Al-Jahar

Al-jahar, nicknamed dazzles, are usually met as strikingly beautiful humanoids, most often a human or elven woman. That angelic face is a mask. Their real shape, from which the name comes, is a sexless winged figure made of glittering white sparks and faint ripples of desert heat.

A dazzle can alter self at will, wearing the guise of either sex of nearly any man-sized biped, and may call on non-detection or delude whenever it likes. True-seeing wise women always see through the disguise, while genies and half-genies have a 50% chance to spot one; dazzles avoid both and never imitate them.

It avoids fighting personally but loves to start fights, since anger, greed and lust are its food. Once per round it may use one of six powers, each up to three times daily at 10th level: confusion, friends, ventriloquism, charm person, taunt or hypnotism. Typical ploys: friends to draw a gaze, then hypnotism to provoke a brawl; a friendly shape and a taunt; or thrown voices that make bystanders seem to trade insults.

Exposed, it usually takes its true form and flies off. Pressed, it claws and each round may use light or shocking grasp (three times daily each) or, in true form only, blindness, rainbow pattern or domination (once daily each), again at 10th level. Light-producing and emotion-affecting magic cannot touch it, except an opinicus's sun-sparkle gaze.

Its prey merely feels tired and drained after hours in its company, and a careful dazzle can prey on one circle of victims for years. Big cities suit it best; small towns notice trouble sooner and run it off. It keeps a few stock identities, each with its own personality and friends, and claims turf such as a rowdy dockside tavern, attacking rival dazzles that intrude.

Starved of strong emotion, it weakens until only its disguises work. Such hungry dazzles lurk in ruined cities, pose as lost travelers, and ride home with their rescuers while feeding on their suspicion. Some even join adventuring parties for a while, helping a little and feeding a lot.

Legend ties them to haunted wastes and fallen kingdoms, summoned from dark realms by forgotten rites. They do not seem to breed, so their numbers may be fixed.

Their odd diet barely touches the natural world, though their hunting disrupts whole communities. Dazzle blood is an ingredient in brewing a potion of delusion and in crafting other magic that works on the mind.