Phaerimm Agent

Phaerimm: Alien, Magic-Obsessed Manipulators Treasure: Arcana, Implements

Phaerimm are malevolent alien beings that seek to dominate other sentient species. A phaerimm's conical body ripples through the air, trailing behind a large, flat mouth ringed by four delicate arms. A phaerimm's body tapers to a venomous stinger they prefer to use only when magical means fail them. Ancient phaerimm devastated the once-powerful empire of Netheril. The phaerimm were imprisoned beneath the great desert of Anauroch, where they plot a return to their former dominion. Roll or choose a result from the Phaerimm Plots table as inspiration for what a phaerimm agent might be doing when encountered.

Phaerimm Plots:

Phaerimms, also known as magicgrubs and thornbacks, are malevolent and highly intelligent aberrations who are natural spell-casters.

Description: Phaerimms are conical in shape with ovoid heads. They have barbed teeth and a venomous hollow barb on the end of their tails. Phaerimms have four arms. Their spiked, slug-shaped bodies are a greenish color covered by rough, scaly, and leathery hides.

Personality: Wholly evil and sadistic, phaerimms are ambitious and malicious creatures that work only for their own individual causes. They delight in bringing pain to others and would gladly erase all other beings from existence, save for the fact that they would lack slaves to torture for sport if they did so. Their thought processes and values are wholly alien to most other races; however, their inclination toward cruelty has the effect of making them somewhat predictable.

Combat: In addition to their spell-casting abilities, phaerimms are formidable opponents in melee combat. Their tail is strong enough to knock over most humanoids. The stinger at the end of the tail injects a powerful venom into a target, causing paralysis. They use their four arms to great effect in combat. Each arm is able to wield a weapon independently. A common tactic used by phaerimms in combat is to simply grab an opponent to drag to their tooth-covered maws, delivering a usually fatal bite. Despite these many strengths, most phaerimms feel that physical combat is only a last resort, and to engage in it is to admit that their magic is too weak to deal with a threat.

Abilities: Phaerimms are incredibly powerful spell-casters. Not only are they capable of casting far more spells than most human mages, they have developed their own unique spells, which can only be cast by phaerimms. They specialize in mind-controlling spells, which are so strong that they can control nearly any creature, including powerful ones such as beholders and mind flayers. A negative side-effect of phaerimm magic is that it drains moisture from the surrounding area. Extensive use of this magic led to the creation of the infamous Anauroch desert. All spells cast by a phaerimm are done through will alone; they do not require spell components or incantations. Their magical studies mainly compose of altering spells cast by humanoids to be cast in such a way. Phaerimms have a degree of natural resistance to nearly all effects and spells. Additionally, they also have the natural ability to absorb or deflect any spell cast on them. Phaerimm also have the ability to detect any magic.

Society: Phaerimms are solitary creatures but always live near other phaerimms, both for protection and to gain pleasure from unleashing devious schemes on one another. A phaerimm always retains a retinue of enslaved creatures. On the rare occasions when a group of phaerimms are threatened, they form a WarGather at a strategically important location. Phaerimms communicate with one another non-verbally by varying the wind speeds around their bodies. The phaerimm language is so complex it is usually incomprehensible to other creatures. It sounds like the whispering of strange winds. With non-phaerimms, they communicate telepathically. They understand Common and know several other languages. They do not maintain direct relations with non-phaerimm organizations or realms, instead relying on magically-enslaved agents to do their bidding beyond their territory. Phaerimms have a particular hatred for tomb tappers, because of their immunity to phaerimm mind control.

Habitat: Phaerimms make their homes in fortified underground caves. Since this is where a phaerimm stores its magical items and spellbooks, they are defended by powerful magical traps, slaves, and spellfields. Most phaerimm live in the Buried Realms beneath Anauroch, but small groups live elsewhere, such as in the ruins of Myth Drannor or the beholder city of Ooltul.

Biology: Phaerimms always choose to fly unless prevented from doing so. Phaerimms are carnivores, capturing mammals and reptiles, sentient or not, and holding them as slaves until slaughtered for consumption. Phaerimms have to live in an area that has magic. This is a result of their unique digestive tract. Their stomach acid and intestines rely on the presence of magic to digest and absorb nutrients properly. Despite their windbag-like bodies, the bodies of phaerimms do include skeletons. A phaerimm reproduces by injecting an egg into a victim with the stinger on its tail. The egg hatches within the paralyzed victim, and the larva begins consuming the host alive from the inside. The larva can be killed safely only with the casting of a cure disease spell. Phaerimms are capable of seeing any astral, incorporeal, or invisible creature within 120 feet (37 meters). They are also able to see with darkvision to a distance of up to 160 feet (49 meters) away.

History: Phaerimms dated back to the Days of Thunder. The wizards of the sarrukh empire of Isstosseffifil battled the phaerimms, and although the Isstossef succeeded in driving the phaerimms deep into the Underdark, the massive ecological change resulting from their weavings of Art caused the Isstosseffifil empire to collapse. At one point during the Founding Time, it was rumored that the Mhaurlok Expanse, an area of the Northdark where chaotic energy and primal forces ran wild, was created as a result of an ancient battle between Delzoun and the phaerimms.

