Wingless wonder

An alkada, commonly called 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 hiding, trapped, or even reincarnated in the pathetic form of an alkada. The walking egg was rightly regarded as one of the strangest and clumsiest, if not stupidest, creatures in all Faerûn.

Description
A wingless wonder looked like nothing so much as a walking egg,   with two feeble waddling legs ending in sticky rubbery hoof-shaped pads that could stick to even slippery or almost vertical surfaces. It also had two stubby little arms, which were constantly flapping as if trying, but 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 the wonder was agitated, but whether angry or excited was hard to tell. 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. Most lived their whole lives with many little wounds like this. A high-pitched chittering was the only sound a wonder could emit.

On top of the egg-like head was its mouth, which was ringed by nine rubbery worm-like 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. The mouth itself was a powerful beak capable of snapping and grinding foods.

Their large, sad-looking eyes were quite shortsighted, seeing effectively to a limited distance in both natural vision and infravision. This was variously reported to be as low as 0.5 inches (1.3 centimeters), 6 feet (1.8 meters), or 10 feet (3 meters).

Combat
Wonders could try to subdue struggling prey or fight off attackers by using the bony hooks in their tentacles. Although the injury done by one was minimal, a flurry of nine tentacles each grappling one or more victims quickly proved dangerous. A caught creature could escape with decent application of strength, or they could use alcohol or oil of slipperiness to dissolve the stickiness, or else sever the tentacles, but the tentacles would swiftly release their grip and 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 distance of a few inches from its skin, stopping all magic directed at it.

More remarkable still, they also possessed natural wild magic, 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 psionic telepathic devotion. 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 quickly healed. However, the skin healed much slower, leaving open, bleeding wounds regardless of their healing abilities. In addition, they were completely impervious to fire, of any form or source,  though they could still suffer the concussive force of an explosion. They could not be stunned or knocked out, were not really distracted by anything, and could not be scared, but they seemed surprised by every pain experienced.

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. In some cases, the dying mind of the alkada, overwhelmed by the power of the psionic blast, twisted the scream into invisible beams of raw force. These beams inflicted great physical damage to all creatures within a radius of 120 feet (37 meters) who'd recently attacked the alkada.

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, to help them get around, explore, or handle things, but mostly to see if they were good to eat. This was nearly all they did. They were particularly fascinated by bright red or purple hues, flashy items such as gems, cut glass, and shiny stones, anything that sparkled or translucent that caught the light. These they tended to swallow. Seeming to possess a sort of shy innocence, they seemed not to notice any aggression or attack until it was struck. 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. However, it was also reported they disliked loud noises, haste, violence, and death. They were considered to be harmless unless frightened or provoked.

They typically wandered alone, but sometimes in mated pairs. No sane, natural alkada would fight another. They would cannibalize dead alkadas, but only when sure they were definitely dead, which was usually when they had begun to rot.

They seemed to enjoy wandering about aimlessly, but had a few favorite spots to visit now and then. They would remember where they were, and had an amazing knack for crossing vast distances to return to them.

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 would put almost any living thing in their mouths and chew it, spitting it out if they did not like the flavor, but every wonder had different tastes. They also had a habit of swallowing gems, stones, and other shinies, which served as stomach-stones in their gullets. These did them no harm, and they carried them until death.

Wingless wonders were hermaphroditic, and whenever one lone adult wonder bumped into another, they would entwine their tentacles and chitter excitedly for a short time in an apparent mating ritual. Via tentacle ducts, they exchanged fluids and fertilized pea-sized eggs within each other. All alkada produced such eggs, holding up to a dozen at a time, though only one could be fertilized in one mating, with another fertilized only if a pregnant alkada encountered another of its kind. They would then wander off together.

After mating, the 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. The eggs grew to the size of a human head. When they were ready to hatch, the wonder excreted the egg, which fell to the ground, split open, and produced a small wonder, especially clumsy but fully formed and hungry. The parent alkada then wandered off, paying the child no attention whatsoever. The offspring might follow a parent for a while, but were expected to look after themselves.

It was possible to extract fertilized eggs from a slain wonder and incubate them by keeping them warm and supplying them with nutrients, such as in a thick soup. The egg would quickly absorb the nutrients and grow on its own, and hatch to produce a small wonder.

Alkada had few to no predators, because their meat was disgusting and even poisonous to all mammalian creatures. It was probably for this reason alone that they'd escaped extinction.

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. They were more common in and around wild magic zones and in areas of strong faerzress.

Wingless wonders were known to meander through the Underdark, such as 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 until this time, it could be worn as a crude cloak or used as a covering that 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.

