Phaechrar

Phaechrar are a type of aberration that feed on magic.

## Description

Formed of a trio of sinuous tentacles covered in a thick ink-like residue, phaechrars are able to hover a few feet from the ground, and thus are able to bypass many natural obstacles and terrains otherwise challenging or difficult for other creatures. Similar to that of a lamprey or other jawless eel, they possess a circular mouth lined with needle-like teeth, around which half-dozen tendrils claw at their target, binding it in place. Highly flexible, phaechrar also seem to have the ability to burrow into the flesh of their victims, their cord-like form weaving between bone and muscle to puppet the corpse temporarily.

The residue that coats phaechrar seems to possess the ability to cause unconsciousness on exposure, as well as causing the unconscious creature to levitate slightly while poisoned in this way. Rousing from said unconsciousness seems to cause this effect to falter, while residue no longer bound to a phaechrar seems to lose it potency almost immediately.

## History

A small number of phaechrar were encountered at Blarakkerihaugr, feeding off motes of magical energy lingering within the catacombs. When disturbed, they attacked the party, attempting to feast upon their arcane reserves, as well as the magic items in their possession.

Others were also encountered at the Totem of the Tellurian many months later, alongside a swarming mass of Phaeptrea.

Keen to research the aberrations further, Anivia, Arnica and Rinn managed to trap one such creature within a box of their own devising, utilising a combination of sturdy mundane materials, arcane encasings and a chain link of admantine-nilhertrium alloy to placate the phaechrar.

## Research

### Completed by Anivia Reman & Arnica

Thick like tar, the viscid residue collected from the aberrations slain at the Totem of the Tellurian appears not to have rotted or degraded in any particular manner despite the passage of months since its collection. While other remains would have long since festered, taken to by mould or other putrefaction, the mixture is as it was when first collected, displaying odd characteristics with relation to shear stress and viscosity. Numerous historical tomes from the days of the Ten Guilds, and those more recent places of learning speak plainly of the relationship between a liquid's viscosity and application of outside factors - the remains of the phaechrar defy this, and indeed the more forcefully the residue is struck, the greater its seemed density. By examination of their habits and abilities in combat, it seems likely that this quirk of fluid mechanics facilitates many of their properties. Seemingly devoid of internal bone structure, or any solid structure save their mouthpiece, it seems likely that through application of an external force, presumably arcane in nature, given the creature's affiliation with such things, maintains their form, giving them the strength to crush and pierce through flesh and armour alike, despite being liquid in nature. Further still, this would also explain their flexibility, able to weave through miniscule spaces by simply reducing their viscosity, and flowing into the potential spaces between fascia, muscle and bone, facilitating the means by which they can penetrate and puppet the flesh of their victims.

This would also serve to explain the creatures' unusual dietary requirements, which appears to be raw magic, often siphoned from lingering magical auras, or the magical potential within creatures, artifacts and enchantments. If their definitive function relied on the magic contained within them, or collected by them to create a sort-of arcane bubble in which to maintain their structure, then this would surely require continued replenishment as it was expended, explaining their ravenous appetite, although the exact scale of this hunger with respect to maintaining functionality is unknown. By definition, it seems the creatures can be killed, loosing all functionality, but it is uncertain what would occur to a phaechrar deprived of latent arcane sources, but given their fluidity, it may be they falter in function and become little more than a slick puddle incapable of moving, or instead a ooze-like creature of limited form. Alternatively, and more horrifyingly, it could be that the use of a creature's form is a defence mechanism against such an eventuality, and perhaps given time, a sufficiently robust framework upon which to build or simply a sufficiently potent burst of magical power, phaechrar might be able to utilise an incapacitated humanoid to create a new form, one that reflects their humanoid foundations, though undoubtedly still possessing the command over the fluid somewhere between ink and tar in appearance that gives them form.

Through examination of historical tomes as part of wider research, there is but a few passing mentions of phaechrar, for encounters with the creatures are seemingly exceptionally rare. Those that do encounter the creatures refer to them as little more than "aberrant leeches", seemingly having latched themselves to a creature at some point during their transportation between far-flung worlds by means of the School of Conjuration. While travelling between the Material and the Echoes seems immune to this risk, it seems that any shifting between the Elemental Sphere and the Wandering Worlds invariably involves passage through the Between and the Beyond, the latter of which is the suspected source of origin of the phaechrar. The Far Realms are named for good reason, for they exist far beyond even the Planes in positions Remote, but the tumult of the Wandering Worlds is thought to have caused pockets to become scattered throughout the Beyond. Individuals travelling alone are unlikely to attract such attention, but reports seem to liken it to traversing the ocean - a rowboat is unlikely to disturb the waters sufficiently so to produce a trailing wake, but a huge galley stirs up the waves, and that swimming beneath takes notice.

