Art was generated using Flux Schnell

“Vision’s mostly a lie anyway,” he continued. “We don’t really see anything except a few hi-res degrees where the eye focuses. Everything else is just peripheral blur—light and motion. Motion draws the focus. And your eyes jiggle all the time, did you know that, Keeton? Saccades, they’re called. Blurs the image. The movement’s way too fast for the brain to integrate, so your eye just—shuts down between pauses. It only grabs these isolated freeze-frames, but your brain edits out the blanks and stitches an illusion of continuity into your head.”

He turned to face me. “And you know what’s really amazing? If something only moves during the gaps, your brain just—ignores it. It’s invisible.”

Spoilers for Blindsight!

If you haven’t read Peter Watts’ science fiction novel Blindsight, I highly recommend it. The entire book is available for free here. While I do recommend the audiobook, make sure to read or listen to it first—it’s a thought-provoking story, even if I don’t entirely agree with its central premise.

The Scrambler⌗

Despite being the drones and workers of whatever the true aliens are (which never receive a full reveal), the Scramblers exist as the story’s “antagonists.”

Initially, they are perceived as bony, starfish-like creatures with hundreds of tiny eyes spread across their bodies—seemingly simple, dumb drones. However, it quickly becomes clear that these Scrambler “drones” can think circles around the main characters. Every synapse and nerve in their bodies pulls double duty, functioning as both brain and muscle control. Despite their insane intellect and spatial awareness, they lack any concept of self-awareness, having evolved or been created in an environment where such a trait was unnecessary.

This ties back to Blindsight’s central premise: consciousness and sentience have very little, if anything, to do with intelligence. Consciousness is portrayed as merely an evolutionary accident—a neutral trait that never got weeded out.

There’s some evidence for this concept in real life. Muscle memory and trained reactions are faster than conscious effort. The “flow state” and subconscious processes often handle tasks far more efficiently than our conscious minds. We actually rely on conscious self-awareness much less than we think.

Scramblers, without the “weakness” of consciousness, exist in a constant flow state. Pair this with their ability to sense and perceive magnetic fields, and these creatures become terrifyingly efficient.

“Are you listening, Keeton? Do you know what I’m saying?”

“You’ve figured out why I couldn’t—you’re saying these things can somehow tell when our eyes are offline, and…”

I didn’t finish. It just didn’t seem possible.

Cunningham shook his head. Something that sounded disturbingly like a giggle escaped his mouth. “I’m saying these things can see your nerves firing from across the room, integrate that into a crypsis strategy, and then send motor commands to act on that strategy, stopping the motion before your eyes come back online. All in the time it would take a mammalian nerve impulse to make it halfway from your shoulder to your elbow. These things are fast, Keeton. Way faster than we could have guessed even from that high-speed whisper line they were using. They’re bloody superconductors.”

From the conversation between Cunningham and Keeton, it becomes clear that these creatures can outthink and outreact humans several times over. Pair this with the earlier quote, and it’s clear they can become invisible on demand to a single target by moving between the “frames” of human perception. In essence, they exploit the weaknesses of our visual system, rendering themselves unseen.

“Supposing it’s just—instinct,” I suggested. “Flounders hide against their background pretty well, but they don’t think about it.”

“Where are they going to get that instinct from, Keeton? How is it going to evolve? Saccades are an accidental glitch in mammalian vision. Where would Scramblers have encountered them before now?” Cunningham shook his head. “That thing Amanda’s robot fried— it developed that strategy on its own, on the spot. It improvised.”

The Scramblers didn’t plan this trick in advance. Instead, these hyper-intelligent creatures instantly adapted when they encountered human neurology. Despite having no prior context or knowledge of human vision, they identified a weakness and exploited it via impromptu intuition.

Weaknesses⌗

Though formidable, Scramblers do have a significant weakness. They cannot produce Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) without exposure to powerful charged electromagnetic fields or ionizing radiation. After a few days away from such conditions, they begin to deteriorate and eventually die.

In Game⌗

These creatures should be an absolute nightmare in any setting. More than one of them on a given planet should be considered an apocalyptic scenario.

