Aldruín
Description
They are heard of almost exclusively in tales. Some of these tales stretch back to the earliest recordings of humanity, yet few people know of them. The tales are rare, because they were only rarely encountered, and only in the Downside. Though there are similarities they are definitely not human; possibly they are fey; quite likely they are something else. The tales say they have the following name for themselves: Aldruín. Their build is bipedal and somewhat similar to humans, except they have cloven hoofs instead of feet. They have sharply pointed ears, long canine teeth and slitted eyes. Their skin is a pale grey and they are hairless. Usually they are slightly hunched over and they stalk rather than walk. In many ways they are not similar to humans at all. Most notably, they are unaging and thus biologically immortal. They are naturally gifted in magic, particularly that associated with shadows, enchantment and illusions. Physically they may not be the strongest, but they are fast, and their compact muscles allow for quick bursts of speed. Yet despite their aptitude, they are so few and do not rule over anything. In fact, they tend to avoid most monstrous species of the Downside. On the occasions they were seen it was often around older ruins, which is speculated to be the remains of their fallen society. There are few traces of such a thing though and it also begs the question, what could have caused them to fall?Intelligence and Behavior
From what few records there are of interaction between humans and aldruín, they are as intelligent as humans if not more so. They seem to have a distaste for humans however and few of these interactions were positive. In some cases it has lead to violence, in many they seemed disinterested and ignored the humans unless provoked, and in the best of them it lead to some disdainful words. What vile words they may have slung at the humans is unknown however as they seem to have their own language, and only some of them were able to speak the human languages and poorly at that. From those few intelligible words they seem to consider humans 'despoilers', 'invaders' and interestingly enough, 'exiles'. In these encounters an aldruín child has never been seen, possibly because the parents kept them away from the humans in case the encounter went awry. In general, they seem disinterested in anything going on around them, weighed down by the burden of ages lived.Statistics
[5th Edition D&D]The Shadow Monger and Gloom Weaver statblocks are quite sufficient for most Aldruin.
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