Lion's Tactical Guide to Demodands

Demodands are fiends that were exiled to Carceri for their evil, but view themselves as the wardens of the Prison Plane instead of prisoners held within it, effectively operating under the philosophy that if they can’t escape, nobody can, including planar travelers who are just passing through. Strangely, however, the book itself does provide a notable example of them being outside of Carceri in the Underdark prison of Carcerus, a creation apparently unique to this book which has a portal to Carceri and is infamous as the most secure prison in the Underdark. Feel free to ignore this exception to the rule, as it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense when you think about it. The demodands live in a caste system split up into three tiers, with farastus serving as the lower class performing menial tasks and cowering in the face of their superiors, kelubars serving as the middle class handling the day-to-day operation of the demodands’ prison system, and shators serving as the ruling class and acting as wardens to the rest of their kind. With the farastus being CR 7, the kelubars being CR 11, and the shators being CR 15, these guys are strictly a threat for higher level players, especially since those are the kind of players that might even find themselves in Carceri to begin with. Before getting into the abilities and tactics of each type of demodand, let’s look at the common traits between them:

• All demodands are brutes, with their highest ability scores being their exceptional Strength followed by their Charisma and Constitution scores. As one goes up the caste system ladder, their ability scores go higher and higher almost across the board save for their Dexterity remaining the same above-average score throughout.

• All demodands are proficient in Strength and Constitution saving throws, with kelubars and shators adding Charisma saving throw proficiency on top of that.

• All demodands are proficient in Athletics, aiding them in grappling their targets and dragging them back to their cells. Kelubars and shators add Insight and Persuasion proficiency to this, allowing them to determine what their targets are likely to do and even allowing them to engage in parley rather successfully. Of course, being evil creatures, that parley mostly consists of promises that compliance will be rewarded and defiance cruelly punished, promises that they are under no obligation to fulfill.

• All demodands have resistance to cold damage and damage from non-silvered weapons, and are immune to acid, fire, and poison damage along with the poisoned condition.

• All demodands have 120 feet of darkvision and the Devil’s Sight trait, allowing them to see through both normal darkness and magical darkness. They also all have the Keen Smell trait, giving them advantage on Perception checks that rely on smell.

• All demodands have the Magic Resistance trait and the Magic Weapons trait, and they all attack with a mixture of a Claw attack and a Bite attack. Kelubars and shators deal additional acid damage with their attacks, with kelubars dealing 2d6 on both their Claws and Bite while shators deal 3d6 on their Claws and 4d6 on their Bite.

• All demodands have some kind of trait reflecting their innate grossness. Farastus produce an adhesive slime that can grapple enemies and catch weapons that hit them. Kelubars give off a constant Stench to which any non-demodand within 30 feet must make a DC 16 Constitution saving throw or become poisoned, becoming immune to the stench of one kelubar for an hour on a successful save. Shators splatter their foes with Poisonous Slime whenever they are hit by a melee attack, forcing a DC 18 Dexterity save on their part to avoid being paralyzed for up to a minute.

• One last important thing to note for all demodands is that, although they won’t exactly be broken up about a target dying, they’re primarily inclined to capture their enemies.

• Farastus have a faster movement speed of 40 feet compared to the 30 feet movement speed of the other demodands, while kelubars and shators can fly at a speed of 60 feet.

• Farastus and kelubars have the Reckless trait, giving them advantage on melee attacks at the cost of enemies having advantage on attacks against them.

• Kelubars and shators have innate spellcasting abilities based on their Charisma, sharing the ability to cast Clairvoyance, Detect Magic, Invisibility targeting themselves only, Spider Climb, and Tongues at will and two daily uses of Dispel Magic. Kelubars’ unique spells are Melf’s Acid Arrow and Fear at will and three daily uses of Fog Cloud and Ray of Enfeeblement. Shators’ unique spells are Magic Missile at will, three daily uses of Cloudkill and Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, and two daily uses of Plane Shift, which seems like a contradiction, but I’ll explain how to work that out later.

• Kelubars and shators have the ability to magically summon reinforcements as an action, rolling a d6 and summoning a set number of creatures depending on the roll. Kelubars can summon two farastus on a roll of 1-2 and one kelubar on a roll of 3-4, while shators can summon two farastus on a roll of 1-2 and one shator on a roll of 3-4. Since nothing is given for rolls of 5-6, I’m assuming that nothing happens on those rolls, effectively giving these summoning abilities a 33% chance of failure. Fortunately for them, though, the ability recharges on a short or long rest, and there’s nothing saying that these summons disappear once the ability is used again. Still, though, I would recommend having them summon any allies before combat starts and just factoring in whatever you get into the encounter difficulty from the get-go.

• Finally, with no Rejuvenation trait or flavor text suggesting that they don’t die permanently on Carceri, demodands have a self-preservation instinct, tactically retreating once they are severely wounded (reduced to 28 hit points or less for the farastu, 38 hit points or less for the kelubar, and 75 hit points or less for the shator).

