Displacer beast

A displacer beast, also known as a dirlagraun, was a predatory feline monstrous magical creature.

Description
Displacer beasts were large cat-like creatures, sometimes described as panther or puma-like with six legs and a pair of long tentacles sprouting from their shoulders. They were covered in a pelt of blue-black fur. They were usually about long and weighed as much as, but the occasional mutant could be twice this size. In some versions, they were considered to be emaciated. The creatures had striking emerald-green eyes that glowed with malevolence.

A bigger and stronger variety known as displacer beast pack lord existed in the Realms. These enormous ebony cats were larger than their kin. These pack lord were a mutation of a regular displacer beast with slightly higher intelligence, on par with a human, allowing them to lead other displacer beasts.

Umbral variety of displacer beasts existed but rarely was seen outside the Plane of Shadows.

Abilities
Displacer beasts used their innate magic to bend light, making them appear to be between to  from their actual positions. The same ability made them resistant to all ranged attacks and excellent at hiding.

Displacer beasts were generally strong creatures and their barbed tentacles were hard enough to punch through pure steel armor. They possessed the ability to see in the dark as far as.

The creatures were not very intelligent, but they were more so than animals and could even speak some Common.

Behavior
Displacer beasts were not just hunters and predators, they were also killers. The creatures enjoyed the pursuit and killed prey for sport. A sated displacer beast was just as likely to hunt and kill an unwitting traveler as a starving one. Like many other great cats, displacer beasts could play with their pray, wiping it alive until the cat was ready to eat. Once the prey was slain, displacer beasts used their back tentacles to drag the carcass to a safe and remote spot to consume it.

The beasts had a deep instinctual hatred of blink dogs. The creatures attacked each other on sight and fought to the death.

Combat
Masters of hunt, displacer beasts and their pack lord kin acted in a similar manner when in battle. They targeted spellcasters first, attempting to wound them with the barbed tentacles for afar while facing male opponents head-first. The beasts used their deadly claws and bites. When able, displacer beasts used their speed and nimbleness who dash past melee combatants, always attacking weaker members of the group first. However, if faced with overwhelming odds, displacer beasts tended to flee rather than fighting to the death.

They were not above hunting and attacking in groups and were known to lure prey into ambush.

Ecology
Like many big cats, displacer beasts often were pack hunters, living in small groups called prides, although they sometimes preferred being alone. Displacer beasts preferred to hunted smaller creatures but were not picky eaters, consuming anything hey could kill. All other creatures were considered prey by the beasts.

Many humanoids trained them to act as guards or pets, such as members of the Unseelie Court and onis. In Calimshan, some stables, such as the Drakhon Sabban, offered rare trained exotic mounts, such as displacer beasts, for purchase.

Habitats
Those displacer beasts who preferred a forest hunting grounds laired in areas hidden by thick greenery and foliage or in hollowed out massive trees, wile those who inhabited plains and mountains claimed hidden caves as their homes.

On the Prime Material plane, displacer beasts were known to hunt in deep forests such as the Dire Woods part of the High Forest in the Northwest Faerûn. One of the displacer beasts found there was twice as big as its kin and was strong enough to uproot a tree with its tentacles. In the nation of Aglarond, the bests prowl in the depths the Yuirwood.

Further south, the Channath Vale and warm plains of Durpar, Estagund, and Var the Golden were displacer beasts' homelands. Occasionally, wild displacer beasts were encountered in the High Meadows tundra region of the Endless Wastes. The wilderness of Thar was another area inhabited by the beasts.

The Alimir Mountains of Calimshan were home to several species of big cats including a population of several prides of displacer beasts that arrived from the Omlarandin Mountains to the north. The Thunder Peaks and the Tilver's Gap were rumored to have a hidden population of displacer beasts, whoever some claimed that wild feline attacks were simply mountain lions.

Displacer beasts could be encountered in the Abyss, trained, kept, and used by the drow priestesses of Lolth on the Spider Queen's layer of the Demonweb Pits.

Usages
Displacer beasts' hide was a valuable commodity, used to create highly sought-after enchanted items such as Kumakawa hide armors and cloaks of displacement. Najjar's Cloak of Weaponry, an enchanted cloak from Calimshan, was crafted out of linen and tanned displacer beast hide. Jump daggers' creation involved tempering the blades in blink dog or displacer beast blood.

