Book wraith concept

A monster concept Dan and I came up with one quiet evening.

Presenting: The Book Wraith.

They start their life as ink wisps; magical beings created by highly concentrated amounts of magic and imagination found in particularly old libraries with a mix of both magical and non-magical reading sources.

The young ink wisp will hop between books, gaining more and more knowledge, understanding and self consciousness through each hop.

However, it takes a long time for these creatures to mature, as ink wisps are bound in to their books until a new moon, when they can detatch themselves and choose a new one.

Each wisp takes its own individual path through books, until it absorbs enough knowledge or magic to transform in to a book wraith. This transformation can be triggered if the wisp finds itself in a biographical book such as a personal journal, or autobiography. However, the occurring wraith from this method do tend to forfeit certain attributes, such as less potent magic abilities, but can also gain higher bounds of morality and humility.

Book wraiths are far superior to their lower wisp counterparts in power and knowledge. Particularly territorial wraiths will not hesitate to chase off, or capture the younger wisps and use them as servants, or familliars.

A wisp does not always transform in to a wraith, and will bind itself in to a book that it particularly likes, or has deep attatchments to. The wisp will continue to develop in to an adult wisp, but must gain their knowledge manually, by physically reading the books instead of residing in, and absorbing their essence. You can find many a wisp in a library reading up to seven books at once. They have basic magical abilities.

Book wraiths are not bound by books, but choose to keep certain ones on their person, including ones that contain wisp familliars, that are usually kept on chains.

The final transformation of the wraith, is of that in to a book golem. It will gather the books it resided in as a wisp, and construct a physical body with them. However, they forfeit a lot of their magic abilities in return for streangth. Not many golems are made.

The ratio of wisps, wraiths and golems in one library are very specific, to handle the sustainability of books for individuals of this species to thrive.
Wisps have the highest ratio, followed by wraiths and lastly golems. The highest book golem count in one library is five individuals. The average wraith count is around twenty, but the average wisp count remains undetermined. The numbers vary depending on the size and potency of the library.

Wraiths, wisps and golems aren't seen as pests or vermin, as they do not harm the books physically. Owners of the libraries will assign wraiths and golems as librarians and guardians of their home library.

This monster species concept was made by myself and