Often mistaken for a type of daemon, arcanaloths are a unique race of fiends notorious for their cunning and malice. Spinning plots that span decades or centuries, arcanaloths are living repositories of dark knowledge who live to spread misery and suffering.
Arcanaloths resemble tall, slender humans with the heads of snarling yellow-eyed canines, typically jackals, foxes, or war dogs. Roughly half of all arcanaloths have two to four short curved horns above their brows, though this distinction seems to hold only as much significance to them as hair or eye color does to mortals. Arcanaloths favor robes appropriate to wizards or sages, and those living in urban areas often dress very fashionably.
Arcanaloths are plotters of the highest order who hoard knowledge, from petty secrets to grand histories. They can be found throughout the lower planes as information brokers, merchants of strange and deadly wares, or intermediaries between other fiends. They are native to the plane of Abbadon and are sometimes named “arcanadaemons” by mistaken mortals, while other sages claim them to be a type of rakshasa and call them “ravaastas”. Both theories may have been created by the arcanaloths themselves for their own amusement.
Planar metropolises like Dis and the City of Brass are often home to numerous arcanaloths who spin plots against each other, using other beings as unwitting pawns. The eternal city of Axis in particular is known for two arcanaloths of great wealth and influence: the diabolically charming Shemeshka the Marauder, King of the Cross-trade, and her obsequious rival A’kin, the Friendly Fiend. The witch-queen Iggwilv, lover of the demon lord Graz’zt, is said to have four arcanaloths of great power as her personal apprentices.
Arcanoloths, as purveyors of dark knowledge, occasionally deal with the church of Fawfin. Their wicked nature is well known, and Fawfin’s faithful try to deal with them on the most careful of terms.
Shores of Swords 