Weird, Lesser — Metal

[ Bestiary | Elemental-Kin | Weirds ]
[ Lesser Weird ] [ Air | Earth | Fire | Metal | Water | Wood ] [ True Weird ]

Weird, Lesser — Metal

Lesser elemental weirds appear as strange, snake-like beings. Their bodies are composed entirely of a single element, and while their forms are somewhat malleable, they’re usually around five feet long. They lack the humanoid grace of the mysterious humanoid true weirds though, instead resembling restless spirits that have been perpetually caught between states of being.

DESCRIPTION: A metal lesser weird is a sleek steel serpent that pools, rises, and reshapes like living mercury into a long lean form. The weird’s surface ripples with moiré interference patterns, and stray sparks strike when it when it brushes iron or copper. The weird’s wirey tongue crackles as if it is tasting them. They sound like chain mail sliding over glass, and they smell of machine oil and clean coins. When surprised or excited, a metal weird extrudes hair-thin needle-spines, which then melt away back into their reflective skin as they calm down.

HABITAT: These lesser weirds favour places where metal is plentiful and heat or magnetism are available to keep them “awake”. In the Inner Planes, they haunt seams and caverns in the deep strata of Elemental Earth and Mineral where veins of iron, copper, and rare alloys cross like ley-lines, although they are happiest in their home plane of Metal. On the Great Ring or the Prime Material, they keep to smelting forges, tin mines veined with ore, scrapyards or metal ships, or the galvanic underbellies of walking castles. Able to pass through solid metal without a trace, weirds particularly love vaults with bare metal floors and piles of gold, or walls lined with lead.

PHILOSOPHY / SOCIETY: Their weird philosophy is improvisational: to metal weirds, the world is a prototype, and destiny a draft to be hammered out, annealed to improve its strength, and then quenched and repeated again until it is rigid enough. Metal weirds are quick-witted and wildly associative—leaping quickly to clever solutions—but they are slow to learn deeper lessons. Metal weirds will repeat brilliant mistakes with almost manic delight, and their poor wisdom gives them a magpie’s trust in shiny bait and outlandish plans. Their society is ad hoc and transactional: small groups of metal weirds might form around shared projects—stripping the carcass of an iron golem, defeating a pack of rust monsters—but the groups then dissolve when their creative spark is spent. They admire endurance and flexibility; they mistrust stagnation and anything that insists there is only one correct answer to a problem.

Weirds can be a xenophobic bunch, and don’t really like any cutters who aren’t metal elementals—and this has led many planewalkers to believe all weirds are wicked. However, metal weirds have surprisingly malleable attitudes. They are drawn like magnets to cutters with attractive personalities, and are quick to agree with new opinions. Unfortunately this can mean they are prone to cultish thoughts and conspiracy theories. Left to their own devices, metal weirds are chaotic and disorganised. When they are led by a sufficiently charismatic leader however, they will fall into line and do as they are told with no complaint.

ECOLOGY: Metal weirds “feed” on induced currents and impurities in the metal around them. They draw trace nutrients from oxides and patinas, and strip away rust. They gather in lightning rods to sip electrical charge, and they are mesmerised by lodestones. Their reproductive cycle is mysterious and thought to be tied to natural sources of unworked metal—seams of gold, silver, or iron meteorites. Lesser weirds are drawn to all of these things, but exactly what they get up to when they find them is not known. Some alchemists believe the weirds may be able to convert one kind of metal into another, and have sought weird cadavers for experimentation in the age-old quest to turn lead into gold. This is probably why the weirds are so secretive.

Graybeards believe that elemental weirds are the immature form of the true weird, although how long these creatures remains in this larval stage isn’t known. It is also strange how they reproduce as lesser weirds, only occasionally becoming true weirds, who do not themselves seem to spawn lesser weirds—which is partly the reason the question of how the two types of creatures are linked is not settled. As they age, lesser weirds seem to become less ethically fickle, and the current theory is that after many cycles of reproduction they eventually mature and settle down as true weirds.

Lesser water weirds tend to be solitary, unless in the company of a true weird. A cluster of lesser metal weirds (called a ‘workshop’) can often be found nearby true weird pools, where they gather to commune with the elder true weird, perhaps to learn from them, perhaps to defend them. They converse with each other through electrical impulses and chime noises rather than speech, so solidfolk can only communicate with a lesser metal weird using magic.

COMBAT: The lesser metal weird fights like a shape-changing weapon, constantly reforming itself with piercing spikes, slashing razor-sharp fins or bludgeoning tail club. Their bodies are simultaneously liquid and incredibly hard, and they are able to absorb a surprising amount of physical damage. They can meld into metal, forming an imperceptible mirror sheen on the surface of girders, machines, large metal weapons or even plate armour, and then wrest control of the item to crush its wearer, heat or chill metal to cause searing pain, or animate a weapon and have it dance away, or even attack its owner.

They are immune to heat and cold, and completely immune to electrical attacks. Their weakness however is damage from acid. If threatened by such corrosives, they will usually retreat, shedding sacrificial layers to slough off persistent damage, and then either regrouping or fleeing altogether.

Sources

Full Statistics For: [ PF2e ]

Canonical Sources: Monstrous Compendium Volume II (as elemental, water weird); Dragon Magazine #347 p66-69;70-71 ‘the ecology of the elemental weird’ (air, earth, fire, water); Monster Manual II [3e] p91-92 (lore on true weirds)

Source: Margarita and Jon Winter-Holt. Canonwatch: These creatures are based on the elemental weirds from AD&D 2e. Metal was introduced as an elemental plane by AD&D Oriental Adventures, and more recently in Pathfinder’s Rage of Elements. I’ve extrapolated the elemental weird to these new environmental niches.