Osyluth [Lesser Baatezu]

Think of a dried-out human husk, all bone and tight, sickly skin, topped by a grim skull. Add a huge scorpion tail and a stench of rot, and you have an osyluth, the constable of the hells.

Fueled by hate, osyluths fight without mercy: two claws (1d4 each), a bite (1d8), and a tail sting for 3d4. The sting's poison calls for a save vs. poison at -3; failure saps 1d4 Strength for 1d10 rounds. They see perfectly in total darkness. Their powers, beyond the baatezu standard, are wall of ice, invisibility, improved phantasmal force, and fly, plus a 5-foot fear aura (save vs. rod, staff, or wand or run for 1d6 rounds). Once a day one may call 1-100 mindless devils (50%) or 1-2 osyluths (35%).

Osyluths are the only devils allowed to discipline those of higher rank. They roam the layers watching for misconduct and may sentence any devil but a pit fiend to 101 days in the pit of flame, after which the offender returns to its post. That power makes them targets: devils kill them whenever they can do so unseen. A devil caught doing it becomes a marked lemure, never to advance and loathed by all. Osyluths are meant to be perfectly loyal and nearly always are, though history records a few lapses.

Once a century, 100 osyluths form the Ring of Judgment around the Dread Eight, presenting reports on promising gelugons, their campaigns, and their devotion to infernal ways. Together the hundred cast one of the Ring's nine votes on promotion to pit fiend. The moot honors its founder, the pit fiend Morvaxis.

Each osyluth serves a century. After every Ring, all 1,000 osyluths become hamatula and 1,000 new ones are made. A truly outstanding osyluth becomes a ruler devil instead, a rare reward that keeps the ranks from growing lazy.