These inhuman (in-everything, actually) beings are the “special forces” and assassins of yugoloths. They are quite independent, quite haughty and arrogant to the extreme; definitely not bashers you’d wish to meet. Although they tend to travel around polymorphed, sacroloths always assume their natural forms when attacking. They look somewhat like “mantis centaurs”, with six insectile legs, head somewhat like a thri-kreen, grasping claws instead of arms, and a body covered with reddish-brown chitinous shell.

Sacroloths can communicate telepathically, but they also know 1-3 languages (Planar Trade Chant being the most common one).

Combat: As with piscoloths, the multi-faceted eyes of a sacroloth give it a full-circle vision, so the fiend is never surprised. In addition, its sneaky nature and habit of striking from ambush give it a +2 bonus to surprise its enemy in turn.

Sacroloths are not at all hesitant to fight. They’re very sure of their own abilities, but they tend to “size up” their opponents before striking. Still, their arrogance assures that they’ll strike sooner or later, rarely considering a foe to be “too tough for their abilities”. They have a nasty habit of lulling their opponents to false sense of security by using illusion magic to appear as something less harmful (say, a tiefling) and assuming their true forms when a cutter would least expect (or want, for that matter).

These yugoloths’ arrogance is not without a reason — sacroloths are truly fearsome in combat. Their physical might is fearsome (equal to a Strength of 19), and they gain all applicable bonuses (noted in the statistics above).

If a sacroloth manages to hit an opponent with both of its claws, it has grappled the opponent. A grappled foe may fight back with -4 penalty and only with size S weapons. The grappling causes 2d6+7 damage per round as the yugoloth crushes its foe, and makes spellcasting impossible. If the yugoloth chooses to bite the grappled opponent, it gains +4 to its attack roll. The victim may escape by a successful Bend Bars/Lift Gates roll. Besides, the lack of movement makes the yugoloth easier to hit (all attackers gain a +2 bonus to their attack rolls).

The bite of a sacroloth is its most fearsome weapon, since it seeps magical venom, which affects even those creatures normally immune to poison. Those who fail to save vs. Petrification will lose 4 points of Dexterity every round until Dexterity reaches zero, at which point the victim is petrified (assume monsters have average Dexterity ratings of 8-12). The petrified victim always looks like a black, glistening statue, making sacroloths’ “handiwork” easy to recognise. The application of stone to flesh, heal or dispel magic (against 13th level magic) halts the process, and lost Dexterity returns at the rate of 1 point every 10 turns.

Sacroloths possess the following spell-like powers in addition to those available to all yugoloths: detect evil/good/invisibility (always active), entangle, fear (by gaze), hold person, improved invisibility (2/day), insect plague (3/day), polymorph self (to humanoid form and back only — the change is instantaneous), pyrotechnics. If pressed, a sacroloth may try to gate in 1-6 dergoloths (40% chance of success) or 1-4 mezzoloths (30% chance of success). However, due to their incredible arrogance, they’re rather reluctant to do this. In addition, due to their “hated” natures in yugoloth society, the risk of gated yugoloths turning on their summoner is 40% (instead of the standard 25%). Sacroloths are immune to petrification (including venom of other sacroloths) and all mind-affecting spells.

Habitat/Society: Sacroloths are perhaps the most powerful Lesser- status yugoloths known. They are “freelance special troops” that serve various greater yugoloths (usually arcanoloth) on case-by-case basis. They consider themselves to be independent from the yugoloth race as a whole. This is quite untrue, and most arcanoloth (and ultroloths !) usually have no problems tricking these arrogant beings into doing their bidding. Still, now and then some sacroloth “steps over the line”, angering its superiors, and (usually) quickly finds itself in the dead-book.

Sacroloths never work in groups or in front-line battle. They aren’t that common, and besides, their arrogance makes them hate each other with passion. If two of them happen to run into each other, they’ll assault each other verbally, if not physically.

Besides doing behind-the-lines operations in the Blood War and for whoever pays enough (or for whoever the yugoloth high-ups trick the sacroloths to work for), some select sacroloths are used as personal assassins by powerful ultroloths and yagnoloths, eliminating whoever their masters deem “hindrances”… Be they fiendish or non-fiendish.

Ecology: Make no mistake, sacroloths are in for personal gain only. They tend to fancy themselves as “best of the best”, and thus tend to demand outrageous prices for their services… And the buyer’d better back up his/her/its request with some potent firepower, else the fiend just takes the advance payment and teleports away.

Sacroloths are carnivorous, and in addition, they can eat the victims petrified by their venom (not any other petrified beings, however). Although the venom of a sacroloth vanishes upon the fiend’s death, the venom glands are useful in making stone to flesh (or flesh to stone) type magics. As with many other yugoloths, the origins of sacroloths are shrouded in mystery.