Dretch [Least Tanar'ri]

Dretches are short, scrawny humanoids with rubbery, nearly hairless bodies. Their pale white to beige skin, blotched with sickly blue, stretches over throbbing varicose veins. A slack, drooling mouth holds many small fangs, the nose looks flattened, the eyes droop, and limp pointed ears dangle on either side of a head dotted with bristly tufts. They speak by telepathy.

Dretches survive the Abyss only through sheer numbers. They fight with two claws (1d4 each) and a bite (1d4+1). With a greater or true tanar'ri watching they never flee, preferring death to the deeper disgrace of running.

Besides the common tanar'ri powers they can use scare and telekinesis, plus stinking cloud once a day. Also daily, each may try to gate in 1-4 more dretches, succeeding half the time (50%), and they love to chain these calls, every newcomer summoning more, until a vast horde stands ready.

No tanar'ri is more common; dretches swarm every corner of the Abyss and, with the manes, make up the foot soldiers of the endless war between demons and devils. They are the lowest true tanar'ri. The only thing beneath them, the manes, are mere dead spirits from the Prime Material Plane, and dretches torment them to forget their own wretched status.

Some strive to be useful in hopes of promotion. Others decide they have nothing to lose and rebel, trusting their numbers to let them defy their betters. Stronger fiends then butcher the rebels wholesale, and these uprisings sometimes distract the tanar'ri from the war with disastrous results.

Numbers are the tanar'ri's main weapon, and dretches supply most of them. Unlike the wasteland's fiendish hordes they are genuine tanar'ri who care about their standing, making them more dependable, if that word fits anything in the Abyss. Weak and plentiful, they are also a staple food in a place where food is scarce, and greater fiends devour them in vast quantities.