Quickling

Quickling Creature3

Uncommon CE Small Fey

Senses Perception +9; low-light vision

Languages Aklo, Common, Sylvan

Skills Acrobatics +13, Crafting +8, Deception +8, Nature +8, Stealth +11, Survival +6, Thievery +11

Str +0, Dex +4, Con +1, Int +3, Wis +1, Cha +3

Items lethargy poison (3 doses), shortsword

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AC 22; Fort +6, Ref +13, Will +8

HP 25; Weaknesses cold iron 5

Slow Susceptibility The quickling takes a -2 status penalty to saving throws against effects that cause the slowed condition. If the quickling ever becomes slowed, they lose their supernatural speed, can’t Fade from View, and become sickened 1 for the duration of the slow. They also can’t reduce this sickened condition for the duration of the slowed effect.

Can’t Catch Me [reaction] Trigger The quickling is targeted by a Strike; Effect The quickling darts aside, gaining a +2 circumstance bonus to AC, then Strides up to half their Speed after the Strike resolves.

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Speed 100 feet

Melee [one-action] shortsword +11 (agile, finesse, versatile S), Damage 1d6+2 piercing plus lethargy poison

Primal Innate Spells DC 20; 2nd shatter; 1st ventriloquism; Cantrips (2nd) dancing lights, prestidigitation

Fade from View [free-action] Requirements The quickling used no attack, manipulate, or move actions in the previous round; Effect The quickling becomes invisible until it uses an attack, manipulate, or move action. The quickling can’t use Fade from View again for 1d4 rounds.

Sneak Attack The quickling’s Strikes deal an extra 1d6 precision damage to flat-footed creatures.

Supernatural Speed The quickling’s speed, combined with nearly instantaneous acceleration and deceleration, enables them to move in astonishing ways. As long as they have a firm surface to travel across, they can Stride their full movement vertically or horizontally. They can even run across unstable surfaces, such as water, in the same way, although dangerous surfaces (acid, lava, etc.) harm them as normal. They must end their movement on a horizontal surface capable of bearing their weight or else they fall.

About

Few creatures can match a quickling’s speed. These malicious fey creatures delight in striking with blinding speed and accuracy, racing in to stab and slash at foes before scampering away for cover with maddening-even frightening-swiftness. Stories of people simply doubling over, bleeding from what appear to be spontaneously opening wounds, are often eyewitness accounts of quickling attacks.

Quicklings actively hate the “slow-paced dullards” they encounter every day, delighting in inflicting suffering and pain on creatures they deem too sluggish to matter. While they are related to kinder fey such as brownies and pixies, quicklings care only for their own merriment. They see their own cruel pranks as the height of humor and have full confidence that their speed and invisibility will keep them safe from harm. They occasionally form gangs of up to a dozen individuals, although the group usually devolves very quickly into mayhem, as they inevitably perform increasingly deadly pranks against each other.

Quicklings consider cruelty to be the pinnacle of pranking. As a relatively minor example, a quickling may spend an entire day constantly moving food out of reach of a starving man. More commonly, however, a quickling prefers to cause pain and injury directly, such as by suddenly replacing a dinner fork with a red-hot knife as it’s picked up, or slashing the legs of a traveler moving through tall grass.