Duende

Also known as wall bogies, the duende (the same word serves for one or many) are cold, cruel goblinfolk that haunt homes in the misty dread realm. They are nothing like playful household spirits: they live on the psychic energy of human nightmares, which they cultivate with their endless tapping.

Few victims ever see one. A duende is 18 inches tall and starved-looking, its chalky skin stretched tight over jutting bones. A wide mouth packed with needle teeth splits its round head, which also sports pointed ears, a fat round nose, and a heavy, creased brow over flat black eyes without feeling. It is completely hairless and wears only ragged trousers.

Their language is a flat, breathy hiss. Some pick up a little of whatever tongue their household speaks, but none can speak any other tongue.

One duende is a feeble opponent, but a crowd can swarm an unready party. They never use weapons, relying instead on teeth filed razor sharp that bite for 1d4+1 each round, and in numbers they like to pile onto victims and pin them down. They shrug off every mind-affecting spell, from sleep to charm or hold.

Hunters struggle to destroy them because they wall walk, moving at normal speed through any part of a building, whether stone, brick, timber or plaster, with perfect control. They cannot carry more than a few pounds while doing so, cannot pass into the ground below a building, and still suffer effects that restrict movement, such as web.

Their notorious power is dreamrapping. At night they knock softly from inside the walls, and any sleeper within 20 feet who endures at least an hour of it is wracked by terrible dreams and suffers as if under a neverending nightmare spell for the next 24 hours; spellcasters cannot memorize spells during that time. Remove curse ends it. Unlike the real spell, it lasts only a day and does not show up under detect magic, though a victim who sleeps in the same spot will likely be hit again. Bless and protection from evil offer brief protection, and stronger magic such as mind blank, or psionics, may help as the DM sees fit.

Duende infest only occupied buildings, preferring thick, hollow walls and plenty of crawlspaces. They form a loose clan in name only, interacting just to defend each other, and do little but sleep and tap. Their blank faces show no feeling at all. They respect no one but themselves and never ally with stronger evil beings, not from spite but from an eerie emotional emptiness.

Humanoid in shape, duende effectively live outside the natural world. They need no food beyond the psychic dregs left by the bad dreams they provoke. By day they sink into a deep, dreamless sleep from which nothing wakes them, and many hunters use those hours to smash open the walls with sledgehammers in search of them.

Their origin is unknown, though they are especially common in the cities of one rat-haunted domain. They show no sexes, no young and no mating behavior. Sages guess they multiply asexually, and a popular theory holds that an especially vivid nightmare can split one duende into two. Whatever the truth, a few can become a horde far faster than nature should allow.