Disenchanter
Disenchanters are an obscure Gotcha Monster from Dungeons & Dragons, that exist to basically be unto wizards what Rust Monsters are unto fighters.
They resemble thin camels with 5ft long elephant-like trunks and covered in pale electric-blue fur, and their sole diet is magical energy, which they siphon up through their trunk-tips. In battle, they attempt to go after the most powerful magical item they can sense first, seeking above all else to touch it with their trunk so they can sap its energies. Casting spells at them is risky, because if they can intercept the spell with their trunk, they absorb it too. They can also drain "standing" magical effects like illusions or curses as well. What makes them even more annoying than rust monsters is that, whilst they can suck the magic out of magic weapons if they hit them first, they can't be hurt by non-enchanted weapons.
Nobody found much for Disenchanters to do in (say) Greyhawk, and the BXCMI didn't touch 'em; so they got retconned as native to the Forgotten Realms. On Golarion, Disenchanters were created as a living weapon in the feud between the powerful mage-lords Nex and Geb.
On that Golarion Disenchanteria, Pathfinder gets particularly annoying by making them out as these harmless big lovable lugs who are actually fully intelligent and Good aligned, and going on about how if your party gets mad at having their precious magic items destroyed and kills them, then they're a bunch of evil bastards. The only reason they don't get Kender-like levels of hatred is because this lore is about one obscure monster and tucked away in an equally obscure splatbook, instead of being in the setting corebook.
Publication History[edit | edit source]
Disenchanters first appeared in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition in Fiend Factory (White Dwarf #6), and from there the Fiend Folio. They were updated to 2nd edition in the Monstrous Compendium Appendix Annual Volume 3.
In the AD&D Forgotten Realms, Disenchanters appeared in the splatbook "Pages from the Mages" with a full bestiary writeup, but were also stated to exist in the Realms in several other splats, including Volo's Guide to All Things Magical, The City of Raven's Bluff, and the Forgotten Realms Campaign set.
They were updated to Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition in the 3e update of the Fiend Folio.
Their Pathfinder 1e debut was in Misfit Monsters Redeemed, and they were subsequently ported to the Pathfinder Bestiary 3.
Gallery[edit | edit source]
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