Of all the content I wanted to write for Wayfinder #18, I was only able to prepare one piece in time. I now have an entire fishing village and the surrounding area floating around in my head. One of the key aspects of the area, due to the theme of Wayfinder #18 being Fey, is that many of the children have been befriended by fey creatures. As I thought about this more, the idea went through a few iterations. Originally, I was thinking along the lines of the kids going out and trying to catch them, to which I pictured the good fey enjoying daily games of hide and seek. My next idea was to have the fey teach the kids little magic tricks, via prestidigitation or dancing lights. As I began wondering more about whether or not I wanted to include any evil fey in this, I began to imagine the relationships as more that of an imaginary friend. The movie Drop Dead Fred came to mind (my brother watched that dozens of times when we were kids), except with pixies and brownies causing chaos and mayhem. With this last thought in mind, I decided to make the friendship more personal between one fey and one child, with all the antics that come from a unpredictable fey messing with the child’s surroundings.
Creating an Imaginary Friend
“Imaginary Friend” is an inherited or acquired template that can be added to a fey creature with a size of tiny or smaller.
CR: +1
Defensive Abilities: An imaginary friend is invisible to adult humanoids.
Special Abilities: An imaginary friend gains the ability to bond to a humanoid child as described below.
Spell-Like Abilities: An imaginary friend can cast prestidigitation, mage hand, and dancing lights at will. It can also cast feather fall once per day, and charm person once per week.
Languages: The imaginary friend uses telepathy to speak with their bonded child in the child’s native language.
Weakness: True seeing shows the imaginary friend as it truly looks. Catching the imaginary friend in a cold iron cage and saying its name backwards makes it visible as the child sees it.
Humanoid Child Bond (Su)
The fey forms a bond with a humanoid child that imparts a number of benefits. The fey can create a bond with a full-round action that provokes an attack of opportunity. First, the child sees the fey as a form that is pleasing to the child. This form usually is an animal, but it need not be a living creature; a doll will suffice. The form’s size is that of the fey, and the fey always knows what form the child is seeing them as. The fey takes on the general nature of the child (good, evil, indifferent) but is always getting the child into mischief that is not intended to harm. Only the child can remove the bond, by speaking the fey’s name backwards 3 times.