Phirblas

Phirblas are tall, thin humanoids that drift a few inches above the ground instead of walking on it. They look a good deal like the rebus keepers who tend the great planar city, though phirblas are paler, seem younger and lack horns. One planar naturalist, a scholar known more for bold claims than correct ones, insists the silent sovereign of the planar city captured some of these folk long ago and reshaped them into her caretakers. Nobody has proved any link, and biologists argue about it bitterly.

A phirblas speaks through mild telepathy, making written words appear in the air above its head in whatever language the listener reads. The text flashes past quickly and only about ten words show at once, so a slow reader falls behind and someone who cannot read gets nothing at all. The handwriting carries the tone: formal flowing script for weighty matters, plain letters for small talk, a messy scrawl when the speaker is rushed or uninterested, and shaky lines when it is upset. They are not deaf and hear normally.

These folk avoid violence, but when they must fight, a few put on ornate plate mail (dropping their AC from 8 to 1) and carry two-handed swords (1d10) or long spears (1d6). Unarmed, a phirblas punches for 1d4+1, and many opponents are startled at how hard those blows land.

At will a phirblas can read thoughts as with ESP. Three times a day it can fill the air with a swirl of shifting words that works as hypnotic pattern, and once a day its script can deliver a suggestion. Both of those powers affect only readers and are never turned on other phirblas.

Fire and cold deal them only half damage, poison and disease have no effect, and they are immune to charm, suggestion and any control that works through spoken commands.

Phirblas hail not from the Ethereal Plane itself but from a hidden demiplane there, a single endless city of slender towers sculpted from living stone. Some say it is among the oldest demiplanes of all, though whether the phirblas built it or moved in is unknown. Getting there is hard, and once inside the city seems to have no edge. Millions live in it, and somehow each seems to know all the others.

Their society is old and intricate. No one rules; instead each phirblas holds a bit of authority over some area, and those lines of command shift constantly with circumstance. Only the phirblas themselves can follow who answers to whom in any given situation.

Phirblas eat only plants and roots, served in elaborate hot and cold dishes. Cooks are an appointed role, and they labor for days ahead of each meal, drawing ingredients from small herb gardens scattered across the city.

They do not age or fall ill, accidents almost never befall them and they never harm one another, so deaths are rare and most have no fear of dying at all, which strikes visitors as naive. Genderless, they reproduce asexually by means no one fully understands, and seldom. A new phirblas emerges fully grown and seems to carry its parent's memories and knowledge.