Babau [Greater Tanar'ri]

Picture a tall skeleton shrink-wrapped in dark leather, with one great horn jutting from the back of its skull. A babau's long claws are caked with grime, gore and rotting flesh, and it moves in quick, jerky, mechanical bursts that feel utterly alien. Babaus speak by telepathy.

Meeting a babau's glowing red eyes within 20' calls for a save vs. spell; failure weakens the target as a ray of enfeeblement. It can turn this gaze on one foe each round on top of its other attacks. Nonmagical weapons cannot hurt it.

A coat of slick, dark red jelly covers its body, halving damage from slashing and piercing (type S and P) weapons. The jelly is corrosive too: every hit by a metal weapon has a 20% chance of corrosion, in which case a mundane blade must save vs. acid or be ruined, and an enchanted one loses one 'plus.' On bare skin, as in a grapple, it burns for 1d6 acid damage.

Being clever, babaus prefer weapons and trickery, using any arms they find; 20% carry magical weapons (roll randomly). Strength 19 adds +7 to damage. Unarmed, they still fight hard with two claws (1d4+1 each) and the horn (2d4). They also have a 9th-level thief's skills, scoring 95% to move silently, 90% to climb walls, 80% to hide in shadows, 35% to detect noise, 30% each to open locks, pick pockets and read languages, and 25% to find/remove traps, and they backstab for x4 damage.

Beyond the common tanar'ri powers, a babau can cast polymorph self, fly, levitate, heat metal, fear and dispel magic. It may also call for help daily: one gating attempt, 40% likely to work, brings either a single babau or 1-6 cambions. Whenever a babau is attacked, there is also a 20% chance that a random true tanar'ri notices and steps in.

Babaus scour the layers of the Abyss pressing lesser and least fiends into the vast armies of the endless war between demons and devils, and the rest of their kind loathe them for it. Gangs of lesser tanar'ri sometimes turn on a pursuing babau to dodge conscription, though it usually holds its own. The true tanar'ri value babaus, and their occasional rescues, made to keep the war fed rather than out of loyalty, only sharpen the lesser fiends' dread.

In the view of the true tanar'ri, lesser and least fiends exist only to fight the baatezu. As the grim recruiters who fill those ranks, babaus are vital to the Abyss and its war.