It has once again been a long time since I’ve touched this series, but I’ve cleared enough other projects to take some time for things I’d like to publish on the DM’s Guild someday. I hope it’s something you (yes, you!) would want to buy.

Summer Court | Gloaming Court | Devils/Baatezu | Demons/Tanar’ri | Daemons/Yugoloths

Daemons/Yugoloths: Positive Relationship

I’ve said this about devils and demons, too, but daemons don’t have heroic virtues. They made the conscious, deliberate decision, with the aid of a cosmic perspective, to have the opposite. They aren’t misunderstood; they’re playing a long game to eradicate the concept of Good and place themselves in charge of the multiverse. The best case is probably unchecked personal ambition, with an intention to betray your daemonic patron when the time is right.

Good luck with that.

Or maybe you buy into the “humble merchant” schtick and it’s just a business partnership. This is not one iota better, morally, but most mortals find it more understandable.

You could even be a simple mercenary, serving in a company of mercenaries, discovering your boss’s identity over the course of the campaign. Ignorance is bliss – how long can you look away from the truth?

Daemonic Favor

How did you enter into your pact or relationship with a greater yugoloth of Gehenna?

d6           Circumstance
1              You were down on your luck and deep in debt, so when you were offered money to fight, what choice did you have?
2              When you inherit your great-aunt’s wealth, you also inherit the sword she carried in the war. The war.
3              You got involved in a smuggling ring, moving increasingly dubious goods. When you were left holding the bag, what you had was a daemonic tome.
4              The people who ran the orphanage sold you and your sibling to a warlock with a daemonic pact. He tried to trade you to the yugoloth to end his service; instead, he got eaten and you gained a patron.
5              When you learned about the Blood War, you decided there was only one winning team to join: the yugoloths.
6              You accept that accelerating the triumph of cosmic Evil over cosmic Good is a necessary step in the unification and resurgence of Good, so for now you support the purest cosmic Evil.

Daemonic Devotion

As you dedicate yourself to the greater yugoloth’s service, consider replacing or adding one of the following to your ideals.

d6           Ideal
1              Ambition. Patience and ruthlessness open the way to cosmic power for me.
2              Knowledge. Through service to the greater yugoloths, I will learn the secrets behind the lies they spread.
3              Secrecy. I have wrapped a powerful truth in countless layers of secrecy, misdirection, and outright lies.
4              Hard Work. I strive toward a goal I won’t live to see completed, but I don’t let that stop me.
5              Purification. I must expunge impurities from my motives and from the results of my actions.
6              Greed. I’ll back whoever has the money to pay me, even if that means changing sides.

Earning and Losing Piety (Favor)

You increase your Piety score with Gehenna when you betray an employer for a greater reward and deepen your knowledge of cosmic Evil.

• Breaking a contract to secure a greater reward
• Manipulating two of your enemies to fight one another
• Binding mortals into your service or your patron’s, with money or magic
• Learning a secret concerning your patron’s rivals or superiors
• Acquiring souls or blood sacrifice for Gehenna or the Gray Waste

Your Piety score decreases if you show sincere loyalty to other powers. All daemons understand that their warlocks may need to hide their allegiances at times, however. The hierarchy of the yugoloths understands that countless works of Evil make up the long game, and their favor is paradoxically harder to lose than that of baatezu or tanar’ri.

• Revealing the whole truth when a lie would better serve you
• Maintaining loyalty for sentimental reasons
• Destroying knowledge that could be useful for a long-term plan

Daemonic Recruit
Piety 3+ Gehenna

You learn the spell dissonant whispers, which doesn’t count against your Spells Known. You can cast it once without expending a spell slot, and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. You can also cast it using your Pact Magic slots.

Daemonic Soldier
Piety 10+ Gehenna

You can grant a creature corrupted healing. As a bonus action, touch one willing or unconscious creature. It regains 2d8 + your Charisma modifier hit points, and its maximum hit points decrease by 7. Receiving a remove curse or greater restoration restores your normal hit point maximum. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Daemonic Weaver
Piety 25+ Gehenna

You gain an additional Eldritch Invocation or supernatural gift that is appropriate to your Patron.

Daemonic Master
Piety 50+ Gehenna

You can increase your Intelligence or Charisma score by 2, and also increase your maximum for that score by 2.

Daemonic Iconoclast

Working against your yugoloth patron is the more overtly heroic stance. Treachery is endemic within the daemonic hierarchy, making it harder for them to distinguish an enemy agent from ordinary ambition.

Tier 1, 1^st to 4^th level

Quest Goal:

• Perform a good deed at significant personal cost, for no recompense
• Reveal a planned betrayal before the conspirators are prepared
• Slay a mezzoloth

Reward: You can cast detect poison and disease without expending a spell slot. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain expended uses when you finish a long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for this spell.

Tier 2, 5^th to 10^th level

Quest Goal:

• Slay a warlock who faithfully serves your patron
• Infiltrate and betray a cult that serves your patron
• Destroy a merrenoloth’s ship, or slay a pack of at least three canoloths
• Defeat a group of NPCs sent by your patron to capture or kill you

Reward: You can cast remove curse without expending a spell slot. You can use this feature once, and regain the use of it when you finish a long rest, or when you expend three Hit Dice without regaining hit points. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for this spell.

Tier 3, 11^th to 16^th level

Quest Goal:

• Reveal a deep secret of the yugoloths and their schemes
• Reveal your patron’s intended betrayal of their own direct superior
• Steal the token that signifies your bond with your patron

Reward: You can cast greater restoration with this trait, requiring half the normal material components. Once you do so, you can’t cast it in this way again until you finish a long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for this spell.

Tier 4, 17^th to 20^th level

Quest Goal:

• Slay, banish, or imprison your Patron
• Plunder the Wasting Tower of Khin-Oin

Reward: You can increase your Intelligence or Charisma score by 2, and your maximum for that score by 2.

I commented in previous posts about how heavily I was leaning on Abjuration for my Iconoclast effects. Here I’ve gone to effects that counter things a Daemonic warlock (Positive relationship) should be doing.

I’m pretty sure I don’t have enough material for gehreleths/demodands, so the next post in this series (whenever that might be) will look at Great Old Ones. I’m thinking about breaking them into Great Old One (malevolent stars) and Great Old One (chthonic). We’ll quietly ignore how the Fathomless should be a subset of the Great Old Ones, yes?

This post was inspired and informed by Faces of Evil: The Fiends, a 2e Planescape sourcebook by Colin McComb.

If you enjoyed this content, consider becoming a backer of my Patreon! For as little as $1 a month, you can get early access to all of this blog’s content!

---

You can now buy Under the Seas of Vodari in PDF!

Under the Seas of Vodari is a 300-page book that provides 5E/Fifth Edition material for both gamemasters and players to dive into a world full of action and adventure set beneath the waves of Vodari or your own campaign world. This book is a follow-up to The Seas of Vodari, a setting book filled with swashbuckling action and magical adventure. Dive into your first adventure today!