the Tanar'ri

In the darkest depths of the infinite layers of the Abyss, terrible creatures fester. Whether born from the cast-off spiritual remnants of chaotic and evil mortals, from frenzied inter-breeding amongst themselves, or even from the bedlam of the Abyss itself, the tanar'ri rise. Mad passion and dark desire made manifest, the tanar'ri are perfect reflections of their home plane, each a horror like no other.

While many tanar'ri share similar forms, this is because these demonic entities have learned what shapes help them survive their home, mostly through evolutionary trial and error on an infinite scale. And to survive in the Abyss, the tanar'ri must be willing and able to kill anything and everything they can... and not only are the tanar'ri capable of this, but they relish each opportunity.

Each tanar'ri has suffered and inflicted more suffering than you can possibly imagine, for it is all they know. The more powerful amongst them abuse their lessers at the slightest whim, because who is to stop them? The less powerful tanar'ri withstand this punishment in the hopes of returning the favor someday, and in turn take out their aggression on anything they perceive to be weaker than themselves.

But why do the tanar'ri act so? Each and every tanar'ri, from the only slightly sentient dretch to the mighty Abyssal lords themselves, feel that they know the Answer, the singular truth behind not only their lives, but of existence as a whole. They each try to teach the other tanar'ri the tenets of this Answer, but the fiends are so fiercely independent that they shout each other down, thus causing the current situation.

And that's before you consider the baatezu. While the tanar'ri rant and rail against each other for attempting to force their Answers upon each other, the baatezu, hated creatures of law, attempt to impose their own twisted order across the whole multiverse. This alone is the reason the tanar'ri can unite, (sometimes) casting aside their differences to ward off the orderly devils before their Answer wins out.

The Blood War is the result of this conflict, the quintessential clash of order and chaos in the lower planes. The tanar'ri and baatezu constantly wage war to determine the fate of the multiverse, the former refusing to accept that anyone but they know the Answer to why they exist, while the latter insist that they are Right. Naturally, this is a war that neither side can really win, and has waged for millennia.

Tanar'ri Origins and Evolution

The tanar'ri, as stated above, generally originate from three separate sources. They most often come from the souls of deceased mortals of chaotic and evil mindsets, landed in the Abyss in the form of despicable larvae. While some manifest in more advanced forms, such as manes, dretches or rutterkin, few entities are possessed of sufficient evil to arrive on the plane in any form other than that of a larvae.

Of course, the tanar'ri are mercurial and passionate creatures, and often breed - it's one of the few things they do with each other that doesn't involve murder. Breeding usually produces a new tanar'ri that is of equal station or some midway between the two levels of its parents' evolution, unless true tanar'ri breed; this results in lesser forms as only the true tanar'ri have experienced and dealt enough suffering to attain that level.

Finally, tanar'ri occasionally just spring into existence from nothingness. A plane of roiling chaos and selfish evil, the Abyss only loosely follows the 'rules' of causality that we take for granted, and sometimes it just spits out whole life forms at the drop of a hat. These new tanar'ri are never manes, which are still technically petitioners, and are most likely dretches or rutterkin, but are sometimes more powerful.

Once a tanar'ri is present in the Abyss, it will evolve or die. Tanar'ri grow in power by convincing others that it is stronger than they, whether by demonstrating this with direct action or faking it with trickery and treachery. When it truly believes it is better than its fellows, and enough of said fellows also believe this, a tanar'ri will slowly change, its form evolving in one of several fashions.

There is no set 'pattern' to this, as there is in Baator, no 'lessons' to be learned from each form, as with the yugoloths. A tanar'ri is as powerful as it believes it is, and while they most often move from their existing form to one that is only slightly more powerful, sometimes a tanar'ri can jump through the 'ranks' to a significantly more powerful configuration if it possesses exceptional capability.

This happens with greater frequency on particularly hostile planes where one tanar'ri form is more suited to survival than any others. But not always. With the tanar'ri, it's hard to pin them down into categories or rules - they are creatures of chaos as much as they are entities of evil. Sometimes a dretch may fight hard and become a rutterkin, or instead evolve into a bar-lgura. Who knows?

