Alu-fiends are the product of successful procreation between a succubus and a male mortal (mostly humans). Females are, generally, attractive or beautiful, going to great lengths at times to conceal their needle-like teeth and diminuitive wings. They often possess a high degree of sexual proclivity. Males, however, require more discriminative attention, as its “cousin”, the cambion (produced from a female mortal), possesses many of the same “abyssal” traits which form both creatures’ overall appearance. This has led to a diminishing use of the patrillineal and matrillineal-influenced terms as a whole; rather, products of both partnerings are considered “half-fiend”.
Alu-fiends, also referred to as alu-demons, first appeared in the Monster Manual II. They were described in the Monstrous Compendium Outer Planes Appendix and the Planescape Monstrous Compendium Appendix. While their exact statistics varied slightly, the general concept as the offspring of a succubus and a mortal male remained true.
In the Third Edition rules, half-fiends were presented as a more general template, in lieu of specific entries for each instance. There has been no specific publishing of an alu-fiend template by official sources. However, a half-succubus template was included in a Dragon Magazine web article, written by Robert Wiese, on half-fiendish variety, and appears on the Wizards of the Coast website.
Alu-fiends are the offspring of a succubus (alu-demon) or erinye (alu-devil) and a male humanoid (see below). Alu-fiends are always female. The creature looks to a large extend like her humanoid parent. The typical alu-fiend has dark hair, dark eyes, and sometimes a mark of its fiendish parent: small black horns just above her eyes, a tail, or leathery, black wings (see below). Since her natural form is that of a humanoid rather than a fiend (like her mother), alu-fiends are often used as spies in places where true seeing is a common ability (which would immediately reveal a fiend’s monstrous true form). Alu-fiends that breed with humanoids produce tieflings, alu-fiends of the same heritage produce alu-fiends. An alu-fiend speaks the language of its base creature and abyssal/infernal, depending on her mother.
“Alu-fiend” is a template that can be added to any of the following humanoid creatures (referred to hereafter as the “base creature”): drow, elf, genasi, half-elf, human, and tiefling. Theoretically an alu-fiend of drow heritage might fail Lolth in some way and be made into a drider, which would mean the template could be added to a drider as well. The creature’s type changes to “outsider”. It uses all of the base creature’s statistics and special abilities except as noted here.
Speed: As the base creature. There is a 50% chance that an alu-fiend has similar wings as her mother. In this case, the creature has a fly speed of 50 ft. (average maneuverability).
AC: Natural armor improves by +1.
Attacks: Same as the base creature, plus it gains a pair of claw attacks for 1d4 hit points of damage.
Special Attacks: An alu-fiend retains all of the special attacks of the base creature and also gains the following attacks: Alu-fiends with an Intelligence or Wisdom score of 8 or higher possess the following spell-like abilities, using their level as caster level, as specified in the table below. Unless otherwise indicated, the ability is usable once per day.
1-2 Darkness 3/day
3-4 Charm Person 3/day
5-6 Detect Thoughts
7-8 Vampiric Touch
9-10 Alternate Form (as succubus)
11-12 Suggestion
13-14 Dimension Door
15-16 Unholy Blight
17-18 Vampiric Touch 2/day
19+ Dimension Door 2/day
Special Qualities:An alu-fiend has all of the special qualities of the base creature, the traits of her father’s race plus darkvision with a range of 60 feet unless she already possess darkvision. The creature is immune to poison, and has acid, cold, electricity, and fire resistance 10. She gains damage reduction 5/cold iron or good (if HD 11 or less) or 10/cold iron or good (if HD 12 or more) and her natural weapons are treated as evil aligned weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. An alu-fiend possesses spell resistance equal to the creature’s HD +10 (max. 35).
Alternate form (Su): At 9th level, an alu-fiend can assume any humanoid form of Small to Large size as a standard action. This ability is similar to the polymorph self spell, but allows only humanoid forms.
Saves: Same as the base creature.
Abilities: Increase from the base creature as follows: Strength +2, Dex +4, Con +2, Int +4, Wis +0, Cha +4.
Skills: An alu-fiend has 8 skill points, plus its Intelligence modifier, per Hit Die. Treat skills from the base creature’s list as class skills and other skills as cross class. If the creature has a class, it gains skills for class levels normally.
Climate/Terrain: Any land and underground.
Organization: Same as the base creature.
Challenge Rating: Same as the base creature +3.
Effective Character Level Modifier: +5.
Treasure: Same as the base creature.
Alignment: Usually evil (rarely neutral).
Advancement: Same as the base creature.
Alu-fiend Characters
Alu-fiend humanoids often have a character class, favouring fighters, rogues and sorcerers. Alu-fiend clerics usually serve an evil deity.
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