Mythic Gremlin, Nuglub

APPEARANCE

This hideous, hunchbacked creature has three glowing blue eyes. Oily hair grows from its head and back, covering it like a cloak.

Mythic Nuglub CR 3/MR 1

XP 800
CE Small fey (mythic)
Init +4; Senses darkvision 120 ft., low-light vision; Perception +9

DEFENSE

AC 19, touch 15, flat-footed 15 (+4 Dex, +4 natural, +1 size)
hp 25 (3d6+15)
Fort +3, Ref +7, Will +2
DR 5/cold iron; SR 14

OFFENSE

Speed 30 ft., climb 20 ft.
Melee bite +3 (1d4+1 plus 1d2 bleed and grab), 2 claws +5 (1d3+1 plus 1d2 bleed and trip)
Special Attacks mythic power (1/day, surge +1d6), opportunistic grappler^MA, wicked sharpness^MA
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 3rd; concentration +4)

• At will—prestidigitation
• 1/hour—heat metal (DC 13), shocking grasp, snare

STATISTICS

Str 13, Dex 18, Con 15, Int 8, Wis 9, Cha 12
Base Atk +1; CMB +1 (+5 grapple and trip); CMD 15
Feats Step Up, Toughness^B, Weapon Focus^MF (claw)
Skills Acrobatics +10, Climb +9, Craft (traps) +9, Intimidate +8, Perception +9, Stealth +14; Racial Modifiers +4 Craft (traps), +4 Intimidate, +4 Perception
Languages Undercommon
SQ kneecapper

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Kneecapper (Ex)

A nuglub has a +4 racial bonus on combat maneuver checks to trip an opponent.

Opportunistic Grappler (Ex)

A mythic nuglub can use grab against a Medium or smaller creature. An adjacent target that has fallen prone, including as a result of a trip attempt it makes on a successful hit with its claw, provokes an attack of opportunity from the nuglub, but it may only use this attack to grapple the target.

Wicked Sharpness (Ex)

A mythic nuglub’s claws and teeth are extremely sharp, allowing it to inflict bleed damage with both attacks. Additionally, it can make a sunder attack with its claws as if it benefitted from the Improved Sunder feat (gaining a +2 on sunder checks and not incurring attacks of opportunity). It can expend one use of mythic power to ignore the hardness of the a chosen item with is sunder attempts until the item is broken or 1 minute has elapsed, whichever occurs first.

ABOUT

Environment any underground or urban
Organization solitary, pair, or mob (1 mythic nuglub plus 3–6 nuglubs)
Treasure standard

Nuglubs are deranged; they enjoy combat with a manic glee that other gremlins reserve for destroying devices or creating complex traps. Indeed, they spend long hours sharpening their claws, filing their teeth, and looking for the perfect ledge from which to leap into the fray. If combat doesn’t come to them, they seek it out, entering villages and killing innocents by night. Their idea of a good time is murder so silent that the victim never wakes up, so the family members find the remains the next morning and accuse one another of the atrocity. Nuglubs jealously attack armored foes, as the gremlins’ hunchbacked forms make it difficult to wear armor made for other Humanoids. A group may use its heat metal and shocking grasp abilities to weaken an opponent before mobbing it and trying to knock them prone. As soon as an enemy falls to the ground, all nuglubs descend on that target in a frenzy of bloodlust, grappling and biting, holding on like perverse leeches until nothing remains. Nuglubs typically stand 2-1/2 feet tall and weigh approximately 25 pounds.

Though less technically inclined than some of their kin, nuglubs like using traps. Unlike most gremlins, who prefer to sabotage existing machines, nuglubs delight in the stealthy construction of traps in areas their victims consider familiar, rigging these painful and often deadly surprises on front doors, around the floor of beds, or near cribs in nurseries.

Nuglubs are the brutes of gremlin-kind. Groups of nuglubs remain small, as they tend to quarrel with each other and cannibalize those on the wrong side of an angry argument. Lone nuglubs often work with other gremlins, as they like proving they’re the strongest, and aren’t likely to kill and eat their smaller allies (though those slain by other enemies are fair game for a little snacking).

Well known for their mischievous natures, their nasty senses of humor, and their destructive habits, the fey creatures known as gremlins rightfully earn their reputations as cruel pranksters and sadistic saboteurs. Ranging in size from 3 feet in height down to barely over a foot tall, numerous types of gremlins stalk the world’s dark and unseen reaches, tending to linger near thin spots in reality between the Material Plane and the realms of the fey. The smaller a gremlin is, the stronger its ties to the realm of the fey remain, and the stranger and more potent its powers.

While all gremlins share certain traits in common, such as a resistance to damage from weapons save those made of cold iron, a cruel and sadistic sense of humor, and their slight statures, all are famed for their ability to break, curse, and otherwise ruin the works of other creatures. Gremlins take great delight in ruining and breaking things, and while each gremlin race has a particular “specialty” (be it magical auras, complex machinery, coordinated tactics, or even luck itself ), all gremlins are fascinated by complex devices and intricate social constructs. Nothing pleases a gremlin more than being involved in the collapse of something complex.

Against larger creatures, particularly humanoids (whom gremlins particularly love to torment and vex), gremlins adopt a subtler approach. Lacking the physical strength to fight even the weakest humanoid societies, they seek out urban areas where the “big folk” don’t visit often, like sewers, dumps, graveyards, and abandoned buildings. Once established in the shadows of society, the gremlins move out singly or in pairs to undo anything that can be undone. They love leaving objects, relationships, or situations looking stable to casual observation, but ready to collapse or fail spectacularly at the slightest touch, hiding nearby so they can observe the calamitous results but keeping well out of range of the disaster.

In areas where gremlin activity is well established, many societies have developed unique and clever ways to both protect themselves from gremlin-related mayhem and root out the little monsters from their lairs. One common method of dealing with gremlins is to use objects known as gremlin bells. Crafted from bronze, brass, or other semiprecious metals and measuring no more than an inch tall, gremlin bells are hung from delicate chains or silken cords over door frames and windows or affixed to precious objects. The belief is that the presence of a gremlin bell sickens the creatures and even renders their supernatural and spell-like abilities useless. Strangely enough, many gremlins believe this as well, and even when the gremlin bells aren’t magic, gremlins won’t risk tinkering with most objects that seem to be warded in such a manner.

Other communities take a much more active path in ridding themselves of gremlins, training small animals like cats, dogs, falcons, or even weasels to seek out and attack gremlins on sight. Tiny trained animals can pursue gremlins into their cramped warrens with ease and, when their claws are fitted with cleverly constructed cold iron spikes, can inflict significant damage on a tribe of these creatures. Many gremlin tribes have learned from such tactics, however, and utilize trained (or not) animals in their lairs for protection.