Spriggan [Gnome]

Whether gnome-sized or towering, a spriggan looks much the same: a squat, heavy-bodied humanoid with red eyes, hair of black or brown, and a sallow, dingy yellow hide. A rare red-haired spriggan is considered lucky by its fellows. Noses are big and lumpy, though no worse than a homely human's. They adore bristling mustaches and great bushy sideburns and never wash or comb them, a habit of neglect that covers their bodies and gear too. The smell is wet soil, old sweat and dirt.

Away from home a spriggan is always armed and armored, usually with a polearm, sometimes a sword or mace, and never with a shield. Several wicked little daggers are tucked into hidden spots in its armor. Jewelry and trinkets stay behind in the hoard, where the owner sits and gloats over them now and then.

Their signature trick is changing between small and giant size whenever they like, with weapons, armor and other carried objects resizing along with them. Shifting takes a full round, during which the spriggan may move up to 30 feet but cannot attack. In small form it can, in place of fighting, use one spell-like power per round, as often as it likes: affect normal fires, shatter, or scare, the last made at -2 to the target's save because spriggans are so hideous. Giant-sized, they have no magic except the power to shrink back down, but they gain the 19 Strength of a hill giant.

At either size a spriggan fights and sneaks like an 8th-level thief, matching a gnome with 18 Dexterity, and that agility lets it attack twice per round with a weapon. Its percentages: climb walls 81%, open locks 78%, move silently 77%, pick pockets 75%, find or remove traps 70%, hide in shadows 64%, read languages 40%, and 35% to hear noise. Size matters, of course: a 12-foot giant will struggle to vanish into a 6-foot shadow. Backstabs are possible only in small form and deal triple damage.

As a group spriggans are chaos, and a band may be met with some members huge and others tiny. Individually they are sharp and make full use of their tricks, usually in pursuit of mayhem. Smashing property and hurting the helpless delights them.

The wandering packs are all male. Females stay in gloomy burrows or hidden lairs in forgotten ruins and seldom stray far except to forage; they fight just as males do, but when enlarged they have just 7+4 Hit Dice. They breed with males of packs passing nearby. Offspring are thrown out at maturity, sons to join packs and daughters to find lairs of their own. Many young die; 80% of males survive compared to 60% of females.

Spriggans love only other spriggans and hate gnomes most of all, perhaps because true gnomes look so much like them. They waylay travelers and raid small settlements in their territory, and every piece of their equipment, armor and weapons included, was stolen from someone. Large, organized groups of humans and demihumans frighten them, and they steer clear of such parties.

Male packs eat mostly meat, hunted or stolen, which forces them to roam widely and claim large territories. Females gather fruit and grain near their dens and eat meat only when a male brings it as part of courtship. Nothing preys on creatures this vicious, though gnomes go for them the instant they meet unless hopelessly outnumbered. Clearing out a spriggan band usually calls for a well-equipped party.