Worry-Wart Working Draft
Worry-Wart
Fine Aberration
Hit Dice: ½d8 (2 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: Fly 20 ft. (perfect); or 0 ft. as symbiont
Armor Class: 20 (+8 size, +2 Dex), touch 20, flat-footed 18
Base Attack/Grapple: +0/–21
Attack: —
Full Attack: —
Space/Reach: 1 ft./0 ft.
Special Attacks: Infestation
Special Qualities: All-around vision, constant vigilance, darkvision 60 ft., dimensional intrusion, immunity to sleep effects, symbiont traits
Saves: Fort +0, Ref +2, Will +3
Abilities: Str 1, Dex 14, Con 11, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 7
Skills: Knowledge (the planes) +5, Listen +3, Search +9, Spot +11
Feats: Alertness
Environment: Any
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: —
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: —
Level Adjustment: —
Floating in the air in a miniscule lump of flesh surrounded by a disc of skin. It appears to move with purpose, tilting from side to side as if aware of its surroundings. The thing is the color of human skin and as wide as a finger tip.
As a symbiont, add the following to the host's descriptive text:
One of the many warts covering the creature bulges and opens to reveal a disturbingly humanoid eye, complete with lashes. The eye blinks and glances around itself, then pops out of the wart on a stalk of sinewy tendril. This eyestalk flexes and coils to scan its surroundings, pausing occasionally to stare with obvious curiosity.
Worry-warts are flying beauty-spots that appear out of thin air and seek living hosts to attach themselves too. In fact, a worry-wart is merely a fragment of a far greater being, the extradimensional nibish-riule. These enormous shapeless entities are extremely inquisitive, and project worry-warts into other dimensions out of curiosity. A worry-wart can remain free-floating for up to an hour before the nibish-riule's tires and it is forced to withdraw the wart. If the worry-wart attaches itself to a host it can remain in this dimension as long as the host lives. (See the Dimensional Intrusion ability for further information).
Should a worry-wart successfully attach to a host it spreads through their body, growing up to half-a-dozen warts on the host's skin over a period of three to six weeks. Once this wart network is fully established the nibish-riule has forms a telepathic link and the host starts to hear its voice in their head. If that wasn't enough to disturb the host's psyche, each of the worry-wart's warts can now open to reveal an eye, and these eyes can pop out of the wart on thin stalks. and are extremely flexible in order. Their length and flexibility gives the nibish-riule an excellent all-around view, and the eyestalks can even curl around to minutely examine the host's body. A worry-wart infestation sustains itself from its host's bloodstream, but this parasitism consumes such tiny amounts of blood it does no actual harm.
Nibish-riule favor intelligent worry-wart hosts since they can then learn about other planes by telepathically conversing with the host as well as the wart's transdimensional eyesight. Mindless hosts are their second choice as these are unable to distinguish nerve-impulses from the worry-wart network from those of their own body, so are easy to "steer" towards interesting sights. Even so, the nibish-riule's desires will be lower priority to the basic instincts of a non-intelligent host, so if it is hungry or afraid it will ignore the worry-wart's promptings. Semi-intelligent creatures and animals are undesirable, for they almost always panic as soon as a worry-wart infestation fully develops and very rarely learn to tolerate it, instead trying to flee or attack the eyestalks whenever it can.
A worry-wart never sleeps and is insatiably curious. Its eyestalks constantly investigate its exciting new environment while the nibish-riule badgers the host with endless questions. Nibish-riule are completely ignorant of the Prime Material and will ask for explanations of even basic concepts such as gender, food and walking – as in "what's it like to chew? So these things called legs, how do they work? What does 'run away!' mean?" It might take an unpleasantly long time before a nibish-riule understands the concept of sleep enough to let its host rest without constantly waking them with inquiries. The other main component of a nibish-riule's personality is an intense interest in its host's survival. How much is genuine concern for the host's wellbeing and how much is the nibish-riule desire to keep its window to the Prime open is unknown, but the result is the worry-wart can act like an over-protective parent fearing for the host's health and safety. Unfortunately, the nibish-riule has to learn what creatures and phenomena are actually dangerous. A worry-wart's host might find itself constantly being woken from bed because the nibish-riule fears they're being paralyzed by this "sleep", only to be encourage "So this person's called Mister Rabid Werewolf? Let's go and make friends!" Should a host begin an action the nibish-riule thinks risky, they often find an eyestalk staring them in the face while the anxious worry-wart demands "Are You Mad?!"
Very little is known about a nibish-riule's true nature, not even what plane they call home. A popular theory is that they are distant relatives to ihagnim, the Astral creatures that form bags of devouring. The most paranoid savants rave that nibish-riule are more puissant and malevolent than ihagnim and worry-warts are spies and scouts for a transdimensional invasion, but this seems entirely contrary to their observed behavior.
A worry-wart is roughly a quarter of an inch across with a negligible weight. Their eyestalks can typically extend up to about one-fourth the host's height or length (so around 18 inches for an average humanoid). Nibish-riule are incapable of speech but can communicate telepathically with their worry-wart's host.
COMBAT
A worry-wart's only "attack" is its ability to symbiotically bond with a host, an action it can only perform once. Once it has bonded to a host the resulting symbiont network can aid its host in battle with its Constant Vigilance ability, alerting them to anything that looks threatening even if the host is asleep. The worry-wart's all-around vision lets it see danger approach from directions its host cannot see, including flank attacks.
All-Around Vision (Ex): Worry-warts are exceptionally alert and circumspect. Their many eyes give them a +4 racial bonus to Spot and Search checks, and they can’t be flanked.
Constant Vigilance (Ex): If the worry-wart is aware of a particular danger, its host is too. If the worry-wart is not flat-footed, neither is its host. Opponents who flank the host have their flanking bonus reduced to +1.