So with that, let’s look at what sets each demodand apart starting with the farastu. As I mentioned before, they have an Adhesive Slime that is reflected both in their Claw attack, which grapples any single target on a hit (escape DC 15), and in their Adhesive Hide reaction, which allows them to force a melee attacker to make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or have their weapon yanked out of their hands until the farastu releases it or the attacker can pry it off with a DC 15 Strength check as an action. With this in mind, farastus are all offense, using Reckless to gain advantage on melee attacks before going in for two Claws attacks to grapple an uncooperating prisoner, then two Reckless-powered Bite attacks on that same prisoner in each subsequent round to hopefully knock them out. Since they can only grapple one creature at a time, farastus will hunt down their targets in packs of as many farastus as there are player characters, with each farastu focusing on one prisoner to drag back to their cells.

Kelubars have the Freedom of Movement trait, allowing them to ignore difficult terrain and any magical effect or spell that causes them to be paralyzed or restrained, along with being able to break out of any grapple or non-magical restraints and move underwater without issue. They also have access to 4d6 of Sneak Attack damage, which combines amazingly with their Reckless trait and their ability to summon allies to make it incredibly easy for them to set it up round after round. Finally, they have the Impossible Dodge reaction, which is the same as Uncanny Dodge, giving them added staying power in melee. With all of this taken together, kelubars will focus primarily on dealing damage over grappling their foes like farastus do, using Reckless to set up Sneak Attack on their first Bite attack against the strongest foe on the field and then piling on the damage with their second Bite attack. They’ll also be sure to bark at a farastu to help them gang up on their target as soon as they can, making sure that they don’t necessarily need to incur the risk of using Reckless in order to Sneak Attack while also ensuring that they can get Sneak Attack damage on any opportunity attack they get the chance to make against their foe. When they don’t get the chance to make an opportunity attack against their foe, they save their reaction for Impossible Dodge so that they can halve incoming damage and compensate for their relatively low hit points for their CR.

As far as kelubars’ spells are concerned, Clairvoyance and Detect Magic are strictly non-combat spells used to help locate their quarry, while Spider Climb is somewhat pointless given their ability to fly and Tongues is only useful for parley with targets who don’t speak Abyssal or Common. Invisibility is more useful as an escape tool to make sure they don’t get opportunity attacks as they try to flee compared to Fog Cloud, since their view is also obscured. Fear is useful if the kelubar manages to get ahead of their targets, since they can force them to Dash back in the direction of where they escaped from and make combat largely unnecessary. Dispel Magic is good for getting rid of troublesome buff spells, but with only two uses of it, they have to be smart about it, preferring to use it on spells of third level or lower so that it’s guaranteed to work. Finally, Melf’s Acid Arrow is a decent enough ranged damage option, but it’d probably be easier for the kelubar to just use their action to Dash 120 feet in the air in order to catch up to their foes. Ray of Enfeeblement is a potentially useful setup spell since it halves the damage of Strength-based weapon attacks for up to a minute if they keep failing Constitution saves, but the targets against which this is most necessary are also most likely to be able to make those Constitution saves, so its value is dubious.

Finally, shators have a different Multiattack than other demodands, consisting of two Claws attacks and a Bite attack which can be substituted for a use of their Poisonous Spit ability, which recharges on a roll of a five or a six and fires spit in a 20 foot line that forces each creature caught by it to make a DC 18 Dexterity saving throw or take 8d8 acid damage and be paralyzed for up to a minute, taking 4d8 acid damage and avoiding paralysis on a success. According to the oft-referenced “Targets in Areas of Effect” table, this line is only likely to hit one target. Good targets for this include a melee attacker in heavy armor and a spellcaster who isn’t likely to be great at this sort of thing. With all of this in mind, shators get into melee with the strongest melee fighters among their foes, since every hit they land triggers the Poisonous Slime trait and potentially leaves them vulnerable to paralysis which the shator can later capitalize on. If they prove resistant to this, the shator can easily maneuver themselves to get within range of a good target for their Poisonous Spit, not fearing opportunity attacks since a hit could trigger paralysis, then paralyzing the poor sap they targeted and either finishing them off themselves or leaving their demodand subordinates to take care of it.

As far as their innate spellcasting goes, they use most of their spells the same way that kelubars do, but Magic Missile is ultimately a better at-will option to flag down distant foes than Melf’s Acid Arrow because of its longer range and guaranteed damage. Tasha’s Hideous Laughter isn’t really worth using a whole action just for the chance to get advantage, since they can easily just use Poisonous Spit when it’s available to get both advantage and automatically crit on their opponents instead. Cloudkill is extremely useful in that demodands are immune to the poison damage it deals, making it easy to exploit, while the disadvantage that its heavy obscurement produces can be canceled out by farastus and kelubars thanks to Reckless. And finally, they have the Plane Shift spell, which I hold wouldn’t be used to escape or pursue their foes out of Carceri, since one of the elements of that plane is that escape is impossible through anything short of a Wish or specific secret exits. In the vast majority of situations, the spell is useless to them, with the exception of sending an unwilling escaped prisoner back to Carceri by using it as a melee spell attack against a single target. As for how the shator themselves got out of Carceri, the only method available to them is to make use of one of those secret exits, and they will gladly return to Carceri afterwards to torment that escapee for daring to defy their authority. Of all the demodands, it’s especially vital for shators to escape from a fight they can’t win, since each shator has an artifact known as an Obsidian Triangle in their possession that contains the memories of every demodand in existence. With this artifact, even those who escape Carceri won’t be safe, since any demodand that has been sent to hunt them down will now know everything that they are capable of, making them that much harder to stop.

        Like many planes in D&D’s cosmology, the safest thing to do when it comes to Carceri is to never go there at all.