Climate/Terrain: Temperate and sub-tropical mountains
Frequency: Uncommon
Organization: Swarm
Active Times: Night
Diet: Nil
Intelligence: Non-intelligent (0)/ animal (1)
Treasure: Nil
Alignment: Neutral
Reaction Modifier: - 5

Number Appearing: 1 swarm of 200 -b ldlOO
Armor Class: 10 (7)
Movement: /18" (/6")
Hit Dice: 1 hp (50 hp)
THACO Nil (13)
Number of Attacks: Nil (1)
Damage per Attack Nil (1-6)
Special Attacks: Light beams
Special Defenses: Nil
Magic Resistance: Nil
Size: Tiny (1/2" diameter) (small (12" diameter))
Morale: See below
Experience Value: 3 (75)

The crystalmist is a swarm of living crystals that dwells
in high mountainous regions. When threatened, the individuals
in the swarm can combine to form a community
with enhanced intelligence and powers. (In the listing
above, statistics before parentheses refer to the individual
creature; statistics within parentheses refer to the community.)

Physical Appearance: An individual crystalmist creature
appears as a tiny drifting crystal, like a large snowflake
with its own internal light. This light can be any
color. The individuals congregate in large multicolored
swarms that drift aimlessly through the air. If the swarm is
threatened, the individuals coalesce, forming larger crystal
communities approximately a foot in diameter. Each
community is composed of 50 individuals, and takes one
round to form. Communities can hover and move slowly.
They glow with a pure white light.

Combat: The individuals have no combat abilities and
no measurable intelligence. The communities, on the other
hand, have animal awareness. They are also able to generate
brilliant beams of white light with a range of 20 feet.
These beams are intense enough to cause damage, and can
ignite flammable materials if they fail their saving throw
against magical fire. Armor can absorb or reflect these
beams (although sometimes at the cost of igniting the
armor's material), so attacks are handled with a regular
hit roll, rather than as a spell attackhaving throw situation.
If a community's hit roll is unsuccessful but still
exceeds 3 (the roll necessary for the creature to hit AC lo),
the beam has struck the target's shield or a piece of armor.
If the equipment struck is flammable (e.g., padded armor,
wooden shield, etc.), it must save against magical fire or
burst into flame.

A community consists of 50 individuals, and so has 50 hp;
however, if it receives 10 or more points of damage, it
breaks apart into its component individuals. Each point of
damage done to the community destroys one individual
(thus a community sustaining 12 points of damage will
immediately decompose into 38 individuals). Individuals
from a scattered community won't form another community
for 5 rounds after the dissolution of their last community.

Crystalmists-whether individuals or communities- are
immune to sleep, charm, illusion, or other mind-affecting
magics.

Crystalmists have limited and temporary awareness,
and hence have no morale in the normal sense. As dictated
by the constraints above, crystalmists will continue to
form communities and attack until the threat to the swarm
has gone, or until they have all been destroyed.

Habitat/Society: Individual crystalmists have less selfawareness
and intelligence than insects. Over the millennia,
however, they've evolved the ability to coalesce into
larger communities in time of need. In these communities,
the insignificant minds of individuals merge together to
produce animal-level intelligence.

Crystalmist communities form if any creature tries to
pass through a swarm. Most denizens of the mountains
know this, and avoid the drifting points of light.

During the day, crystalmists are inert, lying like salt
crystals sprinkled on the ground. Their glow is gone, and
they cannot move. They spend the daylight hours absorbing
what little sustenance they need from the air and from
the rocks: oxygen, hydrogen, silicon, some carbon, and
other trace elements. They also absorb the energy of sunlight,
storing it somehow within their crystal lattices for
later use.

Crystalmist individuals reproduce rarely, and then by
binary fission like unicellular creatures.

Although they can be found in any temperate or subtropical
mountain range, they're most common in the Crystalmist Mountains
(whether the range was named for the
creatures or they for the range is still a point of contention
among sages).

Niche: Since they consume nothing but energy and
inanimate matter, crystalmists are at the bottom of the
food chain. They are a source of necessary minerals for
some nocturnal predators-mostly birds and bats, who can
snatch a few individuals from the air before communities
can form to drive them off. Slow-moving and earthbound
creatures tend to avoid crystalmists.