What exactly are Yugoloth?

[Stille_Nacht]

Right, i admit that i never quite played DnD enough to go through a campaign set in a place like shavarath or baator, so i am not particularly knowlegeable.

Now, while playing Dungeons and Dragons online, i got teh impression that Yugoloth were sort of like "good guys" that want to thwart the Devil Legion and help the Archon host in their battle over shavarath...

but then i read a sourcebook and they are apparently lawful evil, which begs the question: are the Yugoloth just intent on causing bad things for all parties involved or something of the sort?

What are their goals/ style? Sort of confused :/

[starwoof]

Yugoloths are generally neutral evil, I dunno where you got lawful from. They are greedy, treacherous mercenaries who sell their services to other fiends. Yugoloth tend to see themselves as being more than that though; they claim to have started the blood war as an experiment in evil. Their primary goal is to keep the pointless bloody conflict balanced and unending as long as they feel like maintaining it.

Then they turn their attentions to the good planes...

[hivedragon]

Now, while playing Dungeons and Dragons online, i got teh impression that Yugoloth were sort of like "good guys" that want to thwart the Devil Legion and help the Archon host in their battle over shavarath...

If you are playing eberron the yugoloth come from the plane Mabar.
Shavarath is home to demons devils and archons.
In standard 3.5 yugoloth were mercenaries in the war between demons and devils.
I don't know where you got the idea the loth were good guys.
They are nuetral evil which basically equates to do anything to achieve their own selfish ends.

[Anxe]

Devils are Lawful Evil outsiders, Demons are Chaotic Evil outsiders, and Yugoloths are Neutral Evil outsiders.

[TheCountAlucard]

In standard 3.5 yugoloth were mercenaries in the war between demons and devils.

Actually they've been that way for far longer than that - they were a big thing in Planescape.

[Sith_Happens]

Devils are Lawful Evil outsiders, Demons are Chaotic Evil outsiders, and Yugoloths are Neutral Evil outsiders.

For reference, Yugoloths were originally called Daemons, but got a name-change at the same time that Demons and Devils did. For some reason, though, they're the only one of the three that didn't officially get their names changed back when 3e rolled around.

[Toofey]

Yugoloths are generally neutral evil, I dunno where you got lawful from. They are greedy, treacherous mercenaries who sell their services to other fiends. Yugoloth tend to see themselves as being more than that though; they claim to have started the blood war as an experiment in evil. Their primary goal is to keep the pointless bloody conflict balanced and unending as long as they feel like maintaining it.

Then they turn their attentions to the good planes...

In the old school cosmology there was more nuance to the evil planes, the Yugoloths were NE with a tendency to be lawful and they were natural residents of one of the lower planes (in old school D&D both Batzu (sp) and Tanarri were from the same plane and spread out over the lower planes) Who would work for either side in the blood war. And there was a 4th outsider race that was basically NE with a tendency towards chaos called Glabrezu I think...

edit 4th group of evil planars were Gehreleths

[KillianHawkeye]

For reference, Yugoloths were originally called Daemons, but got a name-change at the same time that Demons and Devils did. For some reason, though, they're the only one of the three that didn't officially get their names changed back when 3e rolled around.

I'm glad they didn't, because daemon is too similar to demon. It would probably cause a lot of confusion.

[The_Snark]

In the old school cosmology there was more nuance to the evil planes...

You can still sort of see that if you look at the Great Wheel. Yugoloths are most commonly found in the Grey Wastes (pure NE) and Gehenna (which is situated between the Grey Wastes and Baator). Gehreleths are still around under the name demondand, though they're not very prominent; I think they were printed in the 3.0 Fiend Folio and nowhere else. They live in Carceri, which is located between the Grey Wastes and the Abyss.

Planescape's depiction of yugoloths did feel a little closer to lawful evil than chaotic evil, but to be honest I never cared for Planescape's yugoloths very much; we're told that they're ultra-intelligent master manipulators who have the rest of the fiendish races more or less on strings, which grated on me because a) it seems to degrade the other fiendish races, and b) we are told but never shown, which is not a good way to make them impressive. And their philosophy boiled down to EVIL FOR EVIL'S SAKE.

I actually like 3.0 and 3.5's treatment of them a lot more, haphazard though it is; they come across as opportunistic mercenaries with no principles whatsoever and no agenda beyond their own selfishness. They're petty, banal, and ultimately pointless, which I think is a rather neat way to represent pure undiluted evil.

Demons are grandiose because they're descended from the primal chaos. They're untamable, wild and passionate, infinite in variety and number. Devils are impressive in a mechanical sort of way; Hell is like some vast device of infernal clockwork, grinding away at the fabric of the universe and crushing hope and joy into the dust. But yugoloths? They're not grandiose. They're evil for no reason whatsoever, and it really is pathetic.

[Ashram]

This is why I much prefer Pathfinder's re-interpretation of the yugoloths, which were renamed back to daemons: In that cosmology, daemons are created directly from evil mortal souls, and embody the many and varied causes of mortal death; their main objective is nothing less than causing a multiverse-wide apocalypse.

