#type outsider

Long ago, a daemonic harbinger whose name has been stricken from history challenged the rule of the Four Horsemen of Abaddon. Somehow discovering the prison of the legendary Oinodaemon, this nameless fiend siphoned part of the god-daemon’s power into itself and ascended to become the Fifth of the Four: the Horseman of Conquest. This living blasphemy was struck down decisively not long after by an alliance of all four archdaemons, the killing blow struck by Roshmolem the Steel Weaver, then the Horseman of War, but not before it created its own daemonic race of deacons: the ultrodaemons.

Ultrodaemons personify death from oppression: the slaver working his slaves to death, the tyrant slaughtering dissenters to make an example, the torturer wringing the last drop of life out of his victims. An ultrodaemon is a towering, slender humanoid with hairless gray skin and an elongated head. They have no mouths, but a chilling voice seems to echo from the air about them. Ultrodaemons’ most striking feature is their eyes: ovoid pools of radiance that shine with every color and transfix those who meet their gaze. Ultrodaemons favor ornate robes that cover their enchanted armor.

Given their origin, ultrodaemons are despised in Abaddon, and only a few serve the Four Horsemen or harbingers as marshals and field commanders. Most ultrodaemons inhabit Abbadon’s forsaken wastes outside the realms of the Horsemen or roam the hinterlands of Hell or the Abyss, petty warlords over their own daemonic armies. Such ultrodaemons plot campaigns of wanton destruction or hire their services out as mercenaries, spreading death and misery however they can. Ultrodaemons are cruel even by fiendish standards, and few minions survive long in their employ.

Nycadaemons are the scouts and elite shock troops of Abbadon, performing reconnaissance for their daemonic masters and raining death from above. Personifying death by falling from great heights, nycadaemons delight in snatching victims into the air and letting them fall to their deaths.

Among the most classically fiendish-looking of all daemons, nycadaemons resemble bloated green gargoyles with wings that look almost too small to support their weight, yet bear them through the air at great speed regardless. Nycadaemons are powerfully muscled and stand nine feet tall or more. They favor great double-headed axes in combat, though other heavy two-handed weapons are not uncommon.

Nycadaemons are generally more loyal than other daemons, if only due to a complacent nature, and tend to stay with a single master for as long as they are treated well. Nycadaemons relish combat, striking hard and fast, but also delight in subterfuge and intimidation. Though only of middling intelligence, they make great use of their magic abilities to strike from invisibility, deceive foes with mirror images, and teleport away after getting in a few good hits. Nycadaemons are common in the armies of all Four Horsemen and many daemonic harbingers, and even sell their services to powerful archdevils, demon lords, and powerful evil mortals.

Echinodaemons are rarely seen, sticking to the deepest chasms of Abaddon’s foul seas. Embodying death by crushing pressure at the ocean floor, echinodaemons only rarely follow other daemons into battle, cleaning up already weakened opponents and devouring the corpses of the fallen.

An echinodaemon’s body is almost entirely mouth, its slavering maw filled with two rows of shark-like teeth and balanced on two spindly legs. Tentacles resembling a cross between a squid’s and a spiny starfish’s emerge from its lumpish body at random points. It has no eyes.

Echinodaemons are not very intelligent and are of limited use to other daemons, so their role in battle is limited to taking up flanking positions to aid more powerful fiends. Left to their own devices, they scavenge whatever they can find in Abaddon’s putrid oceans. They are not capable swimmers, instead simply walking or climbing along the ocean floor.

Also called corruptors of fate, anankedaemons embody death by curses - the wards on an ancient tomb, a malediction spoken by a spiteful witch, or a treasure that brings death to its owner. These mercenary fiends sell their services to whatever evil being gives them an opportunity to bring suffering and death to mortals.

Anankedaemons stand slightly shorter than humans, but are powerfully muscled beneath their greasy rolls of fat and loose yellow skin. Their faces resemble canine skulls with a boar's tusks, bloodshot eyeballs in their gaping sockets. Despite their corpulence, anankedaemons are deceptively dextrous and nimble, moving almost with a blur of motion. A strong odor of brimstone surrounds anankedaemons, and when they attack, their victims may hear the faint sound of rolling dice coming from nowhere.

Anankedaemons live to spread misfortune and despair, inflicting curses on all they come across. Corruptors of fate have a strong mercenary streak, selling their services to other fiends or evil spellcasters, especially favoring masters on the Material Plane. Anankedaemons are commonly found in armies of demons or devils, but even these allies find them repulsive and give them a wide berth. Lone anankedaemons may gather minions immune to their curse, such as lacridaemons, cacodaemons, or the weaker undead.

Temerdaemons, embodying all forms of misfortune and accidental tragedy, often bully anankedaemons into doing their bidding. Corruptors of fate who faithfully serve the more powerful fiends and learn from them may be transformed into temerdaemons themselves by the Four Horsemen or daemonic harbingers.

Among the most numerous of Abbadon's horrors, mezzodaemons are brutish foot soldiers who form the backbone of many daemonic hordes. These daemons personify death from senseless violence; they care for nothing but inflicting pain through brute combat.

