This information is intended for use with the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game.
At a Glance
Manual of the Planes mentions (pg 119) a force of more than 5,000 hamatula devils, led by the pit fiend Gazra. This army resides in Abriymoch, a city on Phlegethos, the fourth of Baator‘s nine layers. Gazra reports directly to Fierna… and, grudgingly, Belial.
Over 5,000. That’s a lot of devils. I wonder how they’re organized. It makes sense that more of them will be lower hit dice, with fewer of them at the upper end of the range, but… how many of each HD? If the party is wandering the streets of Abriymoch, there’s a good chance they’re going to meet a hamatula every once in a while… I need a random encounter table!
Aaannd… that’s why this post exists. Plus, the same sort of process should be useful for other, similar, situations.
The Xaeyruudh Campaign
I haven’t seen anything official which contradicts this, but the following is entirely made up, for the Xaeyruudh campaign.
| HD | CR | qty | random |
| 12 | 11 | 2307 | 001-410 |
| 13 | 11 | 1260 | 411-634 |
| 14 | 12 | 722 | 635-762 |
| 15 | 12 | 432 | 763-839 |
| 16 | 13 | 269 | 840-887 |
| 17 | 13 | 174 | 888-918 |
| 18 | 14 | 116 | 919-939 |
| 19 | 14 | 80 | 940-953 |
| 20 | 15 | 57 | 954-963 |
| 21 | 15 | 42 | 964-970 |
| 22 | 16 | 31 | 971-976 |
| 23 | 16 | 24 | 977-980 |
| 24 | 18 | 19 | 981-983 |
| 25 | 18 | 15 | 984-986 |
| 26 | 19 | 12 | 987-988 |
| 27 | 19 | 10 | 989-990 |
| 28 | 20 | 9 | 991-992 |
| 29 | 20 | 7 | 993 |
| 30 | 21 | 6 | 994 |
| 31 | 21 | 6 | 995 |
| 32 | 22 | 5 | 996 |
| 33 | 22 | 5 | 997 |
| 34 | 23 | 4 | 998 |
| 35 | 23 | 4 | 999 |
| 36 | 24 | 3 | 000 |
| Sum | 5619 |
So out of a total of 5619 hamatula, 2307 of them are 12 HD. That’s roughly 41% of them, so a d1000 roll of 1-410 means that individual has 12 HD.
Where did these numbers come from? I decided there needed to be at least three max-HD hamatula, to justify needing a pit fiend to control these chuckleheads. (hey, they can use greater teleport, hold person, major image, and scorching ray at will… they have to have a mischievous side) With three 36-HD devils teleporting around setting everybody’s clothes on fire, the city wouldn’t last long without some discipline. So Gazra’s commission makes sense, and he has his work cut out for him.
Getting back to the numbers. I started with 3 individuals at 36 HD and I knew I wanted “over 5,000” total, so I just set up a simple formula in Excel, and then played with the Goal Seek function a little bit.
The number of hamatula at each HD is X^1.08477, where X is the number of hamatula at HD+1. So there’s 3 at 36 HD, 3^1.08477 at 35 HD, and so forth. Like I said, simple. You can get as creative/weird as you want; I try to keep it simple, just so that when I look at it later I can remember or figure out how I got those numbers.
One final note: Fierna and Belial are described in Book of Vile Darkness as having 36 HD, and being CR 24. This is obviously unrealistic, given that they need to be a bit more powerful than Gazra, who needs to be a bit more powerful than his troops. I would bump the Lords of the Fourth to at least CR 27… 30 is more realistic. This means the deeper Lords might need to be bumped too, but that’s an issue for other posts.
Source
- The voices in my head
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