Misguided Mushroom person

Adding to the gallery of ludicrous, yet potentially lethal monsters, I present the Myconid. 

They were the most dangerous opponents the Den of the Slave Takers players met despite the inherent hilarity of fighting off three giant mushrooms.  Their spore attacks are no joke.

I is for Iggwilv

I

Iggwilv has never yet appeared in any game I've either played in or run, but she's a character I've always wanted to get into a campaign.  Possibly because she's bound up with so many bits of myth, partly because she just looks so much fun.  Evil, to be sure, but intelligent and never completely out of the game.

Iggwilv - by James Ryman.  An iconic image.  I've never been entirely convinced by the green lipstick, but this isn't someone you're likely to argue with.

Baba Yaga - possibly mid adoption process

Iggwilv is a lady with a mighty arcane pedigree.  Showing magical talent from an early age, she attracted the attention of Baba Yaga, no less.  The Witch's Witch.  Baba Yaga of the chicken-legged hut.  Baba Yaga of a thousand creepy tales and permanent frightener of Russian children.  Also, as it turns out, nurturer of  daughters. 

Iggwilv's cosy childhood home

Later in her career, Iggwilv developed an interest in demons and the Abyss and typically did the thing thoroughly.  Attempting to capture the Demon Lord Graz'zt, the pair fell conveniently in love.  It is not to be expected that two such beings would settle to a life of quiet domesticity, and so it has proved.  Variously betraying and double crossing each other, they have parted, but seem to retain some fondness and respect for each other.

Iggwilv and Graz'zt by Wayne Reynolds

Iggwilv can now be found behind many Abyssal plots.  It is unknown how many of them involve her ex love or her adopted mother, but some connection seems likely.

In my head, I see her living in comfortable luxury, writing new appendices of her mighty work, the Demonomicon.  Always to hand will be her notepad, her chessboard and her faithful messenger ravens as she berates publishers, hunts for fresh worlds to conquer and looks for opportunity.

One day we'll meet in a game somewhere.

C is for Cybernetics, Costuming and the deadly Catoblepas

C

My father was a cybernetician, so I couldn't really let C pass without mentioning it.

My father, doing his imitation of a rogue pixie. 
Photograph (c) Paul Pangaro 1985 (with apologies for not adding that before, but I had no idea who took it)

I admit that I also had a sneaky hope that few others would pick this as their letter C.  It was not to be.  The talented Suze over at Analog Breakfast got the jump on me.  Go over there, read her piece and starting pinging each other.

G (my dad) will get more mentions in due course.

Elsewhere in the in the land of C, we find costuming.  Regulars will know that I have an ongoing fascination and frustration with sewing machines.  An enforced purchase of one back in January and a deep-end plunge into doublet-making has borne fruit.  I no longer assume turkey when an instruction tells me to baste.   I can put in darts and I know the difference between on grain and bias cutting.  It is a whole new arcane world to explore and I am (much to my own surprise) enjoying it.

Long term I will end up with a wardrobe full of costumes ready to dump on unsuspecting cast members.  At the moment, I have a room full of fabric and several doublets and floppy hats in various stages of construction.

C is a rich mine as it turns out.  My final entry is a shout-out for the Catoblepas.  This noble beastie appeared in early bestiarys looking like this -

Early form catoblepas

It seems the original incarnation was a mistaken view of the gnu or wildebeest.  As with many mythical beasts, the creature subsequently found its way into RPGs in a rather more malevolent form.  My first introduction was through D&D when a huge stinking harbinger of doom arrived during one game and killed us all.  You never forget your first catoblepas.

Monstrous catoblepas

Pictures are on the tiny side, but you get the idea.

Ultimate slaad

Ah.  This is what I wanted this morning before I was thwarted by Google.

Tony diTerlizzi's interpretation of slaad.

This chap is both hilarious and obviously dangerous.  It was partly his illustrations that made me fall in love with Sigil and Planescape in the first place, so now when I think of slaads, I think of this.