A mezzodaemon is a humanoid creature resembling an upright beetle with four clawed arms and a carapace of heavy chitin armor. Its head is set directly into its shoulders, with a fanged mouth and unblinking eyes that glow brightly when the creature experiences a rush of emotion, usually rage. Yellowish poison fumes leak from their mouths.

Mezzodaemons are simple grunts who concern themselves with violence and little else. In combat they weaken foes with their venomous breath before charging with their tridents. When not fighting, they sharpen their weapons and practice their martial skills. They fight for any master who gives them free reign to carry out wanton violence, and countless hordes of the creatures serve each of the Four Horsemen. Mezzodaemons particularly enjoy the company of derghodaemons, and frequently follow in the stronger daemons' wake like jackals following a lion.

Creations of a being of unknowable madness, draudnus are fashioned from the bones of celestials for only one purpose: ridding the Abyss of demons.

A draudnu is a human-sized creature whose anatomy appears perversely inverted, and the mere sight of these creatures can drive mortal minds insane. Three powerful legs emerge from the top of its fleshy body, while three arms ending in bone hooks surround its head, a featureless stump with only a single huge red eye where its mouth should be. Spiny bristles adorn its joints, and its bulbous green abdomen is covered in black tumors that spray acidic bile when ruptured.

In the time before mortality, the Abyss was ruled by the proto-demonic life forms known as qlippoths. Only after the first souls of evil mortals descended into the Abyss did the race of demons come into existence, a plague of destruction that quickly overwhelmed the primal evil of the qlippoths, relegating them to the deepest crevices of the Abyss. It was after this initial burst of war between demons and qlippoths that a legion of the holy azatas swept into the Abyss, laying both races low for an age.

Although the azatas’ crusade was a success, countless celestials perished in the fighting, their ivory bones littering the abyssal landscape. It was from these azatas’ bones that Pale Night, an obscure qlippoth lord, created the first draudnus, reshaping them in ways that defined sanity for the purpose of striking back against her race’s enemies. Where other qlippoths lash out at mortal before their souls can turn to sin and form new demons, the draudnus are the antibodies of the Abyss, seeking out and destroying the demons infesting the Outer Rifts. Pale Night has had untold eons to create ever more draudnus, and now millions of them hunt for her pleasure.

Tiger fire Demon by Elen Galteland

Apex predators of the Abyss, jariliths stalk sun-beaten savannahs and poisonous jungles in search of fresh meat. These feline fiends are born from the nightmares of thousands of generations of mortals, the concept of predation given flesh.

A jarilith resembles a great cat with obvious fiendish traits such as horns, spiked tails, bone spurs erupting from their joints, or an ever-present odor of sulfur. Jariliths may look like lions, tigers, jaguars, or other feline predators, or may mix traits from multiple species, but all have the same statistics. They exude both majesty and terror, inspiring palpable fear in those who witness them. Jariliths cannot speak, but are deceptively intelligent and capable of telepathy and several magical abilities that aid them in hunting their prey.

Jariliths are not true demons, taking shape from the fabric of the Abyss itself rather than the souls of mortals, and they exist outside Abyssal politics. Jariliths spend most of their time hunting weaker demons for sustenance, but stronger demons often subjugate them as guards or warbeasts, though they are notoriously difficult to control. The demon lord Nurgal, who appears as a flaming leonine humanoid, has a special affection for jariliths and gives them free reign in his desert realm of Kuthan. Huge prides of the creatures prey on the fiendish gnolls of Lamashtu’s realm of Kurnugia, while countless numbers of these fiends stalk the Screaming Jungle in Gaping Maw, the realm of Demogorgon.

Among the most common of qlippoth, the race of proto-fiends who ruled the Abyss before the rise of the demons, ekolids are insectoid monstrosities who embody a primeval fear of parasitism.

An ekolid is roughly the size of a wolf, with a six-legged ant-shaped body, but instead of a head it has several skull-shaped protrusions on its thorax littered with a cluster of unblinking black eyes. Six gossamer wings, arranged in two rows, sprout from it back, and six lashing tentacles tipped with daggerlike spikes emerge from its bulging abdomen. Ekolids are often heard before they are seen, the thrumming of their wings and chittering of their many throats giving them away.

Ekolids are as intelligent as humans, but most of these creatures concern themselves only with reproduction. Ekolids can only reproduce by implanting their eggs into living creatures, a horrifically painful process that takes mere moments once an egg is under the skin. The closest thing to an emotion ekolids ever display is the gleeful chattering they produce when watching their young emerge from a living host. Ekolids can be found in swarms throughout the lower reaches of the Abyss, especially in arid regions with constant heat. They usually prey on demons or other qlippoth, but relish the chance to end mortal lives.

Ekolids are thought to be creations of Obox-ob, the qlippoth lord of vermin, whose defeat by Demogorgon in antiquity marked the end of the qlippoth's rule of the Abyss. To be sure, ekolids swarm in vast numbers in Obox-ob's domain of Zionyn, one of the deepest layers of the Abyss known to scholars. Unlike the feral ekolids of upper levels, Zionyn ekolids display a mockery of civilization, building vast decadent hive-cities in Obox-ob's honor. Such cities feature great marketplaces where mortal slaves, captured by shoggti qlippoth, are sold by the hundreds. Such unfortunate souls are then brought to immense public forums and subjected to "performance hatchings" for the amusement of powerful noble ekolid onlookers.