Quickling

Quicklings rocket through haunting, twisted forests where the Winter Fae hold sway, both in the Feywild and in the world. Racing faster than the eye can track, each appears as little more than a blurry wavering in the air.
A quickling is a small, slender fey, similar to a miniature elf with sharp, feral features. Its cold, cruel eyes gleam like jewels.

Civilization and Culture

Interspecies Relations and Assumptions

Too Fast for Words. The mortal realm is a ponderous place to a quickling's eye: a hurricane creeps gradually across the sky, a torrent of rain drifts earthward like lazy snowflakes, lightning crawls in a meandering path from cloud to cloud. The slow and boring world seems to be populated by torpid creatures whose deep, mooing speech lacks meaning.
To other creatures, a quickling seems blindingly fast, vanishing into an indistinct blur as it moves. Its cruel laughter is a burst of rapid staccato sounds, its speech a shrill squeal. Only when a quickling deliberately slows down, which it prefers not to do, can other beings prop- erly see, hear, and comprehend it. Never truly at rest, a "stationary" quickling constantly paces and shifts in place, as though it can't wait to be off again.
Mischief, Not Murder. Quicklings have a capricious nature that goes well with their energy level: they think as fast as they run, and they are always up to something. A quickling spends most of its time perpetrating acts of mischief on slower creatures. One rarely passes up an opportunity to tie a person's bootlaces together, move the stool a creature is about to sit on, or unbuckle a saddle while no one's looking.
Tricks of that sort are hardly the limit of their artful malice, however. They don't commit outright murder, but quicklings can ruin lives in plenty of other ways: stealing an important letter, swiping coins collected for the poor, planting a stolen item in someone's bag. Quicklings enjoy causing suffering that transcends mere mischief, especially when the blame for their actions falls on other creatures and creates discord.

Genetic Ancestor(s)

• Brownies

Lifespan

no quickling lives longer than fifteen years.

Related Ethnicities

• Feywild natives
• Winter Fae

Quickling

Tiny fey, chaotic evil

Armor Class 16

Hit Points 10 3d4+3

Speed 120ft

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STR

4 -3

DEX

23 +6

CON

13 +1

INT

10 0

WIS

12 +1

CHA

7 -2

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Senses darkvision 60 ft.

Languages Sylvan

Challenge 1

Blurred Movement. Attack rolls against the quickling have disadvantage unless the quickling is incapacitated or restrained.
Evasion. If the quickling is subjected to an effect that allows it to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, it instead takes no damage if it succeeds on the saving throw, and only half damage if it fails.

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Actions

Multiattack. The quickling makes three dagger attacks.
Dagger. Melee or Ranged Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft. or range 20/60 ft., one target. Hit: 8 (1d4+6) piercing damage.

Regional Effects

In the Feywild, even the weakest creatures have regional effects. A quickling's lair is warped by the creature's magic, which creates the following effect:
Within 1 mile of a quickling's lair, pathways emerge that boost speed. A quickling traveling along one of these pathways has double the normal movement speed, and non-quicklings traveling along these pathways have 1.5 times their normal movement speed.