Faerie Phiz

A faerie phiz, or fey phiz, is nothing but a face (phiz is an old elven word for face) that appears on magically charged wood, a mystical being akin to the treant or the galeb duhr. Most grow on woodland trees, usually oak, but they also show up on great old doors, bridges, drawbridges, enchanted houses and similar aged timber. With eyes and mouth closed, a phiz escapes notice except on a 25% chance (elves and druids spot it 50% of the time). They range from pixie-sized to as big as a hill giant's face, and no two share a look or personality, though twins are said to occur once in a thousand years. Some are grim and homely, some resemble a treant's bark face, and a few, the kind tavern gossip loves best, have elven or faerie features.

A phiz hates fire but does not fear it as treants do. It spits a magical acidic resin at any blaze, or at anyone carrying a torch or lighting a campfire, out to 100 yards in clear line of sight. The spittle snuffs any fire under 2 1/2 feet across, and a living creature it hits suffers an irritation spell's full itching and rash.

Its true weapon is spellcasting, with both wizard and druid magic, its caster level matching its Hit Dice: a phiz of the lowest Hit Dice casts as a 10th-level caster, gaining a level per extra Hit Die up to 12th. It learns spells simply by watching someone cast them; any suitable spell it witnesses lodges in its memory, which serves as its spellbook, though it must still spend time studying to recall them. All its spells become verbal only, none are ever fire-based, and it cannot specialize in a school.

A phiz can live more than 1,500 years if left alone, gaining a Hit Die every 100 to 500 years along with more magic resistance and casting power. It sprouts in enchanted glades where pixies, sprites and other faeries play, and gets on very well with treants. It knows the full history of its surroundings, remembers everyone who ever passed before it and every conversation it overheard, and holds volumes of lore and languages long forgotten by humans and elves.

Sages who study phizonomie, the old art of reading character (and sometimes the future) from faces, agree that a phiz arises from great surges of faerie magic. Some think a powerful wizard's death can pour his power into a spot, from which a phiz later grows.

A phiz guards its knowledge, not wanting every scholar in the land at its bark. It is rarely senile, though it may pretend to be, and usually acts weary, old or annoyed at intrusions. Many do not fear death and some welcome it, so threats and coercion fail: it would rather face the axe than yield to bullies. Gold amuses it. It shares what it knows only freely, or in exchange for powerful magic items or rich faerie food.

Faerie food is perilous to get. One route is to join a dance in a faerie ring of mushrooms where atomies, grigs, brownies, pixies or sprites dance, singing or dancing a few minutes in hope of an offering of what looks like ordinary bread, cheese, fowl, beef or vegetables. That food is harmless and delicious, but the dance has a 40% chance of lasting seven years in the outside world. Another is to enter a faerie hill, which requires the invitation of its tiny folk; anyone who tastes a single morsel there is trapped forever, usually polymorphed into a faerie or enslaved by the crueler fey such as quicklings or drow. Dryads sometimes bait seekers with such food, with the same risk.

A human year is only a day to a phiz, so it grows hungry just once a year, usually in its favorite season (spring for good phizzes, winter for evil ones). It stores the food in an extradimensional stomach and nibbles it all year like a squirrel's cache. Sprites and other fey keep it fed in any case, which, along with the danger of fetching faerie food, keeps most adventurers away, exactly as the phiz prefers.