Editing Barghest (section)

==Who are they?==
Barghests are a fiendish race native to [[Gehenna]], resembling large [[goblin]]s with the ability to shapeshift into fiendish-looking dogs or wolves. Though numerous and intelligent, they are not major players on the planes, if only because they tend to spend most of their time squabbling amongst themselves. Like the [[Nabassu]] breed of [[demon]], barghests have a life cycle in which their juveniles are forcibly transported to the mortal world, where they must seek out and consume the flesh and souls of humanoids in order to slowly build up their power and attain full maturity; if they survive that long, they return to the [[Lower Planes]] and enter proper adult society.

Barghests have a number of innate [[Enchanter]] spells, require magical weapons to hit, and are immune to fire - but if you can somehow force their canine for into a sufficiently large source of fire, they are forcibly transported back to [[Gehenna]].

Traditionally, barghests are said to rule over [[goblin]] tribes, due to their powerful magical abilities, but in 5e, it's stated that barghests actually prefer to prey on goblins. There is a sort of logic to this change; barghests are basically extraplanar [[goblin]] [[werewolf|werewolves]], and werewolves in D&D have long been characterized as being compelled to feed on human flesh above all other possible sources, so it's basically doubling down on the idea of barghests being goblin werewolves. One origin story justifies this as Barghests being the result of a curse from the General of Gehenna, created after [[Maglubiyet]] broke a deal with the General. Barghests are occasionally born to normal goblin parents, but can transform into wolf-like fiends and are charged with killing 17 important goblinoids (17 supposedly being the number of oaths Maglubiyet broke) before they can return to Gehenna.

===And in 4e?===
The overt planar influences are removed from the [[World Axis]] barghest, who are instead soul-sucking [[goblinoid]] [[werewolf|werewolves]] that are born seemingly at random to goblinoid mothers - the goblins of the World Axis view this as a blessing from [[Bane]], and they are particularly common on [[Chernoggar]]. One of the biggest changes this causes is that barghests explicitly can resemble any of the core goblinoid breeds, with the two statted versions consisting of the Savager (whose goblinoid form is that of a [[bugbear]]) and the Battle Lord ([[hobgoblin]]).