Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Sturm Jaeger 02-16-07, 06:43 PM	I was curious if anyone knew if there will be a Fiendish Codex III, hopefully covering the Yugoloth? I think deserve as much coverage as demons and devils.
Asadeseth 02-16-07, 10:26 PM	We realy realy hope, the Yugoloths are my favorits, however the probability seems low.
ArchMageQuandolf 02-17-07, 12:53 AM	Meh...maybe already have something stirring, think about other planes that they haven't covered....
Sturm Jaeger 02-17-07, 03:36 AM	True, Acheron would be a good place.
Sildatorak 02-17-07, 08:42 AM	Compare the ultroloth to the balor and the pit fiend in 2e. Fast forward and compare them in 3e. WotC doesn't love the yugoloths, I doubt we get FCIII.
Sturm Jaeger 02-17-07, 07:31 PM	Compare the ultroloth to the balor and the pit fiend in 2e. Fast forward and compare them in 3e. WotC doesn't love the yugoloths, I doubt we get FCIII. Can't compare them. What's the difference?
General_Ridley 02-17-07, 09:20 PM	2e and before, Ultroloths were the Yugoloth equivalent of the Balors and Pit Fiends, the most potent expression of Neutral Evil barring their own leaders. fast forward to 3.x. Balors and Pit Fiends rest at a comfortable CR 20, along with the fluff about being the big baddies of their respective alignments. Ultroloths sit at a measly CR 13 (MM III), but are somehow listed as the big baddies of their alignment.
Sturm Jaeger 02-18-07, 01:07 AM	Something that could easily be corrected in a FCIII. Bring the yugoloth as a whole up to par with their lawful and chaotic cousins.
Asadeseth 02-19-07, 04:15 AM	Yhea, the thing is, meny of the people at WotC just don't seem to cair for Yugoloths. While meny people out their like them, heck some of us perfer them at least a little, if those who write the books don't cair for them then their unlike to make stuff for them
Naderion 02-19-07, 10:33 AM	At least it's not on the release list for this year.
Shemeska the Marauder 02-19-07, 05:49 PM	Though WotC hasn't given any overt signs of having a Fiendish Codex III in the works, I find it promising that Dragon and Dungeon magazine have been able to fill that niche at least partially in the meantime. For instance Dungeon #144 had an adventure 'Diplomacy', by Chris Wissel that featured an arcanaloth archmage named Sharlocke as one of the major antagonists. I had a hand in the editing process for that, and there's some nice little bits of fiendish fluff that worked their way into the mix. Plus, beyond the flavor text, there's also a 3.5 arcanaloth conversion as well which makes up for their originally weak version in the 3e MM2. I included a risen ultroloth, Felthis ap Jerran, in an article in Dragon 351 on Elysium's gatetown of Ecstasy. BOZ managed to work a little reference to the marraenoloth lord Charon into his recent article on the Good Archomentals in Dragon 353. And in the same issue in an article on demiplanes, I included a demiplane known as the The Clockwork Gap, the lair of Harishek ap Thulkesh, a mad baernaloth known as the Blind Clockmaker. So in bits and pieces some of us are trying to work bits of material on the 'loths into current material when we can. I know that a few people, myself included, have been itching for about a year now to write something more hefty on the 'loths in Dragon, but for the moment we can only be patient and play the waiting game. Perhaps some other stuff will come, hopefully, but we'll see I suppose. :) Would WotC make an FC:III, I have absolutely no idea. If they did I only hope they get some writers that have a firm handle on the topic and do their homework to the same extent that the writers of FC:I and FC:II did (which was impressive). Heck, I'd love to chip in, but I doubt that would happen. :)
420 02-19-07, 11:03 PM	I'd like to see a FC III that covers Night Hags, Nightmares, Yugoloths and other neutral evil natives of Hades as well as info on that layer. I'm most interested in information on Night Hags as there doesn't seem to be much published information about these mysterious and powerful exemplars of true evil. Though the 'loths now inhabit Gehenna, I'd like to see their origins covered in a book about Hades. -420
BOZ 02-21-07, 05:54 PM	BOZ managed to work a little reference to the marraenoloth lord Charon into his recent article on the Good Archomentals in Dragon 353. :D well, he was mentioned in FC1 first, which inspired me to mention him again. :) was Anthraxus (or any other major yugos) mentioned in MotP?
