Karliki

Outsiders often mistake karliki for a local breed of dwarf, but they are something fouler: cowardly, rash and sadistic, the opposite of dwarves elsewhere. Squat, about 3.5 feet in height, with rough, callused, reddish-brown skin and hair that is gray from birth, fading from charcoal to grimy ash-white with age. Their eyes are blank black orbs, and their flat grinding teeth look and feel like iron. Both sexes wear stiff braided beards, but only males grow mustaches. Everyday clothing is coarse and undyed, in earthy tones; for hunting on the surface they don heavy metal armor of beautiful, terrifying design.

Most know a few words of the region's human tongues and bother with no more. Their own language has an utterly alien script, its sound actually pains other thinking beings, and no sane person can learn it.

Hostile and erratic yet cowardly, karliki strike only when they hold a clear advantage. Lone lost travelers are favorite prey, though they will ambush adventurers for treasure and magic, using every dirty trick available.

Lacking natural weapons, they fight with broadswords (2d4) or two-handed axes (1d10) and are specialized in their chosen weapon (+1 to hit, +2 damage). They scorn crossbows and missile weapons. Agility and tough hide give AC 8 unarmored; on the surface most wear plate (AC 2), and broadsword wielders add shields (AC 1). The armor is a dark, oily-sheened, iron-like metal etched with demonic figures and nearly immune to corrosion and wear, and its forging remains their secret. They have 60-foot infravision.

A hunting party numbers 10-20 1st-level fighters led by a fighter of level 3-5. Despite their magic resistance they can use arcane magic: about 15% are fighter/mages favoring Enchantment/Charm and Invocation/Evocation. They have no priests.

Their one weakness is the sun. After three rounds of continuous direct sunlight, with the sun fully above the horizon and not a wisp of cloud in the way, a karliki becomes a stone statue. Until then it suffers no harm and can run for cover. Other light, even magical sunlight such as sunray, does nothing to them. Only stone to flesh or wish restores a petrified karliki.

Beneath the region's mountains and foothills they lead dreary lives of mining, stone and metal work, and magical study, climbing out to hunt humans, whose flesh they relish. They seem to nurse a spiteful grudge against mankind, laughing wildly with every blow and smearing their faces with the blood of victims still warm.

Their life below is mostly a mystery. Tight family clans rule enclaves of one to two hundred, one clan dominating each. Insular and hateful, they destroy weaker trespassers and despise surface folk and the undead, yet mingle freely with werebadgers, sometimes letting lycanthropy spread among themselves on purpose. Like dwarves they crave wealth, but also hoard magic. They worship no known gods.

Locals fear them despite the region's undead and lycanthropes, because silver, garlic and holy symbols are useless here; only a good blade helps. Karliki never harm the wandering seers, for reasons neither side will explain. Local legend claims karliki descend from angels who turned traitor to their gods so vilely that death or banishment was too mild, so they were cast into the misty dread realm to hide underground forever from the sun.

Karliki tirelessly mine ores and gems while hiding from human miners and delvers, either by shrewdly avoiding places people might find or by masking their tunnels with magic. Their enclaves lie far from villages, often right under treacherous mountain passes. They dislike most underground food, surfacing at night to hunt game, humans included, and gather fruit and roots. A dead karliki's body crumbles like brittle stone and blows away as dust, leaving its gear. A few smiths have examined their strange armor metal, but none can reproduce or smelt it.