Ethereal filchers are bizarre creatures, no doubt about it, they are just so very wrong
looking, considering they probably originated on a prime material plane world somewhere,
one can only imagine whatever nightmare environment spawned these critters.
Since they migrated to the Ethereal plane they have spread across the multiverse and
can be found basically anywhere.
On prime material plane worlds such as Toril, the Ethereal Filcher and its related cousin
species the temporal filcher are lurkers in the whispy border of the realm of dreams and
beyond, the deep ethereal expanse of infinite demiplanes where immortal beings conduct their
business playing olympic games with the cosmos.
But more on the immortals in future videos.
Filchers are opportunistic and curious creatures that are not actually as sneaky as you would
imagine, they are just damned hard to catch and tend to pop out of nowhere so most adventurers
who encounter them and don't know about the Ethereal plane would assume the creature is
capable of teleporting from one spot to another, just a lot slower than teleports normally
take.
Not a lot is known about the life cycle and ecology of the filchers, it is assumed that
the much larger temporal filcher is related, but is clearly not just an elder life stage
of the same creatures, as the body shape is quite different.
Ethereal filchers stand on a prehensile foot with three long fingers and a thumb, it appears
to walk on the tips of these finger toes and rather than hop, it knuckle walks with its
lower two arms, the two sets of arms on its head torso are long, thin and have extra elbow
joints, the fingers are also long and end in sharp claws that are coincidentally just
the right shape to serve as lock picking tools.
Their torso is also where their mouth is located, along with usually four eyes, their bite is
fearsome looking, with teeth more like those of a shark, but they don't have a very strong
bite force and only inflict 1d4+4 piercing damage to a single target within 5ft with
a +6 to hit their target and a high dexterity score of 18, they rely on their speed of 40
ft and bonus action ability to perform an ethereal jaunt, shifting instantly from the
material plane to the border ethereal plane, or vice versa.
The ethereal filcher is about as tall as a human, while the body seems more massive they
are not much heavier than an average person either, their thin limbs give them a strength
of only 10 and a constitution of 12, they have 80 hit points on average and an armor
class of 14, their pale white or green hide is tougher than it looks, supple but leathery.
Filchers are not very intelligent, they don't have any language ability but they are a lot
smarter than your average parrot, perhaps they are just about as sneaky as a goblin,
encounters with them are typically sudden and violent, but they are certainly not an
intentionally murderous species, so Filchers are not lable to jaunt out of the border ethereal
plane just to shove a victim off the side of a cliff, for example.
They don't appear to be tool users or have the capacity to make fire, they live solitary
lives, building cluttered nests for themselves, filled with refuse, trinkets and the occasional
treasure they have stolen over days, months or years.
These nest lairs will be located in out of the way places, at the bottom of a dry well,
or old mine shaft, in the basement of a ruin, the rubble of a broken tower, in an alpine
cave or some lost dungeon in a desert somewhere, they prefer to hunt confined spaces underground
for their prey, which is small animals, giant beetles and spiders, quite a few varieties
of cave fungus and also rotten wood seems to please them as they knaw away support timbers
and collapse mine tunnels from time to time.
Why filchers collect all the trinkets, nobody knows.
It might be a mating thing, it might just be because they like doing it, like monkeys
stealing objects from tourists, they may just be looking for food or grab items out of curiousity,
they are attracted to magic items, unfortunately, as they can sense them as per the detect magic
ability, except in their case, this is just an innate trait they all share.
While they can sense magic within 120 feet at will, I doubt they can sense the presence
of all valuable items within that range, that is just a rumour.
Still, the more I investigate these strange creatures, the more I get hints, that something
is not quite right here, there is just so little information on the filchers, I suspect
that all the information gathered on them has ended up being stolen by none other than
the filchers and the objects they steal serve some sort of a dark purpose.
The arrangement of the objects in their lair is not as random as it seems, if you pay attention
to the silvery strands of this strange web they slick all over the walls and goob the
objects onto the web with blobs of it, its not random, they are making strange connections,
a finger bone here, a ruby there, some cat whiskers, a collection of the same coin minted
on different years, scraps of paper, locks of hair, dried flowers, a doll, a polished
spoon.
