Lemure 5e: Stats, Swarms and Killing Them for Good

The lemure is a CR 0 devil (10 XP), the lowest creature in the Nine Hells: AC 7, 13 hit points, a 15-foot speed and a fist that hits for 2. One lemure is barely a threat. Twenty of them are a slow, mindless tide that is immune to fire, can't be charmed or frightened, and in the Nine Hells comes back to life in 1d10 days unless the party knows the trick: Bless or holy water. The 2024 lemure is frailer (AC 9, 9 HP) but a little faster, and drops the "good-aligned" requirement from that trick.

Table of Contents

• •Lemure Stat Block (2014)
• •The 2024 Lemure
• •How Lemures Fight
• •How Many Lemures for a Party?
• •How Players Beat Lemures
• •Lemure Encounter Ideas
• •Frequently Asked Questions

Lemure Stat Block (2014)

Everything about this stat block says "fodder": Intelligence 1, Dexterity 5, no saving throw proficiencies, and a +3 fist for 1d4. What keeps it relevant is its defenses. It is immune to fire and poison, resists cold, and ignores the charmed, frightened and poisoned conditions. Its darkvision sees through magical darkness (Devil's Sight), so a Darkness spell that blinds the party doesn't blind the lemures.

Hellish Rejuvenation only works if it dies in the Nine Hells. There it returns with full hit points in 1d10 days, unless a good-aligned creature with a Bless spell on it kills it, or its remains are sprinkled with holy water.

The 2024 Lemure

The 2024 lemure is easier to kill and easier to keep dead. The alignment clause is gone, so any party member under Bless counts. Its new attack deals poison damage, which matters if the lemures are fighting other devils or demons: both are immune to poison.

How Lemures Fight

They walk forward. Intelligence 1 means no tactics. Lemures shuffle toward the nearest living thing and hit it. Played straight, the whole challenge is the numbers and the terrain, and that is fine.

The damage is tiny but it adds up when they surround someone. Against AC 16, a 2014 lemure hits on a 13 or better (40%) for 2.5 average, about 1 damage per lemure per round. Eight lemures packed around one Medium character deal about 8 a round. The 2024 lemure (+2, hits on 14+) manages about 0.9 each.

Speed is the real limit. At 15 feet (2014), a lemure takes two turns to close 30 feet. A party that keeps moving is never caught. Use lemures where the party can't move: a narrow bridge, a pit, a room they have to hold while someone finishes a ritual.

Use them as a screen. Lemures are the ideal shield wall for a smarter devil. An imp or a bearded devil behind twenty lemures forces the party to spend area spells on chaff. In magical darkness, the lemures still see, and the party doesn't.

How Many Lemures for a Party?

A lemure is 10 XP, so the two encounter systems disagree badly about swarms. For four characters:

The 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide guidelines (used by our encounter calculator) multiply the XP of 15 or more creatures by 4, so 20 lemures (200 XP) count as 800, twice the Deadly line (400) for four level 1 characters. The 2024 budget adds raw XP and calls the same fight Low. The truth sits between: twenty lemures can't kill a mobile level 1 party, but they can kill one that is cornered.

How Players Beat Lemures

• •Don't cast fire. Burning Hands and Fireball do nothing to them. The same goes for every devil, which makes it a habit worth breaking early.
• •Use thunder and radiant area damage. Thunderwave deals 2d8. That kills a 9 HP 2024 lemure on a failed save 56% of the time but a 13 HP 2014 lemure only 16% of the time. Shatter (3d8) kills a 2014 lemure on a failed save about 59% of the time, and Spirit Guardians chews through a crowd every turn.
• •Don't bother with charm or fear. They are immune to both conditions.
• •Keep moving. Nothing in the party is slower than a lemure.
• •In the Nine Hells, cast Bless before the killing blow. Bless affects up to three creatures. In 2014 they must also be good-aligned for the kill to stick. Otherwise, sprinkle the remains with holy water afterward.

Lemure Encounter Ideas

The mud stair. In the Nine Hells, the party must climb a stair carved into a slope of lemures that keep re-forming. Killing them is easy. Making the path stay clear means blessing the people doing the killing, which turns the cleric's spell slots into a resource the whole party is watching.

The overflowing circle. A cult's summoning went wrong and a chapel is filling with lemures, two or three more every round. The party has to reach the circle at the far end and break it while the floor fills with slow, grasping devils.

Ballast. A chain devil uses lemures as living sandbags in a siege trench. The real fight is the chain devil, but every lemure the party ignores is another body grabbing at their ankles.

Frequently Asked Questions

What CR is a lemure in 5e?

A lemure is CR 0 and worth 10 XP in both the 2014 and 2024 rules.

How do you permanently kill a lemure?

Only lemures that die in the Nine Hells come back, in 1d10 days. To stop it, the killer must be under a Bless spell (and good-aligned, in 2014), or the remains must be sprinkled with holy water.

Is a lemure a devil or a demon?

A devil. It is a Medium Fiend (Devil), lawful evil, and understands Infernal. Like other devils it is immune to fire. Its closest demon counterpart is the dretch, which resists fire instead of ignoring it.

Are lemures immune to fire?

Yes, in both editions. They are immune to fire and poison damage and resist cold.

Stat blocks: System Reference Document 5.1 (2014) and 5.2.1 (2024), Wizards of the Coast, CC-BY-4.0. Tactics, encounter math and ideas are Loreify's own.