Chososion

The chososion is seen only in the Ethereal and Inner Planes, drifting mostly through the elemental realms, and sightings are extremely rare. Those who have spotted one say it never fully arrives in the space everyone else occupies. It is not merely ethereal, the way a ghost is on a prime world; it is untouchable on every plane, and even magic barely reaches it.

Despite that, it looks solid enough: a broad black or deep blue body built from countless fleshy, winglike flaps, always in motion, as if their constant rippling is what holds it in the known reality. Some say that if the flaps ever stopped, the creature would simply vanish. Hidden among the fluttering folds is something like a mouth. Its name was given by an earth-dwelling race native to elemental Earth, the first to meet it, and means out of reach.

Why fight something that is barely there? Usually there is no good reason, but a chososion can become dangerous to travelers and natives of the planes it passes through, because when disturbed it tends to lash out. Sages still do not fully understand its attack. When angered, it extends two long, supple pseudopods from its mouth, each ending in a flat grasping pad. Unlike the rest of it, these are fully solid and bristling with countless minute hooks as keen as razors, dealing 1d8 damage each.

Worse is the magical poison the pads leave in the wound. A victim who fails a save vs. poison is paralyzed 1d6 rounds later and must then save vs. death magic. Success means only 3d6 rounds of paralysis. Failure means the poison discorporates him entirely, as if disintegrated. Some think the victim is carried into the chososion's own realm beyond the known planes; most believe he is simply gone, since few accept that unknown planes exist, and even if one did, why would the creature drag a foe to its own home, where it is presumably more vulnerable? Either way, the friend is never seen again.

Fighting back is miserable work, and running is usually smarter. The chososion has 95% magic resistance, so only a few chosen spells affect it. It ignores the hazards of the Inner Planes as if they did not exist and is wholly immune to nonmagical attacks of every kind, including poison, gas, heat, cold and acid. Only weapons of +4 or better can wound it, and keeping such a strong enchantment intact while hopping between planes is hard enough.

Its weak point is the pair of solid pseudopods, which can touch and be touched. Each has 2 Hit Dice and AC 4, with hit points separate from the body's, and the creature treats them as expendable tools rather than true limbs. A chososion regrows a lost pseudopod in 1d6 hours, and 25% of them already have 1d4 spares tucked inside, ready to deploy instantly, but none can use more than two at a time.

If the chososion really lives on an unknown plane, it may only be able to touch the known multiverse at its most basic layer, the Inner Planes, and might be fully solid back home, as an ethereal creature is on the Ethereal Plane. A sage named Pellwyn argued that its home plane permeates the multiverse only through the Inner Planes, much as the Ethereal borders both the Prime and the Inner Planes, and that this plane, which he called the Macrocosm, might bridge to another multiverse altogether. He now lives in the great planar city's asylum.

What is certain: it roams the Inner Planes in search of food, never gathers in groups, and has no visible society. It seems highly intelligent, yet no one has proved it can or will communicate. How it breeds is unknown and likely to stay that way. If Pellwyn was right, it may have a rich culture, young and all, on its hidden plane, but no one could ever confirm it.

The chososion affects its surroundings only by accident. It seems to feed on the raw nature of the Inner Planes rather than on their elements or inhabitants, and need never meet another creature. When bad luck puts someone in its path, it invariably goes on the defensive and typically strikes as soon as it notices the intruder, perhaps misreading the newcomer's intent. Pellwyn suggested it views beings of the known planes the way travelers view the hazards of the Inner Planes, like the heat of elemental Fire or the fumes of the paraplane of Smoke: things to avoid or overcome.