Pictsie (5e Creature)
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Pictsie (aka Nac Mac Feegle aka Wee Free Men)[edit]
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Tiny fey, chaotic neutral Armor Class 13 (natural armour)
Skills Intimidation +1 Crawstep (3/Day). "A pictsie can find a way in anywhere, even a dream" A single pictsie may use the Crawstep to travel to an adjacent plane. This effect works like the spell Plane Shift with the following exceptions: it must be a neighboring plane (from the Material plane, that means Shadowfell, Feywild, Ethereal, or Astral Planes), it only affects the Pictsie, anyone in the Pictsies' clan (real or honorary, as declared by a kelda), and up to 10 lbs. of matter per Pictsie. They must have unfettered feet movement ("It's all in the twist of the ankle, ye ken") They never use the crawstep to take a shortcut through the Material Plane. For that, they assure others, they have "feets". Camouflage. "...didn't step out from behind or pop magically into existence. They appeared the way faces appear in clouds and fire. They seemed to turn up if you just looked hard enough and wanted to see them." Pictsies can drop out of notice into the background as long as they stand still. Advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks to hide. Grapple. Pictsies are preternaturally good fighters. Probably from all the experience of fighting amongst themselves. They can grapple one-size category above their own size (i.e. they grapple as Small creatures instead of Tiny creatures) Carry. Pictsies are unusually strong and natural thieves. As most of this is sheep rustling, their carrying capacity is treated as if they were a Small creature. Pictsie speed. You are exceptionally speedy (see Speed above). Tavern Brawler feat. Accustomed to rough-and-tumble fighting using whatever weapons happen to be at hand, you gain the following benefits:
ACTIONSFists. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 2.5 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d4 + 4) bludgeoning damage. Longsword, Pictsie. Melee Weapon Attack:undersized, +6 to hit, reach 2.5 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d4 + 4) slashing damage. Headbutt. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 2.5 ft. (must first be grappled), one target. Hit: 6 (1d4 + 4) bludgeoning damage and make a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or be Stunned. If previously Stunned, can be knocked Unconscious. Mousepipes. Special Weapon Attack: -1 to hit, reach 60ft., target area, caninds. Hit: 6 (1d4 + 4) sonic damage. One member of every Pictsie clan is a bard (known as a Gonnagle), capable of playing the Mousepipes. This musical instrument resembles the bagpipes of Scotland though much smaller. A Pictsie bard can use them to play "The Notes of Pain", which are high-pitched tones that can only be heard by creatures capable of hearing sounds above the normal human range. It takes one action to change out the standard pipes for the Pain Pipes. Any canine creature (including undead, monstrous beasts and aberrations with canid features) hearing the sound of the Mousepipes takes 1d4 points of sonic damage plus an additional point of damage for every level of bard and is Frightened for 1d6 rounds.
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"Nac Mac Feegle! The Wee Free Men! Nae King! Nae quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willna be fooled again!" "Nac Mac Feegle - most feared of all the fairy races. Even trolls† run away from the Wee Free Men" Pictsies, known to themselves as The Wee Free Men, are a clan of hard-drinking, sheep-stealing, sword-wielding, fey who are as fierce and proud as they are accidentally funny.
"He had a mass of untidy red hair into which a few feathers, beads, and bits of cloth had been woven. He had a red beard that was pretty much as bad as the hair. The rest of him that wasn't covered with blue tattoos was covered with a tiny kilt." They are about 6-inches tall and abnormally strong (one Pictsie can lift a grown man). The tattoos are so dense as to give the appearance of blue skin. The hair is red in the sense of "...hair like an orange gone nova" Not particularly handsome, they have a "face like a hatful of knuckles... Every one of them could win a Worst Broken Nose contest." Their feet are "large, dirty, and half tied up with animal skins to make very bad shoes". For clothes, they usually wear a kilt, sometimes with a skinny vest, and use rabbit or rat skulls like helmets. They have necklaces of mole teeth. Despite being fey, they have no wings. Calling a Pictsie a fairy to their face is the surest way to end up in traction.
