WANTED: Lower Planar Creature Illustrations

No, they're not necessary, but I kinda liked having some specific half-fiend breeds, without adding the "half-something" race factor to the LA equation.

Not sure if we'll include them in the final release, though.

I'll add some sample 2E illustrations later, just in case our poorly worded yet lovingly composed descriptions aren't illustrative enough for you.

Sohmien are horrible horse-like monsters that emerge randomly from the Hinterlands, appearing only when some creature desires vengeance. Sohmien vaguely resemble horses with leathery, ashen hides, and mist-shrouded hooves that kills any vegetation they touch. Frifhtful wails accompany their ride. Sohmien heads feature dead white eyes, wide mouths full of needle-like fangs, and downward-sweeping horns. Their shoulder blades extend beyond their heads and necks, and three bone spikes extend from each soulder, extensions of their spinal column.

When summoned, sohmien must be ordered to ride, destroying all in the path leading to the creature that has wronged the summoner. The ride ends only when the sohmien are slain or when they have reduced the offending creature to near death. At that point, the sohmien wait, pawing the ground. if the victim desires vengeance for the attack, he can send to sohmien stampeding back to the summoner.

These creatures are said to have been born from the fall of the last of the nightmare lords. According to legend, this nightmare lord was lured to the Gloom Meet by his subjects, then attacked by fiends who had tired of bartering for permission to use his nightmares. The nightmare lord was driven into the Hinterlands, his body riddled with cold iron spears and arrows. it is believed that where his blood struck the earth, sohmien sprang forth.

According to the myth, sohmien are creatures of vengeance. Sohmien hate nightmares and attack them in preference to all other opponents. It is said that the ride of the sohmien will not end until they kill every nightmare in existence. They can be summoned by any vengeful spellcaster of sufficient power through the sohmien pact, a ritual believed lost long ago. No one has ever successfully used a sohmien as a mount. Myths claim that the summoner's voice joins the firghtful wails that follow the sohmien as they ride from the Hinterlands.

Trelons seem to combine the worst characteristics of demons and insects, and favour cool, shadowy places. According to legend, trelons were created to exterminate wizards on some long-dead Prime world, and the scent of arcane magic causes them to swarm.

Trelons have been described as a "mixture of orange and shadow." They have two long arms that end in curved spikes, two mandibles near their fanged mouths, and two long, spindly legs. They speak their own language, a combination of soft clicks and chittering noises that rises to a near-defeaning screeching when they strike.

A trelon swarm is terrible to behold. When they appear, the mob any nearby creature, tearing through their victims like scythes. Trelons attack with their two armspikes, bisecting an opponent like a pair of cutting shears.When they have killed an opponent, the mandibles around their mouth scoop up the remains of their victims. They do not stop to feed until they have killed every non-trelon in sight.

Ravel's Black-barbed Maze is said to hold the legendary night hag herself - but in the centuries that she's been gone from Sigil, she's had the opportunity to alter her personal maze. Seeds fell from her hair as she traveled through the maze, and the peculiar energies of the maze spawned these creatures - the trigits. They're essentially sentient trees, and they seem to have a hunger for blood.

These monsters seem to be native to the prison plane of Carceri. Their huge tusks deliver a painful ripping to those unfortunate enough to be in the way, and their natural armor plating seems to protect them from bludgeoning attacks. They don't seem to be very intelligent, but what they lack in wits they make up for in brawn. More's the pity.

Nice work, princessbunny. The marilith is lovely. The ultroloth is very ... sanctimonious, just as it should be.

On the Mimir it was suggested to use zu'ling, tanar'ling, and loth'ling for tieflings of the three fiendish races.

I don't think there would be any difference. Once a part-demon, always thought of as a part demon

Then you'd have to turn tifeling(/lothling etc) into a template instead of a race choice.

But standard tieflings don't get any specifically human abilities - no extra feat, no extra skill points, and their favored class is rogue. If they don't get specifically human abilities, they shouldn't get the abilities of any other mortal race either - they shouldn't get the elven bonus to dexterity or the orcish bonus to strength. They shouldn't get dwarven stonesense or gnomish illusion powers or anything githzerai get.

If that's the case, what's the point of making it a template? Just change how the tiefling is described, and it works for any combination.

That said, with all the different fiends out there, there's nothing wrong with customizing your tiefling. Maybe it inherents some power other than darkness, maybe it has a bonus to strength instead of dexterity, maybe it inherits some ability from its mortal side - human skill points, githzerai psionics, a dwarf's favored class. But that presents infinite possibilities that a single template can't possibly cover. As a generic tiefling, the standard one is fine.

There are demi-human tieflings, and it really irks me that the default planetouched races are of human origin. There exist the Fey'ri (elf/tanar'ri tieflings), Tanarruk (orc/tanar'ri tieflings), Maeluth (dwarf/baatezu tieflings), and Wisplings (halfling/tanar'ri tieflings). I do personaly believe that tiefling should be a template.

@ rip: I love the baern's head (we can change the bit about curved horns), but the lower half seems unfinished and somehow ... overly stretched. Would you mind terribly if we cut it in half?