Air Sentinel

Air sentinels look much like air djinn: bald, powerful humans from the waist up, dominant males sporting a moustache and goatee, all draped in necklaces, earrings and arm bands. Below the waist they taper into a small whirling tornado. They are jolly and greet strangers warmly.

Peaceful by nature, a sentinel flees fights unless something vital is at stake. Cornered, it flings two small lightning-like sparks from its hands each round, at one target or two, for 1-6 apiece; metal armor does not count toward the target's AC.

In real need it hugs a foe, one attack roll for both arms, and discharges a jolt of 3-18. A victim hurt this way rolls system shock or passes out for 1-8 rounds. Sentinels consider killing an unconscious foe, even an evil one, barbaric and never do it.

Three times daily it can skip its attack to wrap itself in a one-round air shield that gives all missiles fired at it -5 to hit.

They patrol the rougher layer of a twin paradise in the upper planes, a land of thunder squalls and harsh terrain where unprepared mortals quickly get into trouble. Sentinels scoop up imperiled visitors and fly them to the layer's many big, sheltered caves. Sages guess a power of that plane once struck a bargain with a band of djinn to stand guard there, a pact that has held for ages.

They breed prodigiously and prize family and honor like their djinn kin. Having no natural enemies, they seem ageless once grown, yet after a while, rarely more than 200 years, each one leaves and never returns. Where they go, perhaps into some other state of being, is unknown.