#besitary

(answering @chicken-tamer‘s request for the Freestar One equivalent of/answer to the “giant ambulatory tree-person” critter archetype)

You see it first as a constellation shining in the depths of the smoke; red-white stars bobbing and guttering at the top of the hill. The filters in your helmet wheeze as they strain the faintest scraps of breathable air from an atmosphere of mostly ash, and you draw closer, the earth crunching beneath your feet.

A deer charges past you shrieking bloody murder, a mess of burning branches tangled in its horns, flame creeping down its neck, eating its eyes. Up ahead the shape on which the constellation hangs resolves, a towering shadow thick with sinuous, prickling limbs. Timbers creak and splinter as it shifts its weight. Somewhere inside it pockets of superheated air bleed through thin passages, and so it sings—a single long, thin, high note weaving in and out of the conflagratory roar.

HD 9 MV 30’ AC 17 AT thorny brands (1d12 kinetic, 2d6 fire, 60’ reach) Special steady burn, acceleration

I would be highly surprised if there was a monster more highly undervalued outside of Planescape than mephits. Seriously, they each get one passing line at best now. So how do you make use of them in your stories? Mephits are traditionally used to send messages between fiends, although they gather on their respective elemental planes as well. The way I really see mephits those is as a kind of underclass doing the strange and odd jobs that no one else wants. What really sets the planer metropolis apart from the smaller bergs is the sheer number of mephits they collect. You can find how they get their by looking at human habits throughout history and remembering that one of the tones that Planescape utilizes, especially in Sigil, is a jaded avant-garde. There is a constant desire to be counter-cultural and to try something new that not everyone will understand. Dan Carlin talks about how this knowledge is used by ‘hip’ crowds to build social connection as he discusses the collapse of the Roman Republic. The implicit messages of each type of mephit messenger would be one of these ways of determining ‘hipness’ in planer cities. If you have the knowledge to understand the message being sent, it may not mean everyone likes you, but at least you know you’re cool. Now all of these “in” people are sending messages to one another with mephits and if there is one thing that all mephits share in common, its that they are annoying and flighty. Once they deliver their message, they usually abandon their new masters or are forced to flee. Hence, each metropolis has a mass of vagrant, pestering elementals with an odd idea of what is and is not a good way to make a living. 

Air mephits are supposed to be very good at delivering their first messages, but none after than.  According to the Mimir an air mephit signifies oncoming treachery.  They are also described as being fickle and untrustworthy, attaching themselves to anyone they find interesting. They are also easy to distinguish from other mephits, since they are the only mephits who do not have wings. 

Most berks forget that not all Clueless come from the Prime. A real leatherhead genie from the Plane of Air thought that he try to tough is way in on The Bellringer’s courier service by bringing the hordes of air mephits who thought that he was an interesting blood with hime to Sigil and use them to deliver messages. Problem is that the second the mephits arrived in Sigil, they all flocked off in different direction to find even more interesting people than the genie, creating a minor infestation. Rumor has it that A’kin and Fell each have a small cloud constantly surrounding them now, but that the berk who got the most mephits was Autochon himself. This leaves everyone in a bind, as no one has any idea how to get rid of the yammering, annoying elementals who are now plaguing them. 

The Guvners have begun seeing a new face on their interplaner research expeditions. Dalemossmagnus, or Dale as they’ve taken to calling her, is a perpetually calm air mephit who specializes in atmospheric and meteorological conditions. The thing is, Dale doesn’t actually have any specialized knowledge and is no smarter than any other mephit. Her secret is that she is actually a Cipher and is very in tune with her gaseous environment. Sometimes her insights are very insightful, while other times, they seem obvious. This has gotten her banned from visiting her favourite plane, Pandemonium, as there are only so many times a blood can listen to her calmly pronounce “The wind is screaming” before they go mad.