Varnyx - The Nothic
In the cobwebbed archives beneath a shattered mage’s tower in Gloomshade, something watches. Varnyx is no mindless horror but a broken, whispering thing—once a master of divination, now a creature of single-minded obsession.
(In Undercommon dialect: "Varnyx" implies “mind-rifted” or “thought-scattered”)
Role in Its Society:
Varnyx does not belong to a society—it is haunted by one. It avoids other creatures unless they offer magical lore, secrets, or fragments of its own past. It has become an oracle of sorts for desperate mages, a source of riddled knowledge in exchange for trinkets of power. Other nothics shun Varnyx’s proximity, sensing in it something too close to sentience, too close to the truth that cursed them all.
Appearance Description:
Varnyx’s desiccated flesh is stretched taut over a gaunt frame. Its lone eye glows an unhealthy emerald, constantly twitching as if seeking invisible patterns. Strange sigils are carved into its bone-white claws—scratched there by its own hand. Tufts of gray hair cling to its scalp, and it wears the rotted, embroidered remnant of a wizard’s cloak, draped like a memory it refuses to discard.
Backstory:
Once, Varnyx was Theren Elowar, an elven arch-diviner of Quel'Anor's Silver Court, obsessed with unraveling the future to escape death. Delving too far into temporal magic and communing with forbidden planar echoes, he attracted the attention of Vecna's lingering curse. His flesh twisted and mind unraveled overnight, reducing him to a hunched monster. Yet in the transformation, a sliver of self remained. Now known as Varnyx, he lairs beneath his ruined tower, hoarding scrying devices, spellbooks, and arcane detritus—hoping to reassemble the mirror of his shattered mind.
