Planar Bestiary
A mind thief's mass of tendrils droops like a hoary beard covering a body composed of many fibrous lengths, wound together like an imperfect knot about the size of child's head. Three sets of tattered, fleshy wings madly flap, giving the mind thief's flight a jerky, hard-to-predict trajectory.
A Material Plane world called Lahairon fell to an unspecified disaster. Before their final hour, some Lahairon natives devised a magical means of escape, but only for their minds. Their bodies perished, while their consciousnesses fled via uncouth winged forms—Lahairon mind thieves—to other worlds in hopes of finding safety and new lives.
Though called mind thieves—for they do in fact steal away memories of their victims—these creatures simply let those memories dissipate. Because what they really want is fallow mental ground so they can transfer a consciousness seed of a mental refugee from the dead world of Lahairon into a new body. Once a consciousness is successfully transferred, the particular mind thief that carried the refugee so far shrivels up and dies, their only duty complete.
Motive: Transfer stored refugee mind to new humanoid body
Environment: Worlds of the Material Plane where humanoids live, in flocks of six or more
Health: 6
Damage Inflicted: Minor wound (2 points)
Armor: 1
Movement: Short; short when flying
Modifications: Speed defense as level 4 due to tiny size; holding a grabbed target and stealth as level 5
Combat: The tiny mind thief lashes at a target with one of their tendrils, inflicting damage and attaching themself to their target. While attached, the mind thief doesn't physically attack. Instead, they drain 2 points of Intellect (ignores Armor) from the victim each round on their turn. Removing an attached thief requires a successful level 5 Might task as an action.
If the target's Intellect (or health) is reduced to 0, they go unconscious, and the seed of a new mind is implanted in the victim's body a few rounds later. Then the physical shell (the mind thief) dies and falls off the victim. Unless the unconscious body receives some sort of magical cleansing (such as curse-removing magic), the seed blossoms into the alien consciousness of a Lahairon native stowaway within a few hours.
A flock of three mind thieves can attack as a single level 4 creature, inflicting a moderate wound (4 points) on a hit and allowing all three to attach themselves to a single target. Once the target is drained to 0 Intellect (or health), two detach and seek other victims.
If the situation doesn't seem right, a mind thief can fade away as their action, becoming invisible until they attack.
Interaction: Mind thieves are ambush predators, desperate to transfer their cargo of mental energy to a victim without much regard for their own existence. However, they never target creatures that have already become vessels for new minds.
Wearing the bodies of mentally wiped victims doesn't seem to bother the average Lahairon, who finds themself with a fresh body and a dimension not in immediate danger of destruction. Usually, a newly arrived Lahairon attempts to pretend to be who they look like, unless they can find other Lahairon to join.
Use: A group of people that aren't necessarily related to each other all break away from their old lives and disappear. If tracked down, they have founded a new community in an isolated location, and are very suspicious of strangers. However, they may indicate they've captured a strange creature they'd like lone visitors to "meet."
GM Intrusion: Immediately after a character attacks, the mind thief makes a free extra tendril attack.