Drawing of the forest creature

The drawing of the forest creature is a rough sketch in the campaign Zincirsiz ("Unchained") that the veiled man who signed as V gave to Jonathan River at their meeting in a family tomb of Sınır Sapı. He said that a friend of Lady Teresa had managed to draw the creature from a distance. Jonathan reacted strongly to the round head and face it showed, as if he knew it.¹²

The man told of the creature's ties to the forest and of drow carrying people away, but said he did not know why they worked together or how far. Asked whether the creature could sway minds, enslave or madden them, he stressed that they were not experts and had never come face to face with it.³⁴

Jonathan's account

Speaking of the drawing afterwards, Jonathan called such beings mind flayers. From his lessons, he described them as a thinking race beneath the earth, like humans, elves or orcs but different, with powers of the mind unlike magic that are hard to resist. Stories of their taking knowledge from the brains of the dead, of enslaving others and of coming from the sky he passed on while saying he did not know whether they were true. Because they are living bodies, he thought they could be killed, but did not know whether will alone would be enough against them. He later used the same name for them when questioning Captain Markus.⁵⁶⁷⁸

Across the realm, psionic powers are set apart from the ordinary use of magic, and how they relate to the Aether is disputed.⁹