#fractine

Image © Wizards of the Coast, accessed at D&D Beyond here

[Last monster of 2025!

Sponsored by Soluman Blevins. The fractine first appeared in the D&D 2e Spelljammer Monstrous Compendium, and was updated for a free PDF of the same name WoTC released alongside the 5e Spelljammer boxed set. The appearance of the fractine is clearly a riff on the Phantom Zone as it appeared in the Superman movies, but by giving it its own motivations and abilities distinguishes itself nicely from its inspiration. As 5e monsters tend to be, the current fractine is much simpler than the 2e version, which has a d20 table of random effects its touch generates and splits based on a percentage roll. The sponsor wanted me to add some of that randomness back in.

Want to be like Soluman and sponsor your own monsters? Want to make a New Year's resolution to help out an unemployed writer? Come join the Creature Codex Patreon here!]

Fractine CR 9 N Aberration This shimmering ripple in space unfolds like a piece of paper, revealing itself to be a trapezoidal mirror larger than a man is tall. Although reflections are visible in it, something else is visible deep within, the distorted image of something trapped inside.

Fractines are living dimensional anomalies, a two dimensional creature living in three dimensional space. They are typically found wandering the Astral Plane or the depths of space, but can be found almost anywhere. Fractines feed on light and magic, and are attracted to sources of both. If they find a sufficiently strong source of magic, they may remain in place for weeks or months, sometimes causing them to be mistaken for mundane mirrors. Although they cannot speak, fractines understand Aklo, and if given the opportunity can communicate by reflecting light in signaling patterns or by scratching words in Aklo onto a surface. Fractines are happy to allow themselves to be used as a scrying mirror, which feeds them much faster than being exposed to ambient magical auras, but will fight if they are attacked or offended.

A fractine fights by passing its “edge” into a target, which not only disrupts their flesh but their dimensional stability as well. Creatures struck by a fractine may be teleported short distances, shunted into the Ethereal Plane, or have their proportions warped and distorted as if in a funhouse mirror. They can “reflect” damage back at its source at a distance, and some foes give up the attack when they find themselves taking more damage from a blow than the fractine does. The most feared ability of a fractine is its ability to imprison enemies—they can envelop a creature in order to shunt them into a small prison plane, something of an echo of the volume they are “supposed” to occupy. A fractine can only hold one prisoner at a time, and if they elect to absorb an enemy, it will simultaneously shunt its current occupant into the thick of combat, often with dire consequences.

Despite their reflective surfaces, fractines do not see as such. They sense the world through a combination of vibrations, chemical cues, and the ripples they leave in reality reflecting off of objects and bouncing back to them. Fractines reproduce through binary fission once they have absorbed enormous amounts of energy. This fission can also occur if a fractine takes a lucky blow, effectively breaking it in two—these two smaller fractines typically go their separate ways after resolving whatever problem caused them to split in the first place. A fractine kept in total darkness, without access to magical auras, slowly withers away, dying of “starvation” in about 10 days. When a fractine dies, its body crumples in on itself with a sound like breaking glass.