#lampad

A woman sat in a dark enclave, picking pomegranates and pruning the glowing plants that made her dark hair have a turquoise tint.

Carson was laying in a small group of narcissus flowers, watching the woman. She looked so familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

She turned, then smiled at him. The smell of pomegranates filled his nose.

He woke up in a front of a fire in a hut. His arm was bandaged tightly. He looked over, seeing a blue dragon sleeping quietly on what looked like a large dog bed. No one else seemed to be in the room.

He rubbed his head as memories came back. Warner turning into a monster, Garrett’s hair floating, the fact that Harley was a dragon. He hoped it was a dream.

Harley puffed smoke out of his mouth as he snored. Carson frowned, not actually sure that it was his friend. He got up slowly, trying not to wake him, just in case he was right.

He had made it all the way to the door and even managed to open it. But Garrett was standing there. Eyes still white, hair still floating. But now they were holding a staff that looked old. They were wearing a pair of blue, poofy pants, some black boots, and a transparent sheet of fabric that only covered half their chest, held on by a belt around their waist that had pouches and odd tools hung from it.

They looked just as surprised as him. “Youre awake!”

“Garrett you…”

“Yeah I know. Can I come in?” They asked with a small smile. “I’ll explain what’s going on.”

He quietly moved out of the way. Garrett moved inside, closing the door behind them and snapping their fingers. Suddenly, they were back in their normal jeans and tee-shirt, but still kept the boots, hair and eyes. They then went over to the dragon and flicked his head.

“Harley. You were supposed to be watching him.”

Harley groaned from his spot on his bed as he opened his eyes. “It was boring.”

Garrett rolled their eyes, sighing. “Dummy.”

“watching me?” Carson asked.

Garrett looked over. “Oh yeah. You’ve been unconscious for a good couple hours. You lost a lot of blood from that Wyvern attack.”

“Wyvern? What? What’s happening? Why is your hair like that? Why is Harley a dragon? Where’s Michelle and-”

“Carson.”

He stopped.

“Take a breath before you pass out again.” Garrett set down their staff as Carson did as he was told. “Okay. Harley can you stoke the fire a bit? I wanna make some stew.”

Harley got up, stretching like a cat before going over to the dying fire and blowing some flames in. Carson stared in confusion. “…Harley?”

Harley looked over, smiling softly. “Uh, yeah…hey.”

Carson searched for the words, but all that happened was his mouth making random sounds.

Harley chuckled and stuck out a forked tongue. It was kind of cute, Carson had to admit.

Garrett started preparing the meal in the small kitchen area, concentrating a bit and making ingredients fly around and basically start the process by themselves.

“Woah…” Carson mumbled.

“Cool right? Garrett’s super good at magic.”

“Magic…Magic isn’t real.”

“Uh tell that to the floating objects.” Harley said, moving over and sitting on the ground, putting his head on the table. Carson quietly took a seat.

“Hey Carson, give me scratchies.” Harley said.

Carson raised an eyebrow. “…Scratchies?”

“Hes like a cat, I swear.” Garrett said, chuckling, while directing a knife to cut up some veggies.

“head please!”

Carson moved a hand over and slowly started scratching Harleys head. Harley made a sound similar to purring.

“thanks!” Harley closed his eyes as Carson continued scratching.

“So, an explanation.” Garrett moved forward as all the food preparation went on by itself. “First things first. I am a sorcerer. Harleys a dragon, obviously, and Michelle’s a changling from the unseelie court. You with me so far?”

Carson blinked. “what!?”

Garrett chuckled. “Need a second to process?” They flicked a hand and all the food went into the pot, and the pot put itself over the fire, the stew beginning to boil. It smelled very good. They flicked a hand again, and everything started cleaning itself up.

“I…Okay, sorcerer, which means magic is real, dragon, which means dragons are real, and a changeling, which means fae are real.”

“Correct. Feeling okay so far?”

Carson nodded nervously. “….What attacked me?”

“that was a wyvern.”

“that was pretending to be human?” Carsons scratches on his best friends head started to become nervous movements. “Why?”