Dimensional Intrusion (Su): Nibish-riule must rest for an entire month before projecting a worry-wart to the Prime Material Plane. The ability resembles an astral projection that only projects a parasitic sensory fragment of the nibish-riule. A projected worry-wart can remain free-floating on the Prime for up to an hour.* If it successfully infests a host the wart can remain on another plane indefinitely so long as the host is alive.
A worry-wart's destruction does no harm to the nibish-riule that sent it beyond requiring another month of preparation before it can send another one. Being an extraplanar creature, worry-warts can be forced to return to the nibish-riule's plane through exorcism magic such as banishment or dismissal spells. However, a worry-wart that succeeds in infesting a host has "rooted" itself to this plane and cannot be banished. However, unlike a dimensional lock effect it is still capable of extradimensional travel, so if its host goes to another plane they carry the worry-wart with them. Note that a worry-wart and its host are separate creatures, so both must be willing to travel for an astral projection or plane shift spell to succeed.
*If an unattached worry-wart is encountered, the remaining duration of its dimensional intrusion ability could be anywhere from 1 round to an hour. This duration can be randomly determined by rolling 1d6×10 minutes, subtracting 1d10 minutes and then adding 1d10 rounds (this results in a uniform probability distribution from 1 to 600 rounds). Example: if the rolls are 4/6 (d6/d10 minutes) and 7 (d10 rounds) the duration is 34 minutes plus 7 rounds (34 minutes 42 seconds) or 347 rounds in total. Alternatively, the roll could be realized as d6×100 rounds plus 1d10 rounds minus 1d6×10 rounds (4×100+7–6×10 = 347).
Infestation (Ex): If a worry-wart lands on a living creature (which may require a +10 melee touch attack to make contact) it can attempt to merge with the target. If the creature succeeds at a DC 15 Fortitude save, their physiology rejects the worry-wart and that particular nibish-riule can never infest the creature (although another worry-wart might succeed). Should the target fail the saving throw, the worry-wart bonds to the creature's skin and becomes indistinguishable from an ordinary "beauty mark" or wart. The worry-wart then slowly grows a network of tiny fibers throughout the creature's body that link the worry-wart to its host's nerves and blood vessels. Every week or so another "beauty mark" wart pops up from the host's skin where the network forms a cluster.
After 2d10+20 days the symbiotic network is completed with a total of 1d4+2 beauty marks. The worry-wart gains the ability to communicate with its host telepathically and grants its host the benefits of its constant vigilance ability. Each "beauty mark" of a complete network is an eye the worry-wart can open to view its surroundings. These eyes can pop out on stalks to peer around itself, the flexible eyestalks can easily curl round to stare at the host's body or face. The stalk can extend up to a foot in length, support its own weight and wriggle under clothing to peer out of cuffs or collars if necessary. Placing a well-secured plaster or patch over a wart can prevent the eye emerging, but this causes the nibish-riule to constantly complain it cannot see properly.
Worry-warts are very hard to get rid of once they infest a host. If it is in the process of merging with a host, the worry-wart can be surgically excised by a DC 20 Heal check per wart, each attempt to remove a wart does 1d2 Constitution damage to the host. A merging worry-wart can also be removed by the spells remove disease, heal or limited wish. A merging worry-wart can also be removed by any method that removes a worry-wart that has completed its symbiotic network.
A completed symbiotic network can be removed surgically with a DC 40 Heal check, each attempt deals 3d4 Constitution damage to the host. A properly worded wish or miracle spell can cause the wart network to vanish. The spells remove disease, heal or limited wish will remove the network if the caster succeeds on a DC 25 Heal check. The spells banishment and dismissal can force the extraplanar portion of the nibish-riule away and sever it from the network if the nibish-riule fails a Will save (it has a Will save of +10 since the complete entity has to be exorcized). If the campaign used Psionics, the psychic chirurgery power can be used to sever the nibish-riule's nerve-links to the worry-wart network. Severing the nibish-riule from a symbiotic network leaves its unsightly warts behind, but they become inanimate and eventually heal and fade away like ordinary warts.
The saving throw is Constitution-based and includes a +5 racial bonus.
Symbiont Network Traits: While attached to a host (see Infestation), a worry-wart acts on its host's turn each round, regardless of its own initiative modifier. It is not flat-footed unless its host is, and it is aware of any danger its host is aware of. Opponents may strike at a worry-wart's eyestalks as if they were attacking an object but can not attack the symbiont itself, since the nibish-riule infestation is inside the host creature. An eyestalk gains the benefit of the host's Dexterity modifier to AC instead of its own (if better than the worry-wart's), and gains any deflection bonus to AC the host has as well. Its own size modifier and natural armor bonus apply. Each eyestalk has 1 hit point. Severing an eyestalk deals no damage to the worry-wart. The symbiont regrows severed eyestalks in 1d10+10 minutes. Attacking an eye stalk provokes an attack of opportunity from the host.
The worry-wart symbiont never takes damage from attacks directed at the host. The symbiotic network can be removed by the methods described in its Infestation special attack (see above).
Any spell the host creature casts on itself automatically also affects the worry-wart. Additionally, the host may cast a spell with a target of "You" on the symbiont instead of on itself. The symbiont may do likewise with any spell or spell-like ability it uses. The host and worry-wart can share spells even if the spells normally do not affect creatures of the host's or the symbiont's type. Spells targeted on the host by another spellcaster do not affect the worry-wart, and vice versa.
Originally appeared in Dragon Magazine #259 (1999).
12 SKILL POINTS: Knowledge (the planes) 4SP+1Int, Listen 0SP+1Wis+2Feat, Search 4SP+4Racial+1Int, Spot 4SP+4Racial+1Wis+2Feat