And a swift edit to add another superb image of slaadi - thanks, Chris :)

More diTerlizzi slaadi

Slaadi and artistic rehabilitation

The slaad is much on my mind of late.  Creatures of chaos, lovers of entropy, beings with an unknown (and probably unknowable) agenda, slaadi are enjoyable nutbars.

They come in various flavours, and in the interests of finding a good image for this post, I googled them.  Hilariously, image search came up with the following as its first choice:

According to Google, this is a slaad.

Controlling my hysteria, I now present you with what I had in mind:

Actual slaadi, not actual size

There is something very beguiling about an utterly chaotic creature producing such a very random image. 

They are delightfully dangerous critters.  Part of their charm, of course, is that they look slightly daft.  Indeed, in the early days of DandD, they were regarded as a bit of a joke right up to the point that they infected you with some unspeakable disease.  Later incarnations spent quite a bit of time emphasising their horribleness despite their appearance, with successive artists working on making them menacing.  Largely succeeding as well.

This is a good trick if you can pull it off.  The immortal flumph is still waiting to become truly menacing, despite some good recent efforts.  For those unaware of this dungeon denizen, I present the original incarnation:

Flumph.  It falls on your head.

Not terribly scary.  The main danger has always been that an adventuring party is going to endanger themselves more by falling over laughing.  A more recent incarnation does somewhat better, but even so, the original is hard to shake.

Flumph you might be more worried about.

Returning to the original point of this post, one of my groups has just met a slaad.  We'll see how it goes for them.

Otyughs - unsung heroes of garbage disposal

I've always had a soft spot for otyughs.

As you can see from the picture above, they are a kind of ambulant octopus/Venus flytrap hybrid.  Ecologically speaking, they're very useful.  There is nothing an otyugh can't eat.  These supreme scavengers can survive almost anywhere and are suprisingly common in urban environments. 

I have this mental image of tiny otyughs being given as gifts and then flushed away when they get too big.  The fantasy equivalent of alligators in the sewers, but more useful.  Maybe somewhere there is a society that works to rehome outgrown otyughs.  Or, as is the case in my version of Freeport (City of Adventure!  City of Thieves!  City of 1001 Surprises!  City of Pirates! - yes, Ankh-Morpok in a parallel universe) - in Freeport, the humble otyugh holds an honoured place.

If ever a city needed municipal otyughs, it's this one.  So Freeport has GarbageBeGone.  This is a highly respectable firm which makes a decent living hiring out otyughs as mobile garbage disposal units.  Each otyugh is accompanied by a team of handlers.  The creatures are trained to an extent (they are not completely unintelligent) and with patience can be taught to devour specific types of matter.

While GarbageBeGone prefer to get their otyughs young and train them up, they do have a capture and rehabilitation programme for feral otyughs.  Given sufficient time and patience, the otyughs will bond with their handling team - helpful when one considers some of the places a garbage disposal team might end up. 

Mikelmerck - Beasties and beastie marks

Some places call them boogey men, but in Mikelmerck, they are beasties.  They are the dark things everyone tries to ignore in the hope that they will in turn be ignored.  They are the things all children know are real and most adults hope are not.  They are the meat of tall tales told in the long winter evenings by the fire to chill the blood.  They are things that are heard at night, when the house is quiet and before the comfort of dawn arrives.  When the floor creaks or a roof tile shifts, a beastie is moving.

Some families have their own beasties.  These are not the familiar ghosts who protect their kin.  Ghosts can do little against beasties, being of the same substance.

When first spotted, a beastie appears as an enormous crouching shadow and most people run from them.  For the courageous who hold their ground, however, the sighted beastie starts to shrink.  Continuing to stare at them is the surest way to remove a beastie, but there are dangers in that.

Some believe that looking too long at a beastie allows them to mark the observer.  Such a person is regarded as fearsomely unlucky as it is believed that they may give birth to a beastie themselves.

