Interview with a Mephit
Hello, and welcome back to Foursaken Feature, where, as long-time fans of the column will know, it’s all mephits all the time! After that last incident, I decided to take a little break from mephits for a little while, maybe find some monsters that wouldn’t be quite so annoying for everyone else who has to share NNW’s secret underground lair (the death threats that would ensue every time one of the little buggers got loose didn’t really hurt that decision…). But I just can’t turn my back on something that loveable. I mean…look at them. All…icy…fiery…or…dusty, salty, or ashy, in today’s case. A quick note: if you just want the stat-blocks, you may want to just start scrolling. They're at the bottom.
Anyway, the point is, mephits are back, and with a vengeance. I’ve even asked one of them to join me today for an interview. He and I go way back to the mage academy where I got my necromancy license (I bet you didn’t know that you need a license to practice necromancy, did you? Let me just say that the penalties for unlicensed reanimation are very, very steep!). Anyway, let me introduce you to Xerxes the Black, Bearer of Many Dooms, Defier of Fate, Thrice-Cursed, Whose Face Scares Many Children. (He’s a dust mephit in case you can’t quite tell.)
Xerxes (X): Indeed…a dust mephit I am, and like dust most see me!
Alex (A): I thought we’d talked about toning it down a bit for the interview?
X: Of course, it isn’t easy to bear the numerous crosses I must, but if you demand I do so in silence, then so mote it be.
A: Excellent. So, the first kind of mephit I wanted to ask you about was the dust mephit, since you are one, after all. Why don’t you tell me a little about your kind?
X: Oh, the woes of being a dust mephit! No one can truly understand the dark, festering brooding and pain which lurks in the hearts of my noble kin. Even just thinking about it is excruciating, for the pain…
A: I see. Was there, perhaps, anything less…dramatic you’d like to share?
X: Well…we’re the best dressed of the mephits.
A: You’re the only kind of mephits who wear clothes, and your fashion sense seems to end at “black is good.”
X: I wear black to symbolize the deep and agonizing pain which clutches at my heart, rending and tearing my…
A: Yeah, yeah, your soul. I’ve heard it before, Xerxes.
X: But they haven’t.
A: And I’m trying to do them a favor and keep it that way. I should probably also mention that dust mephits, besides their flare for the dramatic and persecution complex, dust mephits are amongst the most tolerable of mephits. They are a bit ghoulish in appearance—
X: I can’t help the way I look!
A:--and have poor sense of fashion, but are more dependable and less destructive than most mephits. As far as mephit messages are concerned, sending or receiving a dust mephit is an indication that you have seen through, and either avoided or weathered, a threat that the recipient had sent your way.
X: That’s right, even the high-ups recognize that we dust mephits are natural-born survivors, who tragically attract misfortune due to cruel twists of fate, but always manage to…
A: Moving on, let’s talk about your cousin, the ash mephit.
X: Eh…they give mephits a bad name, always going on and on about the most minor of inconveniences, acting as though it were the end of the world.
A: You don’t say…?
X: Hey, hey, hey! Life is hard for a dust mephit. And maybe I do complain a little, but it’s about the big, metaphysical things which are keeping me down, you know? But these guys, well, it’s all “Oh, you’re so lucky you aren’t made of ash. I track it everywhere I go!” or “Oh, you guys can claw and bite at things? I’m made of ash, so I can’t do that,” and “Are you listening to me? I don’t think you’re listening to me.” And those voices, by the Lady!
A: They do have kind of annoying voices, I guess…
X: So high-pitched and nasally! I may complain, but at least I stick to the big things, the kind that matter, instead of going on and on and on about all those minute little details. I once heard one go on for hours about how its joints had been sore when it woke up that morning. Hours!
A: Anything else we should know about ash mephits?
X: Well, they’re made of soot and ash, they’ve got wings, and can fly, but can’t really claw or bite people. They get soot on everything. Not much else to tell, really.
A: According to my notes, ash mephits are usually only sent out by charitable organizations who are looking to get donations. The ash mephits start out by telling the plight of the organization, and eventually get sidetracked into their own personal “woes,” which go on until the recipient pays the mephit off just to leave.
X: Oh, how cruel the fates are, placing my people in such slavery as to be used as notes or messages!
A: Er…right. Next up on the docket is the salt mephit. They are, of course, made up of salt, which means that they really don’t like to get wet. It apparently causes them excruciating pain.
X: A tragic weakness shared by many of the negative quasi-elemental mephits. Oh, woe are we, for we can never truly enjoy the refreshing experience of a glass of—
A: Anyway, is there anything else you’d like to share about salt mephits?
X: They like to cause all kinds of trouble, which of course get’s blamed on us dust mephits. They think they’re so clever with their smart mouths, but it mostly just gets them killed faster. It’s hard to be so small and have so many people think it’s just fine to kill you for a simple taunt or prank.
A: They do a lot of pranks, then?
X: No, mostly they just taunt people. They can do it with ventriloquism, and love to start fights that way, which usually go on until someone notices the laughing salt mephit, and then anyone who was tricked into the fight teams up on him.
A: Anything else we should know?
X: They can pollute water with a touch, making it salty and undrinkable.
A: Sending a salt mephit is typically a declaration of open war, though it’s not an unpopular trick to make it look like the salt mephit came from someone else, provoking two of your enemies into a war against each other, much like the salt mephit itself does. Of course, you also need to be worried about what happens when they figure it out.
X: All right, so, I can go now, right? I mean, we’re not going to be talking about the void mephit, are we? Heh.
A: Nope, we have one more.
X: What’s that?
A: The poison mephit.
X: Poison mephit? I’ve never heard of them.
A: I made it in the lab. Created a few hundred of them and then released them into the elemental chaos. So…they’re out there, now.
X: Oh, woe are we. Poison? What made you think that was a good idea.
A: Seemed like the thing to do at the time. Anyway, poison mephits have brightly colored and somewhat slimy skin, like an amphibian. Their wings release a small cloud of poison spores whenever they flap, which are harmless in small amounts, but in large quantities (when it flaps its wings rapidly in a single direction) can put people to sleep. Its skin and claws can also secrete poison, which it uses on its foes.
X: What a lovely thing you’ve unleashed on the multiverse, Alex. What’s next, mecha-tarrasque?
A: Anyway, from the few that I stopped to talk to, they seem to have exceptionally bitter personalities, holding grudges for ages and constantly plotting and scheming vengeance. This, combined with their poison, makes them bad servants, because eventually you will do something to anger them, and then they will probably poison your food, or kill you while you sleep, or something of the sort.
X: I think you may have doomed us all. You know, we mephits already had a bad reputation before all of this. You’re really not helping.
A: As far as sending poison mephits as messengers, they’re obviously too new to have a meaning, but I’m hoping that they may become a popular calling card amongst assassins (as a sort of “I’m coming” message), or else be used as a message that the recipient has wronged the sender (typically anonymous, I’d imagine) in some way, and that someday he will have his vengeance.
X: Why would ANYONE want to create a mephit like that? They have absolutely no redeeming value! You know what? I’m out of here! I didn’t sign up to be interviewed by some mad scientist. And here I thought maybe necromancers could understand the deep anguish and pain which fills my poor dust mephit heart!