Age of Humanity: In −461 DR, in retaliation and for their own survival, the phaerimms developed a powerful spell that drained the life from Netherese lands and their floating cities. Unbeknownst to the Netherese, their enormous usage of magic was destroying the underground home of the entire phaerimm race, which depended on the inherent magic of nature to survive. This created barren wastelands where there once were lush fields and areas of wild magic. The chaotic effects of magics caused the arcanists of High Netheril to flee the empire for safer lands. Within the next half century, in −427 DR, the phaerimms used spells to bring down the floating cities of Lhaoda and Tith Tilendrothael, resulting in the other Netherese enclaves setting wards against this type of attack. Circa −450 DR, large-scale Netherese migration into the Savage Frontier began, when the effects of the phaerimms' lifedrain dweomers became apparent. Many of the arcanists of Low Netheril fled for the recently-established magocracy of Illusk. The absence of the arcanists caused civil unrest in Low Netheril, and the commoners fled their homes. As the empire found it more difficult to feed its people, the stress led to a series of wars; some were fought to keep the restless populace entertained, while others were fought to claim more arable land. In −354 DR, the arcanist Melathlar fled Netheril to Illusk. He sacrificed his life to power the spell that raised a great stone tower, walls, and powerful spellwards around the Netherese settlement to protect it from the phaerimms. Later that year, the first recorded clash between the phaerimms and sharns occurred. A few years later in −350 DR, three powerful phaerimm sorcerers known as the Triumvirate took over the beholder city of Ooltul. In −100 DR, Delzoun, the Northkingdom, met its end before the advancing phaerimms and other threats. Its citadels on the surface survived and stayed under dwarven control. The sharns finally defeated the phaerimms in the Year of the Closed Scroll, 329 DR, thus halting the spread of Anauroch. They imprisoned them behind the Sharn Wall beneath Anauroch, in the Buried Realms, which the phaerimms called the Phaerlin. In 1346 DR, a portal to Avernus was erected in the Burial Glen of Myth Drannor by Banites loyal to the High Imperceptor of Mulmaster but under the influence of Zhentarim agents and, by proxy, a cabal of alhoon living in the ruins. The alhoon had it erected so that the devils it spawned would prevent the local phaerimms from attacking the liches while they searched the city for magic.

Era of Upheaval: The phaerimm that dwelt within the ruined Myth Drannor and its Dwarven Dungeons were driven out of large portions of the city by agents of the Cult of the Dragon, along with their red dragon dracolich ally, Pelendralaar, in the Year of the Gauntlet, 1369 DR. Some two years later, Nightal 20, the Year of the Unstrung Harp, 1371 DR, the Sharn Wall was breached near the city of Evereska, unleashing the phaerimm to cause chaos in the lands outside. A united force of elves, allies from Waterdeep and the shades from Thultanthar, which returned to Faerûn days later at the beginning of following year, kept the phaerimm at bay. The Shadovar began hunting and destroying phaerimm immediately on their return. In Evereska, they erected a shadowshell that prevented the phaerimms' escape. An attack on Thultanthar by the Chosen of Mystra, however, prevented them both from confirming that all of the phaerimm living there had been killed and from looting what magic remained. Also in Year of Wild Magic, 1372 DR the Shadovar targeted the colony of phaerimm living in the ruins of Myth Drannor for destruction. In the following decades they led a campaign into the Buried Realms, claiming the majority of Phaerlin, including Ooltul, for the new Netheril. In Year of the Ageless One, 1479 DR the Shadovar declared the phaerimm of Toril extinct. At the same time, however, they had come to suspect that at least one corpse of a phaerimm remained intact within the Phaerimm Memory Spire in Netheril. This would prove to be a woeful underestimate when, during a battle over the Spire against the Bedine in the Year of Dwarvenkind Reborn, 1488 DR, a whole hive of phaerimm were awoken within the Spire and proceeded to once again drain the life of the Anauroch (which had been restored by the Netherese during the preceding century). While the phaerimm of the Memory Spire were able to unleash their magics on the world around them, they themselves remained confined to their tomb by the power of Mystra. Meanwhile, the Chosen of Mystra traveled to the old breach in the Sharnwall and sacrificed a piece of the essence of Mystra within themselves to reseal and strengthen the barrier, entrapping any pharimm who still dwelt beneath the Anauroch. In the years following the Second Sundering, it was known that a small number of phaerimm remained free to roam and terrorize Toril, a few had survived by fleeing to Abeir, and it was unknown if more still existed deep in their underground homeland.

Agents and Subversion: Because the vast majority of their kind are magically trapped beneath the desert, free Phaerimm rely heavily on manipulation and proxy agents to achieve their goals on the surface and free their imprisoned kin.

• Mind Flayers and Dark Nagas: They routinely mind-control entire settlements of Illithids (mind flayers) and willingly employ Dark Nagas as surface-level operatives.
• Beholders: The Phaerimm conquered the subterranean Beholder city of Ooltul, covertly manipulating the eye tyrants' minds while making them believe they operate independently.
• Human Factions: They have subverted certain factions of the Bedine desert nomads, Red Wizards, and Zhentarim mercenaries, using them as agents to recover ancient magic or secure bases.