Grig

Grigs are a great argument for story awards.  They’re neutral good fey who like getting people to dance—killing one for XP would be like gunning down a wedding DJ.  And unless truly cornered, most grigs would flee (aided by entangle, invisibility, and flight) rather than fight anyway.  But PCs shouldn’t always have to engage them in combat—joining their dances, charming them with music, providing them with aid or otherwise peacefully interacting with them can and should be worth a reward.

A child is lost—not in the woods, but in the vaster, more magical, dire wolf-haunted Deep Woods.  The safest shortcut there is via the mushroom ring where a gang of grigs regularly dances.  Anyone who can join their dance without succumbing to its staggering effect will win their aid through the magical portal.

Mercenaries with blades of cold iron slew the leader of a band of grigs.  Outraged, their new chief declares war on any Big Ones wearing metal armor.  The band follows his orders with some reservations, but nevertheless get better at sniping by the day.

A grig hears a wedding in progress and decided to aid her fiddling to the festivities; in addition to her legs, she carries a magical viol that extends her own supernatural fiddling ability.  She must be convinced to stop lest she exhaust the wedding guests; then she must be offended from the outraged, orthodox abbot, who declares the naked fey to be an abomination to be baptized by holy water…or fire.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 2 147

Of course, there’s nothing saying you couldn’t change grigs’ alignment and make them creepy as hell.  Tim Hitchcock and Nicolas Logue’s GameMastery Module Carnival of Tears featured dark ice grigs who had no problem going toe-to-toe with PCs.  Or picture this: A band of Tiny elfin humanoids earn a party’s trust and ply them with wine and music.  As the night reaches a crescendo, the creatures’ grasshopper bodies burst out of their disguise self-enhanced false skin husks (à la Mantis Girl in Jim Butcher’s Small Favor), and they attack…

By the way, I was first introduced to grigs (and many other fey) in Dragon Magazine 155—positively one of the best themed issues the magazine ever put out (and featuring my first encounter with Bruce Heard’s “The Voyage of the Princess Ark” series).  I read my copy so much the cover fell off (and I made sure to keep that cover).

Speaking of which: Bruce Heard has a blog!!!  You have no idea how excited I am to see the Known World in hex map form again.  Seeing new nations and coastlines appear each month was one of the highlights of opening a new Dragon issue.  I’m no dogmatically old-school gamer by any means, but there’s something about well designed hex maps I just love…