Shemeska the Marauder 02-21-07, 06:43 PM	was Anthraxus (or any other major yugos) mentioned in MotP? Mydianchlarus was detailed as Oinoloth, and Anthraxus was mentioned in passing as the now deposed, former Oinoloth. The General of Gehenna was also mentioned along with the Crawling City. But otherwise they didn't go into detail on them, or name any of the other lords. Now just to work Daru Ib Shamiq into something relevant, or really any of the other unique 'loths yet to get 3.x mention (sadly a Larsdana ap Neut reference got dropped from the Keeper article when the 'alternate origins' section got excised for space)
savant_warlord13 02-21-07, 07:04 PM	If they do, it would almost certainly cover demodands as well.
savant_warlord13 02-21-07, 07:06 PM	Yhea, the thing is, meny of the people at WotC just don't seem to cair for Yugoloths. While meny people out their like them, heck some of us perfer them at least a little, if those who write the books don't cair for them then their unlike to make stuff for them translation please? I can detect some underlying valid opinion, but I can't decipher it.
Sildatorak 02-22-07, 12:20 AM	Now just to work Daru Ib Shamiq into something relevantIndeed! Daru was one of my favorite NPC's to run in Squaring the Circle, even though he only gets a little bit of face time. He had my players scared ****-less even though they could have easily destroyed him in combat. It makes me sad that they managed to circumvent the oath they swore by managing to actually set the Maeldur free.
zook1shoe666 02-22-07, 12:36 AM	i'd love to see a FC III. i've interested in knowing more about the night hags, nightmares, and 'loths. like said before they seem to not like them as much :(.
ludzien 02-24-07, 04:07 PM	Except those aren't "Fiends".... of course, is there an official definition of "fiend" in D&D? I thought they've covered the two types of fiends. I would expect other planar books perhaps.
General_Ridley 02-24-07, 04:24 PM	translation please? I can detect some underlying valid opinion, but I can't decipher it. The thing is, many at WotC don't like the 'Loths. While many fans like them (Hells, some of us prefer them, even), if those who write the books don't care for the 'Loths, they're unlikely to write a book about them. translated for you.
Raymond_Luxury_Yacht 02-24-07, 05:50 PM	Except those aren't "Fiends".... of course, is there an official definition of "fiend" in D&D? I thought they've covered the two types of fiends. I would expect other planar books perhaps. A fiend is any outsider native to the Lower Planes. (Acheron, Baator, Gehenna, The Gray Waste, Carceri, The Abyss, and Pandemonium) That covers devils (baatezu, lemures, imps, kytons, baatorians, and bezekira), demons (tanar'ri, loumara, obyriths, quasits, bebeliths, wastriliths, and dozens more), yugoloths, gehreleths, night hags, hordelings, larvae, hell hounds, darkweavers, nightmares, rakshasa, vorr, varragoin, vargouilles, and many more.
Witch 02-24-07, 05:51 PM	A fiend is any outsider native to the Lower Planes. (Acheron, Baator, Gehenna, The Gray Waste, Carceri, The Abyss, and Pandemonium) Depends on your definition. Faces of Evil begs to differ, for instance.
Shemeska the Marauder 02-24-07, 06:11 PM	There are fiends and then there are fiends. You might define true fiends as being those evil outsiders that spontaneously generate from the raw stuff of their alignment/plane, and those who reproduce via evil mortal souls. And the difference generally depends on how primordial the fiends in question are. The yugoloths are some of the oldest fiends on the lower planes and erupt from the raw stuff of the NE planes, with no link to mortal souls, while the Baatezu for instance arise exclusively from mortal souls and are some of the youngest of the fiendish races. Nightmares and some others wouldn't qualify as 'true fiends' by a stricter definition.
Witch 02-24-07, 06:20 PM	By the Faces of Evil definition, there's a mere five races which are true fiends, if I recall. Being Gehreleths, Yugoloths, Baatezu, Tanar'ri and Hordlings. This might be a bit too narrow, though.
420 02-24-07, 07:22 PM	By the Faces of Evil definition, there's a mere five races which are true fiends, if I recall. Being Gehreleths, Yugoloths, Baatezu, Tanar'ri and Hordlings. This might be a bit too narrow, though. Fine, you try to tell a Night Hag she doesn't qualify as a fiend and see where that gets you! -420
Shemeska the Marauder 02-24-07, 07:50 PM	By the Faces of Evil definition, there's a mere five races which are true fiends, if I recall. Being Gehreleths, Yugoloths, Baatezu, Tanar'ri and Hordlings. This might be a bit too narrow, though. I would say it's a bit narrow. That definition was stated in-character as well IIRC. If we consider Hordelings as true fiends, then Night Hags would be as well, since Hordelings can evolve into them. Plus we'd need to add Ancient Baatorians which FoE didn't really get into when it set those 5, and then Obyriths and Loumara which hadn't been defined at the time.
