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Purity Amid Pestilence - Standing at odds to the disease ravaged layer of Oinos in the Waste, and their own common association with disease and plague, the 'loths are obsessed with the -purity- of neutral evil. Their racial mythology claims that the flaws of Chaos and Law were forcibly extracted and driven out of their kind by the General of Gehenna (at the bidding of their creators, the Baernaloths), the end result of which was their own purification and the side effect of which was the creation of the Obyriths and Ancient Baatorians (see 'Faces of Evil: The Fiends', 'Hellbound: The Blood War', and the variant of this mythology picked up in Fiendish Codex I). They view anything other than NE as sullied by other concepts, and fallen far from their own position as the favored children of purest, absolute, original evil.

Godless Yugoloths - Yugoloths harbor a disdain for deities regardless of alignment. They do not worship gods, they avoid working with them whenever possible, and they tend to view them as powerful, overglorified children who are the impure spawn of mortal belief. Yugoloths have no need to worship such creatures and they're superior to them in their world view (as they predate deities), and the 'loths already have a racial worship of the abstract concept of Evil that at its least borders upon fanatical. Contrast this worship of evil with their own selfish natures, it's a curious little thing since though they view themselves as the only thing that matters, they'll sacrifice themselves for the advancement of abstract Evil without pause, "Self important self delusion".

Here's a quote from a story of mine, taken from a scene between a mortal and an arcanaloth, with commentary at the end by a Baernaloth.

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"We are middlemen... of a sort." The arcanaloth said. "We are involved in the conflict between Tanar'ri and Baatezu, yes, but not in so straightforward a way, and not for either side in particular. Self interest, enlightened or not, is what defines us in many ways."

He paused, clasped his hands and stepped forwards into our midst, robes swishing and claws clicking staccato on the stone floor.

"We, myself, my clients, we wish to offer you our services."

"Who do you serve?"

"Interesting question that is..." He said, holding up a clawed index finger and smirking. "In general, or specifically in this case?"

"Yes."

"In general, myself, as that's all that matters really."

And from his perspective he is certainly right. That is his -truth-, that his own self-importance is the overriding factor within the hostile reality he is part of. Everything exists to be taken, used, given pain for his enjoyment simply because he wishes to do so and he can. Truth is that, and on some level it is also a fact, but only by ignorance of the larger whole of universal Evil. He is not ignorant of it though, he embraces it in many ways to give you my -truth-, a self-defining self-delusion, a liars lie to himself, a child of the Waste to the end. We are pieces, self-absorbed extensions of the godhead.

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Deception Within, Deception Without - Lies and deception are a sacrament unto themselves in the view of the yugoloths. They operate as peddlers of falsehoods, half-truths, and truths wrapped in lies. The only problem is, they do their best to keep their clients guessing as to when they're actually lying, versus when they're passing along the completely unvarnished truth. By their own word, they're only greedy mercenaries. That's all they are. Couldn't be any different. Of course not. Buy their loyalty and trust them. That's what the other fiends do... and the claws and hooks sink deeper into another puppet.

They're the Architects of the Blood War - they started it, and they seek to manipulate it into a perpetual, neverending war. They view it as a single giant experiment into the nature of Evil, and one that they will eventually end on their own terms when they are ready for it. Till that point, they'll keep the other fiends dancing to their tune as best they can, all while they hurl the lesser yugoloth castes into the conflict like worthless, unending resources (and technically it is on some level, because the moment you kill a yugoloth, a new mezzoloth is formed from the raw stuff of their native planes, ready to continue the slaughter).

Children of the Waste - they're the oldest of the common fiends, beings that existed before the rise of deities and mortal life. They don't spawn from mortal souls/petitioners, rather they emerge from the raw essence of the Gray Waste, Gehenna, and less frequently Carceri. This plays again into their feelings of self-importance versus the Tanar'ri and Baatezu who largely arise from mortal souls.

