Wingless wonder

An alkada, also nicknamed a walking egg, a wingless wonder, or just a wonder, was a bizarre, clumsy, and hapless creature possessing unexpected powers of wild magic and psionics. Notoriously, many were in fact powerful wizards trapped in a pathetic alkada form.

Description
A wingless wonder looked like nothing so much as a walking egg, with two feeble waddling legs ending in sticky rubbery pads and with two little arms, which were always flapping as if trying and failing to fly. It stood 4 feet (1.2 meters) short. The body was colored blue-green with a purplish underside, but turned slightly reddish when a wonder was agitated, whether angry or excited. The outer skin was delicate and covered in a kind of fuzz; it did not heal at nearly the same rate as the body, so wonders were often sighted with open, bleeding wounds, leaving a blood trail behind them. A high-pitched chittering was the only sound a wonder could emit.

Its mouth lay on top of the egg-like head and was ringed by nine rubbery tentacles. These could extend from 2 to 12 feet (0.6 to 3.6 meters) in length as it liked. Their sticky ends could grasp and hold anything touched, and helped a wonder find and consume food and make its way around. A bony hook could be extruded from inside the tentacle to get a better grip or slash an attacker.

They were shortsighted, seeing effectively to only 10 feet (3 meters) in both natural vision and infravision. This was previously reported as being only 0.5 inches (1.3 centimeters).

Combat
Wonders could subdue struggling prey or fight off attackers with the bony hooks in their tentacles. Although its injury was minimal, a flurry of nine tentacles each grappling one or more victims quickly proved dangerous. One could escape with decent strength, or use alcohol or oil of slipperiness to dissolve the stickiness, or sever the tentacles, but they would swiftly retract if harmed. Prey dragged into a wonder's mouth was bitten, but always let go afterward.

Powers
Most remarkably, a wonder emanated a constant, natural anti-magic shell to a few inches from their skin, stopping all magical assaults directed at them. More remarkable still, they also possessed natural wild magic, being able to produce a random, minor magical effect once a day when they chose, similar to a wand of wonder. When this was employed, the anti-magic shell became visible, flickering and pulsing, suggesting it powered the wild magic. The brief period afterward was the only time a wonder was vulnerable to magic.

Furthermore, a wonder exhibited a constant, impenetrable mind bar, as per the telepathic devotion of psionics. However, a wonder could never be engaged in psionic combat, as its mind would always "slip" away. Similarly, magic used to contact, read, or affect a wonder's mind failed, leaving an instantaneous impression of colorful mental chaos before its mind slipped away.

Unusually, wonders could not be caught by any kind of web, nor by sovereign glue or the wand of viscid globs. However, spells like entangle functioned normally on them.

Wonders possessed natural regeneration, so wounds taken quickly healed. However, the skin healed much slower, leaving open, bleeding wounds regardless of their healing abilities. Regardless, they were completely impervious to fire, of any form or source. They could not be stunned or knocked out, not really distracted by anything.

Despite this, wonders were fairly easily killed through physical injury. However, if slain, a wonder would emit a potent dying scream at its attackers. This was a psionic power much like a mind flayer's mental blast, producing a cone 60 feet (18.3 meters) long and 20 feet (6.1 meters) at its end. Those caught within risked being confused or feebleminded, but succumbing to both effects instead left the victim "mindburnt" with physical injury.

Behavior
Wingless wonders were endlessly curious but apparently lacked any fear, caution, intelligence, or common sense. With their tentacles, they touched absolutely everything they came across in their wanderings, mostly to see if it was good to eat. This was nearly all they did. They were particularly fascinated by bright red or purple hues, flashy items, and gems and shiny stones, which they tended to swallow. They were unconcerned, if not oblivious, to any chaos or catastrophe going on around them. They were observed to waddle and chitter blithely across a raging battlefield or through a dragon's fiery breath.

They typically wandered alone, but sometimes in mated pairs.

Ecology
Being omnivorous, a wingless wonder's diet was largely fruits and vegetables, but also included worms, carrion, and birds and other small animals that happened to be snared by its tentacles. They also had a habit of swallowing gems, which served as stomach-stones in their gullets.

Wingless wonders were bisexual, and whenever one lone wonder bumped into another, they would entwine their tentacles and chittered excitedly for a short time in an apparent mating ritual. They would then wander together.

After mating, wonders gestated eggs inside their bodies for an estimated 6–7 months. During this time, their anti-magical shell became visible as a faint faerie fire of faint purple-white hue. When they were ready to hatch, the wonder excreted the egg and wandered off, paying it no attention whatsoever. Meanwhile, the egg split open and produced a small, especially clumsy, but fully formed wonder.

Habitat
As they were easily slain by physical injuries, wingless wonders were very rare in populated places, and somewhat less rare in wilderness areas. They could be found anywhere except in cold arctic lands.

Wingless wonders were known to meander through the Underdark, in and around the Dark Dominion of Menzoberranzan.

Uses
Wingless wonders, of course, had few uses. If consumed, the flesh of a wingless wonder was poisonous, causing brief but stomach-wrenching nausea. Their anti-magical traits could not be extracted; the body lost them as soon as it died, and parts cut off a living wonder also lost them. Their hide rotted in about 4–7 days, but for this time, it could be worn as a crude cloak protected against non-magical flames.

A wingless wonder could sometimes carry a variety of gems and stones in its stomach, some valuable, some almost worthless.

The wonderform spell, known to the drow of Menzoberranzan, allowed a wizard to adopt the form of a wingless wonder. Drow wizards regularly used it as a disguise against hostile priestesses of Lolth or against surfacers unfamiliar with the Underdark.

Related Species
Old records and stories implied that a species related to the alkada had once existed. It supposedly had twelve tentacles, not nine, and extra powers not reported in wonders in the 14 century DR. Previously, it was reported that one in five wonders was a twelve-tentacled omnivorous variety, the remainder being a nine-tentacled herbivorous variety.