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.

Abilities
Displacer beasts used their innate magic to bend light, making them appear to be a foot or two from their actual positions.

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

Ecology
Like many big cats, displacer beasts often were pack hunters, living in small groups, although they were sometimes preferred being alone.

Many humanoids trained them to act as guards or pets, such as members of the Unseelie Court and onis.

Habitats
On the Prime Material plane, displacer beasts were known to hunt in deep forests. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

 * The elf druid Wyllow had a displacer beast companion called Crissann named after a human mercenary wizard she had befriended many years ago. Halaster Blackcloak, the Mad Mage of Undermountain turned her against Wyllow and she was forced to kill the mercenary.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Expedition to the Demonweb Pits • Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage
 * 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
 * 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