ORIGIN: Nirvana
FREQUENCY: Very rare
NO. APPEARING: 1
ARMOR CLASS: -3
MOVE: 0”
HIT DICE: 12
% IN LAIR: 100%
TREASURE TYPE: A x 5
NO. OF ATTACKS: Nil
DAMAGE/ATTACK: Nil
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Cold, fear
SPECIAL DEFENSES: See below
MAGIC RESISTANCE: See below
INTELLIGENCE: See below
ALIGNMENT: Lawful Neutral
SIZE: L (infinite height)
PSIONIC ABILITY: 300
Attack/Defense Modes: All/all

Flards were created by a now-extinct
race of humanoids for the sole purpose
of answering questions. Flards are extremely old, and spend most of their time
dormant, gathering information. All attacks on an unawakened Flard will be
turned back against the attacker. Flards
are never discovered awake.

Each Flard has a specific name which
triggers it awake when spoken. These
names can only be found out through
arduous research in the oldest and rarest
documents (which are certainly not available on the Prime Material Dimension). Another
Flard’s name is the only thing a Flard is
not likely to know (2% chance).

If the party speaks the Flard’s Name it
will AWAKEN and will answer 1 question with 100% accuracy.
The Flard will then sleep for 1000 years.

Flards will, of course, know everything
there is to know about the party, so it is
never surprised in battle (it knew the party’s intentions previously). Flards
have 2 attacks: 

The 1st is a cone of
cold (6” long with a 3” base) in any direction, and the alternate one is fear (as a
wand) in a 6” radius, which can be used
whenever the Flard desires. Fire does
double damage to a Flard, and cold does
1/2 damage.

Flards cannot go to sleep once they
have been awakened unless they are
asked a question, so in all likelihood they
will attack a party which is not QUICK with
its query.

A Flard is considered Non-intelligent
in dormant state, and of Godlike INT when awake.
All spells in existence higher than 3rd
level did not exist when Flards were
created, so only spells of 3rd level and
below will affect Flards. The following
lower-level spells also have no effect:

Fireball, Burning Hands, and all spells
that were obviously created by a character
(they have a Name like "Bigby" or
"Tenser" attached as a possessive).

A Flard's treasure is stored inside its
body, and the body can only be opened
(while the Flard is still living) by the Flard
itself. All magick items in the treasure are
considered to be usable by the Flard if it
wishes (e.g. if it had a Wand of Fireballs it
could shoot fireballs at the party; if it had
a Ring of Invisibility it would be invisible,
etc.).

Flards are never encountered as
wandering monsters, and should only be
placed by the DM in hard-to-get-at places
in Nirvana. A quest for a Flard would
not be unusual.

Description: Flards appear as towering
pillars of pure white marble with a
veined, pink marble base. The opening
to their treasure cache should be treated
as a secret door (if the Flard is killed).
Flards have infinite height.

By Patrick Amory
 
 

Dragon

Dragon 47

Monsters

Monster Manual

1st Edition AD&D