Shapechanger. You can use your action to polymorph into a beast form that resembles a rat (speed 20 ft.), a crow (20 ft., fly 60 ft.), or a spider (20 ft., climb 20 ft.), or back into your true form. Your statistics are the same in each form, except for the speed changes noted. Any equipment you are wearing or carrying isn't transformed. If you die while shape-shifted, you return briefly to your true form before vanishing back into the book for a "brief rest" (see the Pain and Suffering section below).
Cunning Action. Your quick thinking and agility allow you to move and act with great haste. You can use your Bonus Action on each of your turns in Combat to take the dash, hide, or disengage.
Devil's Sight. Magical darkness doesn't impede your darkvision.
Magic Resistance. You have advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Spellcasting. You are a 3rd-level spellcaster. Your spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 12, +4 to hit with spell attacks). Your spell slots refresh after a "brief rest" inside your book. You have the following fiendish spells prepared:
Cantrips (at will): produce flame, thaumaturgy, friends, gust
1st level (4 slots): detect magic, comprehend languages, expeditious retreat, hellish rebuke
2nd level (2 slots): see invisibility, darkness
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 1d4 + 3 piercing damage.
Invisibility. You magically turn invisible until you cast a spell or spell-like effect, make an attack, or until your concentration ends. Any equipment you are wearing or carrying is also made invisible.
Ethereal Transit. You magically teleport up to 30 feet. You may then take a minor (aka non-attack or spell-casting casting) action, like: manipulating something in the environment, passing an object from one creature to another, or preforming the help action.
Foil Foe. As a reaction to seeing a creature a creature within 30 feet of you attempt a check, saving throw, or attack roll, you can cast a lesser magical hex to reduce that roll by a d6. You must declare this before the triggering roll is made. You must return to your book and take a "brief rest" before using this feature again.
Ethereal Dodge. As a reaction to being directly targeted by an attack or spell, you magically vanish into a puff of smoke, taking refuge deep in the ethereal plane until the start of your next turn when you reappear in the same spot you vanished from. A creature targeting you must either be able to see and interact with the ethereal plane to hit you or they are can choose a new target with the same attack or spell they were casting. If they cannot do this, they lose this action. While dodging in this way, you cannot perceive the mundane world. You must return to your book and take a "brief rest" before using this feature again.
Slow Fall. As a reaction to seeing a creature within 30 feet of you fall, you magically teleport to their location, grabbing them and slowing their descent to a gentle 120 feet per round. You may only slow one creature's fall at a time and must use your entire action and concentration to maintain the effect over multiple rounds.
Description
An imp can assume animal form at will, but in its natural state most resemble a diminutive red-skinned humanoid with a barbed tail, small horns, and leathery wings. Most imps have deadly poisoned stingers; but you alas were debarbed during your imprisonment. There are many variations of imps; your kind are woven personally into reality by Archdevils of the Nine Hells: in your case, that was Lady Zariel, a marital warlord-type and ruler of Avernus.
Imps are found throughout the Lower Planes, either running errands for their infernal masters, spying on rivals, or misleading and waylaying mortals. An imp will proudly serve an evil master of any kind, but generally can't be relied on to carry out tasks with any speed or efficiency.
For at least a thousand years, you have been bound to this strange artifact that resembles a book containing your various deeds and misdeeds: a catalogue of sins if you will. During your long imprisonment, you apparently missed the collapse of the universe-spanning mortal Empire of the EverRealm. You were recently "acquired" and "released" by a mortal adventurer, a Seeker who perished fighting an Owlbear (dying is a thing that mortals are good at). In any case, you've learned a fair amount about their little Realm, a place called Calencia.
Lair and Lair Actions
Your lair is the demiplane to which you are bound. The space within resembles a large and comfortable home, decorated in a style and layout of your choosing. There are no exterior windows.
Featured prominently within the space are several unusual features: a large bookshelf that contains nothing but copies of the book you're trapped in; a large sealed door, from behind which comes odd and unsettling noises; a table carved from white stone, etched with magical sigils, that occasionally produces treats and small rewards when you do good deed; some kind of pipe-based speaker system that unreliably allows communication with the outside world; and most concerning to you is a vast sand-timer which slowly counts down the days down of your thousand-year imprisonment. As of your first adventure, you have about two and a half years of sand remaining. You're not certain what happens when you run out of sand.
Commune with the Outside World. By means of careful listening and loudly shouting into the strange pipe-work in part of your home, you can vaguely hear creatures holding or very near to your book and respond to them. Time is weird here and you realize it doesn't always work quiet right; sometimes it's like you can have a real conversation, other times it's like corresponding over great distances.
Binding the Strange Artifact to a Hero. You have the ability--honed over many years of trial and comedic error--of extorting some will on the outside world via a partnership with either a willing or unwilling subject. Any creature that is not evil can willingly attune themselves to your book. Or you can exert your will on an unwilling non-evil creature in contact with the book. Such a target makes a Charisma saving throw against your spell DC (12), they have disadvantage on this check if they have handled the book for at least a week. On a failure, they are attuned to you. On a success, they realize you have attempted to force yourself upon them ,and they are immune to further attempts for a period of 24 hours. Once the book is attuned to someone, it cannot be unattuned save for the remove curse spell or a willing transference of the attuned item to another non-evil creature.
Aid a Hero. You and the vaguely good-aligned creature that is bound to your book have a mutually advantageous partnership. Using their magic or life-force as a springboard, you can briefly escape the confines of your book to attempt to gain real world experience! They lose either a first level spell slot or roll their largest hit die and suffer that much damage. You then appear in the real world adjacent to them and can exist outside your demiplane for a seemingly random amount of time. During this period of "parole" if you move more then 100 feet from your attuned host you must make a DC 12 Constitution saving throw each round or suffer 1d4 psychic damage. If you fall to 0 HP, you return instantly into the confines of your prison and must take a "brief rest" before returning to action and are one step closer to dire consequences unfolding (see next section). You may touch the book and use an action to return within for a "brief rest" but your ally will have to pay the cost again when you want back out.
While outside, you gain experience based on generally how helpful you are. You are currently level 3 and require 1800 more XP to reach level 4. Just escaping for the first time in several years will be enough to earn you 100 XP! Reach level 5 before the sand runs out and something very interesting will happen.
Pain and Suffering. The outside world is at once both wonderful and full of pain and suffering. Should you be reduced to 0 HP and forced back into your book, you lose a bit of carefully won control over your neat and orderly domain. If you fall three times, something very bad and exciting will happen to both you and your bonded ally. Every two weeks of in-game "real world time" you regain 1 point of control, up to the maximum of 3.
Note: A "brief rest" is a strange amount of time that vaguely is equal to the time between games or a single scene or encounter within a session.
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