Spelljammer Wiki
Register
Advertisement

Flowfiend

A Flowfiend is a creature from the Spelljammer campaign setting.[1]

Overview[]

Flowfiends are created from those travellers that have fallen (or have been thrown) into the phlogiston (also known as the Flow). Most travellers simply calcify, while some evil-aligned folk are spared this fate: a shadowy presence of great power and evil "rescues" the castaways, transforming them into smaller versions of itself. Thus the flowfiends are born.[1]

Description[]

Flowfiends vary in height, depending on the race of the original victim; as a rule, a victim grows between a quarter and a third of its original height. Flowfiend have four muscular arms with powerful hands, each equipped with overgrown fingernails, and their moths are filled with razor-sharp teeth. The creatures walk upright, their bodies bulging with exaggerated, twisted muscles rippling under sickly yellow skin. Sometimes, a victim's previous features are still recognizable. Flowfiends speak an ugly and twisted form of Common.[1]

Personality[]

A flowfiend forgets everything about its former life prior to its transformation, and now simply exists as part of a hunting pack, eager to please its master. All flowfiends obey the mysterious entity they call “Great Father”, which scholars speculate is most probably a native from one of the Outer Planes. Their greatest goal in life is to please the Great Father by bringing it victims for transformation, as well as capturing meat. No one knows why this "Great Father" is creating flowfiends, though some speculate it must have plans to conquer wildspace.[1]

Combat[]

Flowfiends relish combat and waylay as many spelljamming vessels as possible. One of their favorite tactics is to use two arms to grapple a victim, and then use the other two arms and their bite to reduce the victim to a bloody pulp. The victim may attempt to break free from a flowfiend's grapple. Note that flowfiend's only kill victims who are ineligible for "conversion" into more flowfiends.

To allow them to locate new recruits for transformation, all flowfiends have the spell-like abilities to detect evil, detect good, detect magic, and know alignment (as per the spells), though only one at a time. Only evil-aligned or chaotic neutral humanoids are eligible to be "converted". Flowfiends attempt to capture suitable victims and carry them away. If a victim fights back, the flowfiend attempts to render them unconscious, without killing them.

Flowfiends sometimes use their powerful claws and jaws to grab onto a spelljammer's hull and climb on deck. If a hunting pack consist of more than three flowfiends, they will attempt to surround their victims by attacking from different parts of the ship. Sometimes they just toss crewmen overboard to other flowfiends waiting in the flow.

Flowfiends are immune to the calcifying process of the flow as well as all hold, flesh to stone, paralyzation, or petrification spells. They begin regenerating any damage inflicted upon them 3 minutes after they were first injured. A dead flowfiend's body must be burned to ashes, or it regenerates completely.[1]

Society[]

Flowfiends spend their time "swimming" through the flow in search of food or other victims to convert, and are well aware that many spelljamming vessels travel through the phlogiston on their way to other crystal spheres.

When flowfiends have captured suitable candidates for conversion, they take them to a remote spot in the flow resembling a rocky island. The "island" is in fact a platform built from thousands of calcified victims of the flow, who have even been used to make decorative columns, a dais, and a 6-foot by 6-foot altar.

When the victims have been placed on the altar, all flowfiends in attendance begin a shrill whistling for up to 10 hours. The Great Father will then appear among them, and will begin transforming the victims, a process which can take up to 40 minutes. If a victim survives the shock of such a substantial transformation, they are reborn as a new flowfiend; if not, they will die. Once the ritual is complete, the Great Father will return to its secret lair, signalling the end of the ceremony. Victims who were chaotic neutral, immediately become chaotic evil. All memories of their past gives way to a singular new purpose: Kill and capture for the glory of the Great Father!

Flowfiends have no gender, and can only add to their numbers by capturing victims from passing spelljamming ships. Flowfiends require no sleep, just food.[1]

Notable Flowfiends[]

Signature Spelljammers[]

None. The flowfiends travel in packs in the phlogiston, hunting for prey and calcified drifters. They have shown little interest in ships of their own.

Appendix[]

External Links[]

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 John Terra, MC9 Monstrous Compendium Spelljammer Appendix II, 1991, (TSR Inc.), Flowfiend entry
Advertisement