I should probably clarify. All of my points in my first post weren't interpretations or stuff from a home campaign, it was all a summary of the primary details on 'loth society from various sourcebooks.

Principally 2e "Hellbound: The Blood War", "Faces of Evil: The Fiends", "Planes of Conflict", and bits from the 3e Manual of the Planes and Fiendish Codex I.

When I called them the Architects of the Blood War, it wasn't a personal spin on them. They actively seek to keep it balanced, and their higher castes view it as their own little sandbox to control and manipulate, perhaps in emulation of their original creators, or perhaps as part of a grander, overarching plan. The scope of their control and how much of their role as puppetmasters is actual is up for question, but they do have a central role in the balance of the Tanar'ri and Baatezu versus one another. They're hardly a lesser third wheel, though their 3e description with regards to the Blood War has been disturbingly thin outside of the MotP discussion of the Crawling City.

I should point out that Gygax's later material from his Gord the Rogue books diverges incredibly from virtually every direction that the yugoloths took in late 1e and from that point on. Even if we wanted to for some reason, Gygax's conception of them can't be used either because of copyright issues involved. The General of Gehenna, Apomps, the entire idea of the Baernaloths... never existed in the slim amount of material Gygax created on the 'loths. His contribution to the body of 'lore on the NE fiends is pretty shallow compared to all of the subsequent sources.

Gygax's intentions were never really there in published material outside of his novels, which again are both out of bounds and radically at odds with the next 20+ years of development on the 'loths. And if we look at amount of material on the fiends, in 1e is almost about even in terms of page count devoted to each, unless we take into account some of the various Dragon magazine articles (Greenwood's very early stuff on what would become Baator for instance). 2e it was in favor of the 'loths, and in 3e it's back to favoring the Tanar'ri and Baatezu (which is frankly a result of the 'loths not being in the first MM and thus not "core" and thus not utilized as much due to early design conventions. Which is unfortunate because according to Monte Cook the 'loths were originally intended to be in the 3e MM).

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1. Gaunt/Undead (Marraeno, Ultro)
2. Disease Ridden (Altro)
3. War/Wolf/Multi-armed (Dergo, Nyca, Yagno, Arcana)
4. Insectoid/Locust (Mezzo, Dergo, Ultro, Skero)

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I would disagree on the generalizations here.

Ultroloth's are neither gaunt nor undead. Tall and not as massively built as Pit Fiends or Balors, but not gaunt on average.

Of the Altroloths, only a handful of them have any association with disease. Cholerix, Bubonix, Typhus, and Anthraxus are at least named in association with a disease, but of them, only Anthraxus and Bubonix actually display a diseased form, and for Anthraxus that appears to be the curse/blessing of his former position as Oinoloth. Taba, Charon, and Xenghara have absolutely no association with disease either in form, name, or methods.

Plus the Altraloths don't all have a lock on the disease-based name. The current Oinoloth, Mydianchlarus, is a corruption of Chlmydia, and he's not one of the altraloths.

It's only the Baernaloths on the other hand that have been described as in general having a diseased, wasted appearance. But it might be difficult to absolutely generalize here since we only know of two individual Baern, Daru Ib Shamiq from "Hellbound", and Harishek ap Thulkesh (Dragon 353). It may not matter if we're only going by published material, but for the latter Baern, since I created him I'd say that the Blind Clockmaker would follow a diseased motif of sorts, but not something in line with a 4 horseman motif.

That said, while disease -both physical plague as a blind and uncaring bringing of death and pain, and spiritual wasting and decay through apathy, resignation, and self-destruction- are hallmarks of the yugoloths, any sort of association of the yugoloths with the 4 horsemen of Christian mythology is somewhat misplaced, and forgive me, but not something that fits into the NE planes of D&D where that sort of mythological basis doesn't really come into play in such an overt manner.