### Completed by Anivia Reman & Arnica (in possession of an entrapped Phaechrar)

While the phaechrar does indeed having a mouthpiece, its consumption of magic does not seem to rely upon it. By binding one side of the phaechrar in place and providing a viable food source to the other side of its form, the consumption occurs all the same. Bafflingly, even if this configuration is the case, the mouthpiece, the outer ring that of needle-like teeth and the central mass a fractal collection of spirals that impossibly clip through each other when in motion, seems to stir back and forth as if engaging directly in the masticatory process, despite facing directly away from the glyph, rune or other source of latent or active magic. This equally so proves to be true when the creature is drawn into a finer form by means of gradually stretching its highly malleable form. Thinking that perhaps the mouthpiece instead feeds by proximity rather than actual mechanical process, the phaechrar, tail-end still bound, is drawn into something more akin to the configuration of a rope, half-an-inch in diameter, but near a dozen feet long without need for arcane assistance. Even then, the mouthpiece, far from its seemed source of food, still suckles as the aura, though seemingly to - when examined under the effects of *Detect Magic* to be siphoning it directly into its form by the most direct and proximal route, in this case its tail. There does appear to be a limit at the rate of consumption, placing multiple magic sources such as *Continual Flames* or similar magic does not seem to cause the phaechrar to gorge itself. Placing it equally between two such sources results in it approaching one to a minimum distance of five feet prompts it to move towards one, consume it in its entirety that seems to roughly correlate to one spell slot per hour, before moving onto the other. In eating in this way, there is no apparent change in the Phaechrar, not physically or when examined through the lens of the arcane, the magic simply seems to cease to be. There is no stomach, guts or other storage place for digestion, the aura being consumed simply drifts towards the phaechrar before vanishing entirely, yielding no effect upon the aberration, nor seeming to sate their hunger.

The form of phaechrar is, as thus far discovered, highly mutable, and yet seems completely unaffected by spells that would alter its form magically. While this state of being is not unheard of, with many constructs displaying it by nature of their inorganic composition, the mechanics by which phaechrar find immunity seem inherently different - almost as if the transmutative energies of spells such as *Enlarge/Reduce* and *Polymorph* are absorbed as they suffuse through its form to try and enact the change. When exposed to other magics however, this process may act to soften the effects, but does little to protect against definitive damage, in that all elemental evocations and conjurations seem to damage it equally, as do magically enchanted weaponry, which also succeeds where nonmagical items would prove slow-going. A number of conditions seem capable of afflicting it, as they would do common folk, although lacking in eyes and ears, it is protected against threats to either. Likewise, but nature of their innate ability to hover, knocking it to its non-existent knees is unsurprisingly impossible, although casting *Dispel Magic* seems to be able - at least some of the time - to be able to suppress its ability to levitate, although this, when it works, may last only six seconds, or up to sixty and thus unlikely to be of viable measure as an offensive tool. Use of *Dispel Magic* seems to otherwise yield no further effects, unlike an animated object or similar sort, the phaechrar seems resolute as an entity itself and thus cannot seemingly be incapacitated or otherwise harmed in such a way.

Further arcane inspection yields further mixed results. *Detect Magic* proves to be curiosity, for instead of giving off any magical aura, the phaechrar instead does the inverse, acting almost as a pit for magic when under scrutiny. This is different in an unusual sense to that of absence of a magic aura, as any mundane object would show - or fail to - under the effects of the spell. As an analogue, in a blank white room, mundane objects might remain pale, whereas the magical would shine shades of red and purple, green and blue and so forth. The phaechrar would be black, an absence, a nothingness. Following this up with use of *Identify*, it seems that no sustained spell effects or magical equivalents linger amongst its form, save something akin to a miniature *Antimagic Field*, which, after much deliberation, is noted to be coming from the adamantine-nihlertrium link used to help subdue it. In what would quickly prove to be an unwise decision - given the need to deal with a stunned state of *Short-Term Madness* as a result - use of *Detect Thoughts* resulted in nothing of value, just an insatiable and singular focus to quench their hunger, and yet lacking in the competency to acknowledge that they would never achieve as such.

On closer examination, both on a macro and micro scale, phaechrar share a number of similarities to other aberrant creatures - and others more mundane besides, undeniably akin to that of leeches at least outwardly. However, by nature of their aberrant nature, they seem to in both scales defy comprehension, utterly alien and unfathomable, entities from Beyond where normal physics, biology and physiology are maintained. Looking over notes from other individuals in Amber Run, similarities are drawn to that of the Dream Eaters of Dal Quor, with the distinction that they instead seem to feast of imaginary potential rather than magical, although have a similar outward bodily appearance. By contrast, some of the creatures present at the Battle of Manifestation's Return in Whittengrove over a century ago share their inky-black tar-like appearance, while other reports from such a time also make mention of aberrant hound-like monsters that gulped at magical effects as freely as an actual dog might a water bowl. As previously established, it seems that the Phaeptrea are at least somewhat linked to them, though not by nature of maturation, but instead through development of new features, appearances, traits, like an accelerated evolution detached from the normal passage of time. By this nature, it could be speculated that surrounded by the right catalysts, they may take other forms too - given the similar naming scheme of the Phaerimm and overlap in habits, the mind naturally drifts to this. Regardless, this sustained lifeforce seems quite definitively to be reliant upon something upon which to eat - lest the creature deteriorate in a manner akin to the exhaustion experienced by 'normal' creatures, albeit it at an exponential rate, the first effects occurring after just over a week, sluggishness after another day, lack of attentiveness with the passage of another half day, followed by faltering of its composition, mobility and demise a few hours, minutes and seconds later, respectively. In death, their body seems to, by some unknown mechanism, lose its molecular structure likewise, turning into a thick gloop, and then shortly liable to turn to dust and then nothingness. While numerous outerworlder creatures return to their homeplane upon their demise, this does not seem to be the case with phaechrar, who simply instead cease to be, cast into the hungering void in which they live their life of unquenching arcane appetite.