420 02-24-07, 10:36 PM	Ancient Baatorians Were the Ancient Baatorians evil? I was under the impression that they occupied the plane of Baator before the cosmology had assumed the current Great Wheel form. So they didn't really have what we would recognize as a standard alignment. At least the ones I met in Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark seemed friendly enough if a little naive about cavorting with devils. I've been waiting for FCII from amazon but the Fiend Folio is on backorder so I won't get it until next month sometime but I'm really hoping it has more info on the Ancient Baatorians. Also, back to the topic of the thread. Wouldn't Baernaloths be covered in FCIII since they are basically the "true evil" progenitors of the other fiends? Lastly, if the above was true, would FCIII finally answer the age-old question: Are Yugoloths the greatest creation of the Baernoloths or do demons rule? -420
Asadeseth 02-24-07, 11:12 PM	I appologys if I'm some how abstruse, but then I alwase did suck in english class. That aside I have loved the loths sence "Planes of Conflict" and "Blood War". 3.0 and 3.5 seems to largely have down played them and ignored them, to my irritation. I can make some assumptions, but I can't prove anything here, about this. But over all it looks like meny of the people as WotC just don't like/cair for the loths. My Hypothesis's for the lack of cair is as follows: 1: Demons and Devils are/have been the main feindish badguys from the begining, so they just focus on them. 2: Some on high up in WotC DID'T like "Planes of Conflict" and "Blood War". 3: Lawfull evil and Chaotic evil are the extreams and so are easyer to conceptualise as bad guys makeing Yugoloths somewhat essoteric to them. 4: Sence the Yogoloths are not conected to mortal soul gathering and are less drawn into Prime Materal interests they are less usefull adversaries for most groups. Those are the ones that just sprung to mind as possible causes, undoubtedly their are more. Btw a speical thank you to Shemeska the Marauder for careing the flame for us.
BOZ 02-24-07, 11:27 PM	since the beginning of Planescape at the very least, the three main fiend races were baatezu, tanar'ri, and yugoloth. the yugos were seriously played down in 3E though, so it's easy to understand how the "only two fiend races" idea came about.
Raymond_Luxury_Yacht 02-25-07, 12:10 AM	Were the Ancient Baatorians evil? Yes.
Shemeska the Marauder 02-25-07, 03:25 AM	Were the Ancient Baatorians evil? Oh yes... their own personification of LE just differs from the earliest Baatezu in that the Ancient Baatorians arrived at their LE alignment from tainted NE, rather than the Baatezu which came from corrupted LN. They technically started out closer to the source of Evil, if you want to ascribe their creation at the hands of the Baernaloths as true. The matured nupperibo in 'Tales of the Infinite Staircase' gives a good idea of the malevolence of the race. :)
Shemeska the Marauder 02-25-07, 03:35 AM	I appologys if I'm some how abstruse, but then I alwase did suck in english class. Your English is better than half the native speakers on the boards, don't worry about it. :) And as for WotC neglecting the 'loths, my own view is that the 'loths are just a victim of early WotC design policy that held that only "core" monsters from the first MM would be used in other products unless a product also had any other monsters it used within itself. According to Monte Cook (who worked on the book), 'loths were originally going to be in the core MM, but were cut at the last minute because of lack of space, and because some designers felt that the book would be too heavily filled with outsiders. The idea was that they'd be cut and then put into a future book in order to do them all justice rather than try to force fit them in, in less page count than they needed (the same situation applied to Modrons as well). Subsequent WotC designers who were never apparently privy to that information eventually took over and still held to the 'don't use things not in the core MM', so the 'loths were de-emphasized, and when they were featured, it was often a mixed bag as to if they'd be given any decent detail (MotP wasn't bad, but MMIV was wretched). That original design policy seems to have fallen by the wayside (finally!), but in the minds of many 3e players, the de-emphasis on the 'loths took on a sort of 'they must not matter' attitude, which is unfortunate. It's a circular, self-perpetuating thing really. WotC doesn't write about them because they might claim that 3e buyers don't think they're important, and those consumers don't think they're important precisely because WotC doesn't give the 'loths much attention.
