Vortex

Most witnesses take a vortex for a little dust devil no bigger than a jug. The whirl is only its outer layer. Strip away the spinning air and the creature itself is revealed: a small ball about the size of a child's toy, the color of frozen fog. It has no eyes, mouth or other features, shows little sign of thought or awareness, and does nothing but spin, bob and weave like an endless dancer. Whether it is truly alive is anyone's guess.

A vortex means no harm and seems oblivious to everyone around it, which is exactly what makes it dangerous. It never moves in a straight line, jinking without pattern, and it may slam into any creature within 5 feet; if several are in reach, choose the target at random. Its small size and speed give it its good Armor Class.

Its attack roll ignores worn armor, counting just the target's Dexterity bonus and natural Armor Class. A hit on a man-sized or smaller creature engulfs it in the spinning cone. The first round does no harm, but after that the captive takes 1d3 damage per round, and each round adds a cumulative 5% chance that a savage gust or a crash into something solid kills him outright. Usually he stays trapped until the vortex dies. Larger creatures are buffeted rather than swallowed: they take no damage but spend 1d4 rounds doing nothing except keeping their feet. Huge or bigger creatures are unaffected.

Escaping requires an anchor outside the winds, such as a friend's hand or a tree branch. Seizing it takes an attack roll at -4, then a successful bend bars/lift gates roll to pull free. The other way out is to kill the vortex from inside, but only small weapons such as daggers work there, attacks suffer -2, and spells, scrolls, potions and most magic items are unusable. Allies outside attack without penalty, but every miss forces a second attack roll against the trapped friend. A vortex holds one victim at a time; if it strikes someone new and succeeds, it spits out the old captive and tries to engulf the newcomer.

Their birthplace is surely the Elemental Plane of Air; their nature is hotly argued. One school calls them mere bubbles of elemental force carrying their plane's energy, noting that they eat nothing visible and never multiply. Another sees them as offspring the plane casts out to find new homes, whether as a heartless parent sending its children to die in the void or as an act of stubborn hope that the impossible will take root. How they leave the Inner Planes at all is another puzzle; some suspect their perfect, endless spinning lets them slip through gaps between the planes.

Since no one can separate force from life in these beings, no one can say where they truly belong. The only certainty is that they cannot be summoned.