Kashehotapolo

This ancient goblin race haunts remote woodland. A kashehotapolo is about 3 feet tall and oddly fetal in build, all oversized head and stubby limbs, with a small wrinkled face, pointed ears, beady black eyes and a broad mouth of humanlike teeth filed into points. Skin color varies but always blends into the forest, usually mottled greens or muddy browns. Black hair is cropped into a short crest with one braid hanging behind, and their only adornment is bone plugs in stretched earlobes.

Their language is an eerie jumble of chirps and hoots like birdsong, and they seem not to understand any other humanoid speech.

They bite with sharp teeth for 1d4 or use simple weapons: spears, clubs, slings and blowguns. In their home forests they exploit terrain brilliantly, moving silently, hiding in shadows, detecting noise and climbing walls at 85%, and they can pass without trace at will like a druid.

Travelers dread their sorrowful singing. It acts as a sleep spell on everyone within earshot (30 yards), but lasts only five rounds and can be resisted with a save vs. spell; anyone who saves is immune to kashehotapolo song for 24 hours. Usually they sing to cover a quick retreat, but as they slip away they often jab sleepers using a thorn-tipped stick, ornately carved with geometric designs and perhaps ritual in meaning. The prick does no damage and so wakes no one, but it leaves a dose of musk from the creature's anal glands. Oddly, they never smear this poison on other weapons.

The victim must save vs. poison (+2 for paladins and lawful good priests) or be slowly corrupted. Nothing happens at first; then every three days, starting on the third, the alignment shifts one step toward chaotic evil, first along the law-chaos axis and then toward evil, so lawful good passes through neutral good, chaotic good and chaotic neutral to chaotic evil. Neutralize poison or any other magical cure ends it, as can skilled herbalism, but the tiny wound and gradual change make the cause hard to spot. After a cure the victim recovers one step per day. Anyone who stays chaotic evil for a full week is changed permanently, reversible only by a wish or dispel evil. Paladins, rangers and others with strict alignment rules still need atonement, though their deeds count as involuntary. Halve the failure chance of any dark powers checks made while under the poison's influence, and the game master may be somewhat lenient in calling for them.

Kashehotapolo are lawless and own little. They live as loose bands of hunter-gatherers that cluster for safety, with no leaders and little cooperation unless the band is threatened. They build no homes, instead returning to favorite hidden lairs such as cave mouths or hollow logs. Nocturnal, they are busiest around dusk and dawn. They show no distinct sexes, and how they reproduce is a mystery.

Resourceful and attuned to the forest, they seem the very picture of a savage people at one with nature, except for their spite. They sing and poison victims apparently just to spread evil, and meeting other thinking beings pits their timidity against their glee at corrupting the good. When food is very scarce they occasionally eat intelligent creatures. Necromancers and evil priests covet samples of their musk, though no one knows how long it stays potent.