Illustration Copyright 2008 Wizards of the Coast.

This is part of a series! Go here to see the other entries.

Fourth Edition demons are not at all fond of subtlety or complicated schemes, but that doesn’t mean they’re stupid. I mean, it very often does, but not always. Take the glabrezu, for example: it has Int 24, making it by far the smartest demon we’ve yet seen. It’s present only on the Monster Manual.

Glabrezus are Huge Elemental Humanoids (demons), which might be yet another example of mistyping because they’re less humanoid than evistros, and those are magical beasts. They have digitigrade chicken legs, fanged goat heads with no lips, hides that menace with spikes, and four arms: two humanoid and human-sized ones growing out of their ribs, and two huge crab claws growing out of the usual shoulder positions.

These physical features make it seem like they’d be pretty powerful physical combatants, and well, they are. But they’re also some of demonkind’s premier spellcasters. Their combat tactics aren’t what you’re expect of a wizard, since they charge right into the fray instead of staying behind a line of guards.

Being smarter than the average demon, a glabrezu is partial to slightly more complex strategies for spreading chaos and destruction. The book says it sows discord among its own allies, and goads them to ever-greater acts of depravity and violence. That doesn’t sound very different from what other demons do, so I’m guessing the noteworthy thing here is that it will do this to whatever group summons it.

Other demons would just resentfully growl at their binders and strain to break free, but a glabrezu will act like he’s enjoying the opportunity to work with such distinguished masters while spreading ugly rumors among their underlings and posting fake news on Facebook. As long as it all ends in flames and tears, they’ll have fun.

Mechanically, Glabrezus are Level 23 Elite Brutes with 520 HP. They’re trained in Perception, Arcana, Bluff and Intimidate, and probably know quite a few rituals for use out of combat. They have variable resistance 20, and can switch it up 3 times per encounter. Their land and fly speed are both 8.

Being an epic-level MM1 monster, all of their attacks suffer heavily from the damage bug and require fixing. The basic attack is a pincer claw that has Reach 3 (standard for a Huge monster). The demon can make two such attacks per turn, and if both hit the same target they automatically grab it. No other powers specifically target a grabbed victim, but the grab does ensure they’re always in the area of effect for the demon’s spells. There’s three of them and they’re all minor actions:

Abyssal Bolt is an at-will ranged attack with range 10, targeting Reflex and doing untyped damage. It’s Plan B, basically: when the glabrezu is bloodied it will retreat behind its minions and rain abyssal bolts down on the party.

Blasphemous Word is an encounter power that targets enemies in a close burst 5. It attacks Will, does psychic damage, and dazes for a turn.

Word of Chaos is another selective Close Burst 5, but it recharges on a 6. It targets Fortitude and does untyped damage that bypasses all resistances. That last bit is unlikely to come up since very few things give characters resistance to untyped damage, but it will be useful if the PCs do have access to those things. And hey, it’s minor-action area damage!

When the Glabrezu is first bloodied, it will use Arcane Fury: this triggered free action allows it to teleport up to 8 squares, recharge Blasphemous Word and Word of Chaos, and use either one of them or an Abyssal Bolt immediately.

The suggested encounter is level 23: one glabrezu, 1 earthwind ravager elemental and two blood fiends. So blood fiends do associate with demons! That’s another strong argument for making them demon vampires again instead of abominations.

Final Impressions

I’m going to be honest, I have trouble telling glabrezus, evistros and goristros apart just from the names, but these demons are actually kinda cool. You don’t always see a Brute spellcaster.