Soldier Fiend [Lesser Mercenary]

Soldier fiends look like humanoid insects armored in grimy ivory chitin, with long, gangly limbs, broad plated skulls, glaring red eyes, and claws that slice through most nonmagical materials. Limited telepathy lets them talk with anything of Low intelligence or better.

Each claws twice for 1d6+6, and Strength 18/00 gives +6 damage with weapons. Deeply magical by nature, a soldier fiend can use any magic item that lacks alignment or class restrictions, and when armed with an enchanted weapon it usually carries a shield. Higher fiends exploit this by outfitting them well. A lone soldier fiend has only a 5% chance of a magic item; a group has a cumulative 10% chance per three members, so ten have 30%, and thirty or more always carry random magic.

They cast at 10th level. Detect invisibility is always active, and at will they use trip, sleep, mirror image, hold person, detect magic, darkness 15' radius, cause serious wounds (the reversed form of the healing spell), and burning hands, with dispel magic twice a day and cloudkill and flame strike once a day each, alongside the common powers. Once daily they may try to gate in 1d4 more soldier fiends or 1d2 water fiends, with 40% success.

They have 120-foot infravision and are immune to paralysis, all poison, charm and suggestion spells, and any weapon that is nonmagical or under +2. Unlike most of their race, they take only normal damage from cold.

These are the lowest of their kind, the bulk of every mercenary army, ruled by sheer force. Too dull to resent it, they accept their station, and the abuse only hardens them for savage fighting. Without a war to fight they lack direction and wander the lower planes, especially the Abyss, looking for things to torment, lemures most of all.

No sage has learned where soldier fiends are spawned. They seem to be a mercenary fiend reworking of some other evil being. They are a little more numerous on the volcanic lower plane, where perhaps mastermind or scholar fiends first brought them from elsewhere.