“He was looking for you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“did he…say anything before he attacked you?”

“He called me a half blood, and called me son of Eleni. That’s my moms name…how did he know my moms name?”

Garrett played with a floating strand of hair. “Well…”

Michelle came through the door. She looked different. Instead of black it was a deep green. It reminded Carson of moss. Her skin was still dark, but now it looked as if she was made of wood. She wore a dress that looked like it was made of moss, and wore no shoes. Flowers covered her arms and legs. She held bags of fast food and drinks.

“I brought food! Oh Carson! You’re awake! Has Garrett explained things?”

Carson nodded slowly. “I…didn’t expect you to look…like a tree.”

“I’m a fae. We don’t look human.” She smirked, putting the food down.

“I just started making stew.” Garrett complained.

Michelle shrugged. “we can have this later then. No big deal.”

"Guys! I was attacked by a wyvern you guys aren’t human, what is going on!?”

The three looked at him. Harley put a claw on his leg. “Its a lot to take in. To make a long story short, you’re a lampad. An underworld nymph. And you’re, as far as anyone knows, the first of your kind.”

“…So when he called me a half blood…”

“it meant half god, or in your case, half nymph.”

“They serve lady Hecate, and sometimes Persephone. They guide souls to the underworld and travel with lady Hecate on her nightly hauntings.”

“Lady Hecate…goddess of witchcraft right?”

Garrett nodded. “She taught me everything I know.”

“…Have you met my mom?” Carson asked.

Garrett sighed. “Only once, really. All other times it’s been in passing. She asked me to protect you.”

“Same for me.” Harley said. “which wasn’t hard cause we were already friends.”

“same for me actually.” Michelle chimed in. “But she got a hold of me personally.”

“…What was she like?”

“…She was very kind. Also a little terrifying.” Harley said.

“Oh yeah. Her eyes were like daggers.” Garrett agreed.

“She reminded me of my queens physical form.” Michelle moved and pulled the stew off the fire and put it in a safe spot for her to start putting the food in bowls.

“Yeah your moms scary, dude.” Harley said, smiling with his sharp teeth.

“This is all insane…” Carson mumbled. Harley put his head on his lap, and Carson immediately started scratching at the scales. The texture and something to do with his hands calmed him down despite his heart pounding in his chest.

“Your mom didn’t want you to be hunted…the smell gets stronger once you know.”

“smell?” Carson asked.

“Certain creatures smell really good to monsters like him.”

“Wyverns…they’re monsters? But not dragons?”

“Heyyy!” Harley complained.

“sorry bud.”

“Well, some dragons are like that. My family’s not though!” Harley grinned.

“we classify monsters as anything that wants to kill us.” Garrett said. “which is a lot of things.”

Michelle nodded, handing out the stew. “But we’re safe here, okay?”

“Where is here?” Carson asked.

“The forest that surrounds most of town is super thick and Michelle teleported us to the deepest part.” Garrett said, grabbing spoons.

“Huh.”

“Me and Garrett set up some warding’s and booby traps. Nothing in a 20 mile radius can get in. And on the off chance it does, that’s what we have Harley for.”

Harley chuckled, turning human to eat his food. Carson blinked.

“you can do that? I thought it was like a spell or something.”

Harley nodded. “I can turn back and forth at will. I usually stay a dragon when I’m here or at home, but its easier to hold a spoon with hands.”

“…Fair enough.”

“you still eat like a dragon though.” Michelle chuckled. Harley stuck his tongue out. It was still forked like in his dragon form.

Carson started eating quietly, taking in all this information. It was a lot, but he appreciated at least having his friends around. It made it a little easier, even with all the changes in them.

Penelope glared at Warner. “you let him get away stupid!”

“You said his friends would be locked away!”

“I said, to wait for my signal! Now fathers going to be upset with both of us!”

Warner glared. Footstep echoed, both of them froze.

“Children…” A voice called. “Did you let our nymph get away?”

Penelope swallowed hard. “I-It was Warner, sir.”

“I told you both to get the child. This falls on both of you. You will both share in the punishment.”

