(Redirected from
Tanar'ri)
In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, the fictional characters controlled by the players often come into conflict with a variety of monsters from folklore and mythology. One of the game's more prominent monsters are the various races of demons, devils and other malicious otherworldly creatures, collectively referred to as fiends and hailing from the Lower Planes.
The demons, also called tanar'ri, are chaotic evil natives of the Abyss; they are rapacious, cruel and arbitrary. The Abyss and its population are both theoretically infinite in size. The devils, also called baatezu, are lawful evil natives of the Nine Hells of Baator; they subjugate the weak and rule tyrannically over their domains. These two races wage the Blood War against one another. Lastly, the yugoloths (called daemons in previous editions of the game) are neutral evil natives of the Gray Waste; they are neutral to the affairs of the other fiendish races, interfering only when they see a situation that may be profitable or a potential for the advancement of their own schemes. Other, more minor fiends also exist, such as a number of varieties of imps. Most fiendish species are divided into a number of variants, usually in a hierarchy of increasing power and cunning.
Satanism and Dungeons & Dragons
A number of critics of Dungeons & Dragons (mostly fundamentalist Christians) accuse the game of promoting Satanism and occultism, intentionally or otherwise. Some products, particularly the First Edition Dungeon Master's Guide, have shown actual symbols classically used by witches and magicians for summoning, abjuration and protection.
TSR eliminated most references to occult symbols, demons and devils from the second edition of the game under great pressure from anti-D&D negative publicity (the terms Baatezu and Tanar'ri were introduced at this time), but Wizards of the Coast reinserted many of these excised references in the third edition of the game, on the basis that most D&D players are mature adults (most surveys on the matter show that the average D&D player is in their early- to mid-twenties). Although characters in the game are capable of casting spells to summon such creatures, these spells are restricted to evil characters, most of whom are non-player characters. Also, a group of good celestials consisting of astral devas , solars and planetars was identified as Angels in the Revised (3.5) Monster Manual.
See also: List of species in fantasy fiction
