Orthon

Orthons, also called rage devils were baatezu devils that served as heavy infantry in the Nine Hells, fulfilling roles such as formation fighter, brutish berserker and bounty hunter. Their name stemmed from the joyful frenzy they entered when they smelled the blood of their enemies, or felt the foe's resolve weaken before their merciless assault.
In the infernal rankings of devils, orthons were sometimes reported as the same rank as osyluths and malebranches (war devils) and sometimes as the same rank as cornugons. Others placed them between osyluths and cornugons in the rankings. Similarly, they were alternatively placed in either the lesser devils or greater devils castes.
==Description==
Orthons were hulking humanoid figures that stood around tall and weighed almost . Their stone-like skin was imbued with Supernal hieroglyphics that expressed rage and hate and was covered in metal plates bolted directly into their flesh. The devils bled from the nails that affixed the armor to the body, staining both with its black blood, and maggots were known to wriggle in their wounds. Their features were monstrous and twisted with pain, such as the prominent tusks sprouting from their lower jaws that were evidently rotten, but still showed a primal cunning.
==Personality==
Orthons were fiends defined by conflict and loyal to a fault. It was their belief that to die for the baatezu was an honor, for their sacrifice furthered Hell's glory. This belief persisted despite the fact that their existence was one of wretched torment, the smallest movement causing their plating to grind against tissue and bone, resulting in horrible anguish. Only in combat were their minds sufficiently distracted to rise above their misery. So it was that orthons were creatures that lived for battle and had little interests beyond fighting and dying for their masters.
An orthon's first loyalty was to its archduke, but if given no assignment they sought out worthy opponents on their own. They valued the challenge of a chase and the thrill of one-on-one combat above all else, and were joyful, almost to the point of childishness, in their love of violent play. They delighted in the spray of blood, relished the feeling of crushing bone, and flew into gleeful rage as the fight reached its deadly climax. More than any other creature, they despised demons and preferred them as victims.
Despite being somewhat simple-minded and being in some respects known for sporting chances, orthons were not to be mistaken as thoughtless brutes or easily gained. They were well-organized and unrelenting combatants who brooked their enemies no quarter, and were fully capable of utilizing intelligent tactics.
==Abilities==
Orthons were possessed of a wide and reportedly varying set of powers. By some tellings the powerful and robust devils were somewhat slow, but with that stable and difficult to move, while in others they were fully mobile, capable of scaling obstacles with ease and incapable of becoming fatigued. Other miscellaenous abilities included an immunity to being charmed and the spell-like ability to teleport without error.
Orthons were known to create a variety of supernatural effects around themselves. One was an invisibility field they could activate at will to cloak themselves and anything on their person, although it ended immediately after they attacked or were attacked. Another was a radius dimensional interference field that disrupted all attempts at extradimensional travel within it similar to a dimensional anchor; this only lasted a few dozen seconds, but there was no way to resist it and it could be activated at will. The third effect was activated when the rage devil struck its foe in melee combat, causing the symbols of rage on its thick skin to flare and erode the resistances of their target.
In terms of consistent abilities, orthons were infamous for their sharp senses, sometimes reported as a form of close-range truesight and at others as the ability to see invisibility at will. The other reliable power was some capacity for self-destruction, although even this took different forms. In the first, the voracious maggots infesting the orthon, which survived on its constantly seeping blood and pus, would surge out when it suffered a particularly scathing blow or burst from the body when it was slain, biting at all non-baatezu life in a desperate search for food for the brief period they could survive outside the host. In the second, an orthon close to death could willingly choose to explode in a loud burst of flames; interestingly, an orthon's death in this way destroyed its special equipment, but it also seemed to disintegrate when the orthon was slain even if not near the explosion.
==Combat==
Orthons were known to employ a diverse arsenal of infernal weaponry. The most unique of these weapons were their hellspears, masterfully-crafted cold iron longspears with a variety of sharp blades protruding along the shaft, thus making them usable against targets close up and afar. Such were their intense training and familiarity with these weapons that orthons could make sweeping strikes with the weapon to attack several targets at once. Of similar utility were their mauls, with which they could unleash a flurry of impacts upon all the foes around them, knocking them away and often to the ground. They also possessed poisonous infernal daggers.
