Fuath

A wicked wee fey adapted from North Irish and Scottish tales.  If a gremlin on the side of the carriage is bad, a gremlin on the side of the caravel is worse—carriages don’t sink.

A halfling uses illusions to convince his shipmates that a fuath is in the riggings of their brig.  Meanwhile, he helps himself to the ship’s stores.  Eventually the deception will likely be uncovered—but by that time, the illusionist’s figments will have attracted the attention of some real fuaths.

A nymph demands all the fey in her domain pay her courtesies on each leap year.  The local mob of fuaths ignored the order—they pretended not to understand the nixie messenger (though she was speaking Aquan), and have sworn the fealty to a distant sea hag in any case.  The nymph sends local sellswords who owe her a favor to call the fuaths to account.

It is a race against time and claws on the Firth of Clinn.  A skiff carrying the laird’s heir sails east toward sunrise and salvation, followed by a hungry school of fuaths and reefclaws.  The fuaths reach the boat just as dawn breaks.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 3 142

Twelve-hour workday—woo, advertising!—and still I blog.  That’s professionalism, baby.

Given their linguistic and geographic estrangement from the faerie courts, I also wonder if fuaths might go the way of mites and risk losing their gremlin or even fey status.

I saw James L. Sutter’s Distant Worlds in my (other) local comic shop this weekend.  Drool…  Mine won’t arrive for a few more weeks (I subscribe for my Adventure Paths and Player Companions, but have to Amazon my Campaign Setting books), so I consoled myself with Tim Hitchcock’s The Ruby Phoenix Tournament.

Oh, and if you want a cool glitchy indie pop mix, email me.