Assassin Imp

Seldom a foot tall, it is usually jet black, sometimes slate gray, with bat wings and a restless thin tail tipped by a scorpion stinger. Its eyes are keen, with 60-foot infravision, and its kind share a tongue said to sound like pure evil.

It strikes without warning, using invisibility, find traps and detect magic at will, knock or cause light wounds three times daily, and command once daily. Unaware targets take -3 on surprise, and it often hovers unseen overhead before diving.

It loves deaths that echo the victim's trade, such as a weaponsmith skewered on his own blade.

Its stinger deals the same 1d4 as a true imp's, but the poison does not kill. A victim who fails the save falls into a deathlike trance, as feign death, for 2d4 days. The imp then lurks nearby, hoping the victim's friends bury him alive, and if they do, it always makes sure they learn the truth too late.

Fire, cold and electricity cannot harm it, and it has 50% resistance to other spells, saving as a 7 HD monster. Only +2 or better magical weapons hit it, it is immune to every poison and toxin, and it regenerates 1 hit point per round.

In the misty dread realm, a lawful evil wizard casting find familiar gets an imp 10% of the time per level. If the caster has already failed a dark powers check, that imp is an assassin imp.

It serves loyally but is bound to the realm. If its master leaves, the imp left behind dies at once, with the usual penalties for losing a familiar. Like an ordinary imp, it nudges its master toward ever darker deeds, hoping he will fall entirely to the realm's dark powers and perhaps become lord of a domain.

Within a mile the two share a telepathic link: the wizard gets all of the imp's senses, including infravision, gains its 50% magic resistance, and casts spells as if one level higher. Beyond a mile he reverts to his true level. If the imp dies, he instantly loses 4 levels on top of the normal familiar penalties.

The imp will murder anyone it judges a danger to its master, wanted or not, often drawing unwelcome notice to him. A wizard may find that everyone who knows something dangerous about him, loved ones included, has become the imp's prey.

It is an instrument of the realm's dark powers, luring the already wicked deeper into evil until they are trapped in the misty dread realm forever.