Stwinger

Stwingers are tiny humanoids with stubby, vestigial wings and an almost unbearable level of cuteness. Fun is all they care about.

Stwingers are not fighters. Nothing delights them more than dangling from a lengthy beard, which makes dwarves and other bearded folk their favorite targets, with long-haired creatures a close second.

In 'combat' a stwinger gives off a charming pheromone across a 40-foot radius; a save vs. breath weapon resists it. Once it has charmed anyone with a beard or long hair, it begins to play, leaping between their heads and yanking too hard, which costs each playmate 1 point of damage every 2 rounds. If a playmate's hit points fall below half of what they were when the encounter began, the victim may try a fresh save at -4 to shake off the charm; failure means the game goes on until he passes out. The damage counts as subdual, and since a stwinger will not play with anyone lying down, it never takes a creature below 0 hit points: a victim reduced to 0 is unconscious, not dead.

Even those who resist the pheromone struggle to hurt something so adorable. Before attacking, a character must roll a d20 below his Charisma, then a second d20 below his Constitution; only if both succeed may he attack. Harmless actions, like pulling the stwinger off its playmate, require no such rolls. If a playmate's companions do attack, the stwinger casts mirror image, which it can manage three times daily, and tries to flee. A stwinger that can be convinced it is hurting its playmates might be persuaded to stop.

They like warm, comfortable homes full of soft furniture and luxuries, usually with hair ropes hanging from the ceiling, treasured both as decorations and as swings. They live alone except at the Great Meet held every three years, a ten-day gathering where all stwingers trade ropes and pick mates before going home.

A female usually bears a single baby, but occasionally a litter. Such siblings share a telepathic bond, and when they leave home at one year old they build a shared house, live together for life, and always settle near a large dwarf community, visiting the dwarves at least every other day, typically in the evening.

Stwingers eat plants, favoring tubers and legumes, and grow nothing themselves, foraging in the wild or helping themselves from nearby farms and markets; in winter they can get by on grass. They can fly only short hops, mostly to leap between playmates, and having several playmates at once is the best version of their game. They wander up to 3 miles from home looking for playmates and often keep a second house for longer trips. Any hairy creature entering their territory counts as a playmate, since why else would such a perfect swing turn up near their home? They speak Pixie, Brownie, and Elvish, and have a smattering of Dwarvish and Gnome.

Stwingers want no treasure beyond their ropes, which are too weak for humanoids to use. Milking a stwinger's charm glands while it lives, or within an hour of its death, yields a fluid usable in making a philter of love.