Their archdaemons are the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Charon, Horseman of Death; Szuriel, Horse(wo)man of War; Trelmarixian, Horseman of Famine; and Apollyon, Horseman of Pestilence.

[Eldan]

Planescape's depiction of yugoloths did feel a little closer to lawful evil than chaotic evil, but to be honest I never cared for Planescape's yugoloths very much; we're told that they're ultra-intelligent master manipulators who have the rest of the fiendish races more or less on strings, which grated on me because a) it seems to degrade the other fiendish races, and b) we are told but never shown, which is not a good way to make them impressive. And their philosophy boiled down to EVIL FOR EVIL'S SAKE.

The thing to remember here, as in many other Planescape and planar books is that we are basically reading propaganda. The Daemons tell people that they are the fiends to be most feared, that they are masterful liars and manipulators, that they started the Blood War, that the Baern are the original evil.
Asmodeus tells people that he is Ahriman, and part of the Serpent, and the original power of law and/or evil, and that his corpse is a hundred miles long and bleeding super pit fiends.

The Yugoloths, in my opinions, are manipulators because they are, for some reason or another, trapped in the middle of the blood war and somehow have to survive that. Gehenna and Hades are the closest path between the Abyss and Baator, especially along the Styx, and so they will generally have battles all over their domains. So they work as mercenaries, and employ Fear, Plague and Manipulation to stay alive. They have to, or they'd be crushed between two military Juggernauts.

If the theme of the Baatezu is Tyranny and bureaucratic evil, and the theme of the Tanar'ri is impulsive, selfish, destructive evil, then the theme of the 'loths is not necessarily evil for evil's sake. It's uncaring evil. Emotionless evil. They don't necessarily care whether you live or die.
The hordelings are, perhaps, the original fiend of Hades. What are they? The evil of the majority. Mindless mobs trampling children in the street. Twenty black monkeys beating the white monkey to death for looking too different.
The Yugoloths, instead, are, all of them, alone. They don't care for each other, and they don't care for you. They are one-man bystander effects. Scientific evil. The man in the lab coat told me to shock you to death, it's not my fault.

[Elfinor]

Also of note, in 4e they've been folded in with Demons (to fit in with alignment changes), so they now live in the Abyss. They're considered the 'most-devil-like' of the demons and commonly work with Drow.

[ken-do-nim]

Also of note, in 4e they've been folded in with Demons (to fit in with alignment changes), so they now live in the Abyss. They're considered the 'most-devil-like' of the demons and commonly work with Drow.

That last part goes back to 1st edition. The Drow series of adventures D1-3 introduced the nycadaemon and mezzodaemon. Both can be randomly encountered in the drow city of Erelhei-Cinlu along with all the different types of demons. At the climax of D3, the drow high priestess Charinida summons a nycadaemon from a magic item to battle the party.

[Mogrii]

Somewhere, someone once wrote this as a mantra for the yugoloths:
"Me against my caste
My caste against my race
My race against the multiverse"

They see themselves as pure evil, pure in the sense that they are not tainted with law and chaos like the baatezu and tanar'ri.

In old planescape lore they are more than propaganda-made. They claimed to have given all fiends their Teleport at will spell-like ability, and there is a published adventure where the PC's take said ability away just so the yugoloths can 'sell it back' to all fiends who swear loyalty to them.
You could fin yugoloths everywhere and doing just about everything. And their influence didnt stop at that campaign setting; I remember to have read somewhere that Ravenloft's 'Death' (the one that gave the original Vampire dark lord his powers) was really a disguised yugoloth (the arcanoloth named Inajira).

Thay are the most secretive of the fiends, the ones form whom almost everything written about are lies, and you know it, and they know it, and everybody else knows it, and just because of that it might as well be true.

And just for the record: any Planescape sourcebook has more interesting fluff about fiends (runs to hug his Planescape: Faces of Evil) that anything done since.

[The_Snark]

If the theme of the Baatezu is Tyranny and bureaucratic evil, and the theme of the Tanar'ri is impulsive, selfish, destructive evil, then the theme of the 'loths is not necessarily evil for evil's sake. It's uncaring evil. Emotionless evil. They don't necessarily care whether you live or die.
The hordelings are, perhaps, the original fiend of Hades. What are they? The evil of the majority. Mindless mobs trampling children in the street. Twenty black monkeys beating the white monkey to death for looking too different.
The Yugoloths, instead, are, all of them, alone. They don't care for each other, and they don't care for you. They are one-man bystander effects. Scientific evil. The man in the lab coat told me to shock you to death, it's not my fault.

See, that's an interesting perspective, but as Mogrii points out, it's not actually Planescape's interpretation of them*. Yugoloths as presented in Faces of Evil are crusaders for the cause of generic evil. They're not driven by selfishness, they're driven by zeal. It is, in my opinion, friggin' boring, and it manages to devalue the other, more interesting fiendish races because some of the writers seem to buy into the 'propaganda' as wholesale truth.