The ranged weapon of the orthons, and the most versatile of them, were their hellfire crossbows. From these brass and bone instruments the orthons fired different types of arrows, including ones that spewed acid, released blinding light, unleashed concussive force, entangled opponents in strands of sticky webbing, and electrified and paralyzed their victim. The last kind let the orthon know the plane their target was on and their direction and distance from them once they were on the same plane, though this effect only lasted for a day. The crossbows were dangerous even if the orthons ran out of arrows, or for that matter if they had no drawstring, for any baatezu could focus the crossbow and let loose a stream of pure hellfire. This energy, so seemingly fire, was a unique force that ignored all resistance and immunity, and could only be spawned from the crossbow by baatezu hands; no other creature could focus the energy.
Orthons believed the best offense was a relentless rush of gnarly muscle and weapon blows; this attitude was in some ways justified, such as by the fact that their invisibility was often best retaliated against with a strong counterattack. This attitude aside, orthons still employed some degree of strategy. They were specially trained to kill demons, but were equally dangerous against mortals.
Orthons fought best when fighting in close formations where they could draw upon the skills and competence of their fellows. They were accustomed to fighting in military units and assembled themselves into two ranks. While the front rank brandished melee weapons, the backline scanned for and fired into the advancing enemy. If the enemy was outnumbered or seemed like it could be overwhelmed, the orthons would split into teams of two and flank them. However, while orthons were generally best used in squadrons of four to six (they themselves typically preferred four), this was not done outside of heavily contested warzones.
More often, orthons worked in pairs, where they practiced similar tactics to larger teams. A lone orthon was generally either cut off from his fellows or was assigned patrol duty and using their notorious special senses to keep watch for intruders. These orthons moved carefully and slowly, engaging enemies from as far as possible, generally by shooting them, before bracing for the charge, and spread out their attacks in hopes of taxing the enemy's resources. At the first sign of heavy resistance they retreated, preferably using greater teleport, and gathered more of their kind so they could return and finish off the foe.
==Society==
The masters of the Nine Hells, whether they be pit fiends, archdevils, or the archdukes themselves, had a number of uses for orthons. Usually the task of locating and either eliminating or capturing a target was given to them, even if their quarry was on another plane of existence. Fighting the Blood War was among their purposes, and some infernal lords employed them as sentries and patrollers.
In the absence of an assignment, orthons might work for anyone promising dangerous enemy encounters. Their wide-reaching travels made them unrivaled guides through all the Nine Hells, and they were likely to be found anywhere controlled or contested by devils, but they were common in Avernus, where they saw the most action. They roamed that layer in packs, searching for opponents and allying with any infernal agent who guaranteed battle.
Since their abilities were nearly as dangerous to their fellow devils as they were to their demonic opposition, most of their kin treated orthons well. Often they were paired with legion devils, and the rage devils enjoyed watching them be slaughtered during the combat. Conversely, they admired hell knights and followed them into battle without question, even as the narzugons treated them like mindless chattel.
Orthons did usually carry treasure, but in the form of combat mementos, such as jeweled weapons, shields, belts, and other baubles.
==Ecology==
Orthons found in the Prime Material plane were usually under the sway of a dangerous individual. Lawful evil spellcasters could summon orthons using the summon monster IV spell. Diabolic cults might summon them to fight a hated foe, but their services were not limited to infernal warlocks and the like; mad despots and rampaging warlords could also find themselves with the services of an orthon. However, a strong and steady hand was needed to control a rage devil, and if control was lost, orthons could pose just as much of a threat to weak leaders as they could to those they wanted destroyed.
==History==
Orthons were the result of an experiment to create a new breed of devils to fight the Blood War, one capable of combating demons in the field of brute strength. To do this, demon ichor was injected into hell knights, which turned them into chaotic and uncontrollable creatures that were no longer truly devils. They craved carnage and raged against devils and demons alike, and only became true devils again when the ritualists bound their wild nature with glyphs in Supernal, the language of the gods.
During the period where the Blood War cooled around the 14 century, rage devils began to battle creatures not of the Abyss, even if they would still prefer to fight the demons.
==Notable Orthon Devils==
* Scarbel, an orthon bounty hunter with an impressive retrieval record who sought to capture the meddling cleric Dara.
* Spurhund, an orthon desperate to capture Dara out of fear of angering General Everbleed.
* Talmar, an orthon seeking to repay his life debt to the rakshasa Mahadi, although not so much as to risk his own life.
* Wyrzoon, an ambitious orthon agent of Zariel. Their dealings with the generally unimaginative and unintelligent lesser devils led them to frequently overestimate their own intelligence.
* Yurgir, an orthon mercenary who became trapped on Toril for much of the 15 century.
==Appendix==
===Notes===
===Appearances===
===References===
===Connections===
Category:Creatures found in the Nine Hells
Category:Lesser baatezu
Category:Greater baatezu