Fortunately, there is a simple charm to remove the beastie mark.  A toad must be wrapped in rowan leaves and buried under the doorstep on the night of the full moon.  Each day, for the full lunar cycle, the afflicted one must stop on the threshold and ask the toad to remove the mark.  When the toad is dug up, if it lives, it will take the mark away.   If the toad does not survive the process, the beastie marked will surely have warts.  Nor will the mark be removed.  Whether the toad lives or dies, the wrapping leaves must be carefully burned. 

When is a monster an NPC?

Paizo are running their annual RPG Superstar competition and it's reached round three - which this year is designing a monster.  If you haven't stumbled across this, take a look.  There is a lot of very creative work going on.

What's bothering me, in a mild way, is the recurring comment on some entires - "This isn't a monster, it's an NPC".  I understand what is being said, I just don't think the border is that precise. 

This chap ...

... monster or NPC?  When he's trying to bite your head off, sure - monster.  Easy call.  But if you meet him and he negotiates, isn't he an NPC?

That kobold who surrendered and became a guide.  Might have been a monster, but became an NPC.  In Snaggletooth's case, an unexpectedly heroic one.

Clearly this isn't an issue each and every time.  A gelatinous cube is going to tricky to turn into an NPC.  Spawn of Dagon,  swarms of bees,  gibbering mouthers and numerous others are unlikely candidates as well.  The bottom line, in the end, is whether the critter in question is capable of negotiation.  That's where the boundaries get blurred.

It depends on the adventure and the players as well, of course.  Some days you just want to go bash heads and that's fine.  I just like keeping my options open I suppose.

On the subject of the competition above, I'd hate to think of anyone losing out because they've created a monster that can also be an NPC.

Mikelmerck - Sheep Society and heroic clothing

Sheep are the economic basis of Mikelmerck.  Without them, society does not function. 

Scrivener Wainwright, that self-proclaimed authority on all things Mikelmerck has this to say.

"It is a pity that more poets have not honoured the sheep in verse.  Surely their extreme utility and interesting habits deserve more attention.  The black-faced denizens of the hills are supremely hardy and in the words of their shepherds, "canny buggers".  

The shepherds tell me that the Mikelmerck sheep are matriarchal.  In their quaint way, they describe it thus: 

"Flock allus follows owdest ewe, never ram.  Hims but for tupping, no matter what 'e thinks.  Done and gone, but ewes is forever.  Reason being, if she'n not smartish, she'n not get to be owd.  Fight like helldogs if'n flock's threatened.  Ram does nowt but charge, but ewes gang up.  Tupping time, rams gets het up and fights, but not proper-like.  All manlihood that is, no bloodshed.  But I seen owd ewe hold off wolf afore now."

From this we may gather that the flock may be a formidable adversary.  When one also considers the amazing properties of their wool, much lauded in the present time and for many centuries before, one can only wonder at the absence of bardic acknowledgement."

Wainwright continues in the same eulogistic tone for some time.  He describes in detail his pursuit of the secrets of knitting runes into garments made from Mikelmerck wool and his frustration at the refusal of the great knitting families to share any information with him at all.

This is not surprising.  It is certainly true that many unique and magical items can be created using Mikelmerck wool, but such things are not given merely to the curious. 

An old tale tells of a feylord who sought armour to protect him from a gigantic wyrm.  In order to gain what he wanted, he asked dwarven smiths, elven metalcrafters and human women to create their best work.  The dwarves laboured for gold,  and the elves for magic, but the humans asked for nothing but their time.  Unable to pay the human price, he offered instead to enchant the flock leader so that she would always be able to call on fey help. 

The feylord chose the wool.  It helped him defeat the wyrm and since that day, all owd ewes have a connection to the fey.  None have ever forgotten it.

Mikelmerck - Bestiary continued

Black Pudding - not the breakfast foodstuff, but an unpleasant substance of unknown origin found mostly in mines.  It is said that the puddings are the congealed breath of The Owd Man - and that may be true.  Metal coming into contact with a pudding starts to dissolve instantly, to the ruination of many a good pickaxe.  Flesh fares little better.  They are hard to remove as, amoeba-like, the puddings simply become smaller puddings when hit.


