Twisted Demon [Least Tanar'ri]

Twisted demons are pitiful, deformed tanar'ri resembling hideously ugly humans, with bald or almost bald, peaked heads, distorted faces and ears that point backward. They speak by telepathy.

These fiends are famous for their odd weapons. Favorites include a snapping tong device that deals 2d4 on a hit and again every round until the victim breaks loose by hitting the device (AC 5); a flatchet, a broad sword with a sawlike edge that deals +1 damage to unarmored foes; a twin-crescent polearm; and a three-armed blade flung from a sling-like launcher.

They can claw twice for 1d6+1 each but hate doing it: their warped bodies hurt when they strike, like punching with a sprained wrist, and they groan and yelp with every blow. Besides the common tanar'ri powers, they can fly, cause fear with a touch and use telekinesis thrice daily. A daily gating attempt, 50% likely to succeed, brings 1-8 least tanar'ri.

Warped by unknown energies, twisted demons are utter outcasts, not even trusted as fodder for the endless war between demons and devils. Yet they serve their kin without meaning to. Hating their lot, they roam the Abyss alone, sparing all tanar'ri but the least while savagely attacking any outsider. They are usually too weak to stop intruders, but their efforts to gate in help spread the alarm.

The nalfeshnee may form them directly from the life force of wicked but bungling souls brought to their courts to be judged. More than any of their kin, twisted demons embody pure chaos, bound to no cause, master or society; even the buzzing demons ignore them.

Old legends claim that ages ago a race of brilliant humans on some far-flung prime world mastered travel across planes and probabilities, spreading through the Inner and Outer Planes until they found the Abyss. The tanar'ri, who had never met beings unlike themselves, enslaved them, and their abuse warped the captives into the first twisted demons. Now other kinds of creatures can become twisted demons as well.