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"Amongst the many dangers and horrors the shifting desert sands of Masyrpt have to offer, few accompany the faithful caravaner as diligently as the Dunewight. When its melancholy, aching howl echoes out through the hollows and flats of the wastes the light is banished from men's souls. Despair o' hopeless wanderer! For even the mightiest of warriors can only hope to keep them at bay and beat a hasty retreat. Only the dark magicks of the nomadic peoples can truly banish such creatures to the darkness from which they were born."
- The Wandering Quill of Iskandaria | Of Caravans and Creatures: A Guide to the Parian Wilds Vol. II
Out of Character Information
Objective: To create an entity/creature unique to the lands of Paria.
Category: Creature
Image Credit: Reddit
Development Thread: N/A
Permissions: N/A
General Information
Name: Dunewights
Aliases: Sand Spirts, Sand Elementals
Classification: Supernatural Entity
Intelligence: Semi-Intelligent
Longevity: Ageless
Population: Rare
Diet: Carnivorous
Locations: Paria
Habitat: Deserts, arid scrublands, saltflats
Magical: Yes
Description: Dunewights are hostile spirts that haunt the desert wastes of greater Paria, awaiting the opportunity to prey on vulnerable travelers or outcasts. Appearing as little more than a snaking movement of the very sands themselves, they are often mistaken for mirages. When they manifest their forms fully, they take on the gruesome images of skeletal humanoids, albeit comprised entirely of the twisting and dancing desert sands.
Physical Information
Average Height: 1.7-4.5 Meters
Average Weight: N/A (Ethereal)
Average Wingspan: N/A
Average Length: N/A
Colour Variation: Porcelain White to Rust Brown
Communication: Vocalizations are largely restricted to screeches and howls
Physical Description: Appearing in a maelstrom of swirling sand, Dunewights most commonly resemble humanoid corpses in varying state of decay, albeit comprised entirely of sand. At times they wear the tattered remnants of clothing and at other times are entirely nude. Often they are little more than skeletal revenants. Male and female variants have been observed. Indeed, the Dunewight appears to be as varied as the human race itself. They are often equipped with elongated, talon-like claws on the ends of their fingertips.
Variants: N/A
Further Information
Social Ecology: Given their rarity, little is known about the social habits of Dunewights or indeed if there even is a social component to their existence. The great majority of sightings have been of single creatures, however tales persist of groupings of the entities. These are usually based around a specific location they seem to claim as a territory.
Languages: Rumors exist of Dunewights capable of speech, though such stories remain unverified.
Strengths
Damage Resistant - Sand Spirits display a remarkable durability to conventional weapons and physical harm. Thrusts and slashes from blades pass through their physical form to little visible effect, with punctures and gashes filling themselves in almost as readily as they appear.
Clawed Attack - Though reports of Dunewights armed with ancient or mouldering weaponry do exist, the majority of them strike with their preternatural claws. Though capable of inflicting grave damage, heavier armors offer some protection against their lethality.
Consumption - Once a victim is sufficiently weakened, Dunewights draw upon the very desert itself to form great waves of sand that overwhelms and engulfs its prey, burying them in its suffocating depths. In the case of larger Dunewights, there are those that whisper of witnessing entire caravans being lost to such tidal waves of sand.
Weaknesses
Magic Vulnerability - As creatures of magic, Dunewights are particularly vulnerable to its effects. Elemental magic has the expected impact on their earthen bodies, with water based attacks being particularly effective. Wards or rituals of protection also appear to be effective against them.
Terrain Dependent - Sand Spirits do not simply call the desert their home, they are of the very desert itself. As a result, most other terrains act as natural barriers to them. An outcropping of rock, a river or stream, even the grasslands of an oasis all offer sanctuary from the Sand Spirits.
Ravenous Hunger - Despite suggestions by some that the wights are capable of communication, most appear driven purely by hunger and rage. As such, they are easily out-thought and outmaneuvered. Younger wights appear to retain some shadows of their humanity. This makes them, amongst other attributes, more thoughtful and in some ways, more dangerous. Ancient Dunewights are terrible to behold and exist only as a baleful fury given form.
Historical Information
Of all the entities that haunt the cautionary tales surrounding desert travel, it is perhaps the Dunewight that appears most frequently. The desert offers few dangers more horrifying than these elemental phantoms. Seemingly springing from the sands themselves, the Dunewight fosters an inexplicable hatred of the living. Heralded by their characteristic screeching howl these wights often appear as little more than a shimmer across the dunes, a snaking current of sands making their way towards unlikely caravans or desert travelers. When near, they manifest into ghoulish humanoid figures that lash out violently at their intended prey, eventually dragging such hapless victims beneath the very sands themselves.
Members of the Almuqddasayn faith believe the Dunewights are in actuality, Mukhtall, souls deemed 'unbalanced' upon being weighed at the Arch of Ameba. Having failed to reach the sacred equilibrium demanded of all Almuqddasaynian faithful, such souls are denied entrance to Gnoma and are doomed to wander the mortal world as a vengeful spirit.
Regardless of where their true origin lay, the Dunewights are a very real threat to those would traverse the deserts expanse. As a result, the Bedouins, tribesmen, and nomadic peoples that call the desert home charge a high price to act as guides, safely leading merchants and caravans through less hazardous routes.
Shamanistic rituals and wards have been seen to be effective against the Dunewights, the generations of perfecting that has gone into them all but facilitating trade between Paria's major settlements. As a result, these magicks are a closely guarded secret among those that wield them.