Black Puddings
Armor Class: 6 [13]
Hit Dice: variable, depending on size (2-10)
Attacks: 1d8 but increasing depending on size
Special: Acidic surface, immune to cold, divides when hit for more than 6 damage with one attack.
Move: 3


Doom Hounds - are well known to presage death.  To see them is extremely bad luck.  For the most part they are found in castles and graveyards when there is no visible moon.   Their eyes glow with an unholy light, and they chase interlopers away from their preferred territory.  It is said that if anyone holds their ground and confronts such a hound, they may gain a boon, but this may be more optimistic than practical.

Doom Hounds
Armor Class: 4 [15]
Hit Dice: 4–7
Attacks: Bite (1d6)
Special: Breathe cold, immune to fear, large glowing eyes
Move: 12


Dragons - are said to exist in Mikelmerck.  Reports suggest that they have been dormant for centuries and now form part of the landscape.  This is not to say that they cannot be revived.  The long ridge running across the top of the Telrick Dale is said to be a dragon's spine.  If so, the creature is enormous.

Dwarves - are rare.  Lead does not interest them much as a metal and their interests lie elsewhere in Albion for the most part.  There is one known dwarven enclave producing superlative weaponry and armour, but the inhabitants are clannish even by dwarf standards. Visitors are most unwelcome, but occasionally a dwarven merchant appears at Strangmont market.

Eagles - are well known.  Captured young, they can be trained and are efficent hunters.  It is illegal for the peasantry to catch or tame an eagle.

Eagle
Armor Class: 4 [15]
Hit Dice: 2
Attacks: Bite (1d6), 2 claws (1d4)
Special: None
Move: 3/30 (when flying)

Hulderfolk - the reclusive Hulderfolk seldom bode well for humankind.  They live in small family groups far up the Dales for the most part, keeping themselves to themselves.  Their connection with the earth and the Older is very strong.  In battle, Hulderfolk are fearsome.  With the exception of fire, little can really kill them and the creatures have long memories for those who try.  Hulderfolk have been known to raid villages for wives, typically selecting the strongest of the womenfolk as their prey.  A strong, but ill-favoured girl may even be offered to the Hulderfolk in an attempt to keep relations between the races pleasant.

Hulderfolk
Armor Class: 4 [15]
Hit Dice: 4+3
Attacks: 2 claws (1d4), 1 bite (1d8)
Saving Throw: 11
Special: Regenerates unless hit with fire.
Move: 12

Mikelmerck - Noblebloods

Nobleblood.  Sensitive, fast and prone to breakdown.

In stark contrast to the Duchy pony, the Nobleblood is entirely the product of deliberate breeding for speed.  Among the nobles of Mikelmerck, horse racing has long been a popular sport.  Indeed for some it amounts to an obsession. Lands, power and people are good, but the honour of the race is what truly makes the heart beat faster.

There is some mystery about the origins of the Nobleblood.  Certainly it has little in common with the native ponies, being taller, lighter in build, very delicate and entirely lacking in the Duchy pony's ability to protect its rider.  Fairly solid rumour supports the notion that the progenitors of the Nobleblood are from fey lines. 

Noblebloods are, in short, a luxury item par excellence.  What they have in abundance is speed.  With that speed goes considerable fragility.  This fragilty seems to be the price to be paid for their blinding pace and their ability to pass on those genes to their offspring.

Most noble families have a studbook to their name.  In much the same way as Duchy ponies are used as high currency, so too are Noblebloods.  More than one marriage has been arranged to gain access to particularly treasured bloodlines.

Mikelmerck - Duchy ponies

Duchy pony.  Note the heavy feathering, long mane and tail and generally hardy demeanour.

