Shocker

In its home quasiplane of Lightning, a shocker is a shapeless mass of pure electricity, like ball lightning. Through some unknown means, possibly akin to astral spell but different in key ways, some shockers project part of themselves onto other planes, which is how the rest of the multiverse came to know and fear them.

There are two kinds. Sojourners, as they call themselves, leave to explore the Prime, the Ethereal, or other Inner Planes, appearing as a suit of humanoid armor charged with energy that sparks and crackles as it moves. Contented ones prefer to stay home, but when they do project, they take the form of a vague humanoid of bluish electricity that sheds sparks constantly.

Both kinds attack by touch: contented ones deal 2d4 electrical damage, sojourners 3d4. Any foe clad in metal armor or holding a metal shield fights them as if AC 10, though Dexterity and magic bonuses still count. Shockers also gain +2 to hit against plate mail, +3 against field plate, and +4 against full plate. A metal hand weapon that strikes a shocker sets off its discharge automatically, and it is AC 10 against such blows, but AC 0 against nonmetal or missile weapons. Either way, only weapons of +1 or better can hurt it.

When a contented one discharges, by hitting or being hit, while off its home plane, its projection there breaks up into a little gray metallic dust. Sojourners have no such limit, nor do contented ones at home.

Sojourners can also hurl chain lightning like the wizard spell. The first target takes 1d8 per shocker Hit Die; the bolt then arcs to a new victim up to 40 yards away for 1d8 less, and keeps leaping, losing 1d8 each time, until it runs out or no targets remain. A save vs. spell halves the damage. Each bolt costs the shocker one Hit Die and its hit points.

Neither kind can be poisoned or paralyzed or touched by mental magic like sleep, hold, or charm. Fire and cold deal them only half damage, or nothing with a successful save. Electricity cannot harm either; a sojourner actually gains one Hit Die, with its hit points, from each successful electrical attack, up to 10 HD. This lets it win back dice spent on chain lightning, and in desperate fights a group may zap one or two of its own members to build a few super-defenders. Since only part of a shocker travels, it can be killed only on its home plane; elsewhere, a 'slain' shocker just leaves gray metallic dust.

Their explorer's urge makes shockers among the most common Inner Planes visitors in the great planar city. They have turned up on nearly every plane, even the Outer Planes by way of the Prime and then the Astral or a portal, though such trips are rare and difficult. Off their own plane they are curious observers of living things, landscapes, and energy patterns most beings cannot perceive.

At home their motives are harder to read. They live in communities in the stormy skies of their quasiplane and talk in a frantic, buzzing tongue. Even those who learn other languages never call themselves shockers, only vrrxlzk or something close. Contented ones are the race's eldest or youngest. Shockers treat time as a variable that truly runs faster and slower, so they struggle to discuss age or duration with others. Inner-planar scholars suspect they spend much of their lives as bolts racing across their plane at light speed, which might explain that view.

On their home plane they are fairly peaceful and fight only in self-defense. Abroad, they probe, test other species with attacks or bizarre behavior, and rarely fear danger, since they cannot really die there. The dust left by a 'dead' projection sometimes holds rare minerals or gems. A few wizards know spells to summon shockers, but the poorly researched magic is as apt to call a contented one as a sojourner.