Osyluth

Osyluths, sometimes called bone devils, were the taskmasters and interrogators of the devils, acting as law-enforcement throughout the Nine Hells. Their very presence inspired dread due to their love of inflicting physical and mental suffering on both mortals and devils alike.

Description
Osyluths were tall creatures with dry, sickly skin that seemed tautly stretched over every bone in their body. Despite the fact they were creatures, their frames were incredibly gaunt husks so emaciated that they seemed skeletal. Their tails were those of giant scorpions while their heads looked like menacing skulls. The putrid stench of rot surrounded their fearsome forms.

Personality
Osyluths were malicious sadists that reveled in the pain of lesser creatures yet still exercised a patient vigilance and cunning. They were almost entirely driven by a diverse array of negative emotions, including lust, jealously, hatred and fury, towards all other beings. The suffering of defiant inferiors was particularly delightful to them, but at the same time were bitter towards their own superiors for their status. They were expected to show absolute adherence to the tenants of baatezu morality and to the will of their masters, with most being fanatically loyal or at least obedient, and encouraged other baatezu to show similar levels of viciousness and zeal.

Abilities
Osyluths were armed with claws and fangs but their most fearsome natural armament was their scorpion-like tails. Said tails injected a powerful, strength-sapping poison into their victims, quickly rendering most powerless. They were also capable of exuding an aura of fear within a radius of themselves to send their foes running in panic. Their other innately magical abilities allowed them to fly, turn themselves invisible, craft powerful illusions and create a wall of ice. They were also capable of summoning somewhere between 1-100 nupperibos, a small group of lemures or spinagons, or up to two other osyluths.

Combat
Driven into combat by ruthless rage, osyluths violently lashed out with tooth and claw, surrounding themselves with terror to keep their enemies from fighting back. Although capable of fighting unarmed they often wielded hooked polearms constructed from bones to snare and wound their foes. Once their opponents' bodies were restrained and their resolve shattered, a bone devil could fully subdue them with their tails. They normally focused on singular foes and divided groups using their wall of ice.

Society
Osyluths fulfilled a function similar to a police force in Baator. To be more precise, they were a moral police who looked out for moral decay in the infernal society. Osyluths often served as the informers and police of the Nine Hells, monitoring and reporting on the activities of other devils. Devils who were not upholding the ideals of the lawful evil philosophy were captured and punished by them. This, meaning the prospect of punishment not the supervision itself, was the reason why other devils hated and sometimes killed osyluths, the latter only under utmost secrecy. They were even allowed to drop offending devils, with the notable exception of pit fiends, into the Pit of Flame.

Every century, one thousand osyluths were promoted at once to the hamatula-station and one thousand low-ranking devils were promoted to osyluths to fill the gap. Nobody really knew how, but this fact got somehow distorted when it reached mortals, making them believe for a long time that the entirety of Baator held only a thousand osyluths.

Osyluths, along with hamatulas, made up the bulk of the Servants of Mammon, Mammon's personal army.

Osyluth had the necessary mental capacity to learn wizardry, possessing a talent for the art of divination that was commonly used to aid them in their duties, although only a rare few bothered learning magic. Another branch of magic osyluths pursued was that of divine magic tied to a deity. While the overall numbers of baatezu priests was small, osyluths made up a substantial fraction of them and were always specialty priests.

Promotion
When an osyluth was promoted to an amnizu, it underwent a process that was potentially lethal. The process consisted of racking, drawing, and quartering. When the osyluth got quartered, it naturally lost its limbs, but new smaller ones regrew. Once every limb was gone and replaced with a smaller one, the skin of the face was peeled to create a cowl that the would-be-amnizu had to remove through will-power, lest it died.

History
The famed Paladin Kern Desanea, the "Hammerseeker", fought with an osyluth during his adventures in the Moonsea region.

A mage from Dweomercore named Yarek summoned a bone devil to kill a rival, Skrianna Shadowdusk. The osyluth agreed, but then murdered him, while still seeking to fulfill it's contract.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage


 * Novels
 * Pool of Twilight