A piece of tanned displacer beast hide leather was a material component of the displacement spell.

Worshipers of Malar hunted displacer beasts, among other bests. The clerics fought displacer bests, owlnear, for other large beasts with their bare hands, killing them and creating ceremonial headgear out of their prey's pelt and head.

History
The beasts were thought to have originated from the Feywild, where they were trained by the Unseelie court for hunting purposes. Eventually the displacer beasts broke free of the fey's control and roamed causing chaos wherever they went. After they left captivity, the Unseelie court sent out blink dogs to track and drive the beasts out of the Feywild and into the Prime Material plane.

Another theory posited that displacer beasts had their origin in Bhaal, the Lord of Murder, who brought forth the first displacer beast, Shantu, using a corrupted moonwell on the island of Gwynneth in the Moonshae Isles.

Circa the 13 century DR, a Cormyrean evoker named Tym penned a famed collection of folios collectively known as Tym's Monstrous Book. The A Miscellany of Magical Monsters folio of the book recorded the wizard's extensive research of the displacer beast and many other magical beasts.

In the mid-14 century DR, a human adventurer Derry Brandondale came across a female blink dog in the wild. The dog was being attacked by two fierce displacer bests as it defended her newborn young. Derry could not help but defend the pups. Subsequently, both displacer beasts were slain but at the coast of the mother blink dog's life. Unwilling to let the newborns die, Derry took to rise them as his own. The adventure led the man to retire from the life of danger and pursue his passion as the proprietor of The Friendly Familiar pet shop of Raven's Bluff.

In the mid-to-late-14 century DR, Havureela the Mystical of Bezantur in Thay kept a pet displacer beast who guarded her shop of magical charms and trinkets. She acquired the beast in there younger adventuring days and felt fiercely protective of its mistress. The creature was ready to shred anyone who entered Havureela the Mystical's store without her explicit permission.

Circa the, locals of the Tilver's Gap in the northern part of the Thunder Peaks witnessed green-eyed six-legged panthers. Wild cat attacks surged in the area, even inspiring a bandit band to adopt an image of a displacer beast as their symbol. The presence of the creatures was considered a rumor by some, while others wondered where they beasts came from. They were known to roam lands between the Moonsea Ride and the Northride. Many speculated that the beasts were unleashed on the Gap for a specific nefarious reason. An unknown party surely caused fear and havoc in the region, disturbing the wildlife. Inhabitants of Tilverton reported strange late-night lights appearing in the area at night, accompanying the prowling creatures with a sense of almost palpable forbidding.

In the, a powerful displacer beast pack lord made lair in the Sewers of Mulmaster of the Moonsea region. That year, a slave girl named Lyetta fled from her Zhentarim masters and found shelter in the sewers, however she became trapped by the hungry feline creature and was resigned to her fate of being by the beast's claws or of hunger and exposure.

As the calamity of the Spellplague ravaged the Realms, starting with the, the disaster affected the Feywild. The fey creatures fell into alignment with the material world and poured through weakened barriers between planes. Displacer beasts of Feywild were among those fey.

Notable Displacer Beasts

 * Crissann, the companion of elf druid Wyllow, named after a human mercenary wizard she had befriended many years before 1492 DR. Halaster Blackcloak, the Mad Mage of Undermountain turned her against Wyllow and she was forced to kill the mercenary.
 * Shantu the displacer beast was one of the three children of Bhaal created by him in mockery of the Earthmother's Children of the Moonshae. Shantu was responsible for the death of the hero named Daryth of Calimshan in 1345 DR.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Expedition to the Demonweb Pits • Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage • Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden • The Wild Beyond the Witchlight
 * Novels
 * Darkwell
 * The Ring of Winter • Gorlist's Dragon
 * Video Games
 * Curse of the Azure Bonds • Eye of the Beholder • • Neverwinter Nights (AOL game) • Gateway to the Savage Frontier • Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance • Dungeons & Dragons: Eye of the Beholder •  • Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear
 * Neverwinter Nights: Darkness over Daggerford
 * Board Games
 * Faerûn Under Siege
 * Card Games
 * AD&D Trading Cards • Spellfire: Master the Magic
 * Organized Play & Licensed Adventures
 * Through Twilight Boughs &bull; When the Lights Went Out in Candlekeep
 * Organized Play & Licensed Adventures
 * Through Twilight Boughs &bull; When the Lights Went Out in Candlekeep