Gishvit
Gishvits, also known as lore roaches, are outsiders who resemble a cross between books and insects.1
Appearance
A gishvit has the upper body of a tome with sharp teeth protruding from its cover and rear page, and a tongue resembling a bookmark ribbon that emerges from between its pages. Its insectile legs can retract fully against its spine. Like many books, gishvits vary in length between one and two feet and weigh up to eight pounds.1
Abilities
A gishvit trapped in an archive without new information to consume can become quite aggressive, and when pressed into combat they attack primarily with their ribboned tongue. Should they grapple with a creature, they use their tongue to dump the overwhelming amount of information within its pages into the creature's mind to temporarily stagger it.1
Ecology
Gishvits enjoy transcribing knowledge shared with it the way a humanoid mortal might enjoy eating food, down to eventually becoming "full" and "digesting" the new knowledge in a period of hibernation that can last centuries. At the end of such a rest, they discard their collected knowledge and seek more. Consequently, they are also vulnerable to magic that can erase their pages; sufficiently erasing a gishvit kills it and leaves only a blank book.1
Gishvits can understand any language and can receive telepathy but have no voice to speak with. They are consequently excellent and accurate transcribers, making gishvits useful for trials where precise and unbiased transcription is necessary, and occasionally as tools for negotiations or surveillance. Information they transcribe appears on its pages, which persist for a day after one is slain.1
Habitat and society
Gishvits live in Axis and are common and weak enough that others on the plane treat them as little more than the vermin they resemble. Scrivenites are an exception, however, and sometimes enjoy the company of gishvits as pets.1
Gishvits sometimes make their way to the Universe, though their behavior changes very little.1