Copyright 2008 Wizards of the Coast

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My first contact with Maruts was in Third Edition, where they were a type of Inevitable, a Lawful Neutral outsider. It could be that they predate that edition (though AD&D was all about modrons instead). Here, they appear only on the Monster Manual.

The Lore

In Fourth Edition, Maruts are enigmatic natives of the Astral Sea, usually found wandering that plane and others as mercenaries for hire. As mercenaries, they probably don’t care much about who their bosses are, as long as those bosses stick to their end of the contract. If they don’t, I imagine retribution is… inevitable.

The price for a Marut’s service is always a reciprocal service, to be specified at a later date. They keep an exacting record of these favors in their astral fortresses. No one knows why they’re gathering favors in this manner.

The Numbers

We get two Marut stat blocks here, both epic. They have some common traits: trained Perception, Truesight, a land speed of 8, plus flight and teleport speeds of 4. They’re also immune to sleep, have Resist 10 Thunder, and an amazing Regeneration of 20 with no weaknesses that temporarily shut it down. These things are really hard to kill and really hard to get away from.

Maruts are Unaligned, being indifferent to the cosmic struggle between good and evil. All they care about is keeping their ledgers balanced.

Marut Blademaster

This Medium Immortal Humanoid is a Level 21 Soldier with 201 HP and all common marut traits. It wields a greatsword in combat.

That greatsword is its only attack, doing a mix of physical and thunder damage. A hit also pushes the target 1 square and marks them for a turn.

The damage of that basic attack is a bit underwhelming due to the early math, but the blademaster will often (recharge 4-6) be able to make two such attacks a round, making it considerably more dangerous.

You probably want to use enough of these to form a battle line. It’s hard to stand your ground against a wall of marut blademasters, and it gets even harder when they have backup.

Marut Concordant

This Large Immortal Humanoid is a Level 22 Elite Controller with 418 HP and all common marut traits. Concordants fight with their fists and with decrees backed by mystical power.

You’ll likely see them coming at you from behind a battle line of blademasters. They’ll bombard your position with Fortune’s Chains (Area Burst 5 Within 20 vs. Will; enemies only; recharge 4-6), likely catching the whole party and doing psychic damage with a daze rider (save ends).

Then they’ll stop melee PCs on their tracks with Dictums (minor action; Ranged 10 vs. Fortitude), which do no damage but immobilize (save ends). When the party finally manages to crash into the battle line, the concordants will push them away again with a Thunderous Edict (Close Burst 5 vs. Fortitude; enemies only; recharge 5-6) which does thunder damage and pushes 4 squares on a hit.

If all of these powers happen to be recharging at the moment, they’ll content themselves with reaching over the heads of the blademaster vanguard and punching the PCs with Reach 2 slams that do a mix of physical and thunder damage.

Sample Encounters and Final Impressions

There’s one level 23 sample encounter: 1 concordant, 2 blademasters, a war devil, and 8 legion devils. There’s your battle line.

Fans of 3e inevitables are probably missing a lot of the lore that was removed along with the Great Wheel cosmology. Personally, while I think 3e inevitables were interesting, I also like the new lore. Enigmatic mercenaries stockpiling favors for some future cosmic plan is an interesting background that leaves room for GM creativity.