Barbed Devil

Devil (barbed)

Species	chthonic (devil)
No. Appearing	3–12
Behaviour	sentry
Range	Hell, ruin
Size	7 ft. tall
Weight	410 lbs.
Intelligence	13
Armour Class	0
Hit Dice	8
Action Points	5
Max. Stride	{{{stride}}}
THAC0	16
Hp/Die	2d4
Attack Forms	claw/claw, bite
Damage	2–8/2–8, 3–12
Special Attacks	animate dead, cause fear, hold person, immunities, know intent, magic resistance, magic to hit, never surprised, produce fire, pyrotechnics, suggestion, summon, teleport, ultravision

Barbed devils serve throughout Hell as sentries, as they are never surprised — it is never unusual to find two barbed devils at any gate found through the Nine Circles of the nether region.

Bernardo Hasselmann (artist)

They also supervise the torment of souls upon the Third and Fourth circles of Hell, cheerfully treading on those forced to lie in vile slush amid a never-ending ice rain or organizing the gangs of people who must struggle to roll heavy stones up a perpetual slope. They particularly enjoy creating situations where persons must slave to produce nothing, as frustration and despair brings barbed devils much pleasure.

The most powerful barbed devil is Zagum, who personally commands 30 companies of the devils. Zagum and the remaining unaffiliated barbed devils are directly under the authority of Hades, the ancient Greek diety of the underworld.

Advantages

Barbed devils have specific abilities that are not spells. They are able to see perfectly well in complete darkness or light. This ultravision is similar to the 2nd level illusionist spell of the same name, except that it is continuous. They are also immune to normal weapons. To cause damage to the creature, the weapon must be made of magic.

Barbed devils also have immunity to many elemental attacks, such as those that employ cold, fire or gas of any type. They cannot be charmed, made to sleep or mentally affected in any way. They do not have minds that can be read with ESP and their intentions cannot be known. Even augury and divination can provide no information on their movement or designs. Barbed devils also possess a magic resistance of 35%. They are never surprised.

These creatures are able to employ various magical powers as well, performed at the 8th level: animate dead; cause fear; hold person; know intent; produce fire; pyrotechnics; suggestion; and teleport. These abilities may be performed at will, which means they require no more than 1 action point (AP) and may be done as often as they are able. They have limits. They can employ only one such power per round.

They have a 30% chance of summoning another barbed devil (this is also performed at will). They will resort to this ability only when they are pressed in combat, preferring to give ground and return to Hell rather than bring others forth to fight. They will make rich and continuous use of their teleport ability, moving from place to place in a combat more easily than moving even a single hex. They are known to attack, teleport, then use the remainder of their movement that round to attack again.

See Bestiary