Homebrew Quickling Species Details

Quicklings rocket through haunting, twisted forests where the unseelie fey 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.

Live Fast, Die Young. Quicklings owe their existence — and their plight — to the Queen of Air and Darkness, the dread ruler of the Gloaming Court. Once a race of lazy and egotistical fey, the creatures that would become the quicklings were late in answering the queen’s summons one time too many. To hasten their pace and teach them to mind her will, the queen shrank their stature and sped up their internal clocks. The queen’s curse gave quicklings their amazing speed but also accelerated their passage through life — no quickling lives longer than fifteen years.

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 properly 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.

Quickling Traits

Quicklings, rampant speedy tricksters of the Feywild.

Ability Score Increase

Your Dexterity score increases by 4. Your Strength score decreases by 2.

Age

Quicklings age rapidly, reaching maturity at 2 years and never living past 15.

Alignment

Quicklings find fun in trickery and deceit, leading to a chaotic nature. Their belief is Mischief, not murder.

Size

Quicklings range from .5 to 1.5 feet tall and have slender builds. Your size is Tiny

Speed

Your base walking speed is 120 feet. You cannot swim.

Darkvision

Accustomed to twilit forests and the night sky, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Evasion

If the you are subjected to an effect that allows you to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, you instead takes no damage if you succeed on the saving throw, and only half damage if you fail.

Blurred Movement

Attack rolls against the quickling have disadvantage unless the quickling is incapacitated or restrained.

Light Frame

Due to your small form you have disadvantage on Strength checks and saving throws.

Languages

You can speak, read, and write Common and Sylvan. Sylvan is silky, with subtle intonations and exquisite grammar.