Wicked Leprechaun

A wicked leprechaun looks like its ordinary cousin but dresses only in black and gray, scorning bright colors. They haunt cursed woods and shadowed glens. Most likely the same foul sorcery that turned some brownies into quicklings corrupted these once-merry pranksters into killers.

When one chooses to show itself, it fights with tiny daggers, stilettos and garrotes, often poisoned, for it has no honor at all.

It keeps most normal leprechaun magic: unlimited invisibility, ventriloquism, illusions and the power to polymorph nonliving objects. It turns these to deadly snares, for instance letting travelers start across a bridge and then turning its rungs to sand. It cannot grant wishes or use its kin's teleporting trick.

Once each turn it can flash an evil grin that works like a scare spell, and once a day it can cast hideous laughter on 1-4 targets. It talks with wasps, hornets and their kin, sending them to sting people and horses, and can control one giant insect of that sort, frequently using it as a mount.

Rather than fitting into the order of the fairy world, wicked leprechauns tend to wreck the ecosystems around them. They keep company with other evil fey such as quicklings and spriggans.

They eat ordinary food, but where their cousins savor wine, these drink the blood of those they kill. They are greedier still than normal leprechauns and amass large hoards.