Travel is difficult in Mikelmerck.  Without the incredibly tough Duchy pony, some places would be entirely inaccessible - a fact that sheep have been using to their advantage for centuries.  Luckily, the Duchy pony exists and thrives.  Outsiders often comment that they have much in common with mules - namely they are remarkably stubborn.  Mikelmerckians agree, but add that they are also incredibly sure-footed, very loyal and possess some kind of second sight.  All these attributes far outweigh an occasional refusal to move.

As transport goes, a Duchy pony is not fast.  They are great weight-carriers however, and in the high days of lead mining, trains of them were used to carry the lead out of the mines and down the dales.  Farmers have long relied on them as well.  It is said that a good pony can carry an entire family all day without tiring.  For many families, the ownership of such a pony is a major ambition.  Lucky the son or daughter who is gifted one as part of a dowry.

Nobody would dream of trying to stable a Duchy pony.  They can live on very little and ignore all but the most brutal weather entirely.  They also to have a strong connection to the Older.  Shifting land, unexpected changes in the weather and boundary breakages are all noticed by these beasts and their owners do well to heed their warnings.

Mikelmerck - a Monstrous update (or mini-bestiary)

A is for Algae - nasty stuff that is hard to detect.  Apart from being slippery, it has an additional hazard attached to it.  Any metal or organic substance it touches begins to turn to green slime (saving throw). It can be killed with fire or extreme cold, and the transformation process can be arrested by the use of a cure disease spell.

B is for Badger - highly territorial and believed to carry disease.  As a result, farmers hunt them relentlessly.  They fight back, but will retreat if they can.  It's true about the disease.

Armor Class: 4 [15]
Hit Dice: 1
Attacks: 2 claws (1d3), bite (1d6)
Saving Throw: 14
Special: None
Move: 6

B  is also for Wild Boars - again a hunted beast that fights back.  In this case, they do not die easily.

Armor Class: 7 [12]
Hit Dice: 3+3
Attacks: Gore (3d4)
Saving Throw: 14
Special: Continues attacking 2 rounds after death
Move: 15
Boars continue to attack for two rounds after they are actually killed before they drop dead.

C is for Changeling fey - like for example, the Shifty Gan.

D is for Dawners.  The dawners are what is left of the oldest humans.  Forced away from civilisation, they live a brutish life in isolated pockets.  Over the centuries, their culture (if it ever existed) has degenerated and they are only rarely seen.  They do not like strangers but sometimes hunt other humanoids for their own mysterious purposes.

Armor Class: 6 [14]
Hit Dice: 1
Attacks: Weapon, usually spear (1d6) or slings (1d4)
Saving Throw: 17
Special:  Dawners will always try to hide and ambush rather than confront directly.  In general they will aim to pick off the weak and retreat with their prey.  They are intelligent and canny hunters.
Move: 12

E is for Ettin - these dimwitted two-headed giants argue constantly and have no chance of setting up an ambush - nor it must be admitted, any desire to either.  Permanently greedy, they can be a great bane to livestock.  Canny villages have sometimes managed to frighten ettins away by threatening them with something nastier.

Armor Class: 4 [15]
Hit Dice: 8+2
Attacks: Weapon (2d8)
Saving Throw: 8
Special: Throw boulders
Move: 12
They throw rocks for 2d8 points of damage.

F is for Fey - the ever-present boundary crossers of Mikelmerck.  Warrior bands sometimes cross into the Duchy as part of their initiation rites. 

Armor Class: 5 [14]
Hit Dice: 1+1
Attacks: Sword (1d8) or 2 arrows (1d6)
Saving Throw: 17
Special: Immune to some magic, but vulnerable to cold iron
Move: 12

G  is for Guardian ghosts.

H is for Horse - or more usually the Duchy pony.  Jet black and hardy, these unflappable beasts have been used for centuries to carry lead down mountains and farmers up dales.  For nobles, horse-breeding is a permanent interest and the study of pedigrees is considered a proper subject for the aristocracy.

Horses are AC 7 [12], with Duchy ponies having 4 HD, movement 14 and Noblebloods having 3 HD, movement 21.  The phlegmatic Duchy pony is always gets a save v fear the first time it sees something new.