Common Tanar'ric Powers

Though they are highly chaotic creatures, and sometimes are in fact unique compared to their brethren, the tanar'ri have developed a standard set of supernatural abilities thanks to their time in the Abyss. Untold millennia of evolution in the harshest environs possible have imprinted these demonic powers onto (almost) each representative of the tanar'ri species, and no matter what other powers they have, all tanar'ri wield these:

Darkness: creatures of blackest evil, the tanar'ri have the inherent ability to share the inner darkness of their souls with the world at large. This isn't an especially potent ability, working only at rank value 4, but thanks to its functioning on the Near range table, a tanar'ri can easily coat an entire sector with inky blackness of the supernatural sort - even powers like infravision may fail within.

Damage Reduction / Cold Attacks: though they are not immune to the effects of this kind of damage, all tanar'ri possess considerable resistance to it (on top of any other protective abilities they may wield). When exposed to cold effects in their environment, a tanar'ri may reduce its intensity by 2 RS before attempting to resist it further by any means, making cold much less effective against the fiends.

Damage Reduction / Magic Attacks: furthermore, most tanar'ri possess powerful resistance to the effects of magic, themselves being so chaotic in nature. The strength of this power varies from tanar'ri form to tanar'ri form, but almost all of the beasts bear at least 1 RS of damage reduction against magic, sometimes even more. This applies to either magic energies, spells, or even enchanted items.

Infravision: a large number of the Abyss' countless layers are dark far beyond mortal ken, and have never seen the light (either metaphorically or otherwise). As such, the tanar'ri as a whole have developed the means of seeing by heat as well as light, though this sense can be confounded by enough tanar'ri emitting their darkness in tandem. This power works with rank value 10 ability.

Invulnerability to Fire, Electricity, Heat and Poison Attacks: the tanar'ri are incredibly hardy creatures - they have to be to survive at all in the endless, horrific wastes of the Abyss. The demonic creatures possess complete immunity to these forms of damage, regardless of their source; whether ambient in the environment or applied as an attack form, these phenomenon do not affect the tanar'ri.

Portal Sense: all the tanar'ri beyond the manes level of development (i.e., the weakest) are true planar beings. As such, they have the 'spark' of the planes within them, and can perceive the subtle differences between one universe and another. This allows them to see portals between one realm and another, whether on layers within a plane or between two different planes entirely, with rank value 20 ability.

Telepathy: finally, all tanar'ri beyond the manes level of development are truly sentient beings, and thus can wield this power. Since few tanar'ri actually speak the same language, direct mind-to-mind communication is the only way they can really convey messages, ideas and (usually) threats to each other, and the tanar'ri may wield this supernatural power with rank value 6 skill.

Other Tanar'ri Dis/Abilities

Complementing the extensive supernatural capabilities common to all tanar'ric beings, these demonic life forms also possess several other powers and weaknesses. The enterprising planewalker will keep them in mind whenever they intend to go toe to toe with these horrific monsters of murder and mayhem, or even if they don't; you never know when these chaotic terrors will turn up out on the planes.

Stolen Powers: for the longest time, the tanar'ri possessed the power of teleportation. They could easily transport themselves almost anywhere within their current plane of existence, doing so with rank value 30 skill, and without fail or error. Similarly, they could dimensionally transit their bodies to other planes of existence with rank value 10 ability, though they risked teleport errors on a failed ACT roll.

In some versions of the Planescape lore (the later publications), it was revealed that these powers were granted by a strange creature controlled by the yugoloths, and subsequently taken back. A tanar'ri could regain the use of these powers by submitting itself to yugoloth rule, which meant that those neutral fiends would forevermore wield power over said tanar'ri's souls. Naturally, this wasn't well received by the tanar'ri.

If you follow this plot line, individual tanar'ri won't have these two powers for the most part - unless either a) our intrepid fiend does indeed submit to yugoloth domination in exchange for it anew, or b) it re-evolves the power all by itself. While the former is more likely, the latter is a distinct possibility in the mad bedlam of the Abyss. Of course, if you don't follow this 'rule', they all still have these dangerous powers anyway.

Susceptibility: demonic creatures all, the tanar'ri are susceptible to the use of holy water, holy weapons, and cold-wrought iron weapons. The former inflicts its wielder's Willpower in Karmic damage, while the latter two bypass a tanar'ri's defenses entirely. Attacks with these three items inflict either their normal damage or one quarter of the tanar'ri's maximum Health, whichever of the two would be higher.