Berbalang (GAP)

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: Sad little solitaire,
: sad little hermit.
: Wandering so far and near,
: has no self-worth to it.
:: — From the poem, Berbalang, by Tycho Sint, known as one of the worst poets in all Sigil
Ah, the Astral sure isn't the home of anything normal, is it? Case in point: the odd little berbalang, and the equally odd community that it has on the Astral.
The berbalang's a native of the Prime, but one that spends most of its time astrally projecting a form on the Astral. The creatures never meet each other in their real bodies, but in the Silver Void they gather into little enclaves to talk, debate, learn, and even mate. It turns out these solitary creatures are philosophers at heart and spend much of their time in lone meditation, contemplating existence, reality, perception, and a virtually limitless number of other topics. Then, they gather on the Astral to exchange their theories.
A few folks have tried to infiltrate the enclaves to learn the dark of berbalang theories. What they tumbled to was that despite their fiendish appearance and monstrous reputation as chaotic evil carnivores (this is the common chant among many primes), their philosophies are remarkably gentle and pleasant. Their outlook on life and the multiverse is usually extraordinarily positive, uplifting, and wondrous. The strange thing is, they don't feel they have any rightful place in it. They resign themselves to be loathsome, murderous monsters undeserving of love or kindness from others.
These gatherings of astral berbalangs occur within structures created by the berbalangs for this purpose. The outside of a berbalang meeting hall is always made of a silvery, semireflective metal so that it is hard to see in astral space. They are a peery folk, so these structures are well-protected and well-guarded, with plenty of exits from which to flee.
See, as a general rule, berbalangs are cowardly bashers who avoid direct confrontation with any other creature. Sometimes, however, they'll follow a cutter around, apparently only to observe. For this reason, some folks call them stalkers. Stalkers never attack on the Astral Plane and flee immediately upon being threatened. Though these carnivores feed every now and again, such activities are always to their physical bodies on the Prime — so it's no concern for a cutter on the Astral.
No one knows how, but berbalangs mate on the Astral in such a way that they produce physical offspring on the Prime. It's been suggested that this is an indicator that berbalangs aren't normal physical creatures at all.
BERBALANG: AC 6; MV 6, Fl 24 (B); HD 4+1; THAC0 17; #AT 3; Dmg 1d4/1d4/1d6 (claw/claw/bite); SZ M (4'-7"tall); ML average (10); Int very (11-12); AL CE; XP 65.
Notes: The berbalang can astrally project (as astral spell) at will and can create an astral-like physical projection on the Prime that can act and fight as the actual berbalang.