Planar Bestiary
Fettered gremlins may have started out as fey, but a past interaction with an unknown group or entity changed them. They are now part living and part automaton, thanks to an aberrant device embedded in the flesh of each.
The price a fettered gremlin pays for their weird machine fused to them is that their minds are forever changed, making them alien even to other fey. But they also gain advantages, of a sort. They are harder to disable or influence. And if they are killed, the device revives them—or, more accurately, reanimates them into undead versions of their former selves.
Fettered gremlins are keen to spy on other creatures across all the planes of the multiverse, and when possible, do some damage if it seems likely they can get away afterward. Who are they spying for? It's unclear, but a few psychic war veterans wonder if fettered gremlins are vanguards of the "coming war." Whatever that means.
Psychic war veteran,
page 110
Motive: Gather intel for unknown superiors
Environment: Anywhere in the multiverse, usually alone and hiding
Health: 12
Damage Inflicted: Minor wound (3 points)
Armor: 1
Movement: Short; short when flying
Modifications: Speed defense and stealth as level 5 due to tiny size; resists effects that would stun, blind, mentally influence, frighten, or knock unconscious as level 5
Combat: The fettered gremlin uses a "psychic glare" on a creature within short range; on a failed Intellect defense task the target takes 3 points of Intellect damage (ignores Armor). All the target's allies within immediate range of the target take 1 point of Intellect damage (ignores Armor) on a failed Intellect defense task.
Any time a foe hits the fettered gremlin with a melee attack, psychic feedback automatically inflicts 3 points of Intellect damage (ignores Armor) to the attacker.
About once each minute, a fettered gremlin can psionically manipulate reality to render themself invisible for up to ten minutes, or until the fettered gremlin attacks.
If the fettered gremlin is reduced to 0 health and retains most of their body, the strange device fused to their flesh injects them with chemicals, reviving them with full health at the beginning of their next turn. However, the fettered gremlin is no longer living, but instead animated with necrotic and psychic energy. If destroyed as an undead, their destruction is permanent.
A fettered gremlin is immune to Intellect damage from mental attacks.
Interaction: Though they can interact telepathically, gremlins are hard to comprehend because of fundamental damage to their minds. Those who persist might be able to negotiate if they promise to show the gremlin something they haven't seen before.
Use: Visitors attending an important event notice the flickering presence of a spying fettered gremlin.
Loot: If a fettered gremlin is truly destroyed (including the undead version that arises after the living body dies), it might be possible harvest the strange chemicals from the embedded device to create a vial containing the result of a chemical factory cypher use.
GM Intrusion: A mishap occurs as a character attempts to harvest the fluid in the gremlin's strange device; they gradually transform into mindless zombie if they fail two Might defense tasks on two subsequent turns before succeeding on one.