Umpleby
Image by Arnie Swekel, © TSR Inc.
[The umpleby is another of the Fiend Folio monsters tarred with the brush of "worst monster of all time", due mostly to its flavor text of being completely obnoxious and unhelpful but demanding. "Umpleby" is a last name, albeit an uncommon one. Reading the flavor text, especially of its original appearance in White Dwarf magazine, makes me think that it was originally written to insult somebody's least favorite D&D player. A bit of group drama with a tuned out gamer forever immortalized as an electric sasquatch:
So my challenge with converting the umpleby was to make it make sense as something more than a way to aggravate players. Given them being shaggy orange humanoids, I thought of them as similar to a feral gritty, and gave them a similar power to resist mind control to emphasize the connection. The idea that their color came from copper, and that other metals could end up in their fur too, comes from a conversation with @dailycharacteroption.
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Umpleby CR 5 CN Monstrous Humanoid This shaggy humanoid is covered in head to toe with bright orange hair, with only its eyes and mouth visible. The air hums around it and it smells faintly of ozone. It carries several nets, seemingly made out of its own hair, on its waist.
Umplebys are strange shaggy humanoids obsessed with treasure. An umpleby’s fur is hollow and filled with copper filaments, and in addition to eating fruit, nuts and berries, umplebys must consume precious metals regularly. Older and more successful umplebys may have a silvery or gold tinge, as their metallic hairs are alloys of copper and other conductive metals. The metal in their fur allows them to pick up on electrical fields, detecting creatures at a short distance and metals and minerals over considerable distances. It also allows them to channel electric forces for defense, and anyone who thinks they can take advantage of an umpleby is in for a considerable shock.
Most umplebys act as mercenary guides, offering to lead men or monsters to stashes of treasure in exchange for a cut of the loot. They are large and not particularly stealthy, which makes being guided by an umpleby something of a risky proposition if crossing hostile territory. They do not battle for their employers unless they are directly attacked, or unless they are induced to by a larger share of treasure. Umplebys also have a tendency to change sides in the middle of a combat, joining what they see as the winning team if their allies are doing badly. Umplebys are often seen as helpful but untrustworthy, and take offense when called out on their selfish behavior.
Umplebys live nomadic lifestyles, wandering over hill and dale in search of either treasure or people who will lead them to treasure. Each umpleby has a well-hidden cache (typically containing double standard treasure in coins and gems) that it keeps secret even on pain of death—they carry smaller pouches of coins on hand to eat as they need to. Umpleby material culture is mostly based on weaving their own shed hair, which they use to make pouches, baskets and very strong nets. On occasion umplebys will cooperate long enough to mate and have a child—umplebys are precocial, able to walk and detect minerals from birth. Usually, a young umpleby will wander away from its parents a few weeks or months after being born, whereupon the parents go their separate ways.