Slagger the Chuul 02-25-07, 04:18 AM	As far as interest goes, the yugoloths just don't have the automatic staying power of traditional monsters like ravening demons or diabolic devils. Any monster based on real-world myths has an advantage in this field because the ideas have already stood the test of time to some greater or lesser degree. Many of our most popular monsters, from dragons to sphinxes, come from famous legends; creatures from legends that weren't that famous never get a look in, because mythology has already weeded them out. To compete, any newer monster needs a very strong theme, and has to be instantly recognizable. Only a very few monsters original to D&D can compete with literal legends, and they're often individuals rather than entire races. The most striking and memorable examples (like the beholder) will see countless imitations, but they stand at the very peak. I don't personally think that yugoloths are currently distinct enough to hold their own niche. They have a particular place in a certain arrangement of planar politics, but beyond that they don't see much use because that position is dependent on demons and devils who can survive perfectly well without their existence. This is just my personal perception, but I don't think I'm completely alone in this view of yugoloths. The yugoloths need some kind of serious reform before they'll be able to take a decent stand alongside demons and devils. They currently lack the traction to make a decent go of it.
Witch 02-25-07, 08:56 AM	If we consider Hordelings as true fiends, then Night Hags would be as well, since Hordelings can evolve into them. I've seen you argue this point earlier, and I'd like a reference to it. You suggested it was strongly implied in Faces of Evil, butI have found no such implication upon rereading. I'm not saying you're wrong - I'd just like to know where you got the idea (not just the book, but a page number or a quote).
Taeldrin Laesrash 02-25-07, 10:00 AM	As far as interest goes, the yugoloths just don't have the automatic staying power of traditional monsters like ravening demons or diabolic devils. Any monster based on real-world myths has an advantage in this field because the ideas have already stood the test of time to some greater or lesser degree. Many of our most popular monsters, from dragons to sphinxes, come from famous legends; creatures from legends that weren't that famous never get a look in, because mythology has already weeded them out. To compete, any newer monster needs a very strong theme, and has to be instantly recognizable. Only a very few monsters original to D&D can compete with literal legends, and they're often individuals rather than entire races. The most striking and memorable examples (like the beholder) will see countless imitations, but they stand at the very peak. I don't personally think that yugoloths are currently distinct enough to hold their own niche. They have a particular place in a certain arrangement of planar politics, but beyond that they don't see much use because that position is dependent on demons and devils who can survive perfectly well without their existence. This is just my personal perception, but I don't think I'm completely alone in this view of yugoloths. The yugoloths need some kind of serious reform before they'll be able to take a decent stand alongside demons and devils. They currently lack the traction to make a decent go of it. Maybe you're right that the Yugoloths have a small niche, namely, I don't I've ever heard of a signifigant 'loth presence on the Material Plane (Where a load of campaigns take place). There is some strong flavor for them, though, just look a bit harder. 2E gave them a lot of credit for a lot of stuff, and presented them as sadistic, spying liars and con people.
Shemeska the Marauder 02-25-07, 11:57 AM	I've seen you argue this point earlier, and I'd like a reference to it. You suggested it was strongly implied in Faces of Evil, butI have found no such implication upon rereading. I'm not saying you're wrong - I'd just like to know where you got the idea (not just the book, but a page number or a quote). Page 94, 2nd paragraph under 'Gender and Birth'. Take that theory and combine with the body of lore on how Hordelings evolve from larvae, and you'll have my (and others') opinions. Joyblood had a really nice summation of the evolution from larvae to hordeling to night hag, I'll have to see if I can find a link to it.
Witch 02-25-07, 03:06 PM	Page 94, 2nd paragraph under 'Gender and Birth'. Take that theory and combine with the body of lore on how Hordelings evolve from larvae, and you'll have my (and others') opinions. Joyblood had a really nice summation of the evolution from larvae to hordeling to night hag, I'll have to see if I can find a link to it. That page, to me, said just the opposite. What it says is that they were larvae that because of their intense hatred, instead of becoming hordlings, they instead become hags. Nowhere does it state that it goes larva -> hordling -> hag. What it states is that it can go larva -> hordling or larva -> hag.
Shemeska the Marauder 02-25-07, 04:22 PM	That page, to me, said just the opposite. They didn't cease their evolution at Hordelings, but continued the transition. Hordeling was virtually a chrysalis stage of sorts for them till they reached a point where they shed that stage of being. Hordeling wasn't quite enough for them. But I can see how you might view it differently.