn't leave a strong impression either.

Personally, I prefer to play up the interpretation (as I read it) of the yugoloths from Faces of Evil: The Fiends (affiliate link), which basically said that they're ultimately dedicated to Evil as a concept/force, untainted by Law or Chaos. Each yugoloth is trying to advance the cause of capital-E Evil in its own way, and while they'll always pull together in the face of outside resistance, they'll plot and scheme amongst themselves absent that. As such, they're less focused on mortals (and, as I recall, yugoloths don't come from mortal souls anyway) than they are on the state of the Outer Planes in general. And as such, they tend to encounter mortal adventurers less as a rule; they simply don't care about them as much as demons and devils do.

 

[Quickleaf]

@Alzrius I think you perfectly captured the question being asked in the OP. Devils corrupt, demons destroy, and yugoloths...?

My answer would be "abuse", or as a more specific form of abuse: "gaslight."

My answer is that yugoloths want to make other beings question their judgment, memory, and perception to the point that they become paralyzed, suffer crippling self-doubt, become dependent on the yugoloths for direction in life (or success in battle), or even join the yugoloth ranks/mercenaries in a state of despair.

They don't want to corrupt you to the "dark side"; instead they want you to question your core values and what's real, so that the idea there ever was a "light side" is just a faint whisper in your fading dreams. And they don't want to destroy you... not prematurely, at least, not before they've had their abusive fun showing you "the real truth", and even then they'd rather you destroy yourself.

Yugoloths are akin to the cold hard pragmatists of the world. If you've ever heard someone say "That's not how this office works...", "not in the real world...", "name one thing in life that doesn't involve competition...", or "I'm just trying to toughen you up...", or "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger...", that's very possibly (depending on the sentiment of the person, of course) the precipice at which the yugoloth's paradigm begins. There is no good and evil, according to yugoloths – that's just an illusion created by weak-minded/weak-willed fools to avoid confronting the cold hard truth that life is nasty, brutish, short, and self-interested. When a 'loth says "Evil" they use it like a philosopher might use "Truth" or "the way things are."

Their tactics are denial, misdirection, and misinformation. In fact, not to get political, but if you look at American media today there are some prime examples of the sorts of tactics I imagine yugoloths employing.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

I'm working on a homebrew cosmology, and I'm moving away from alignment, toward transcendentals and their deprivations. So the traits and their exemplars are:

Virtue - Archons
Harmony - Angels
Truth - Asuras

Iniquity - Devils
Discord - Demons
Falsehood - Daevas

 

[Shemeska]

I'm glad that folks like those older posts of mine!

 

[Faolyn]

Yugoloths are the middle men and you can get anything from them. They also aren't furthering the goals of a demon prince or archdevil or evil god. And they generally aren't trying to make their home planes/alignment take over the rest of the multiverse. Neutral evil is the uber-selfish alignment, which means each yugoloth is out to better itself, not someone or something else.