He woke up to the sound of his father coming home from work. Just after 6 am. He looked at his clock and yawned, getting up.

“Morning pops.” Carson said, opening the door into the hallway that led into the front room and kitchen.

“morning kiddo.” Hid dad, Victor replied back. “Sorry to wake you.”

Carson shrugged and went into the kitchen, grabbing some iced coffee from the fridge and mixing it up the way he liked it.

“How was work?”

“Ah you know. Graveyard shifts are always boring.” Victor threw his jacket over an old chair, then yawned. “I’m going to go get some sleep. Don’t be late for school again, okay?”

“yeah dad.”

The door to his father’s bedroom closed. The sun began rising as he sipped his coffee. He fidgeted with his blonde ends, sitting in quiet for a while before the sound of their phone vibrating scared them.

“Mornin.” Harley Paine, his best friend texted.

“Morning.” He texted back with a small smile.

“Can you bring me some poptarts?”

“Out of them at your house?”

“No you just have the good kind.”

He chuckled and sent back a face sticking out its tongue before stretching and heading to his room, changing into his school outfit.

It wasn’t much different than his normal outfit, just a dark blue collared shirt and some jeans as well as his high-tops. He thought about wearing his binder but realized he had been wearing it far too much lately and his chest really needed a break. He settled for a tight bra and a baggy sweatshirt over his shirt. He made sure to brush out his hair so it wasn’t a rats nest. He looked in the mirror, examining the scars from the pimples.

He shook his head and headed off to the bus stop. It was just after 6:30 by the time he made it. Harley, Garrett, and Michelle were waiting for him.

“Did you bring me my pop tarts?” Harley asked. Carson chuckled and fished the fudge pop tarts out of his bag, handing them to him.

“Awesome!” Harley started chowing down quickly. “thanks!”

Carson chuckled.

“Hey do you guys have the homework?” Michelle asked, fighting with the straps of her rainbow backpack. “I forgot to do mine.”

Garrett grabbed the homework from their bag and placed it in Michelle’s hands. “You get fixated on something, shell?”

“Yeah! There’s a society I’ve been researching who hunt my-

“Boring!” Harley said. Michelle paused, seeming to catch her herself as Harley and Garrett gave her a very targeted look. She chuckled nervously.

“Uh, yeah. You’re right.” Michelle said, chuckling.

Carson raised an eyebrow but before he could ask what it was about, the bus arrived and the four boarded quickly. Carson was the last person on, and spotted the driver.

Sharp, glowing, white eyes stared back at him, and in the split second before he blinked he could have sworn he had red skin horns and a tail.

But then he did blink, and the bus driver was a normal human man, smiling with blue eyes.

Carson shook his head and took his seat besides Harley, resting his head on his best friends shoulder and closing his eyes for the ride to school.

Michelle and Garrett split as soon as the bus came to a stop. Garrett pulled Michelle to the side and gently grabbed her shoulders.

“Dude.”

“I know. I know.” She said, pushing them off gently. “I lost my brain for a second.”

Garrett sighed. “Remember what she said, he can’t know until his powers emerge.”

Michelle frowned. “I hate keeping secrets like this.”

“me too. But it’s too dangerous if he knows before he’s ready.”

“Rett, what if something comes for him and he doesn’t know? What do we do then?”

“that’s not going to happen.”

“but-“

“it’s. Not.” Garrett said, frowning. “it won’t.”

Michelle sighed. “Okay. If you say so.”

Garrett took a deep breath, and headed to class.

Michelle watched them go before she felt a soft hear coming from her pocket. She pulled out a compact mirror, looking into it. “milady.”

Smoke appeared in the mirror. Her lady rarely showed a human form. “My child. It is good to hear from you.”

“What do you require from me?”

“A simple task. Get me some boba tea.”

“Oh. Regular or a fun one?” Michelle smiled. The tasks were rarely this simple.

“surprise me.”

“yes my lady. I’ll meet you in the usual place after school.”

“I will see you then, child.”

Garrett brushed their hair out of their face, taking a deep breath.

“Gare.”

They paused, looking out of the corner of their eye at the girl leaning agaisnt the wall.

