Giwoitis

A giwoitis (the same word serves for one or many) looks exactly like the little meadow lizards of its homeland: about six inches long, two-thirds of that a slender tail, with a pointed head and stubby legs ending in tiny claws. It is bright green with yellow or white stripes down its length, edged by flecks of cinnamon. Though intelligent, it cannot speak, but it can talk telepathically, something it does only with proven friends.

Physically it is as harmless as any lizard. It usually flees, running as fast as a man, but it will not abandon helpless creatures who are not evil, even at risk to itself. Cornered or grabbed uninvited, it gives a 1-point bite that only works on bare skin; any armor stops it. It does have 50% magic resistance.

Its real gift is a house-sized undead ward. Any enclosed building with real walls and a roof, from a shed to a castle keep, can be covered. While the giwoitis wills it, every undead creature trying to enter by a door, window or other opening is turned with the power of a 10th-level priest, each one checked separately with no limit on numbers. Even undead normally immune to turning are affected, treated as undead of the same Hit Dice, and the ward also catches a vampire in animal or gaseous form. An undead that teleports in or otherwise bypasses the openings is checked the moment it appears, and if turned must leave by the nearest exit. The ward never affects the dread lords who rule a domain or undead under their direct command, such as their zombies and skeletons.

The ward can be raised or dropped at will. It cannot raise it in a place the DM considers a sinkhole of evil, but there it may instead cancel up to -2 of the sinkhole's penalty to other turning attempts while it stays in the area. This never becomes a bonus.

Gentle but painfully shy, a giwoitis can be coaxed indoors with a saucer of warm, fresh milk set by the chimney every night, and patience pays off. Once one arrives it watches the household for some time, and if the family proves honest and good it stays, keeping the ward up constantly, even while it hibernates in winter. It usually stays out of sight; the hosts know it is there only because the insects are gone. Mistreated, it allows one chance to apologize but never forgives deliberate cruelty. To hosts it finds especially kind and interesting, typically lawful good people of high Charisma, it may reveal itself and chat telepathically, loving stories and moral fables most. It prefers humble cottages but also likes the region's few wizards. No one has ever seen two together.

Folk tales have long called the giwoitis a kindly, brownie-like house spirit, depicted in local carvings as a small green lizard. The real creatures are recent: a young abjurer, Mirko Vadesh, wanting a humble guardian for common homes against the undead, spent years researching, fell in love with the legend, and built a pair of pseudo-homunculi filled with abjuration and necromancy. He released them into the wild just before the great cataclysm that reshaped the land. Years later, wandering under the oppression of the realm's tyrant count, he found their descendants thriving and far stronger than he had made them, perhaps empowered by that cataclysm.

Apart from its mind and its power over the dead, it is an ordinary lizard. It eats spiders and insects, is hunted by owls and hawks, sleeps through winter and is active at night, spending days basking on roofs and walls. Wizards hoping to harvest its body for anti-undead magic have been sorely disappointed: it yields nothing useful.