Go Bigger and Badder with More Archdevils and Demon Lords for 5E D&D

I explored some of the baddest baddies from the Nine Hells of Dungeons & Dragons in the past. If you want to check it out you can do so here. Now it’s time to check into a few more of these amazing lords of hell and how you might use these wonderful meanies in your next campaign or session.

Fiendish impact on 5E D&D adventures

First up is Moloch. If you are not familiar with the name you are probably at least aware of the thieves pilfering the jeweled eyes of the fiendish shrine’s red devil on the original cover illustration for the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook. Yeah, it is that guy. Moloch is banished from the hells and he would like nothing more than to reclaim his throne. Whether he uses devils, neutrals like yugoloths or anything else, he wants to defeat Glasya.

You could of course use Moloch in your fifth edition D&D games as written but looking at his stat block I see some opportunities. Moloch has a super high Intelligence 21 and Wisdom 18. With stats like these and a plethora of magical abilities it would not be hard to take this in a crazy direction. What if Moloch is so desperate to reclaim his throne he employs good guys? Imagine Moloch taking on a form of someone with influence and becoming the quest giver. Imagine someone espousing the vile evils of Glasya. Really, who would know of their evils better than another devil, just in disguise? Imagine a centuries old elf centuries leading a public life in a glorious mission to end the evils of the hells and Glasya especially. He would focus his hatred on the fact that Glasya is Asmodeus’ daughter, she is a torturer of devils and is the most unpredictable at seeing how far the rules will bend and not break. See how far down this rabbit hole goes before he either disappears or even assists heroes to actually slay Glasya.

Moloch is not the only baddie on the block. What about Hutijin? This powerhouse of a devil is the epitome of loyalty in the hells. Either that or Mephistopheles has a serious hold on him. I feel Hutijin is either very hard or very easy to use in 5E D&D depending on the aspect of his lore with which you want to play. Hutijin becomes incredibly useable if you highlight the lore of his rivals who disseminate scrolls to summon him and his upper tier minions. The characters could think they are getting awesome rewards to summon devils way outside of their power level — making hard encounters so much easier — when in fact they are earning the ire of a seriously powerful devil. Repeated summons away from his duties and allies kees coming at times when his rivals are attacking. Just like above having a devil disguised as an ally could even be feeding the party with these scrolls of summoning. If you instead focus on the lore indicating Hutijin never leaves and does not have a cult this could mean not a lot is known about him and he only appears in adventures involving travel to the Nine Hells.

Titivilus is another fiend who expertly works into an allied position. Titivilus is inferior in physical strength when compared to other Devil Lords but his mental ability scores are through the roof. He is an expert at the game of politics and even has the ability to charm mortals with his words — and they only get another save if he personally harms them. This feature is just nasty. With Titivilus being a master manipulator he can fall into many roles and with the ability to alter self could even be multiple people the party encounters as he works the situation from both sides. With a Intelligence 24 and a staggering Charisma 26 he could easily pull off something like this.

Now I want to leave the Nine Hells and move over to the Abyss for my last entry here. Yeenoghu is one of my favorite Demon Lords, both visually and from a lore standpoint. I am not super fond of the demonic hold he has on all gnolls, as if there is no way for them to be out of his influence, but he is easy to use as this Demon Lord is very focused on combat. With so many players loving fights, Yeenoghu comes ready and willing to throw down, always! I have used the lore about gnolls and linked them to my first demonic game of 5E D&D.

Like the previous post on these great legendary creatures of fiendish power, these too are now available for use at your table from our friends over at WizKids. These fantastic minis are prepainted and either can be bought as a set as the three devil lords or in Yeenoghu’s case individually. These minis can easily be used as an end game representative of the fiend the adventuring party has been hunting, as the true fiend coming away from the lower planes to attack or as a champion who has taken on a likeness of their patron either via magic illusion or transformation. Pick these up from our friends over at WizKids or at your local gaming shop and terrorize your players with these fiends of incredible power.

Thanks for reading. Until next time, stay nerdy!

*Featured image — Moloch as seen in Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes and Yeenoghu as seen in Out of the Abyss for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. [Composite images courtesy Wizards of the Coast]

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