“What, Penelope?”

“You three cant keep him safe forever, you know.” She said. They could see the grin on her face. This was a threat.

“If you try anything-“

“Youre so cute when you’re protective, gare.” She moved and cupped their chin. They moved away as fast as they could.

“Leave him alone.”

Penelope giggled. “Like I said, adorable.”

Garrett headed to a busier place in school before the conversation could continue.

Harley puffed out some pink smoke from his vape.

“Dude, put it away.” Carson said, grabbing their books from their locker. “you’re going to get in huge trouble.”

“Don’t worry!” Harley chuckled. “you know the teachers don’t care.”

“Yeah but its also bad for your health.”

“A little smoke won’t kill me…a lot of smoke won’t kill me but that’s besides the point.”

Carson rolled his eyes.

“Where did Michelle and Garrett go?”

Harley just shrugged as the first bell rang. The two headed off to class together. First class, English.

Today was a study in Greek mythology. Garrett and Michelle joined them at the usual table. From a table opposite of them, Penelope garner stared right at Garrett. They stuck out their tongue at her. Michelle handed 10 bucks to Carson.

“What was that about?”

“Oh we have an ongoing bet about your enemies to lovers with Penelope. Today specifically, how long you would go without sticking your tongue out.”

“Not cool.”

“anyway, Michelle bet you just stay enemies. I bet you guys have an epic love story by the end of the year.”

Garrett rolled their eyes again, huffing. “It’s not like that.”

“And it better stay that way.” Michelle warned, grinning. “Cause I don’t loose bets. Ever.”

The three rolled their eyes.

“Okay everyone.” The teacher, mx. Terrace, said while they wrote on the board. “let’s continue our discussion from last week. I trust you all did the homework.”

At least half the room groaned.

Carson split off from the group the period before lunch for P.E. He cursed the school system for forcing him to do exercise before food. At least today he wasn’t wearing his binder and wouldn’t have to switch out of it.

“Carson”

He shot around. There was no one. He frowned, wondering what that was.

“Run.”

“Hey.” A voice called out. It was one of the schools main bullies, Warner. A big kid who liked to pick on him, specifically. He looked around the locker room, finding it empty except for the both of them. He wasn’t even technically supposed to be in here. This was the girls locker room, despite the fights that he’d had with the teachers, he’d been forced to change in there.

“You shouldn’t be in here.” Carson didn’t look at him.

“Oh it doesn’t matter, half blood.”

He paused putting on his shirt. “…What did you just call me?”

The fact that his attention was seized seemed to make the tall boy smile. Carson finished putting on the shirt and turned around.

“Only what you are, son of Eleni.”

“How did you…”

“Run!”

Not a second later that he heard that voice again, the boy gave an otherworldly screech and sharp talons pierced his arm. He screamed in pain and suddenly the adrenaline was sending him down the halls. They were oddly empty, not that he noticed in his panic. The sounds of the former boy chasing him echoed.

He stopped, trying to open a closet but found it was locked. The now creature, a small Wyvern with glowing red eyes stared at him, its shadow quickly engulfing Carson as it creeped closer.

Carson backed up agaisnt the door, now frozen in fear.

“This is how I die.” He thought. The Wyvern pulled a claw up to slice him in half.

That’s when the roar came down from the hallway, and something sharp blue tackled the Wyvern to the floor.

Carson couldn’t stop to think of what that wad cause Garrett had grabbed his hand. They looked different. Instead of their usual red hair that was messy and seemed to defy gravity, they had floating white hair, with silver eyes. They chanted something and suddenly the two were in the courtyard.

“Come on, we need to get out of here. Harley can’t hold that thing off for long.”

“What is happening!?”

Garrett didn’t explain, instead pulling him as fast as they could to the thick forest behind the school. It hurt. They were pulling on the arm the Wyvern had almost torn off. Looking over, he realized he had lost a lot of blood, and were continuing to loose it. He looked away before that could fully catch up with him.

Michelle was setting something up in the clearance. They finally stopped, leaving them both to catch their breaths.

“Where’s Harley?”

