Choosing an outsider

[Albions_Angel]

Hi all

For story reasons ONLY, I need to find myself an outsider for my party. They will not fight it, so CR is irrelevant. They will not talk to it, or be seen by it, no matter how good its spot is. It is purely thematic.

Now I could build one myself, but I wanted your help trying to find something "real".

All the outsiders I know of are devils or demons or the like. I dont want some denizen of hell. I want an OUTSIDER. Something dark, inquisitive, completely alien to this world. Oddly enough, in my head I see a Shadow. Something made of darkness, or strands of light, or something... other.

Can anyone think of anything like that?

[MyrPsychologist]

Sounds like you want a shadow with a higher int score.

[BioCharge]

Off the top of my head:

A Zodar from Fiend Folio would do well. I think their fluff is exactly this. They just silently follow people around. It's a construct, though. I suppose you could refluff it as an extraplanar construct (with the (extraplanar) subtype).

There's also the Entropic Reaper from Libris Mortis. It's an Extraplanar Undead that is essentially a Grim Reaper. Good for the morbid creep factor.

Keepers from Fiend Folio could also work. They're essentially secret gatherers; they want to know everyone's secrets and for no one else to know said secrets.

Edit: Sorry, I think I misunderstood your request. If you want something "shadowy," you can add the Shadow Creature template from Lords of Madness to a creature of your choosing. It keeps the base creature's type, but gains the (Extraplanar) subtype.

[2xMachina]

Something from the elemental plane of shadow?

[Curmudgeon]

How about something like a Dust Para-Genasi with the Shadow template? They don't breathe, which to my mind makes them pretty alien.

[Eldan]

Shadowy? Darkweaver (a giant spider-like creature made from shadow that lives in the deepest tunnels of Pandemonium and spins mind-controlling webs. Their entry in PSMC was pure awesome). Shadow Fiend. Nightwalker.

For truly alien, I guess you could go traw PSMC 2 and 3.

[nedz]

There are a lot of Outsiders.

Your request is so nebulous that you might want something from the Far Realms as far as I know ?

Or a Spirrax (MM5 p166) from the Plane of Unknown ?

There are entire Subtypes of Outsiders — can you at least hint at it's alignment ?

[Crake]

From the way you describe outsider in that last bit, being alien, the only thing I can think you mean is something from the far realm. The typical meaning behind outsider means from the outer planes, but you say outsider like you mean "outside of known existence", and you seem to say shadowy not as darkness, but obscurity.

The shoggoth from pathfinder could fit the bill, I'm not sure if there's a 3.5 version statted anywhere, but it shouldn't be too hard to backport if you're using 3.5

[Kelb_Panthera]

Hi all

For story reasons ONLY, I need to find myself an outsider for my party. They will not fight it, so CR is irrelevant. They will not talk to it, or be seen by it, no matter how good its spot is. It is purely thematic.

To what end? If the PC's are not to interact with the creature, why do you need it?


Now I could build one myself, but I wanted your help trying to find something "real".

All the outsiders I know of are devils or demons or the like. I dont want some denizen of hell. I want an OUTSIDER. Something dark, inquisitive, completely alien to this world. Oddly enough, in my head I see a Shadow. Something made of darkness, or strands of light, or something... other.

Can anyone think of anything like that?

You could slap the pseudlnatural and shadow templates on pretty much anything and get alien and shadowy. It'd probably help if we knew what it was for.

[Albions_Angel]

The gods (really just druids that usurped the true gods) have abandoned the world. All their magic that shaped it is coming apart at the seams. Dead are rising, but its more like they are being created, as the bodies are clean, free of decay, and have no personal items. The barriers between worlds are growing weaker, and things are beginning to slip through. Eventually, if they dont stop it, their part of the world will unravel completely and return to what it was before, a barren, desolate ice sheet.

They wont fight this one. They are only level 3, and I want this thing to appear powerful and strange. They may later fight more of its kind.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Huh.

Okay, that's different.

Doesn't really help to narrow things down much. It honestly sounds like just about any high CR aberration or far realms outsider would fit the bill. Uvuudaum maybe? It's in the srd's epic section and about as nasty as utterly alien gets.

[Eldan]

Well. I mean, the first ones to profit if the gods vanished would be exactly those you don't want, the exemplars. If those are out for some reason, I'd imagine you could bring back anything really old in the cosmology: id est, Ancient Baatorians, Obyriths, Baernoloths, the prisoner of Elysium, the Blood Queen and the Aboleths, Ethergaunts, Draeden, etc. Doesn't have to be anything from the Far Realm.

In fact, I find the far realm always a bit boring when it actually shows up in game. So you have things that are indescribable and follow no rules. Here's a picture and a statblock.