L is for Lycanthropes.  In Mikelmerck these are werewolves for the most part.  They are also rare, which is a great relief to anyone who has met one.

Armor Class: 5 [14]
Hit Dice: 4+4
Attacks: Bite (2d4)
Saving Throw: 13
Special: Lycanthropy
Move: 12

N is for Nixie.  Nixies are river spirits who infest the Roosh.  Endlessly curious, they are usually friendly, but can be capricious - as well as prone to forgetting that most species need air to breath.  Nixies do not live long away from water and they like new playthings.

Armor Class: 7 [12]
Hit Dice: 1d4 hit points
Attacks: Weapon (1d6)
Saving Throw: 18
Special: Charm
Move: 6/12 (when swimming)

One in ten of them has the power to cast a powerful Charm Person (-2 on saving throw) that causes the victim to walk into the water and join the nixies as their slave (1 year). Casting Dispel Magic against the curse has only a 75% chance of success, and once the victim is actually in the water the chance drops to 25%.

P is for Pheasants.

S is for Sheep.

Mikelmerck - Guardian ghosts and others (4th day of advent)

(Yes, I know yesterday's Mikelmerck post was on the 3rd day of advent, but the title was already absurdly long)

Due to the tendency of Mikelmerkians to remain in harness after death, ghosts are not so much feared as expected.  Held by contract to their households, ghosts are regarded as security.  They recognise members of the family perfectly well.  Selected friends may well be introduced to the ghost as well, so that they may visit in peace.  Strangers get a chillier welcome until vouched for.

All this is innocent and practical enough, but not all ghosts are so benignly tied.  Ghosts found in abandoned places may well be angry that they have not been formally released.  Over time, anger may turn to something worse and such ghosts may wander the Duchy seeking someone to put them to rest.  In general such ghosts will attempt to reach existing family members, but if that is not possible, anyone will do.  Some very long abandoned spirits may go entirely mad, believing any person they come across is a member of their former family.  Such a person will be relentlessly haunted until the ghost can be placated and released.

There are also stories of ghosts refusing to end their contracts.  These dangerous spirits hunt for a more profound unlife than the one granted to them and are drawn to sorcery of all kinds. 

Guardian ghosts
Armor Class: 6 [13]
Hit Dice: 2
Attacks: Chill gaze (1d3), Touch (1d4)
Saving Throw: 16
Special: Immune sleep spells and normal weapons, paralysing touch
Move: 9
Challenge Level/XP: 3/60

Mikelmerck - pheasants (but not as you know them)

Mikelmerck Pheasant

Although extremely tasty and a prized delicacy, Mikelmerck pheasant is a rare dish.  There are good reasons for this.  At any time of year, the cock and hen pheasants represent a challenge.

Pheasants roam the moors of Mikelmerck almost entirely undisturbed.  Their peculiar defences mean that they breed untroubled.  Naturally this also means that their population must be culled if pheasants are not to take over the landscape and so hunting is a necessary, as well as a taxing sport.

During their breeding season, pheasants attract mates with their colourful plumage.  Males grow lengthy tail feathers which quite literally set fire to their surroundings.  Once a nest is built and eggs are laid, the females use their petrifying gaze as a defence.  Few creatures will live near a pheasant nest.  If the cocks are not setting fire to the landscape, the hens are creating sculpture gardens of unwary creatures.

The chicks do not develop their potent defences until the end of their first moult, and remain close to their home nest and parents until they do.  Anyone fortunate enough to come upon an unattended nest may capture the chicks without difficulty.  Pheasant feathers are highly prized as magical components as well.  A single pheasant chick can provide enough wealth to keep a family for many years. 

Almost their only natural enemy is the common weasel.  For some reason, weasels are immune to the gaze of the hen pheasant and they represent the prime enemy to the birds.  Humans too take advantage of the mustelids hunting ability and immunity.  Hunting parties arm themselves with weasels and ranged weapons and take to the hills in search of pheasant.  Such hunts are not for the faint hearted - and indeed the sport is mostly confined to the nobility.  Commoners prefer to find less exhausting ways to die.  Nonetheless, there are enough people brave or desperate enough to try to capture the birds.  Nobody knows how many worn stone cairns were once optimistic poachers.