Consider their abilities in a D&D setting. A Scrambler can “read your mind,” except better—it can see the signals traveling from your brain to your muscles and react a dozen times before you’ve even felt or perceived its response.

If you have a mammalian brain (humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, etc.), it can be invisible to you. And its method of invisibility isn’t magical or memetic—it’s a flaw in your brain architecture. No counterspell, anti-invisibility charm, or mind blank will reveal this creature.

However, creatures with different types of eyes, such as reptiles, or groups of mammals observing it from different angles with staggered saccades, may have a chance to see it.

Now consider Vancian Magic. As a refresher, Vancian magic is a learned practice involving the memorization of complex formulas to manifest effects in reality. Nothing in the D&D settings suggests magic is exclusive to humans or even sentient beings; many animals and monsters can cast spells.

Since the Scrambler is essentially an ultimate MRI machine, it can quickly detect that the spells cast by magic users are not biologically connected to the caster. After observing just one or two spells, it could likely mimic and replicate them, granting it spellcasting abilities.

Its entire body functions as part of its neurological system, meaning it could easily store and memorize 9th-level spells after witnessing a single casting. With basic magical knowledge, it could likely overcome its weakness regarding ATP production.

Woe to any material plane world facing such a creature—an unrelenting predator capable of outthinking even the most powerful magic users and warriors, potentially capable of bringing entire city-states or small empires to their knees.

Mechanics⌗

Name: The Scrambler⌗

Armor Class: 20

Hit Dice: 6 (+9 attack)

Number of Attacks: 9 Limb attacks

Damage: 1d6+2

Movement: 70 (wall-crawling)

No. Appearing: 1 (1d12 in lair)

Saves As: Fighter 10 (+4 against fire, cold, magic, vacuum)

Morale: 12

XP: 1,600

Special Abilities:

Magnetic Senses: Scramblers have an extremely acute magnetic sense within 200 ft., allowing them to perceive the firing of individual synapses and neurons.

Saccades Exploit: Scramblers can become invisible to individual or small groups of mammalian targets by exploiting their brain’s motion detection flaws. Dispelling magic or charm protection will not reveal them. If 3 or more mammals observe the Scrambler, there’s a 1-2 in 6 chance to see it. With 6 or more observers, the chance increases to 1-4 in 6.

Spell Copy: Scramblers can reverse-engineer the steps required to cast a spell by observing the brain activity of magic users. Upon witnessing a spell, they have a 1-4 in 6 chance of copying it permanently and casting it at will.

Spell Casting: Scramblers can cast 20 spells per day of any level. They abide by the limitations of the spells but can replace three attacks with spell casting per turn.

Play Dead: Scramblers have negative hit points equal to their normal hit points. When reduced to negative hit points, they enter a torpor, appearing dead to life-detecting spells. They can spring back to life with half movement and one action per turn.

Super initiative: The Scrambler has a automatic +5 to it’s initiative, and can use any unused attacks or movement on any creatures turn with a lower initiative.

The Howling Wilds⌗

In my setting for Basic Fantasy, I pay tribute to this creature with a largely destroyed, scorched peninsula that was once home to several rival city-states. After a Scrambler was accidentally gated into this plane, it quickly killed the leadership of a city-state, enthralled the population, and used them to bring ruin to its neighbors.

Nicknamed “Death which walks on many legs,” it defeated several great Magi before being banished to the Abyss, where it was eventually overrun by demons.

Strategy and Tactics⌗

Scramblers often appear dumb at first, but this is a deception. They are typically reactionary creatures, not used to magic or physics-defying beings. Their long-term goal is usually to relay intelligence or call for reinforcements. In the short term, they behave like apex predators, watching, studying, and destroying perceived threats.

They communicate only for three purposes: marking territory, gaining allies to exploit, or misdirecting threats. Scramblers don’t understand self-awareness or banter and perceive such beings as bizarre if they really perceive them at all.

Foot note⌗

This article was meant to be a bit breezy and to entice people into reading Blindsight. I’m aware that I’m vastly underselling how deadly the Scramblers are, as well as not explaining in much depth their biology beyond quotes from the novel itself.

I simply do not have faith in myself to describe them in better words than the author himself.