I have the strangest foreboding the more I look at it, the more of it I see, the crazier
the connections seem, like a tarot card reading that is scrambling my sense of things, rather
than just giving me an alternative point of view, its making me distrust everything...
Don't look into those nests too much, just loot them and set them on fire.
Filchers have a nack for burrowing, though they never make extensive tunnels, be sure
to check their lair nest for secret hiding places, concealed behind trap doors of web
and clutter, this is where they will keep magic items, which are easier to find if you
investigate the patterns.
But don't look into those nests too much, just loot them and set them on fire, you can
go back and find magic items that don't get destroyed by fire later on.
Ethereal filchers are very accurately named, they are the most effective pick pockets,
that is for damned sure, as an action The filcher can make a Dexterity (Sleight of Hand)
check to steal an item being worn, carried or held by a creature it can see within 10
feet.
If the creature is unaware of the filcher it opposes the check with a Wisdom (Perception)
check and the filcher has advantage on its check.
If the creature is aware of the filcher it can oppose the check with a Strength or Dexterity
saving throw (target's choice).
If the filcher successfully steals an item, it gains the benefits of the Disengage action
until the end of its current turn.
Filchers are +3 to Perception,+6 to Sleight of Hand and +6 to Stealth.
They don't tend to steal multiple items if they are facing any opposition at all.
Ethereal filchers are challenge rating 3 and temporal filchers are challenge rating 6 to
8, they generally wander around alone.
Temporal filchers stand at least 8 feet tall and have a body structure exactly the same
as the ethereal filcher, except instead of having a second face projecting from their
head torso, they have a large horn instead, which thankfully they don' use to attack people.
Temporal filchers are large and their attacks have 10 ft reach, they also some innate magic
powers, despite still having an intelligence of only 7 points, aside from being able to
cast shield, they can cast a minor illusion only over their own body, blending into their
surroundings, they can also spiderclimb, levitate and featherfall.
Their powers over time are quite an advantage in
combat.
If a temporal filcher successfully grapples a Large or smaller creature, it latches onto
the opponent's body and shifts 7 minutes forward in time with the temporal filcher and its
prey disappearing in a shimmer, then reappearing 7 minutes later in exactly the same position
they were in.
For the filcher and its prey, no time passes at all.
The victim must succeed on a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or be stunned for 1 round from
temporal disorientation, so they would lose any strength or dexterity saving throws, attacks
have advantage against them, they can speak a bit, but can't move or take actions and
reactions.
Thanks to the temporal filcher being able to see the future, they get an ability called
Progressive initiative.
With Progressive initiative, at the start of each round after the first the temporal
filcher's initiative increases by 4 , ending only when it hits 20, so wherever it starts
in the initiative order, it only takes a moment for the temporal filcher to start getting
the upper hand.
This is an interesting mechanic that you can try out with a number of monsters or magic
items that dabble with time travel and those tricky antagonists who can make use of divination
magic while in the middle of combat.
Finally, up to four times per long rest, the temporal filcher can teleport its movement
speed and avoid all damage from one attack or spell, which counts as using a bonus action.
It is simply diving a few moments into the future.
The advantage is that it doesn't have to cross any transitive plane where something could
be waiting to attack it, the Ethereal filchers occasionally have that problem with phase
spiders, their most hated enemies.
I just nabbed some homebrewed stat blocks of D&DBeyond's homebrew archive, it's super
easy to search for all the monsters in official 5th edition publications, you can use them
all as templates to create you own unique creatures or recreate monsters, spells, magic
items and all that hoo haa all on the D&D Beyond site, the homebrew database is packed
with stuff, I quite often make happy use of the submissions there, shared so generously
among members of the D&D Community worldwide.
My name is AJ Pickett, I still don't know that much about where Temporal filchers come
from, but I will keep making deep dive lore videos about Dungeons & Dragons as long as
you keep watching them, as always, thanks for listening and I swear, next video is about
the Night Markets of Hades and Fiends that willingly turn themselves into evil magic
weapons, it'll be worth the wait.
In the meantime, thanks for listening and I will be back with more for you, very soon.