The Bagabond

Full Description
The bagabond is a peaceful, if apathetic, creature that resides in dense swamps, overgrown jungles and other places that are warm, wet, and full of life. Though the color and texture of their skin changes depending of their specific environment, a bagabond will always resemble a sack of potatoes, with no true appendages or extremities. Its face consists of eight beady eyes, usually red in color, set around the deep funnel-shaped holes that lead to its ears. The bagabond has a relatively wide mouth lined with square, flat teeth. Although it has a tongue, the bagabond doesn’t seem to have a sense of taste, which is compensated for by a superior sense of smell in its two nostril slits. The combination of the bagabond’s lack of appendages and its skeletal structure creates a strange shuffling gait which looks similar to a man trying to walk with both legs down one leg of his trousers.

It seems that very early in their lives a bagabond picks a tree to call home and spends a good portion of their time and energy tending to that tree. For the rest of its life, the bagabond will never venture far from the tree. Over a period of years, sometimes decades, of constant care, the bagabond will influence the growth of a particular branch or root, which becomes his throne. By this point such a deep connection has formed between the bagabond and his tree that he doesn’t need to physically care for the tree, although the bagabond will continue to stimulate the tree through their spiritual bond. From then on the bagabond will not leave his throne, even in the rare instance where his precious tree is consumed with flame.

The bagabond, at almost any point in its life, is regarded as extremely wise. They seems to have a fundamental understanding of the cyclic nature of the world that allows them to intuitively grasp the why, hows, and whens of almost anything. It is because of this that a bagabond will sometimes be referred to as the “sage of the swamp”. Despite their great wisdom, however, the bagabond is rarely consulted like a sage. This is because the bagabond is a solitary creature which cares about little beyond his tree, and therefore is unlikely to share his its wisdom. Although they are generally amused by riddles, a bagabond cannot be coaxed into revealing his secrets through competition like a dragon. Additionally, threatening the wellbeing of the bagabond or his tree has never proved successful. The only times that a bagabond has been known to relinquish his knowledge, the bagabond has understood that someone armed with his secrets could benefit his tree. In this way, someone incredibly clever or ridiculously devious and in desperate need of information might be able to convince a bagabond that it is in his best interest to share some of his knowledge.

Additional Information
A bagabond’s knowledge is not infinite, they rarely know details. But their intimate understanding of cycles allows that to tease out most social, political, cultural, and natural trends and these can often lead to the solution an adventurer is looking for to a specific problem.

The bagabond’s feeding habits are not understood. It is widely though that a bagabond receives all it’s necessary energy directly through the bond with its tree but many skeptics think that it is more likely that the bagabond feed off insects like a frogs. Bagabond reproductive methods are similarly shrouded in mystery.

Bagabond often grow to look like their tree as their bond develops. By the time a throne is grown, the texture and color of a bagabond’s skin looks enough like the tree’s that a bagabond sitting in his throne is often mistaken for an abnormal growth in the trees root or branch.