Weird, True — Metal

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

Weird, True — Metal

Oracular weird

DESCRIPTION: Sometimes mistaken for a construct (by the clueless) or an argenach rilmani (by dreamers), the true metal weird is actually related to neither of these. She—for they always appear feminine even though they have no gender—is an oracular alloy of pure elemental metal, all natural rather than constructed. Her upper body appears as a statuesque figure cast from a mirror-made-liquid, and her fine hair flows in capillary filament wires that thread back into the pool below. Her face is a smooth mask of silver which hardly betrays emotion. Her motions are graceful but robotic, as if she has only certain discrete statuesque poses and transitions between them smoothly before stopping suddenly at rest. When she speaks, her voice is a many-layered harmonic tone composed of ringing bells, pinging chimes, and air being blown through pipes. She has the scent of hot iron and cooling oil.

The true weirds are paragons of their species, in whom the inherent energy of the Plane of Metal reaches a higher potential. These intelligent elementals can assume a humanoid form, speak all the languages of the Primes, and most importantly for the aforementioned mortals, these so-called oracular weirds can foretell the future. Already weirder than their elemental sisters, the centuries of isolation of the Plane of Metal seem to have taken its toll on the metal weirds. They speak with the measured certainty of savants that have already run every calculation, and predicted the likelihood of every outcome. They rarely speak, but when they do every word feels weighed and measured as it passes their silver lips. Metal weirds are unnervingly calm: unhurried even when warning of wars, plagues, or starfalls, as if such things are merely events scheduled into an unseen calendar.

Metal weirds are fascinated by number and pattern, and make connections between things that might seem unrelated. They speak in the same cadence to describe a quarrel between lovers or the fall of an empire and the extinction of a species, always looking past individuals and focusing on broader systems. They mix alchemical jargon with metaphors no mortal really understands. They talk of strange concepts like chains of causality, of crowdsourcing beliefs, or recursive prayers, and their prophecies are full of mindbending images—cities wrapped in glass that drink lightning, bronze angels speaking through wires, dead worlds haunted by thinking stars, and they claim these are simply distant chapters of the current cosmology. Their inability to focus on the present make metal weirds feel profoundly unrelatable—detached at best, and downright cruel at worst. They might answers questions with references to futures centuries or millennia away, describing the consequences of an action in terms of a civilisation that has not yet been born. If pressed to focus, they grow impatient and describe the present day as a low-resolution phase, a phrase that has become infamous among those who have tried to bargain with metal weirds for practical guidance.

PREFERRED HABITAT: Each true weird is intrinsically tied to an elemental pool, and they are unable to venture more than a few steps from it. Fortunately for the weird, they really don’t want to. The pool of the metal weird is liquid metal—perhaps quicksilver, or perhaps a molten forge of iron. These are rarely found on the Prime, metal weirds are the least likely of their kin to be encountered outside their native plane. In the rare locations where the Plane of Metal impinges upon the Prime, an elemental vortex forms and, more often than not, a true weird manifests to watch over it. The weirds guard or seal the portal, repel incursions—in either direction—and oppose any plane-breaching magic.

PHILOSOPHY / SOCIETY: Elemental weirds are essentially guardians of the Elemental Planes. They try to prevent foreign elements contaminating their home too much, fearing that it may cause the imbalance among the Inner Planes. Many of them seem to be simply waiting, as if their time has not yet come and perhaps one day metal will be the most important of the elements, but just not today.

ECOLOGY: True metal weirds neither eat nor sleep. They are sustained by magnetic energy, and in the information metals carry. While educated cutters may know that metals conduct electrical energies, true weirds can also sense more esoteric types of energy in metal objects. They claim that anything metal that has touched skin or blood can conduct emotions and thoughts to the weird when immersed in her pool or touched by her hands. She can read these patterns like a smith reads the colours of steel, feeling the chorus of battles a blade has known, the oaths a ring has bound, or the theft a coin has abetted, and in this way she can commune with the meta object and learn its emotional history.

COMBAT: True weirds prefer not to fight in the first place, if they can avoid it. If conflict is inescapable however, they are able to summon elementals through the weird pool to assist them. Weirds are also able to gain control of any elemental in their sight, no matter the type of element. During combat, a true weird typically retreats to the centre of its pool, using its power over magnetism and metal to influence the battle.

A warning to planewalkers going up against a weird. If a berk enters a weird’s pool without their permission, they risk being transformed into an elemental themselves! Finally, an metal true weird has the option of retreating back to the Plane of Metal through the vortex at the centre of its pool. This is a one-way trip, however, shutting the vortex down. It’s thought the weird then merges back with their home plane to share what it has learned—so this is very much an option of last resort.

VARIANTS: Immature members of this species are called lesser metal weirds, and they have a very different outlook on life. It seems as they mature, the weird becomes much more serious, and if anything, more out of touch with reality.

Full Statistics For: [ PF 2e ]

Source: Margarita and Jon Winter-Holt. Canonwatch: These homebrew creatures are based on the elemental weirds from D&D 3e. They were called “true weirds” briefly in the text there, while the ambushing weird of 2e was renamed the “lesser weird”, and also changed from CE to N alignment. However, since in other editions and in fandom as a whole elemental weirds are associated with a sneaky elemental rather than with a prophetic lady, we chose to swap some terms around.