Welcome back to another Friday-fightnight where our party encounter the formless Quaigin. These shapeshifters are known as the scouts and minions of the dreaded skin walkers who serve the Shadow. In fact these shapeless beings take on the shape of others as a way of interacting with the world after all its not easy having no face. In fact its not that they don’t have a face that gives them a bad reputation its that they consist of thousands of finger-length slugs that does the trick.
Formless
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As she moved forward across the wet grass her anticipation fluttered in her chest. It wasn’t because she liked these creatures, they were below here, far, far below her but they were loyal and obedient. She appreciated their skills, the abilities that made them formless, that gave them an edge when interacting with the real world. These spirit-folk, the fey as the foreigners had called them, were not evil or malicious by nature but they respected their place in the world and did as they were told. The squirming prisoner, a guard that had strayed too far away from their post, looked up at Mugrave with horror in her eyes as she tried to back away from the Oni.
“Hush child,” the Oni said through sharpened teeth, “I wont harm you”.
The faceless creatures near by moved backwards a few feet away from the huddles guard. “Thank you.” she stuttered as she looked around at the creatures around her. “What are you going to do with me?”
“I will release you once I get some information from you.” The Oni said as she squatted down in front of the human, the sheer difference in size enough to make the warrior pale.
“What do you want to know, I’ll tell you anything” the guard caved quickly.
“I don’t want you to tell me anything. I want you to show me everything” Mugrave said as her arms darted forwards. Wrapping her hands around the head of the smaller humanoid she began to extract the information from her memories. Orders for movement of guards from the wall, the size and strength of the battalions and a titbit about Kyoko being spotted coming through the Kunagi ranges. The final piece of the puzzle was the reports of a fair foreigner who could heal wounds and the earth having appeared at Heavens Reach castle.
“The light. She has arrived. Interesting” Mugrave said dropping the human like a dirty dish cloth. “You are free to go” Mugrave said as the quivering human rose to her hands and knees and began to run off towards her barracks.
“Get her.” Mugrave said as the faceless shapes ran after her and dragged her silently into the earth.
Closing thoughts
Developing the Quaigin is an interesting one. Being formless by nature makes their description sway easily from useful (for a DM) and horrifying which can only enrich the stories we can tell.
These creatures being able to mimic, perfectly, those that they touch make them perfect spies and assassins and I look forward to using them in the future.
Thanks for joining me tonight. As always the stat blocks are created in Tetra-cube, a great little web application for us DMs to make life a bit easier. In fact this whole week is about making life easier by answering the simple question. How do I get an Oni inside a fortress. The ability for Mugrave and her Quaigin to shapeshift makes this process an easy one – but more on that next week. Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for a creative writeup. I am excited to bring another one of these back to the table as I haven’t really timed myself in a while since I have been focusing on improving my writing. So, don’t forget to come back this weekend and, as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe
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