Mephit Overview

Mephits are wicked couriers that powerful lower-planar beings shape from elemental matter. Sixteen types are known, drawn from the elemental, para- and quasi-elemental planes: air, earth, fire and water; ice, magma, ooze and smoke; ash, dust, lightning, mineral, radiance, salt and steam; and mist, which shares the quasi-plane of Steam with steam mephits. Only lifeless Vacuum has none.

A mephit is a lean, winged humanoid about 5 feet tall with a caricature's face: hooked nose, pointy ears, bulging eyes and a jutting chin. Its skin seeps its home element, so fire mephits smolder and magma mephits drip lava. All speak a shared mephit tongue plus their creator's language, and most learn the common tongue for work.

Mephits use claws or breath weapons, with damage set by type; no save applies unless an entry says so. Each can try once an hour to gate in others, with type and number set by its entry and a flat 25% chance of success.

Mephits love tormenting the helpless and bragging about their misdeeds. They puff reeking tobacco or pipeweed and award themselves absurd strings of titles. They grovel to their masters and sneer at victims and each other, though mephits of one type stay politely chummy; feuds between types are often settled by a cheerful round of tug-a-demihuman. Their jobs include carrying messages, collecting parcels, fetching particular people, delivering magic items, or just stirring up chaos so nobody forgets the lower planes exist. On a mission they are insufferably self-important.

Fiendish powers make mephits with a version of monster summoning IV blended with contact other plane, typically as a quick fix or a stand-in for less loyal help. Mephits never betray their makers but do annoy them, so their lives are short; they have no natural life span.

Some lower-planar spellcasters send live mephits as coded messages in their feuds. A fire mephit signals displeasure, an ice mephit bars the recipient from the sender's home, a radiant mephit offers a truce, and so on; the recipient may kill, keep or free it. Nobody gives a mephit to a friend.

Mephits need no food or drink. Unless noted otherwise, each heals 1 hp per turn while touching its element or a fitting environment, such as flame for fire mephits or cold for ice mephits. Healing ends at 0 hp, when the mephit dies, and nothing else can heal one.