Exactly how smart are Demon Lords? Demogorgon in particular

Question

I’m trying to nail down exactly how cunning and intelligent demon lords are - Demogorgon in particular. It mostly relates to the Chaotic Evil alignment and the sort of hierarchy of Demons.

I understand that some demon lords - Zuggtmoy and Orcus, for example - seem to be portrayed as at least significantly intelligent, with Orcus even capable of spell casting and utilizing his wand. Demogorgon, however, seems to have little intelligence other than simply madness and desiring suffering.

In Out of the Abyss, Demogorgon itself arrives on the mortal plane to terrorize the underdark. In said campaign, would Demogorgon be capable of devising any sort of strategy? Would it be able to command demons who are loyal, or at the very least subjugated? Would it be able to construct intricate battle plans? Or would Demogorgon simply go around smashing everything and eliminating any potential threats? I’d appreciate a concrete answer on exactly how intelligent Demogorgon - and to an extent, the other demon lords - are.

Answer 1

Demogorgon “is capable of devising and enacting the most clever strategies” and the mere sight of him compels demons to obey his command.

Demogorgon has 20 intelligence. 20 is as high as an ability score can get for player characters without very powerful magical items. So think of the smartest wizards in all the land. Demogorgon is about that smart.

Demogorgon is described in Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes:

The result is an entity that is capable of devising and enacting the most clever strategies, paranoid at all times about threats to his rule (which certainly exist in the chaos of the Abyss), and possessed of immense physical power.

So yes, Demogorgon is very strategic. But can he command demons?

Demons comprise the majority of Demogorgon’s cultists, since he commands unmatched power in the Abyss. The mere sight of him anywhere in that realm can transfix lesser demons and instantly compel them to do his bidding.

The mere sight of Demogorgon commands obedience from lesser demons throughout the Abyss.

As for the rest of the demon lords, the dumbest of the bunch is Yeenoghu at a respectable 16 INT¹, with the most intelligent being Fraz-Urb’luu at 26 INT.

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^{1 The printed edition of Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes lists Yeenoghu’s INT as 15, but lists the INT modifier as +3.}

Answer 2

All demon lords are highly intelligent.

The demon lords statted in Mordenkainens Tome of Foes are all (at least) highly intelligent with incredibly high Wisdom and/or Charisma stats as well:

Baphomet: Int 18, Wis 24, Cha 16

Demogorgon: Int 20, Wis 17, Cha 25

Fraz-Urb’luu: Int 26, Wis 24, Cha 26

Graz’zt: Int 23, Wis 21, Cha 26

Jubilex: Int 20, Wis 20, Cha 16

Orcus: Int 20, Wis 20, Cha 25

Yeenoghu: Int 15 or 16, Wis 24, Cha 15

Zuggtmoy: Int 20, Wis 19, Cha 24

Answer 3

Demogorgon is of superhuman genius and supreme power.

Demogorgon is explored in D&D 3rd edition sources. The general sense is that one of his two heads is more intelligent than the other, while the other is more feral, with this dual mindset resulting in something resembling insanity. However, he is still the most powerful demon prince, although the demons do not recognize a strict hierarchy beyond who is most powerful at any given moment.

According to the adventure "Prince of Demons", Dungeon Magazine #150 (2007) p.62, Demogorgon is indeed capable of enacting complex long-term plans on a massive scale:

Countless times before, Demogorgon's plans have failed as his personalities, each considering themselves the true architect, unknowingly sabotage the other's work. Without this hidden disadvantage, there's no telling what Demogorgon could have accomplished.

[...] All he needed was a savage tide large enough to drive millions mad. His solution: seed dozens of Material Plane cities with shadow pearls and then trigger them simultaneously through a master pearl kept safe on the shores of the Brine Flats—a primeval temple to the Prince of the Darkened Depths known as Wat Dagon.

He is intelligent enough to speak eloquently, as on p.91:

"Fools! At last you reveal yourselves to my wrath. The audacity of your ridiculous plan is almost enough to convince me to simply destroy you. But here I find you at this, the heart of my savage tide. Know that even as my minions crush the last of your pathetic invasion, your own deaths will be neither quick nor painless. They will be works of wonder, tortures to inspire the ages. You will, at my touch, become legends!"

On p.92, he is depicted as having an Intelligence score of 30 and Charisma of 32, and while these statistics vary between third edition sourcebooks, he is always depicted as having superhumanly high Intelligence and Charisma. He is also described as having an ability called Aura of Demonic Command, which allows him to prevent any demon within 120 feet of him from taking any action he does not permit.

On p.70, the loyalty of Demogorgon's massive number of troops is attested:

The demons fight to the death, so devoted to (and frightened of) Demogorgon that they avoid the standard trick of teleporting away when brought to low hit points. The price of failure is much worse than death on the battlefield to Demogorgon's army.

Demogorgon is also described in Book of Vile Darkness (2001) p.125, and Bastion of Broken Souls (2002), which generally concur with this. They describe how Demogorgon has retained his position as the most powerful demon prince despite facing other genius-level demon lords as his opponents, and he commands huge armies of demons, including countless unique demons and species of demons of his own creation.

Answer 4

There's some uncertainty about whether the current question admits to looking at sources prior to the current edition. In any case, this answer is meant as an adjunct to others -- looking at the very earliest appearances, which I think is at least of some historical interest.

Demons in general, and Demogorgon in particular, first appeared in the (original) Dungeons & Dragons Supplement III, Eldritch Wizardry, by Gary Gygax & Brian Blume (with thanks to others), in 1976.

Of demons in general it's written (p. 29):

Demons are chaotic and evil; the smarter and stronger rule those of their kind who are weaker and less intelligent.

So it's inherent in being at the top of the demon hierarchy that a demon lord must be smarter than most others. Of Demogorgon in particular it's stated (p. 37):

Demogorgon is highly intelligent; he is susceptible only to magical weapons of +2 or greater enchantment; he is 95% magic resistant.

Note that this product is of an era before explicit numerical player-like ability scores were given to monsters, demons, or deities. For the first clue to that, we can look at Demogorgon's next appearance, in the Advanced D&D Monster Manual one year later, in 1977. The entry for Demogorgon there includes this line:

INTELLIGENCE: Supra-genius

Looking at the explanatory notes from the start of the book (p. 6), there's a table that indicates the numerical Intelligence score for a Supra-Genius creature is in the range of 19-20 points.

Note that the 1977 text is still consistent with the most recent publication in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes in 2018, which also gave Demogorgon an Intelligence score of 20.