Mephit V [Dust/Salt]

Dust mephits look starved even for mephits, drab brown from eyes to wings, and unlike their kin they wear clothes, always black and cut around the wings. Salt mephits seem built of coarse white grains, with wings of tiny crystal cubes, big red eyes and a leering grin. They are odorless until wet, which makes them smell of the sea and causes them agony.

Dust mephits claw twice for 1d2. Three times a day one can exhale a cloud of glassy, itching grit filling a 15-foot radius around itself. A creature that fails its save vs. breath weapon can still escape by scratching for a round; otherwise it suffers -4 to AC and -2 to attack rolls for three rounds. Mephits and thick- or numb-skinned beasts (elephants, buffalo, scaly creatures) are immune. A dust mephit heals 1 hp per turn in dry, dusty places, takes half damage from cutting and piercing weapons and none from heat or fire, but liquid and wind attacks always deal it maximum damage. Hourly it may try to gate in 1-2 more dust mephits.

Salt mephits claw twice for 1d3; any claw that gets past armor stings so badly that a failed save vs. petrification leaves the victim stunned for 1-2 rounds. Their breath, a burst of crystals at one enemy within 15 feet, deals 1d4 with the same save and stun. Its daily taunt works like the 1st-level wizard spell of that name and can be made to seem to come from anywhere within 10 yards, and its touch turns up to a barrel of water into undrinkable brine. It may try to call another salt mephit hourly. Heat and fire cannot hurt it, liquid attacks deal maximum damage, and plain water burns it for 1 hp per round. While dry it regenerates 1 hp per turn.

Dust mephits are death-obsessed poseurs playing doomed, stylish martyrs holding madness at bay, and they mostly gate in friends to share the gloom. Salt mephits have a sour, cutting wit that tends to get them killed young.

To some lower-planar spellcasters, a gifted dust mephit is a veiled warning that the giver has uncovered the recipient's plot. Sending someone a foulmouthed salt mephit declares open war.