Agnoia

Agnoia

(Creature)

Type

Outsider
(aeon, extraplanar)

CR

14

Environment

Any (Outer Planes)

Alignment

LG	NG	CG
LN	N	CN
LE	NE	CE

Source: Concordance of Rivals, pg(s). 52

Ⅰ

Agnoias are aeons tasked with maintaining the balance between disseminated knowledge and ignorance. They are on the verge of being ostracised by other aeons, due to a recent shift in behaviour toward destroying knowledge instead of spreading it.

Appearance

An agnoia resembles a roiling column of fog and shadow which never obscure each other. Despite this vaporous appearance, it is not insubstantial, but can compress its form. It stands on three clawed feet and can fly with a thought. An agnoia's eyes move across its body in a blink, making it difficult to catch it by surprise and allowing it to keenly detect magical auras. Its pale three-clawed arms are spread radially around its torso. An agnoia is 16 feet tall and weighs 900 pounds.

Ecology

Agnoias preserve the balance between knowledge and ignorance by teaching and erasing truths from mortal minds. However, they have been forsaking their first duty in favour of their second one, due to a consensus that knowledge across the Great Beyond has reached such a dangerous height that islands of ignorance cannot be sustained for long, so they need to wholly stop the spread of learning and focus on facilitating ignorance.

While other aeons have marked them as reckless due to this unprecedented shift in behaviour, agnoias see it as necessary so they can maintain their idea of balance. Some of them are even frustrated that they did not do this sooner, when knowledge was still centralised in young civilisations (and easier to control). No agnoia would blame the Monad for this error, but many are satisfied that they can finally act independently as they see fit.

Agnoias can remove the knowledge of targets not just from their minds but also from the consciousness of reality: people once familiar with the victim now see them as a stranger, and their intellectual influences are erased. This effect also affects printed books authored by the victim, whose contents transform into incomprehensible gibberish until the victim's intellect is restored.

Society

Agnoias dislike planar travellers, who can quickly spread knowledge (or, as they refer to it, the 'disease of enlightenment') and thus are their most frequent targets. Before eradicating knowledge, agnoias first seek to control the transmission of knowledge by destroying portals or other means of transport. They have no concern for those lives lost as collateral damage, but are not cruel and try to minimise the loss of ignorant creatures.

Due to their low numbers, agnoias usually work alone, as they see their job as urgent. They work perfectly together in the rare cases they do, each agnoia seemingly able to predict accurately its peers' actions.

Agnoias do not erase their own knowledge, and many actively hoard knowledge, having spent years working in learning institutions. Getting them to teach anything is all but impossible, as they have no desire to risk creating more work for themselves to do later. Due to their long experience interacting with mortals, agnoias can shrewdly predict actions and motivations.