Bzastra

A bzastra is three to six scaly rings, each resembling a loop of coral, stacked atop one another and laced through by a strand of blue water plant. Alone, each ring is a dull grazer of the kelp beds, and the plant, called blue waterwhip, is just another seaweed. Together they form one thinking being that can speak telepathically with any creature. Separate them and both parts lapse back into mindlessness.

The waterwhip quietly radiates a faint energy that no sense had ever detected. Long ago a few ring beasts drifted into it, the energy reacted with their bodies, and the first bzastra was born of pure accident.

Bzastra steer the invisible energy currents of the Elemental Plane of Water, giving them a delicate but potent telekinesis. Each round one may lash a target for 2d6 points of damage; pin one creature as with hold person or hold monster (save vs. paralyzation to stay free); or raise a force barrier worth 6 points of Armor Class, to AC 0, though it can do nothing else while the barrier holds.

Separately from those options it can deftly handle a 200-pound object, and once per round at will it can use blink, ESP, suggestion, plant growth, animal growth, or water breathing (on others only).

Dispel magic splits a bzastra harmlessly into ring beasts and a length of waterwhip, proof that the bond is magical. No other way to separate them without killing them is known.

Bzastra rarely start fights, but they like to filch curious objects from travelers to study, and now and then one figures out a stolen magic item and starts using it.

Cool and logical, most bzastra care for little besides survival, though rarely one is swayed by a strong influence toward good or evil, or even law or chaos. Still, they have built a sophisticated society of free-thinking individuals. Scholars believe the first bzastra used its new powers to join more rings and vines, and the creatures' talk of a 'time mover' may honor that founder.

Each weaves its own hollow globe of water plants, usually waterwhip. These lairs offer privacy, not protection, and drift on the currents like small boats; neighbors sometimes tether theirs together.

Bzastra treasure solitude and may meditate for weeks or months on unknowable subjects. One faction of chaos-worshiping philosophers claims they ponder the beauty of chance, a theory best taken with skepticism. When active, they build, feed, and explore, scratching their findings onto shells. Anyone who learns to read that script gains many secrets of the plane.

Bzastra eat plankton, kelp, and other tiny life. What difference three rings versus six makes is a mystery.

Rumor says they gather every free ring beast they find and hide them away like children, now and then awakening one with a strand of waterwhip. Since nobody has ever seen a wild ring beast, it is likely true. Waterwhip itself grows everywhere on the plane and affects nothing else.