Demons in Mongoose Publishing

In 3.x/d20/OGL, demons or "fiends" were divided into a number of subtypes or races such as "demons" and "devils." In the original Dungeons & Dragons setting these were called baatezu and tanar'ri, but of course those names are closed content. Not to be deterred, some publishers developed substitutes. Mongoose Publishing in particular published numerous books dealing with demons. These weren't consistent with one another due to different writers, but they build on recurring ideas.


Encyclopaedia Arcane: Demonology (reprinted and updated in Encyclopaedia Arcane Compendium, Volume I) introduced the concept of demonic broods, families of demons descended from demonic royalty and named for their founder. These included the baate, tanar and tzaretch (the latter in a web enhancement). The baate and tanar are clearly substitute names for the demons and devils from the SRD.

The Slayer's Guide to Demons further stipulates that the suffix "ka" is appended to brood names, since the name consists of the name of their founder and the "ka" suffix means brood. Therefore, the tanar'ka are literally the brood of Tanar, the insectile van'g'ka are the brood of Van'g, the shadowy jar'taska'ka are the brood of Jar'taska, and the disembodied nuyul'ka are the brood of Nuyul. (I prefer to write the names as vang'ka and jartas'ka because the excessive apostrophes are unnecessary and caca is Spanish for "excrement".)

The Book of the Planes, The Book of Hell, The Planes: Zahhak, and The Planes: Feuerring all went on to explore parts of the lower planes. The Book of the Planes introduced a generic lower plane named Infernum. Initially it referred to the lower planes generally, but when expanded on in The Book of Hell it became the first layer of the lower planes from which the other lower planes were accessible. The Book of Hell introduced the concept of "noble devils," houses, corruption points, "iliaster" harvested from the damned, etc. The Planes: Feuerring explored some of the geography of Infernum, particularly the titular "ring of fire" separating it from other planes. The Planes: Zahhak detailed a minor lower plane ruled by despair (named for a dragon in Persian myth).

All of this musing on demons reached its peak in the custom campaign setting Infernum. Infernum introduced demons as player characters, recycling many concepts introduced in the prior books like breeds, houses, iliaster, etc. These were spread across three volumes: Book of the Damned, Book of the Tormentor, and Book of the Conqueror. The setting was based very closely on Dante's Inferno, in that it aimed to depict the Hell of Christian mythology rather than generic fantasy.