Scile

Also known as incandescents, these tiny motes of light flit about the Quasielemental Plane of Radiance, draining color, their sole diet, from outside visitors. Fairly harmless otherwise, scile are nevertheless quite the pest to those traveling through the plane.

Scile: AC 0; MV 9 (A); hp 1; THAC0 20; #AT Nil; Dmg Nil; SA Drain color; SD Struck only by +1 or better weapons, immunities; SW Darkness; MR Nil; SZ T (1/100" long); ML Fanatic (17-18); Int Low to Average (7-9); AL TN; XP 35.

Appearance

These creatures, tiny specks of pure energy, appear to be nothing more than tiny fireflies, buzzing around Radiance and feeding on the endless colors there. They're especially attracted towards things from off the plane, however; the colors of such things seem to be somehow different in a way only they can see. They swarm around such visitors, either living or inanimate, feeding on their colors and eventually draining them transparent. Beyond this, they are entirely benign, without even the means to harm others let alone the will.

Scile live in vast collectives known as cloud-clusters on Radiance, composed of thousands if not millions of individuals. They can communicate telepathically with any others of their kind, and their society is purely egalitarian; all scile are equal to one another, with no superiors or leaders. Scile are by some standards barely living things; though they feed, they never age, never suffer illness, and they've never been known to have died from natural causes, although it is known they cannot survive outside Radiance for more than an instant. It's unknown if they even reproduce or not, with some believing they're an entirely finite race, unable to replenish themselves from the occasional violent or accidental death.

Abilities

As mentioned, scile can drain the color from an individual or item. To accomplish this, they must be gathered in a cloud of at least 30 scile, and they must remain within 10 feet of the target for 1d4 consecutive rounds. After this, the target must make a saving throw vs. spell (items receive no saving throw if not in the possession of another). If this save fails, the target and all of its possessions become transparent.

Transparent targets gain some of the benefits of invisibility, but as they can't see themselves either, they also receive a number of penalties. The lack of color carries over mentally, removing from the individual a good portion of awareness over their own body, and rendering many actions more difficult. The individual tends to bump into things, trip over themselves, and otherwise become clumsier for the duration of their transparency. All physical maneuvers are made at -2 (or -10%), due to the inability of the person to see their own hands and feet as they act. Spells with somatic components have a 30% chance of failing due to the incorrect gestures being made.

Transparent items are more difficult to use too. Transparent shields grant no AC bonus, as the bearer can't tell where to place the shield to block the attack. Attempts at using transparent weapons or other such physical items suffer a -2 (or -10%) penalty, though this is not cumulative with personal transparency; a transparent person using a transparent weapon only has a single -2 penalty. Finally, magical items that are made transparent fail to function at all, the lack of color affecting the magical aura in a manner similar to the minds of individuals.

Transparency can only be removed by a few specific means. Paints and dyes work, of course, keeping their own color when applied to the object, though these only work for as long as the paint or dye remains on the object. To remove transparency permanently requires either a remove curse spell or the use of dust of appearance. Each individual or item treated in this manner, however, requires a separate application; if a number of items were so affected, it may be more cost-effective to just replace them entirely.

Beyond their ability to drain color, scile enjoy a number of immunities due to their nature. Being creatures of energy, scile are immune to a number of spells that alter physical forms: paralyzation, petrification, and polymorphing attacks as well as other similar sorts of spells all fail against scile, as does disintegrate. Further, they can only be harmed by magical weapons of +1 enchantment or better, fully physical weapons simply passing through them without harm. However, physical barriers, including those conjured by magic, do hedge out scile, as do darkness spells.

Ravagers of Color

d6	Lost color/effect
1	Blue (serenity). Once per day, victim has a 25% chance to fly into a rage and attack all in sight.
2	Red (passion). Victim becomes listless and impossible to motivate. He must make a saving throw vs. spell to take any course of action.
3	Yellow (hope). Victim grows depressed, suffering a -2 penalty to all actions.
4	Green (secrets). Victim becomes unable to lie, and constantly relates information to all around him.
5	Violet (intelligence). Victim loses 1d2 points of Intelligence.
6	Orange (vitality). Victim loses 1d2 points of Strength.

This subrace of scile appears identical to them in all respects, but ravagers are wholly evil beings. These beings, unlike the scile, maliciously feed only on specific colors, throwing their victims out of balance. Quite intelligent, they seek out outsiders not for the novelty of new colors to feed on, but rather to cause havoc for their own entertainment. They are otherwise statistically identical to scile, however.

Much as how rendering a person transparent interferes with their personal awareness of their body, removing a specific color from a person unbalances their mind, removing an important part of their psyche. The specific color lost by the victim varies by the whims of the ravagers at the time; roll a d6 to determine which one is lost. Like a true scile, this effect can be removed through a remove curse spell or the use of dust of appearance. In addition, being fully color-drained by a scile also removes this effect, through bringing the person back in balance.