Disenchanter

Imagine a gangly camel with four thin legs and one hump set squarely in the middle of its back. A long, bendy neck carries a small head, and an elephant-style snout can stretch up to 5 feet from its face. The whole animal is a pale electric blue, faintly see-through, and it sometimes seems to shimmer. When it dies, the body shrivels into a small, gray, wrinkled lump.

Peaceful by nature but always ravenous, a disenchanter eats magic from items and spell effects, which makes it pushy around adventurers. A disenchanter senses magic within 120 feet, can judge how strong each source is, and heads for the best meal, so it would go after a long sword +4 before a shield +2. It is also smart enough to pick easy targets, like a shield on someone's arm over a wand packed in a bag, though its nimble snout can reach awkward spots like the bare hilt of a sheathed magic dagger.

Striking an item takes a normal attack roll against AC 10, modified by the item's magical bonus and the carrier's Dexterity adjustment. The DM should add cover: a partly hidden item might gain -2 to -4 to its AC, and a fully hidden one cannot be touched at all. Any item the snout touches loses its magic forever. The creature knows better than to feed on artifacts and similar magic of the highest order.

Spell effects are food too. A long-lasting, stationary effect is dispelled the moment the snout touches it; treat it as AC 10, and it cannot harm the beast. When a spell with a visible effect is cast at a disenchanter, such as magic missile, it may try to snap it out of the air against a base AC of 5. Area spells cannot be intercepted unless the creature itself is the direct target.

Only magical weapons can hit a disenchanter, and they keep their enchantment when they do, since only the snout drains magic.

The creatures are clever but rarely talk with humans and their kin. They have their own tongue, and only a few are thought to learn another, usually Common or elvish. Nobody knows their origin, though some scholars believe a sinister race of subterranean sorcerers created them long ago as weapons against their enemies, including the proud magical empires of ages past.

They roam a broad region of the lands around a great inland sea, and they seem drawn to one particular spot, the site of a vanished ancient city now covered by a port town. Roughly every 150 years they gather there in large numbers. The next gathering is thought to be close, and sightings are already climbing.

No predator is known to hunt disenchanters, so the amount of magic in an area seems to be what limits their numbers. Many believe one splits into two full-sized creatures after it has eaten enough magic. Its essence is said to make fine scroll ink and may be useful in crafting a rod of cancellation.