Black abishai

Black abishai were the second-lowest of the abishai devils. Like their true dragon counterparts, the black dragons, they had a supernatural affinity to acid and were skilled in ambushes.

Abilities
In order to help them slink through the shadows, black abishai could cast the darkness spell. They could summon other black abishai, as well as white abishai and lemures. Their tail stingers contained acid they used to burn their foes when they weren't simply biting and clawing at them.

Combat
Black abishai were as skilled at infiltration as they were at assassination, weaving shadows in order to veil their approach, before attempting to take out their marks foes with a single fatal strike. While some made use of scimitars, one of the common weapons they used were halberds.

Society
The station of black abishai was seen as lower than the previous rank of spinagons by most beings in the Nine Hells. While spinagons were weak and craven they had amazing potential, able to advance into a wide variety of different forms. The near minimal promotion of a baatezu into a black abishai was commonly used as an indicator that a spinagon had failed to live up to its potential. They were often used as a form of cannon fodder in Hell's legions and those without the ambition to climb out of the position would be doomed to suffer the humiliation, although in truth some abishai's were never spinagons at all but had been directly promoted into abishais by Tiamat. At the same time, black abishai's were still fairly easy to summon, making them highly useful at tempting low-level casters with uncontrollable magic.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Dungeon magazine #29, "Ex Libris" • Dragon+ #21, "Six Faces of Death"
 * Video Games
 * Planescape: Torment • Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms