A vanura is an anthropomorphic toad-like creature with a spinning ball of chaos embedded in their chest. Other intelligent creatures of Limbo (particularly another prominent toad-like species) look upon them as ridiculous mockeries of "true" chaos life, much like Material Plane humans might say about a monkey wearing a shirt. Whether they're mockeries or actually a divergent path split off from a precursor species (as some have hypothesized), vanuras and other natives of Limbo generally fly into vicious conflict at the first sight of each other.
The first vanura was born when a humanoid creature was slain in an area of Limbo where the plane's natural chaos was surging, transforming the corpse into a weird echo of their former self. A newborn vanura retains only fragmentary memories from their former life and is consumed with an urge to spread chaos—figuratively and literally.
Imprinted at their creation with strange obsessions and behaviors, they infest various planes, seeking fulfillment and spreading unpredictability wherever they go. Each vanura is predominantly one color, but they exchange hues with their comrades, much as people swap clothes and equipment.
Every vanura has an obsessive interest in one particular thing, such as wealth, death, weapons, emotions, or building things. They call this interest their fixation and make it the defining aspect of their personality. A vanura's fixation is more than a passion or hobby—it's the one thing that gives their life meaning. They argue and debate about it, make shrines to it, lose sleep over it, cry and laugh and scream over it. Vanuras have been known to fly into a screaming, murderous rage if their fixation is ridiculed or dismissed. A vanura's fixation determines their color; wealth-obsessed vanuras are ochre, counting-obsessed vanuras are maroon, death.obsessed are verdegris, and so on.
Vanuras usually keep their fixation for a few weeks or months, then abandon it for another. A vanura about to change their fixation becomes tinged with the color of their new interest, then transforms fully to their new color over a span of a few minutes when they're ready to obsess over something new. It's common for two vanuras in the same lair to swap names along with their fixations, so that the group always has one named Rauj who is fixated on wealth, even though the individual who was Rauj isn't the same creature.
Vanuras don't refer to each other by their colors, but by their fixations. For example, they would call an ochre vanura a "vanura of wealth," "vanura of trinkets," or a similar term indicating their interest in collecting valuable things.
Although the base form of a vanura is consistent, as a species they are prone to mutation, and individuals vary greatly in shape, and sometimes even in size. One vanura's eyes might be within their mouth instead of on top of their head, another might have too-long limbs or an extra one, a third might have large fangs or a sharp bony crest on their head, and a fourth might be nearly twice the height of their comrades. These mutations may slowly change over time, but they can occur rapidly when a vanura changes their fixation. Other than their toad-like shape, the only real constant to a vanura's appearance is their color, which is determined by their fixation.
Although the first vanuras arose spontaneously (and some continue to do so in areas of concentrated chaos), most new ones are created by the deliberate action of an existing vanura. A vanura can eat the internal organs of a dead humanoid, then spend ten minutes channeling the chaos energy from their chest into the corpse's body, bringing them back to life as a new vanura. The type of vanura they become depends on what fixation persists from the mind of the dead humanoid; it is common for one type of vanura to reanimate an entirely different kind from a humanoid body. Most humanoids aren't suitable for this transformation and the process often fails (fewer than one in twenty attempts succeeds). Even the vanura don't know why it does or doesn't work, and assume that it is pure chance.
A vanura can create small objects by pulling chaos out of their chest. These objects never weigh more than a few pounds and usually dissolve into nothingness a few minutes after the creature stops paying attention to them. Much of a vanura's equipment and treasure are made in this fashion.
Vanuras may be encountered alone, but more often they gather in small or large groups, swapping colors and fixations many times over the years.
Planar Bestiary
Cerulean vanuras have deep blue skin, often with lighter or darker stripes. Their fixation is status, typically manifested as physical strength. This doesn't mean they are obsessed with having the highest status; they just need to know what their rank is in the local hierarchy, whether among their own kind or mixed with other creatures. When dealing with outsiders, such as PCs, they insist on knowing who oversees the group and speaking only to those of appropriate rank.
"I am the strongest of our clan. Who of you is mighty enough to speak with me?" —Lodd, vanura of strength
Motive: Establishing status in a hierarchy
Environment: Limbo, other locations they feel their expertise could be useful
Health: 18
Damage Inflicted: Moderate wound (5 points)
Armor: 2
Movement: Short
Modifications: Speed defense as level 4 due to large size; interaction tasks as level 7
Combat: The vanura attacks twice per round, once with their bite and once with their claws.
As their action, a cerulean vanura can attempt to establish their superiority over a target within short range who fails an Intellect defense task. A target that falls under the vanura's magical influence is awed by the vanura, and all the target's tasks related to the vanura are hindered for one day, or until an ally convinces the awed target to reassess.
A cerulean vanura magically heals 1 point of health each round while they have more than 0 health.
Interaction: Knowing a variety of common languages and able to speak telepathically, a vanura can attempt to establish the relative status of anyone in each group they encounter. After that, they assert their own prominence. If they can be convinced that those they're speaking with have higher status than they do, they may cooperate.
Use: A bridge is claimed by a cerulean vanura who lets no one cross of lower status. Circumstance has reduced a cerulean vanura to an outcast status amongst their own kind; they seek to build themself back up by secretly serving as an advisor of a warlord seeking conquest across the lands of a world of the Material Plane.
Loot: A cerulean vanura may have fine clothes, writs of authority over other lands and entities, and many very expensive gems and artifacts, all signifying their status. However, all of it dissolves away within a few minutes of the vanura's death, when taken from the vanura, or when given as a gift.
GM Intrusion: The vanura tells a character that they should be the one in charge, and they can't believe how the others are treating them. Alternatively, they tell the character that is in charge that the others in the group can't abide that character's direction any longer. The character loses their next turn as they consider the vanura's extremely potent arguments, even if they ultimately realize the creature is just playing them.
Planar Bestiary
GM Intrusion: A character says a number that turns out to be the maroon vanura's favorite number. Unfortunately, the way the character says it enrages the vanura, though calming the creature may still be possible.
A maroon vanura has deep reddish-brown skin dotted with cheetah-like spots. A maroon vanura's fixation is counting—how many paces from their lair entrance to their own nest, how many bones in a corpse, and so on. Each has a favorite number and is pleased when their count matches that number, even going so far as to move their lair or discard treasure to make this happen. (Because the length of their stride can change dramatically with a mutation or after taking this fixation, the vanura spends much of their time re-counting things they have already counted, just in case.)
"Three, three hits! Four, four hits! Five, five hits! Glee for five hits!" —Zob, vanura of numbers
Motive: Tabulate everything
Environment: Limbo, other locations they feel their expertise could be useful
Health: 15
Damage Inflicted: Moderate wound (4 points)
Armor: 2
Movement: Short
Modifications: Speed defense as level 3 due to large size; mathematics as level 6
Combat: A maroon vanura attacks by hurling a ball of radiant energy at a target within long range, inflicting a moderate wound (4 points) on a successful attack if they haven't inflicted damage on a foe within the last hour or longer. Each time the vanura inflicts damage on any foe, later attacks cumulatively deal 1 additional minor wound (1 point) from radiant energy, to a maximum of 5 additional points of damage per attack. This "counting damage bonus" falls back to nothing if the vanura hasn't made a successful attack on a foe in the last hour.
A maroon vanura magically heals 1 point of health each round while they have more than 0 health.
A maroon vanura can spend their action observing the situation, counting various iterations, changes, actions, and other particulars that most other creatures couldn't possibly notice. For the next few minutes, the vanura's attacks, defenses, and tasks related to the situation are eased.
A maroon vanura's strength is also their weakness. If a foe understands that, they might use it against the vanura by throwing a handful of rice at the creature's feet. If this is accompanied by a successful interaction task (which is eased), the vanura can't help but spend their next turn counting the grains. Usually such a distraction only works once in any given interaction.
Interaction: Even though they're telepathic and know a variety of common languages, getting a maroon vanura's attention through nonviolent means is difficult. They're usually counting something, whether that's road cobbles, clouds in the sky, or something less easy for an observer to guess. But the creature's attention can be gained, maybe by promising a counting challenge that only the vanura could possibly accomplish, or by successfully guessing the vanura's favorite number. Once interested, the maroon vanura becomes obsessed with learning more.
Use: A "mumbling, crimson demon" is slowly making their way through the village, counting every door, window, and chimney, oblivious to anything else, including the frightened reactions of villagers. A wizard needs specialized help for an experiment, and hires explorers to hire—or capture—a counting savant from Limbo.
Loot: A maroon vanura may carry several tattered journals, each filled with crabbed numerical progressions, a spy glass, and other items helpful for observing. However, these items dissolve away within a few minutes of the vanura's death, or if taken from the vanura.
Planar Bestiary
An ochre vanura has sickly yellowish skin, and many have a lion-like mane of stiff bristles on their neck and upper back. An ochre vanura's fixation is wealth—they are covetous of shiny, valuable things. However, like crows, their concept of wealth can differ from that of a human. For example, an ochre vanura's treasure hoard might include coins, gems, pieces of glass, broken mirrors, polished buttons, metal bells, and keys.
Motive: Wealth accumulation
Environment: Limbo, other locations where wealth can be acquired
Health: 12
Damage Inflicted: Minor wound (3 points)
Armor: 2
Movement: Short
Modifications: Theft and stealth as level 5; resists trickery as level 1
Combat: An ochre vanura attacks twice per round, once with their bite and once with their claws.
An ochre vanura can hurl a handful of pure chaos at a creature within long range every other round, inflicting a moderate wound (5 points) from acid, cold, or some other energy type on a failed Speed defense task. The chaos takes a random shape and inflicts a random type of damage, then vanishes a minute or so after impact. The shape is usually something appropriate to the type of damage inflicted—ice for cold damage, lava for fire damage, metal spikes for physical damage, and so on.
| d6 | Damage Type |
|---|---|
| 1
acid | |
| 2
cold | |
| 3
fire | |
| 4
electricity | |
| 5
radiant energy | |
| 6
physical damage |
Every few minutes, an ochre vanura can hurl a boulder-sized mass of pure chaos at a creature within long range, inflicting a moderate wound (7 points) to the creature that fails a Speed defense task, and 3 points to every creature within immediate range of the primary target that fails a Speed defense task. The chaos becomes manifest as a physical object as indicated above, except it produces so much material that in the location hit, an immediate area becomes difficult terrain for about a minute.
An ochre vanura magically heals 1 point of health each round while they have more than 0 health.
Interaction: It's easy to get an ochre vanura's attention with a gaudy display of wealth and the promise to deliver the same. Able to speak in several common languages and telepathically, an ochre vanura is eager to negotiate if they expect an expensive reward for their troubles. The unscrupulous can use this trait to trick an ochre vanura into doing almost anything.
Loot: An ochre vanura can create gaudy riches from pure chaos, but unlike other vanuras, values real goods that won't dissolve without their attention. An ochre vanura's hoard of true objects consists of actual expensive valuables intermixed with many more worthless—but very shiny—metal, crystal, and glass objects. The hoard might include a few cyphers that resemble wealth, such as an lightning wall gem or platinum coin of mind meld.
"I will take the shiny things from your corpse and add them to my treasures." —Gent, vanura of trinkets
GM Intrusion: The vanura lifts a character's coin purse or other valuable in the twinkling of an eye.
Planar Bestiary
A verdigris vanura's skin is a blotchy green-blue color. Their fixation is death—the mechanism of destroying life and reanimating bodies. They are the closest thing that vanuras have to priests, and others of their kind respect their strange powers. A verdigris vanura living in a clan takes corpses that fail to transform into vanuras and animates them as zombies to serve the entire clan.
Motive: Explore all death's facets
Environment: Limbo, other locations where death can be explored
Health: 25
Damage Inflicted: Moderate wound (6 points)
Armor: 3
Movement: Short
Modifications: Necromantic lore as level 8
Combat: A verdigris vanura attacks twice each round, once with their bite and once with their claws, inflicting a moderate wound (4 points) plus 2 points of Speed damage (ignores Armor) from necromantic energy.
Instead of physically attacking, a verdigris vanura can target a creature within long range with a ray of necrotic energy that inflicts 6 points of Speed damage (ignores Armor) on a failed Speed defense task.
A verdigris vanura is an innate spellcaster able to magically alter their appearance, create an undead of up to level 3 from a humanoid corpse, harm and stun a creature in short range with desiccating necrotic energy, and protect themself from necromantic and death effects. Once per day a verdigris vanura can use magic to attempt to kill a creature outright, or transfer themself and several allies to another plane of existence.
A verdigris vanura magically heals 2 points of health each round while they have more than 0 health.
If a verdigris vanura dies, they rise as an undead within a few days from any remnant, or from an item they prepared. As an undead being, the vanura has similar stats and capabilities; however, as an undead creature, they only regain health on rounds when they inflict damage with necrotic energy.
Interaction: Every creature will one day die, and based on that fact alone, a verdigris vanura could become interested in a creature. In fact, the vanura claims that if allowed to concentrate for a few minutes, they can gain a sense of how long another creature has to live. How true that is depends on the skills of the particular verdigris vanura. If the vanura thinks a creature doesn't have much time left, they ask to tag along to see the "transition" occur. If the vanura thinks that the creature has decades or centuries to go, they may decide to try an experiment and see if they can bring death early.
Use: The city necropolis has been broken into multiple times, but no grave goods have been taken from those resting there. Unfortunately, newly risen undead have begun to plague the darkness. Destroying the undead only controls the symptoms. The mysterious necromancer responsible must be found and dealt with.
Loot: A verdigris vanura is likely to carry a relevant magic cypher like a death bringer charm. If accomplished enough, a vanura may have an ancient tome of forbidden necromancy such as the Book of Inversion.
"As I cleave your soul from your flesh, I study the patterns of its dwindling energy. I predict they will resemble flowers."
—the third Kett, vanura of death
GM Intrusion: If a character targeted by the vanura's spell succeeds on their defense task, the vanura's aura of death nullifies that success and they must immediately reroll, taking the worse of the two rolls as their result.