Fiend

From Marillia
Revision as of 17:33, 27 September 2021 by Aleph (talk | contribs)

In D&D and Pathfinder, a fiend is a negative supernatural entity—what we would generally call a demon.

The term is a bit weird since, again, fiends are what we'd call "demons." The term demon, however, is reserved in D&D and PF for one specific type of fiend: a Chaotic Evil race hailing from the Abyss.

Therefore, Asmodeus by this definition would not be considered a demon. He'd be a fiend—specifically a devil (a Lawful Evil fiend). This is especially weird since Asmodeus IRL is referred to as a demon.

To make matters even more confusing, you may hear various NPCs (and even me) referring to all sorts of fiends as demons. Fun.

Main types

The three main types across both D&D and PF are devils, demons, and yugoloths (aka "daemons"). These three groups align with the three Evil alignments: devils are Lawful Evil, demons are Chaotic Evil, and yugoloths are Neutral Evil.

Basically, in ascending order of "how badly do I NOT want to run into one of these guys," it goes: devils, yugoloths, demons.

D&D

Pathfinder

External links