Silvery Dancer

Family: Dancer

Tiny beast, unaligned

Armor Class 11
Hit Points 1 (1d4 ? 1); Wound Threshold N/A
Speed 0 ft., fly 40 ft.

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
4 (-3)	12 (+1)	8 (-1)	5 (-3)	12 (+1)	8 (-1)

Skills Perception +3, Stealth +3
Damage Immunities poison
Condition Immunities poisoned
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 13
Languages communicates with flight patterns; can learn languages, but can only speak via flapping
Challenge 0 (10 XP)

SPECIAL TRAITS

• Flyby. The silvery dancer doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks when it flies out of an enemy’s reach.
• Silvery Halo. The silvery dancer reflects any unobstructed source of bright light within 120 feet, shedding bright light in a 5-foot radius and dim light for an additional 5 feet.

ACTIONS

• Leg Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 1 bludgeoning damage.

ABOUT

The silvery dancer is a large lepidopteran typical of Netherworld oases. It usually feeds off mushrooms as a caterpillar. This luminescent can easily be identified by its wingspan, which can reach 20 inches, and owes its name to its graceful, expressive appearance.

It has very dark eyes and feather-like antennae.

Its entire body is silver-gray, from the thick fuzz of its thorax and abdomen—which is as soft as fur—to the scales of its wings.

Evanescent Faces in the Dark

The wings of a silvery dancer have eye-shaped and crescent-shaped patterns that both reflect and diffract light; as a result, the silvery dancer appears to be wreathed in a lunar halo. The shapes on its wings seem to change depending on what angle they are viewed from and on the intensity of the ambient light. When a silvery dancer beats its wings in the dark, the movement gives the impression of flickering glowing faces.

This is actually a defensive strategy of the creature to scare off predators.

A Cooperative Society

Whoever watches the lives of silvery dancers will no doubt marvel at their intelligence. They live in large caves and communicate through the flapping of their wings and through their dancing flight patterns. They use light and reflections, down to the most fleeting sliver, to transmit messages. Their society is organized following principles that value cooperation.

Each individual explores and seeks resources and, once satiated, informs others of its findings.

Likewise, the presence of danger is dutifully relayed to other silvery dancers. After nightfall, these creatures sometimes venture out on the surface, flying in swarms. Noticeably, the cooperativeness of silvery dancers is not restricted to their kin, so a creature that cultivates a close relationship with a silvery dancer may in return receive help from other silvery dancers.

Frequently dwelling in maelossas, silvery dancers are said to watch over young sidhes and act as their nurses. Their connection is almost symbiotic, with silvery dancer caterpillars weaving their cocoons against the birthing chrysalises of sidhes. It is not uncommon for a sidhe and “its” silvery dancer to become inseparable.

Certain myths explain this bond, some claiming that the dancer caterpillar acts as a sort of lighthouse for departed souls reborn into sidhes, others suggesting that in its cocoon, the dancer is imbued with the memory of a person dear to the past self of the individual being reborn as a sidhe. The proponents of this supposition see it as an explanation to the dancers’ flapping resulting in face-like shapes.