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"So if we want to know what the General of Gehenna looks like, its probably a wolfish headed humanoid with multiple arms), while Apomps is probably a huge bloated locust headed beastie. Poxpanus might resemble a rat/fly crossbreed."

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We do know what he looks like. See the illustration in "Hellbound: The Blood War" shortly before the chapter "Timeline of the War". He's the first Ultroloth, and there's not any reason to necessarily make him diverge from the general form that all others following in his footsteps obtained.

Apomps we have a rough idea of what he looks like as well, based on details gleaned from Faces of Evil" and "On Hallowed Ground" among others. A hideously bloated Baernaloth (though some have suggested a trio of fused Baernaloths). The gehreleths/demodands seem to have been made in his image, so take your descriptive cues from their three archetypal forms of Farastu/Kelubar/Shator.

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Remember also that the Four Horsemen are themselves but heralds for the return (in this case) of Tharizdun.

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It's also worth noting that Tharizdun as developed in D&D post Gygax resembles almost nothing compared to what gygax's post D&D gord novels contained. You won't see any association of the 'loths with Tharizdun outside of those novels, and not in anything currently held as canonical for the topic.

Though for what it's worth, I like big T as well, and had the joy of writing up his prison (the Demiplane of Imprisonment) in Dragon 353.

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Also of note is that Gygax referred to the Daemon equivalent of Demon Lords/Dukes of Hell as 'Daemon Masters'. Again, another school reference.

The word Oinoloth (a title initially applied to all of the Diseased Eight) could mean Over Daemon. So the hieracrchy could be something like:

Overdaemon (Overmaster/Headmaster) = Oinoloth (Diseased Eight)
Daemon Master = Altroloth (33 Daemon Masters of Hades as noted by Gygax)
Undermaster (Prefects*) = Ultroloth

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Again all of this is based on his Gord material which doesn't apply to the 'loths as they've been developed in D&D, and the ideas themselves are out of place with how they've developed.

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3) - Mysogynistic

While the Gray Waste has Witches/Hags/Covens, there are no overtly female Daemons (other than that Altroloth whose name temporarily escapes me), possibly because of the 'symbiotic' relationship between the Night Hags and the Daemons.

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There are female 'loths actually. Larsdana Ap Neut, the designer of the Tower Arcane in Gehenna, and its first "Keeper" was female. Taba the altraloth was female as well.

I fail to see any any misogyny among the 'loths. And if we examine the source of lore on yugoloth society, gender is superfluous for the 'loths because by default their various castes have no gender, or both, except for those greater yugoloths who have the means to shapeshift and select a single one. Where is misogyny in a race where gender is meaningless unless you're adopting one or the other to aid in dealing with races for whom the distinction matters?

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...A few lesser points/suggestions:

A) The Daemons rule The Gray Waste, Carceri and Gehenna, so a book on Daemons is also a book on Barghests, Demodands and Night Hags.

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Here I'll find a point to agree with you on.

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B) For goodness sake fix the Ultroloth (if thats not an oxymoron). As someone else noted above, individually the daemons should be stronger than their peers amongst the demons and devils.

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Dungeon magazine had a nice fix in presenting an advanced Ultroloth that was on par with its demonic or devilish peers, and with the revised arcanaloth that was in dungeon 144.

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Necroloths 19 HD Slayers of Infestix (see the Fleshless Reaper Dreamblade mini)
Putroloths 17 HD Mishapen Plague Bearers of Poxpanus, scorned by other daemons. Huge size.
Dracoloth 15 HD Fire-helmed Armour-encased Warriors of the General of Gehenna
Murmuloth 14 HD Daemonic Corruptors/Whisperers (two mouths, no eyes)
Astroloth 12 HD Daemonic Seers (lots of eyes under their robes, eyes on palms of their hands)

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Krust. These guys don't exist in D&D. For better or for worse, Gygax's material from the Gord novels has no influence on the late 1e, 2e, and now 3e 'loths.