Bearded Devil (Barbazu)

Bearded devils, called barbazu in Infernal, are on the lower end of the mid-level hierarchy of Hell. As such, they get to be squad leaders. However, since their squads tend to be made up entirely of lemures, it's more like herding and goading irritable sheep. Their short tempers make them ill-suited for greater command. The barbazu itself is quite dangerous, however. Their primary weapon is a serrated glaive which causes persistent bleeding, requiring especially powerful healing magic or skilled surgery. If somehow deprived of their glaive, the barbazu has a not-so-secret weapon: it's eponymous beard.

The barbazu's beard is covered in disease-bearing toothy tendrils. Despite its wormy appearance, the tendrils are not prehensile. Still, the devil's use of them is suitably horrifying; it gets a good grip on a target with its claws and forces them face-first into its gruesome beard, forcing them to endure hundreds of little scrapes and bites. Should said target survive an encounter with the barbazu, they develop a fever which slowly saps them of their strength. The victim becomes too weak to even breathe and suffocates.

A creature we've encountered in our current campaign, as part of Vecna's troops. I've used on myself in a previous campaign, where a character was eviscerated by its claws (no chance for a beard attack). The glaive is a neat weapon, obviously, but nowhere near as colourful as the claw-beard combo. Even though the potential maximum damage of the glaive and claw-beard attacks are essentially the same, I guess the subsequent bleed damage of the glaive puts it over the top. Still, it's kind of a shame.

Notes on the design here. In the books I have (3.5 and 5th edition), the barbazu's beard is described as being snakey. In most illustrations I've seen, this has been interpreted as thick tendrils with pointy ends, like a barbed snake's tail. I decided to go more for the head end of the snake because it's so much more gruesome to have lots of little mouth nibble-nibble-nibbling at you. They turned out a little wormy though. Originally the design had a big mouth as well, but I took that away too. Now instead of having one big mouth, the barbazu has dozens of itty ones. They came out looking more like earthworms than snakes but shhh.

Maybe I should've forgone the single eye too and made it just a blank face, with the beard having his eyes. Lots of little eyes and teeth. Nibble nibble nibble.

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Xerfilstyx

The Xerfilstyx, also known by its more comfortable name of Styx Devil, is one of the natural residents of the River Styx, a long trail of oily blood-like water that runs through all the Lower Plains. Due to the river's length, it's possible to encounter this creature in Hades, Carceri, the Abyss, Pandemoium... but it will be a far more common sight in its native dimension, the Nine Hell.

The creature itself is of great size, resembling a cross between a horned man and a slug, with large wings and a great deal of exsanguinating suckers on its tail. It's difficult to say whether its home in the River Styx mean it's immune to it, or constantly under its power. The Styx has memory-wiping properties and even dipping a finger in it can cause the erasure of hours of your life. Complete immersion would leave you a blank slate as your memories are washed down the river. The Styx Devil is insane, possessing few, if any, of its own memories, and temporary keeper to the memories of countless souls as they wash over it. But in its dark heart the devil doesn't feel torture or grief at the absence of self, but joy in enlightenment. And it wants to share this joy with everyone.

The Xerfilstyx is an extremely powerful creature. Its constant subjugation by the waters of its own home probably prevent it from rising up and challenging the Lords of Hell. It has a great number of powerful spells, both protective and offensive. The tail is an appendage to be avoided; once its suckers attach to a person, the devil begins to drain both blood and memories. The stolen blood can be heated through the creature's hellish veins, mixed with the Styx waters and regurgitates on other unfortunates in a spray of boiling gore and forgetfulness.

Interesting note: the River Styx of the D&D cosmology is more alike to the River Lethe of Greek mythology. This was one of five rivers in Hades, all with different properties. Lethe is forgetfulness, Styx is hatred, Acheron is pain, Phlegethon is a river of fire and Cocytus is lamentation (possibly a river of tears). The Styx in mythology is the largest and most important (gods would swear on the Styx, since the goddess that represented it was considered honorable and true). Strangely, Charon the Ferryman doesn't even transport souls across the Styx; he does it over the Acheron. Maybe the threat of the painful waters dissuades any souls with cold feet from jumping in and swimming back to the living world.

Xerfilstyx's appearance influenced by the Glaucus atlanticus, also known as the blue dragon sea slug, an incredibly beautiful creature.

Pit Fiend

The Pit Fiend stands twice as tall as an adult human, wreathed in flames and using its wide wings like a grotesque cape. Pit Fiends are the princes of the diabolic realm of the Nine Hells of Baator, chief movers and shakers among the Baatezu. Endowed with monstrous strength and agility, as well as magical power, they are intelligent fighters and tacticians, more than capable of wiping out an entire party of adventurers solo. Luckily for the inhabitants of the material plane, the eternal conflicts of Baator keep the majority of these devils occupied.

Pit Fiend! Simple look, I guess influenced by things like Firebrand and that little blue Devil guy from that NES game that's in Brawl, and also by Chernabog. Mostly influenced by me trying to add tons of details like armour and chains and stuff and then thinking "god this looks terrible" and then removing it. Woo hoo! Art!

Lemure

The fell armies of Baator, the realm of the Nine Hells, are subject to a rigorously strict natural hierarchy. The devils that populate them range from the unimaginably powerful - such as the indomitable Pit Fiends, who act as lords and generals - to the numerous but pitiful Lemures - who serve as mindless front-line soldiers and lackeys. Standing at five feet tall, a Lemure is a tortured knot of flesh and skin, almost formless from the waistline down, mindless but for its master's telepathic imperative. What Lemures lack in individual strength, they make up in numbers and sheer, thoughtless determination.

Struggled with this one all week (whilst juggling other commitments, hooray!). Lemures look nothing like other devils (which is interesting) but they also look kind of stupid, so it look me a while to figure out how to depict one. I enjoyed colouring this one, but I wish the drawing was a little stronger.