Grig

Grigs were a fey race and a type of sprite, notable for having the lower bodies of crickets and for having an uncanny talent at playing a fiddle. They were mischievous fey who were fond of playing harmless pranks on "big people".

Description
On average, these small sprites grew to be about tall and weighed only. They had the head, arms, and torso of a normal sprite, with light blue skin and forest-green hair, as well as antennae. However, from the waist down, grigs had a brown, cricket-like body including a pair of gossamer wings and hairy legs. Grigs typically wore brightly colored tunics or vests with tiny gems for buttons.

Like a male cricket, grigs could emit chirps by rubbing a ridged vein on their forewings against the hardened underside of their top wings, similar to the bow of a fiddle against its string.

Personality
Grigs were typically shy around strangers, but overall good-natured and friendly. They loved to engage in mischief and light-hearted pranks, especially against larger creatures.

Abilities
The eyes of these fey could see in low-light conditions, the infrared spectrum, and the ultraviolet spectrum. Their visual range with the latter two senses ranged out to. In addition, their hearing was twice as good as any human. Altogether this made it very difficult to sneak up on them.

Like many fey, grigs possessed an innate spellcasting ability and were capable of casting a variety of spells that they used to both protect themselves and play practical jokes on others. These spells included the following: change self, entangle, invisibility, pyrotechnics, trip, and ventriloquism.

In addition, whenever grigs fiddled they could produce the effects of Otto's irresistible dance on all creatures within. Other grigs were immune to this effect and one grig could play for hours without tiring.

Combat
In combat, grigs typically wielded darts and tiny needle-like swords in addition to their magical abilities. They would throw these darts at creatures while in a hopping flight.

Society
Grigs lived in temperate forests, specifically within glens, meadows, and woodlands. They didn't make any permanent dwellings, but regularly slept in the branches of treants or close to unicorns or made cozy little hollows in the sides of low hills.

They tended to sleep during the day and go out at night to forage for food, dance, and play. They were herbivorous, preferring to eat nuts, berries, and honey, but their favorite food was mushroom.

They usually roamed in gangs of up to four or in bands of up to eleven or twelve. Tribes of grigs numbered twenty to eighty.

Among other fey in the plane of Faerie, grigs served as minstrels and bards. They played music and leaped and danced to entertain at fey festivals. Other fey appreciated this, for it kept the grigs busy and out of mischief. Grigs were said by others to be the most talented fiddle players in all of Faerie, and by grigs themselves to be the most talented anywhere, though others claimed leprechauns alone were better.

Grigs had their own deity, who was likely part of the Seelie Court.

Homelands
In central and north Faerûn, grigs were found in the midwood area of Cormanthor, and more generally in the forests of Cormyr, Sembia, and the Dalelands, and in the Border Forest. In west Faerûn, they could be found in the Cloak Wood. In south Faerûn, they might be found in the Forest of Amtar. In the east Faerûn, grigs could be found in the Forest of Lethyr and the Yuirwood. In earlier times, they lived within the city dump of Cursrah and helped exterminate rats.

Beyond Toril, grigs were known to exist on the planet of Oerth.

Relationships
Grig bands and atomie tribes were known to often gather together at night under the light of  the moon. Altogether, there could be up to 50 grigs and 120 atomies at such gatherings. There they would, play, perform circle dances, and engage in a variety of pastimes, while some grigs would play their bowed string instruments.

The archfey and celestial eladrin of the Court of Stars had grig musicians to entertain at their events. Grigs were known to serve the deities Erevan Ilesere and Rillifane Rallathil of the elven pantheon and Sheela Peryroyl of the halfling pantheon.

Unicorns would fight to the death to protect grigs.

Grigs occasionally befriended elves and others who respected the forest, and might even join a like-minded adventuring company, at least one that would tolerate them.

Languages
Grigs spoke Sylvan and possibly Common or Elven. They particularly knew the Sylvan dialects of the atomies, brownies, pixies, and sprites, as well as the grig dialect. Whenever they spoke in Common, a grig had to slow their speech and pitch downward in scale.

History
How grigs came to be, and how they got their legs, was shrouded in mystery. In some beliefs, they made some transgression against Rhiannon, Queen of the Faeries, and she punished them with cricket legs, though others held she simply made them that way out of a sense of humor. Others theorized grigs weren't really faeries at all, but were the result of a wizard's experimentations. Those who asked the grigs themselves found they did not seem to know, and did not really care.

In Cormanthor's western starwood in the, a band of grigs stole the eggs of a female cockatrice while it was away hunting, as a so-called practical joke. Thereafter, the despairing cockatrice screamed incessantly from its oak hollow nest. Disturbed by the noise, a local elf family sought adventurers who could get the eggs back from the grigs or else put down the cockatrice.

Notable Grigs

 * Feythrin, a grig prince of the southern High Forest.
 * Ikiiki Ikiiki, a grig who worked as a nightclub musician at the For-Rest Inn in Ravens Bluff.

Appearances

 * Organized Play & Licensed Adventures
 * Extermination
 * Novels
 * Son of Thunder
 * Video Games
 * Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark