Vvtrow
As you back it against the wall, the cyclopean, navy blue creature clutches the scrimshawed box more tightly in one hand and brandishes a rusty dagger in the other.
“This isn’t worth anything to you!” they say, their voice cracking. “Nothing I’ve got is going to pay off what you owe to Tauthr Gramm. Just walk away.”
How in hell did they know about Gramm? You’re not one of his; you don’t carry his colors.
They seize on your moment of confusion, closing the distance in a single motion. Their tail flicks and your backsword is in its off hand. It drops into a stance you haven’t seen since your master died.
“Just walk away,” it says.
HD 1 MV 120 AC unarmored & shield, or by armor AT claw (1d4) or by weapon, prehensile tail (on hit disarm, trip, or liberate a light object from target’s inventory) Special localized omniscience 40’, causal flux
localized omniscience—a vvtrow has perfect knowledge of everything within its area of effect, giving it effective blindsight. It is functionally fluent in any language spoken or written inside of the area of effect, and is as proficient in the use of any tool in the area of effect as its most skillful prior user (receiving the same bonuses or penalties). Nothing originating in the field can trigger a surprise round against a vvtrow. No form of illusion or skillful concealment can obscure a person’s thoughts, feelings, or history from a vvtrow’s omniscience.
causal flux—roll a d20 at the start of any encounter with a vvtrow; this is its Flux die. Once per round it can swap the raw result of the Flux die for any one other d20 roll. Reroll the Flux die afterwards.
The vvtrow are a relocated species. At one point they were very different creatures, subject to very different physics. Something dreadful happened to their plane of existence, and now they have to settle for ours. Time is foreign to them, and the eldest of their kind resent how “fine-grained” everything is; most folk don’t have a firm enough grasp of particle physics to understand that they’re complaining about how far down the scale you can separate matter into discrete components under our universe’s physical constants.
Their physical forms were a rush job, assembled by volunteer astral servants, mostly using material that was left lying around from last time. Some saw it as an opportunity to push some design decisions that never got a lot of traction during the planned release. This, paired with their unusual psychology, means that the vvtrow have remarkable gifts that tend to bite them in the ass.
Their omniscience can make even a single vvtrow terribly powerful, granting them skill, insider knowledge, and a grasp of the precise calculus that guides events and how the slightest action tweaks their mechanics, but beyond their monumental powers of inference, they can only manage about three days of long-term memory. This, paired with their migratory impulse, means that they feel a deep obligation to hoard. Be wary of sky-clad vvtrow; they have forsaken their memories and committed themselves to life as wandering, all-seeing mischief-makers. More often you will find them in tight caravans, laden with reminders. Everything is tracked and everything has a physical signifier in a vvtrow community. No-one is allowed to wander off alone, and token gifts are exchanged at nearly any meeting whatsoever, and so a caravan vvtrow almost always has some small bit of craftwork to do, even in leisure.
Tattoos are common in the caravans; so is scarification. Anything that is hard to erase or misplace, they treasure.
There is a third place you are likely to find vvtrow: libraries. Museums too, but often there’s overlap. No naturally-occurring being can match the vvtrow in their zeal for archival work; librarians and curators receive the same kind of respect among their number that healers, teachers, or horse-tamers receive in other cultures. If you find a lone, clothed, armed vvtrow, there is one explanation more likely than any other: they are a Knight Docent contracted to retrieve something of unspeakable value for a participating institution, usually in Chrysoberyl or Manmonumeq.
From time to time they hire subcontractors, if the challenge posed is great and they want someone expendable around. Claim jumpers tend to regret interfering; the Order always keeps the best finds for itself.
Vvtrow are adept speakers of all tongues, but their native language is borderline impossible for non-vvtrow to emulate, with an abundance of pitch-precise hums, hoots, and fricative yelps. A vvtrow argument sounds like six men with bronchitis playing didgeridoos at each other.