“I don’t-”

The sound of wingbeats made them both look up. Harley in dragon form landed on the ground in front of them, and gave them a claws up.

“Do the portal.” Garrett commanded.

The spots in Carson’s eyes started to get bigger. There was talking and yelling. He couldn’t hear.

“Carson?” Harley asked in his own gentle voice, putting a claw gently on his shoulder. Carson looked over, seeing him in his full blue dragon glory.

(art by Kelly McNee on Artstation)

 Of the handful of ancestries that first appeared as race builder examples in Advanced Race Guide, gathlain are perhaps my favorite, being an interesting twist on the classic diminutive winged faerie.

Being true fae does mean that they are one of the few playable ancestries for whom the First World, home of the fae and rough draft of the material plane, is considered a normal place. And with that comes the notion of belonging to one of the many faerie courts of that realm.

Whether or not they are gathlain, some other form of fey, or even a rare mortal resident or visitor, many bards who seek to curry favor of the fae courts learn the secrets of being a true courtier, and with it, many magical secrets (as well as the allyship of many fey).

Of course, taking on such a role isn’t without risks. After all, the fey are powerful and fickle beings, especially the powerful Eldest, the fey demigods that rule over vast realms in the First World.

These courtiers do not necessarily spend all their time in the fey realms, however. Many act as agents for the fey in the Material Plane, or perhaps freewheeling wanderers that received a blessing due to their charm and are occasionally required to show up to parties and entertain.

 The ways of the fey courtiers include a handful of new performances. In particular, they can use their performances to inflict curses upon their enemies, particularly those that have harmed nature or insulted the fae. At first, these curses are simply things like traditional curses or causing animals to reject the victim, but later on, they can transform them into small animals, or inflict a curse that slowly turns them into a plant. However, such performance-based curses always come with a stipulation by which the curse may be broken.

They also learn a performance that calls upon not just plants, but the earth and water to come alive and move, animating to fight for the bard.

Beyond such performances, the courtier can venture into the wilds and engage in trade with the fey, their mastery determining how much they can buy, sell, and the upper limits of what the fey might find for them. This might be flavored as them contacting a fey to act on their behalf in the First World to trade for items, or they might slip away to some hidden fey marketplace in either plane. Regardless, the only stipulation is that it must be an area of wilderness where fey can be found, though I’d argue that sufficiently fey-accustomed cities might also suffice.

Finally, these bards have many favors to call upon from the fey. As such, they add natural summoning to their spells cast, with techniques to augment said summonings as well. What’s more, they add a decent set of additional types of fey to their summoning list.

Being able to summon a wider variety of fey (with augmented summoning from the get-go!) is quite nice, and the new performances let you debilitate foes both in combat or for roleplaying reasons are all fun things, and giving up certain performances for them seems pretty fair. However, what will likely interest many players is the ability to buy and sell pretty much anywhere. Obviously the GM should put limits on this. Not every wild location is going to have enough fey to draw upon, or said fey might be hostile. I personally would recommend a build focused on summons, support, and debuff/control with spells from the back (since they lose one of their big debuff performances).

 The potential for these courtier characters to interact regularly interact with the fey realms is a gold mine for GMs wanting to take a legs of the main quest, or at least one side quest into the First World. Additionally, they may be the best equipped to actually deal with the fey peacefully. However, they also are the ones that perhaps best know how capricious and dangerous they can be, making even seemingly ironclad pacts and agreements into vapor on a whim.

  The Court of the Shining Grotto has been troubled by the disappearances of many of it’s subjects, and the mighty lampad who rules over them has sent one of her most loyal courtiers to recruit a band of heroes to deal with whatever is causing these troubles. The cause is a wormlike horror from the depths of the world called a rorkoun, which may be part of a much larger being.

 The iruxi tribes of Longmarch have long been allies of the fey, trading with them and helping maintain their shared territory. As part of this pact, they train some of their own to become courtiers in the fey courts, delighting them with their deep, crooning songs.

30 monsterpeople 13/30: Salamander Lampad

their torches will drive you mad, which means they’re automatically pegged as an annoying status effect user