I do not care for Planescape's yugoloths. I like my fiends to be simultaneously grandiose and pathetic, and the 'loths fail miserably at the latter.

The authors of later editions seem to have had similar opinions, because 3.0 and 3.5 cribbed tons of demon- and devil-related fluff from Planescape, but left the yugoloth fluff to languish in a corner somewhere. (Along with gehreleths, which is unfortunate because I actually kind of liked those.)

*Not in the material I've read, anyway. I make no claims to be familiar with everything Planescape.

[Eldan]

I know, I know. That up there is mostly my interpretation, with bits and pieces of Planewalker put in. I've read all of Planescape's fluff about them. I still like some ideas about them, I just interpret it differently.

They aren't really evil for evil's sake, but they study the concept of evil. They recognize that they are, in fact "evil", tons of spells show it, so they want to find out what evil, at its heart, really is. Looking at that factor, keeping the blood war going also makes sense, it is, as said, an experiment in the nature of evil. Which, for them, is self-discovery. Know your enemy, but also know yourself.

[Parra]

Let's not also forget they in planescape every factions ideologies were provable* to be the correct** one depending on where you stood*** including all the propaganda.

Note:
* for a given definition of proof
** for a given definition of correct
***for a given definition of standing

[Stille_Nacht]

so... basically they are supposed to be evil for evil's sake?

i got the idea that they were "good guys" because in DnD online, when you go to Shavarath, the Yugoloth give you all the quests, and they all involve crippling the devil legion because it has started winning against the archon host...

i figure based on what you guys have said this must just be because they want the war to keep going.

[Yanagi]

so... basically they are supposed to be evil for evil's sake?

i got the idea that they were "good guys" because in DnD online, when you go to Shavarath, the Yugoloth give you all the quests, and they all involve crippling the devil legion because it has started winning against the archon host...

i figure based on what you guys have said this must just be because they want the war to keep going.

Based on "canon" Planescape stuff:

The Yugoloth agenda is kept mysterious even in the sources that most develop them: all the Planescape books include speculation that every piece of (in-game) scholarly knowledge and lore about Yugoloths could be unreliable or a deception.

One possibility is that the mythos is true, and the Yugoloth are trying to refine Evil by clashing LE and CE to make a better NE, and have been doing so for so long that they had a hand in the creation of the Baatezu and Tanari'i (devils and demons). This is what Yugoloths tend to present about themselves in Planescape materials. The fact that they fess up to this makes everyone skeptical that it's true, in part or whole.

Another possibility is that there's no agenda, as the entire race is so mercenary that their goals extend no farther than opportunistic side-taking. This is also a possibility suggested in Planescape based on basic observation of what the yugoloth do.

A third possibility is that the Oinoloth--the figure who's climbed to the top of the hierarchy--sets the agenda for the race, so long as they can hold the top position. Given that the hierarchy of yugoloths is basically a cutthroat meritocracy, it's questionable how well this works given that your authority immediately starts eroding and your subordinates are your competitors. It's on record that the Oinoloth position experiences a lot of turnover.

There's also the implications that the Baernoloth--the ancient Yugoloth type that exist outside the hierarchy and are held in awe by the rest of the race--may have some kind of power over the Oinoloth and the rest of the race, even though they appear to be demented hermits whose minds have degenerated and have no visible role in the hierarchy.

Addendum: the best non-canon material on Yugoloths is written by someone called Shemeska the Marauder (link to the Story Hour he hosts on EnWorld). It contains a lot of twists and turns based on the premises I listed above, and is well-written.

[Parra]

i got the idea that they were "good guys" because in DnD online, when you go to Shavarath, the Yugoloth give you all the quests, and they all involve crippling the devil legion because it has started winning against the archon host...

Keep in mind that just because one Evil Guy pays you to kill off another Evil Guy doesnt mean he stops being an Evil Guy, it merely means you are a pawn in his scheme.

[Eldan]

Interesting note:

Shemeska not only wrote his famous story hour, he's also one of the main contributors at Planewalker, where he wrote a lot about the Baernoloth. He also wrote Pathfinder's book on the planes, so he's responsible for their version of Yugoloth too.

[Mastikator]

D&D Online plays out in Eberron, which has a very different cosmology than the standard one.

And if you look at the quests they give out* their goal seems to be to balance the powers in Shavrath and keep the devil forces out of Xendrik.

*

Spoiler

Show

In a new Invasion you are to stop the pit fiend Barnzidu from opening a portal to Xendrik
In Bastion of Power you are to breach the defenses of the Iron Maw and then remove all wittnesses that you were there, to cause infighting between the devils as to why the Iron Maw was breached.
In Genesis Point you are to stop the devils from completing their magical experiments
In Sins of Attrition you are to assassinate one of the Brigadiers of the Devils
In Tower of Despair you are to assassinate the first general.