Boggle

Boggles stand about 3 feet tall and are completely hairless, with rubbery skin from dark gray to near-black blue. Each has a big, round, bald head and large ears, but everything else is out of proportion and differs from one to the next: the nose may be huge, flattened or just a pair of slits, and limbs, hands, feet and trunk run anywhere from scrawny to bloated. Their bodies can stretch and squeeze to a startling degree. Their crude speech of grunts and whistles is simple, though they can learn to follow other languages.

A boggle's nose is keen enough to smell out invisible creatures, and it can spider climb whenever it likes. A favored trick is to scale a wall and drop onto prey so its hind claws come into play. It fights with claws and a bite; if both front claws hit, it also rakes with its back claws for two more attacks of 1d4 each. Unless guarding something, they steal rather than fight.

They can lengthen their bodies and limbs to double size or shrink to half. Their tough hides reduce weapon damage by 1 point per die. They are naturally fire resistant, saving at +3 against fire attacks and taking only half damage, or a quarter on a successful save.

Their pores ooze a thick, nonflammable grease that makes them slippery to hold. Anyone stepping in it, except creatures adapted to slick footing as boggles are, must pass a Dexterity check or fall and lose a round getting up. Boggles love to rob fallen victims: lifting a small item takes a hit against AC 5, with a -1 to -5 penalty for bigger objects.

Strangest of all, a boggle can treat any closed frame, such as a hole, doorway, grate, pocket or sack, as a dimensional portal. It can leap, step, reach or stick its head into one frame and emerge from another within 30 yards, striking or grabbing from an unexpected angle. No one else can use the portal, though enough boggles together might haul a man-sized creature through.

Boggles are cowards who whine and grovel when threatened, low in intelligence but sharp in a monkeyish way. From a safe distance they jeer, boast and scold in a gibbering babble. Treasure means nothing to them, but they love shiny things, coins, gems and jewelry or mere polished trash, and food and sweets will tempt them.

They live in loose family bands of 2-8 adults plus young in a pocket warren that may be reachable only by their portal trick. Youngsters are plumper than adults and bounce and roll instead of running. Old boggles are very rare, since age steals their sight, smell and stretchiness. A nest is usually a pitted cave, an earthen burrow or a hideout dug into a wall, lined with clay-like frames and cubbyholes that they mortar from oil and dirt like a mud wasp's nest. Treasure may be sealed away in one of these cubbies.

Boggles scavenge garbage, bugs, lichen and plants, and steal kills from other predators. Ants, grubs and sweets are special favorites and make good bribes, and some nests keep herds of beetles, slugs or lizards. Slippery and wary, they are hard to catch, but goblins, hobgoblins and orcs sometimes keep them as watchdogs and trackers for their sharp senses. A guard boggle that senses intruders lets out a shrill, keening wail. Goblin handlers control theirs with high-pitched whistles and collars whose barbs point inward.