Some folk with large, walled gardens erected "wonder pens" where wingless wonders were kept. Here, they dumped kitchen scraps, offal, carcasses, and animal waste. The wonders seemed content to devour this, provided living plants were also available to eat.

Wonderform
The wonderform spell allowed a wizard to adopt the form of a wingless wonder. As pathetic as this tactic seemed, it was a useful disguise, as the being's mind was entirely shielded against scrutiny, appearing in all physical and magical respects as a normal wonder. A being so transformed could still speak and cast spells as normal, and could revert to their normal form at will. Thus someone who encountered a wonder could never tell if it was a curious and helpless beast, or a powerful mage capable of mighty magic.

After the empire of Netheril fell in the Year of Sundered Webs, −339 DR, many Netherese wizards escaped the collapse by using wonderform. The spell remained known to human mages like Auziiyra Twelvestars by the 14 century DR.

Wonderform was later developed again independently by drow mages and was known to the drow of Menzoberranzan by the 14 century DR. Drow wizards regularly used it as a disguise against hostile priestesses of Lolth (as Thaerlbone Faen Tlabbar, Daethleness Tuin'Tarl, and the Watchspider Wizard did) or against surfacers unfamiliar with the Underdark. Most famously, Matron Mother Ardreyth Mizzrym happened to swat a wingless wonder out of her way when it suddenly created a meteor swarm, obliterating her and most of her family, while it wandered away, unharmed and unimpeded by stunned survivors.

Polymorph
A unique polymorph spell was developed by wizards of the surface world that forcibly trapped an enemy in the form of a wingless wonder, usually to humiliate a rival mage. Several centuries before the mid–14 century DR, the notorious "spellslinger" Durshult lost a duel of magic to another mage, who then polymorphed Durshult into the humiliating form of a wingless wonder. For some decades after, it was a fad among mages to trap their defeated foes in wonder form, leading to the development of specific spells for this purpose. Scenes of such events appeared in tales and ballads and, because of these, forcibly polymorphing into a wonder was more well known than the wonderform disguise.

Below the surface, drow priestesses used something similar, in order to keep a captive mage in a helpless and vulnerable form but kept alive should they find a use for them later. Phaerl Godeep, the Rebel Mage, was a notable victim of this.

Unlike wonderform, a being trapped in the form of an alkada could not speak, only chitter inanely, though they might use their tentacles to hold a stick with which to draw. They retained their intellect and memories (but acting like a stupid alkada was usually safest ), but likely could not cast spells requiring hands or mouth, though they could, by act of will, trigger the wonder's wild magic, but with no control over the outcome. They also did not make the potent dying scream when killed.

Being trapped in such a wretched shape, sometimes for years and even indefinitely, could drive a mage quite mad. This madness often produced many multiple personalities, with one or more being maniacally energetic would-be murders and others being patient plotters who tried to thwart the former.

The only way to free a being trapped in wonder form was to cast dispel magic, remove curse, or polymorph other at them, but only in the brief period after they used their wild magic, while the anti-magic shell was visible, once a day. Young mages in dire need of allies, tutors, or help sometimes tried this or other ideas on any wingless wonder they came across, hoping to free a wizard who might then feel like granting some service in gratitude.

Mystra's Choice
After death, great mages, Magisters, and Chosen of Mystra were judged by the goddess of magic and given Mystra's Choice. A failed Magister (one who had not created a new spell and passed it on) could choose, among other magic-related creatures, to be reincarnated as a wingless wonder. In this miserable form, they could keep their memories and sentience but nothing else, and some were tormented by the glory of Mystra, glimpsed once and denied to them forever after. Failures could also become tarsardar, called "staff spirits" or "sword spirits"; disobedient tarsardar might be permanently transformed into wingless wonders.

Successful Magisters who chose to be Reborn "wise" (keeping their memories) in a different body had the power to voluntarily transform into wingless wonders by will alone. The process was complex. The transformation process lasted ten minutes and involved grotesque bodily distortions. It could be halted in the first seven minutes, in which case they "snapped" back to their original form; after this, it could not be reversed. During transformation, the Reborn one was capable only of crude, basic gestures (such as waving, pointing, grappling, and throwing aimlessly) and couldn't speak coherently, attack, or parry. If they had never before been touched by active magic, then they would never emerge from this horrible form. Those who had became wingless wonders for at least three days, after which, if touched by magic again, they could choose to turn back any time within the next day. After a minute of similar distortions, they reverted to their previous form.

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 mid–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. In any case, by 1370 DR, sages believed this somewhat larger, slower, twelve-tentacled subspecies was extinct.

By the mid–14 century DR, an estimated 20–25% of wingless wonders were in fact other beings in wonder form, most likely a human or demihuman mage, and most trapped unwillingly (few if any were Magisters, however).