Abiorach Rilmani
Philosophy: Ensure the Balance of the elements
Caste: Elemental-Trickster
Alchemical Metal: Quicksilver
Abiorachs are mercurial sprites of the elemental Balance, the ones who play the game with the gusto of a fire genasi running through a bonfire. They’re beings who appear as youthful and sprightly as a pack of tiefling urchins, but with the sheen of liquid silver for skin, shimmering and shifting with every pirouette and leap. Their eyes? Jewels that capture the light of the multiverse, sparkling with the mischief and wonder of a child who’s found a portal to the playground of the gods.
Now, the abiorachs, they’re not your front-line bashers or puppeteers scheming in the shadows. Nah, they’re more like the wily street magicians, dazzling you with a trick while they pick your pocket—except their stage is the tumultuous expanse of the Inner Planes. They’re the watchers on the fence, keeping an eye on the eternal struggle between fire and water, earth and air, and making sure no element gets too big for its britches.
Don’t go thinking their youth and gleam make them soft. These cutters are as sharp as razorvine, and they’ve got the wits to match. They’ll sidestep a scrap not because they’re cowardly, but because they know there’s always a cleverer way to tilt the scales back to even. Open conflict’s for bashers; and the abiorachs, they’re bloods. They dance around the edges, nudging, cajoling, and tricking the big players into keeping the peace—or at least, into not blowing the whole plane to smithereens.
Their form, while mostly human, is a carnival of elemental whimsy. They can attune themselves to any of the elements, taking no damage from them and moving as freely as a native. Their limbs and torsos can flow like water, stretch like taffy, or harden like diamond at a whim. Imagine getting a hug from one; you’d be as likely to find yourself enveloped in a swirl of liquid metal as you would in a traditional embrace. And that’s before we talk about their temperaments—capricious as a spring zephyr, they can flip from jovial to tempestuous in a moment.
In their mission across the Inner Planes, the abiorachs are the embodiment of the rilmani credo, yet with a twist that’s all their own. They don’t just walk the line of neutrality; they do cartwheels on it, all the while ensuring that the elemental forces don’t tip the cosmic balance into chaos. And they do it all with a laugh and a smile, for what’s the point of playing the game if you can’t enjoy it?
Canonical Sources:
- Planescape Monstrous Compendium Appendix II [2e] p86 here
- Manual of the Planes [5e] p317
Source: Jon Winter-Holt. Canonwatch: The rilmani have changed a lot between 2e and 5e D&D, not least in terms of their appearance. I must confess I don’t like the futuristic robo-android-look of rilmani that 5e has introduced, I think it’s anachronistic compared with the rest of the setting, and 5e rilmani look more like golems than an outsider race. And obviously the lumpy blobs of 3e were dreadful. So I’ve reimagined them closer to the 2e form; humanoid, clearly metallic themed, androgynous, more planescapey, and I’ve tried to make each caste look more distinct from each other too. Please let me know what you think!
