Mephit III [Fire/Radiant]

Fire mephits are small, sinewy, scarlet and bat-winged; the goatees and little horns some sport are always fake. Radiant mephits have mirror-bright silver bodies, huge black eyes and slender wings that shimmer like a prism, with blank faces broken only by fits of manic giggling.

Touching a fire mephit burns for 1 hp, and each of its two 1d3 claws adds a point of heat. Three times a day it breathes either a 15-foot by 1-foot jet that never misses its chosen target (1d8+1, half on a save vs. breath weapon) or a 5-foot fan across a 120-degree arc that deals 4 hp to everyone in it, no save. Once per day each, it can also cast heat metal and a two-missile magic missile, and once an hour may try to gate in a fire, magma, smoke or steam mephit.

A radiant mephit claws twice for 1d3 and can cast color spray, as a 6th-level caster, once every turn, though unless it is being hurt it soon forgets the fight. Hourly it may try to call another radiant mephit. Anything that works through vision, color spray and visual illusions among them, fails against it, yet it never gets a save against mind-affecting magic. It has 120-foot infravision and heals 1 hp per turn in strong light.

Fire mephits are the cruelest pranksters of their kind; tipping a magma mephit into water to watch it stiffen is a classic. Radiant mephits seem permanently dazed with bliss by the quasi-plane of Radiance. They stare, ramble about the Ultimate Light, get sidetracked by a shiny buckle, and forget even their own grand names.

Bound fire mephits heat forges, warm beds and light cigars. Radiant mephits cannot hold a thought long enough to run errands; certain mighty lawful beings make them only because they find the color sprays soothing.