Mikelmerck Pheasant
Armor Class: 6 [13]
Hit Dice: 3 during breeding season/2 during hunting season
Attacks: Gaze (1d3+ turn to stone (hens)/Fiery tail (1d4 + further 1d4 every turn until save) (cocks)
Saving Throw: 11
Special: Gaze turns to stone/Fiery tail
Move: 6/18 (when flying)
Challenge Level/XP: 4/600

Mikelmerck - Shifty Gan

 
The Shifty Gan are shapechanging fey who delight in misleading humans.  For the most part these creatures are more of an irritant than a danger but some have a nastier sense of humour than others.

Shifty Gan are more closely related to goblins than elves, but are a species all their own.  They commonly disguise themselves a toads - albeit rather large ones - and lurk close to villages watching the people at work.  Their favourite victims are the greedy and foolish.  Not, it must be said on any moral grounds, but simply because the reactions of such folk amuse the Shifty Gan.

Once a victim is chosen, the Shifty Gan turns into a commonplace object and lies in the victim's path.  Often the chosen form is a container of some kind, such as a bucket.  Once picked up, the Shifty Gan turns into a bucket full of gold and hopes that the victim will take it home.  Each time the Shifty Gan is looked at, the contents become less desirable.  Gold becomes silver, silver becomes iron, iron becomes rock until the victim is thoroughly befuddled and annoyed.

This is innocent mischief for the most part, but some Shifty Gan have favoured victims.  Once marked out by them, a person can be in a lot of trouble.  The Shifty Gan may take the shape of a household pet or even a person, pulling them further and further afield before abandoning them.  Some more powerful fey seeking footholds in the world use Shifty Gan for just this purpose, helping the unfortunate abandoned soul and being invited into a home for their trouble.

Mikelmerckians say that the best way to prevent the Shifty Gan from marking them is to laugh in return and agree that each change is for the better.  They cite Goody Wend, who on finding a bucket of gold was delighted when it turned into silver as it was easier to carry, then still happier then the lump of silver became iron as that was more useful and still more enchanted when the iron became rock as she had been wanting a doorstop.  On arriving home, the Shifty Gan admitted defeat and showed itself to her.  She replied that she was truly fortunate to have seen such a creature.  From that day onwards, the Shifty Gan took to leaving her small gifts.  These did not altar in shape or form.

Statistics
Number appearing:  usually 1
Armor Class: 6 [15]
Hit Dice: 2
Attacks: Claw (1d8)
Saving Throw: 14 (6 against any magic)
Special: Mimics shape, immune to sleep and charm
Move: 9
Challenge Level/XP: 3

Shifty Gan do not often attack and being intensely magical are impervious to most magic. 

Mikelmerck - Sheep, the known enemy

In the world of Mikelmerck, sheep are everywhere.  For the most part, they stay up on the hills.  Up close they reveal a depth of cunning not found in other breeds.  As herd animals, they are more dangerous en masse.  Indeed a single sheep will not attempt to harm anyone.  As a flock, they can be menacing.

Sheep are immune to fear but do not attack unless provoked.  What constitutes provocation varies however.  Shepherds are constantly on the alert for what may upset the sheep - leaving aside the ever-present danger of having a shapechanged fey in their midst.  Even without such a passenger, sheep can be tricky.

MIKELMERCK SHEEP
Common
Number - usually 5-20
AC 7 (12)
Save 18
Move 16
Immune to fear
HD 1d4hp (CL1)
Damage:  Bite 1d3, Trample 1d3

Special
There is a 5% chance that any flock of sheep of more than 10 may contain a shapechanged fey.  In this case the sheep regard the shapechanger as the dominant ewe and will follow it until it is destroyed or separated from the flock.