Muryan [Shadow Fey]

Muryan are man-sized, with lean athletic muscle and wild hair that writhes about the head like a medusa's snakes. They wear gray kilts and cloaks and are never without a weapon close by. A muryan can become a ferret for up to three hours in total each day, shifting at will within that limit. They speak the fey tongue but say little, and in battle these 'Dancing Men' sometimes hum cheerfully, which unsettles their foes.

Muryan fight readily but not pointlessly, trusting ferocity over strategy. Their curved scimitars and slim longbows each deal 1d6. A creature hit in melee makes two saves vs. spell: fail the first and it starts to dance, taking -4 to attack rolls and Armor Class while the muryan often mirrors its steps in a grim partnered dance; fail the second and it is blinded as by blindness.

While a muryan fights, everyone within 30 feet of it also makes two saves vs. spell. The first failure slows the victim for the rest of the fight; the second deafens it as the deafness spell. Small wonder seasoned adventurers have fled at a second sighting. Muryan also cast invocation/evocation spells as 5th-level mages.

Mithral weapons or weapons of +1 or better harm them; wooden weapons, even enchanted, do not, nor do lightning and electricity. Direct sunlight forces a save vs. spell; failure means the muryan thrashes wildly as its hair burns and skin smolders, taking 3 points per round, or 3 per turn when clouds soften the light. Their trap lore lets them find and remove traps as thieves with 75% success, and they have 120-foot infravision.

Muryan pounce on any chance to sharpen their skills and scorn human rules of war, freely using tactics human commanders call barbaric. Yet they respect a worthy enemy and may hold back to study its technique.

In battle they move with uncanny elegance and lethal purpose. A great warrior who falls to a muryan may be spared and taken to the hidden shadow realm to be made a changeling.