Unlike the stories of other Fey, the Pictsies are Not Helpful. They never do chores. They don't drink milk. They fight. They drink. And they steal. Sheep and cows are a favorite. One or two Pictsies get beneath each hoof, lift it up, and go scurrying off at speed. In an area where Pictsies are known, a knowledge roll will reveal that: DC Result 5 They steal 10 They steal anything that's not nailed down 15 If they have a crowbar, it's not nailed down 17 And they'll take the nails 20 A picture of one appears in "The Goode Childe's Booke of Faerie Tales" 22 In the picture, he's making an obscene gesture The book "Fairies and How to Avoid Them" by Miss Perspicacia Tick has complete info on them. Despite their love of fighting and stealing, Pictsies take their duties and their vows very seriously. They keep their promises, eventually, but can become distracted on the way to their objective. Moreover, they do not condone stealing from those who are poor. In any case, they don't steal children. They are illiterate, believing that all writing is magic and that written words are more powerful. They don't often say their names, fearing having them written down "upon comp-licated documents. Summonses. Wanted posters. Bills and affidavits. Writs of dirstrainment" because "A body can be put in the pris'n if they have written evidence". As a result, all Pictsies carry a Pictsie sword made of thunderbolt iron which glows blue in the presence of lawyers. However, there is a clan that has found "lawyering" with paper a good way of stealing, so they can advance with the times. While they have a superstitious fear of having their names written, they fear little else. Most Pictsies are plain fighters or barbarians, but occasionally they produce a bard which is known as a Gonnagle. Their poetry is bad enough to hurt, and they play a special bagpipe-like instrument called the Mousepipes. To play "the notes of pain" the Gonnagle switches out the pipes to shorter, silvery ones. It is an inaudible frequency to most people, although humans teeth buzz and iron vibrates, but canids have a particular problem with the sound. They act as if under a fear spell, and run away. Gonnagle songs: "The Bonnie Flowers", "The Devil Among the Lawyers", The King Under Water" At least one Pictsie has tamed a flying mount - Hamish the Buzzard rider. How he described taming it was to knock it out, blow a special oil up its beak, and when it wakes up, it thinks the Pictsie is its mummy. Hamish got off the bird in the past by diving with a spiraling leaf. He has now taken to a makeshift parachute made from a witches underpants. He calls the buzzard with a pipe inaudible to humans. They have knowledge of water faring, make coracles (woven baskets about the size of half a coconut, and sealed with pitch), and even fish (which consists of tying a string around one Pictsie and throwing him in the water to wrestle it).
According to them, the Pictsies were once servants of the Queen of the Fairies, stealing things away to the Feywild until they rebelled and went independent, coming to the material plane to seek their fortune. Some other, more sober, sources say they were kicked out of the Feywild for being drunk at 2 in the afternoon. Thrown out for drunken, rowdy behavior. Which was too much. For the FEY.
They have an interesting view on the afterlife vis-a-vis, this is it. They believe that they are CURRENTLY in "heaven" (after all, what else could it be with all the things to fight and liquor to drink). If they die here, they believe that they are re-incarnated in the real world and have to earn their place in "heaven" again. A common battle cry is "See you again in The Last World". Only the males are encountered outside of their burrows. Every clan of Pictsies is led by a female kelda. Keldas are larger than their male counterparts, and rotund like "round balls of slightly squashy dough, and was the color of chesnuts". They are also vastly smarter, doing all of the thinking for the clan. "The boys think their heids is most useful as weapons". They control all aspects of the clan, including honorary memberships. A kelda can be thought of as a queen, both in royalty and in the sense of bees as there can't be two queens. Nearly all of her offspring are male. All Pictsies in a clan are either the offspring or brothers of the kelda. If she does produce a daughter, she is raised to marrying age and then sent with a retinue of her brothers to marry a member of a neighboring clan in need of a kelda. A kelda's daughter never becomes kelda of her own clan. When a daughter arrives at the new clan, the new kelda marries the warrior of her choice and settles down to have lots and lots of Pictsies. The bride chooses the warrior and the day of the marriage. This warrior is now known as The Big Man, the most favored man in the burrow. When a kelda dies, her original bodyguard retinue often rejoin to their original clan. It is uncommon for any but a Pictsie to become a kelda, but it has happened, because It is a "bad thing for a clan to be left without a kelda, even for an hour". Pictsies hold a wake for their dead, and dance the Five Hundred and Twelvesome Reel to the tune of "The Devil Among The Lawyers"
Male Names: Big Angus, Not-as-big-as-Big-Angus Angus, Wee Angus, Rob Anybody, Big Archie, One-eyed Archie, Wee Mad Archie, Wee Bobby, Not-totally-wee Geordie, Hamish, Medium-Sized Jock, No'-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock Jock, Wee Jock, Daft Wullie, Big Yan Female Names: Aggie, Fion, Jeannie Clan names: Nac Mac Feegle, Long Lake †Trolls in the Discworld setting are more living rocks. Big, strong enough to use seige weaponry as personal arms, and made of stone, not much makes them afraid. |
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