Tome guardian

Tome guardians, sometimes incorrectly called tomb guardians, were tiny elemental creatures that were often summoned and bound by spellcasters to their most valuable tomes of arcane knowledge.

Description
Tome guardians varied in shape, some appeared humanoid, some took on other shapes, they all, however, were made out of living flames of the Elemental Plane of Fire and usually were between and  tall.

When these creatures were bound to an object, there were almost no indication of it, apart from faint dweomer radiation and warmth.

Abilities
Tome guardians were elemental creatures of fire and not only were immune to magical and mundane fire, but also absorbed it along with electricity, healing themselves. If they absorb too much fire or electricity, it temporarily increased their health, which lasted for about a day. This extra health gained could be channeled into its devastating fireburst ability, increasing its deadliness even further. Spells such as heat metal did not heal them, instead the spell was merely absorbed.

The items that tome guardians were bound to were immune to any harm from fire elementals, salamanders, will-o'-wisps, and xag-yas. All and any attacked from these creatures on the guardians' objects could be absorbed by guardians themselves. Tome guardians were also able to communicate with these creatures in order to guarantee mutual safety or survival.

Cold-based magic and abilities were very effective against tome guardians, but water was practically useless against them. When someone attacked the item imbibed with a tomb guardian, the item remained unarmed as it was surrounded by an invisible shell, part of the guardian itself, however, these attacked dealt full damage to the guardian.

Personality
From what little was known about these tiny elementals, they never attempted to communicate with other beings but could understand common. When they were bound to an item, they had only one goal in life, to guard it, the magic also made them blindingly fearless.

Combat
When the object inhabited by a tome guardian was touched or attacked, the elemental creature made its presence known. It never attacked the object's owner, and alway focused it's attention on creatures that were trying to consume the object, such creatures as bookworms.

Tome guardians' most noteworthy and favorite attack is a fireburst. This offensive only ability was accessible by a tome guardian three times a day and made up for its limited use by its sheer unavoidable power. Fireburst was an extremely hot flame of white color, that was generated by a guardian in a thin, less than an inch in diameter stream. This white flame never missed and penetrated the target's armor, clothing, and shields. To make this attack even more devastating, fireburst could be "fired" through a mental link of a psionic assault or a communication attempt. That applied to any mental or psionic abilities, spells, or enchanted items. The stream of fire penetrated the target's defenses and skin and dealt internal damage setting the target's blood to boil for a moment. The only way to avoid a fireburst attack was to be immune to fire and heat. If the target survived the internal flames, they could be rendered unconscious for 20 to 50 minutes by the system shock of their bodily fluids boiling.

If unable to create a fireburst, a tome guardian generated tendrils of file to whip at its opponents with. These attacks were not particularly powerful but always set aflame any flammable item or material they touched.

Ecology
Not much was known of these creatures' behavior or activities in the wild as most have only encountered them when bound to the items by magic. The binding was done to tomes of magic knowledge most often, even though it was possible to have tome guardians be bound to other items. Tome guardian binding could coexist with other protective magics, such as runes or glyphs. There have been stories about more than one tome guardian being bound to a single items, but these telltales have never been corroborated.

History
An ancient spellbook Jaluster's Orizon, had one of the tome guardians bound to the item, still defending it circa 1357 DR.