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.

A bigger and stronger variety known as displacer beast pack lord existed in the Realms. These enormous ebony cats were larger than their kin.

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

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. However, if faced with overwhelming odds, displacer beasts tended to flee rather than fighting to the death.

Ecology
Like many big cats, displacer beasts often were pack hunters, living in small groups called prides, 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 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 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.

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. Jump daggers' creation involved tempering the blades in blink dog or displacer beast blood.

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.

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
 * 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