Mephit VII [Magma/Ash]

Magma mephits, also called lava mephits, throw off heat that can be felt 30 feet away. Ash mephits are dusty gray, earless and nasal-voiced, and every feature comes with a complaint: the wings get grimy, the ears ring, and surely you are bored by now.

A magma mephit's soft claws do 1 hp plus 1d8 heat, melting or scorching most nonmagical materials at rates from three rounds for plate armor to an hour for an inch of wood. Every third round it can lob lava that never misses one target within 10 feet, for 1d6. After eight shots it must recharge for an hour in a lava pool, where it regenerates 2 hp per round. It can melt into a lava pool 3 feet wide and 6 inches deep, which neither recharges its breath nor shields it from damage. Hourly it may try to gate in 1-2 fire, magma, smoke or steam mephits, of one type if two come. A barrel or more of water hardens it to half movement but releases sulfurous steam; everyone within 10 feet must save vs. poison or spend two rounds dizzy and nauseated at -2 to attack rolls.

Ash mephits have no claws or bite. By spending 1 hp of their own, they puff out a 10-foot-radius cloud of choking ash for 1d6 (save vs. breath weapon for half). Once a day one can trap good or neutral listeners in a long recital of its woes, as lamentable belaborment; evil creatures do not care and are unaffected. It does not breathe and ignores poison, nonmagical cutting and piercing weapons, and fire, heat and cold of any sort, but liquid attacks deal double damage and wind attacks maximum. Hourly it can gate in one more of its kind, usually to commiserate.

Magma mephits are the dullest of all mephits and the butt of fire mephit jokes. Mockery angers them quickly, but otherwise they are placid. Ash mephits are morose; they make passable sentries and couriers but drown everyone they meet in grievances. Scholars suspect they are easier to make than other types, since nobody can imagine another reason to make one.