Gremlin

Often confused with imps, gremlins are tiny bat-winged goblinoids with mottled brown, black or gray skin and huge ears (65% to hear noise). They wear nothing. Their bloodline, from some unknown plane, mutates easily and crosses with any goblinoid, producing many races. Packs keep a strict pecking order, usually by hit points, though a pushy gremlin can outrank bigger ones. Sexes look alike to outsiders and share all tasks. Young are abandoned at birth, mature within a month, and luckily are rarely born. Immune to ordinary predators, a gremlin can live for centuries.

Gremlins flee real fights. The bite deals 1d4, they fly at maneuverability class B, and they hover near the floor or high overhead. Only magical weapons hit them, and they have 25% magic resistance, yet they fight only when cornered. Their joy is rage: a tripwire that drops a delicate vase on whoever enters, a trap that breaks an heirloom or hurts a loved one. A pack can wreck a house overnight, staying hidden as darting shadows until all is broken and the owners flee, or until its own lives are threatened. Residents usually think the place haunted.

Plump, lazy, whining and slate-gray, fremlins are harmless. One that is fed, amused and fond of someone can be tolerable company, but it never fights and may blunder, for instance by betraying a hidden party.

Stone-gray pests of dung, carrion and offal, galltrits are spotted only on 1 in 8 (elves 1 in 6). Disturbed, they try to surprise a victim (+3 to hit if they do) and bite somewhere unnoticed; numbing saliva, like a vampire bat's, hides the wound. Unbothered, each siphons 1 hit point a round for up to a turn, fleeing if challenged. Each 4 hit points drained costs 1 Constitution; at 3 or more lost the victim faints for two turns, and the points return after two weeks.

Mites are tiny, wingless, warty gremlins in shades from pale gray to violet, with triangular heads, bat ears and hooked noses; males have a bony crest and goatee. Many wear stolen rags, and their twittering speech means nothing to other races.

They catch stragglers with pits (1d6), nets (save vs. paralyzation or be caught) and tripwires (Dexterity check or fall prone), then club the downed victim; each weighted club carries a cumulative 2% stun chance, but only against armor weaker than splint mail. Captives are hauled home, taunted for 1d4 days, stunned again, stripped of all gear and dumped somewhere humiliating.

Warrens are mazes running above and below dungeon halls, their entrances hidden by fitted stones (search as for secret doors). Man-sized or larger fighters inside take -4 to hit and a 4-point Armor Class penalty. In the low central hall the king (1+1 Hit Dice, bite 1d4) sits enthroned in baggy clothes amid 4d6 females (1-2 Hit Dice, bite 1-2) and 4d6 noncombatant young. Coins lie scattered, but the king keeps the gems. Mites poke at loot until it breaks, wear huge clothes, collect monster skulls, eat vermin, and prize iron rations. Most monsters, evil giants included, eat them.

Snyads are 2 1/2-foot, light brown cousins of mites with untidy hair. They have no known language but work with mites, who distract while snyads grab. A snyad surprises on 90%, often snatching an item from a hand (Wisdom check to keep it), then vanishes into a hole; spotting the hole takes 1 in 3 for elves, 1 in 4 for others. They never attack. Anyone with Strength over 11 can catch one with a hit; it squirms and screams but never bites. They get +3 to saves vs. spells without area effect, and live in families, mated for life.