- Frailties: Destructive Urge: Gremlin
devices are often more dangerously flawed than the gremlin himself desires.
All gremlin devices have at least one additional Negative trait, and at worst
may catch up the gremlin and his allies in the destruction it unleashes. --
Gremlins themselves must take an additional Obnoxious or Violent trait that can never be bought off.
- Immunity: Gremlins may ignore the first health level of damage
caused by a gremlin device or a mechanical failure they have themselves caused
(even accidentally). Also, as gremlins' Weakness is sunlight, they are able
to work with Cold Iron at no penalty.
- Bans:Never create anything harmless; never pass up a chance
to sabotage a machine given the time and opportunity.
- Weakness: Sunlight (use rules for vampires, although gremlins
melt rather than combust).
- Binding: Gremlins normally carry some sort of tool on their
person -- e.g., a wrench or a hammer -- that they believe grants them the power
of their Gremlin Urge (although they need not use the tool to activate
that Birthright). Taking a gremlin's prized tool will give the bearer control
over him (the bearer wins all ties in Social challenges against the gremlin)
and the gremlin may not use his Birthrights except as directed by the bearer.
It is wise to force the gremlin to swear oaths to keep him faithful and to prevent
him from taking the tool back by violence. -- Note that many gremlins (and lookalike
nockers) carry numerous tools as a matter of practicality, not to mention camouflage,
so it will not always be easy to guess which tool is the gremlin's favorite.
- Regaining Mana: Mana Stealing, Ravaging, Rapture.
- Preferred Disciplines: Chimerstry, Thaumaturgy (Alchemy, Elemental Mastery, Hands of Destruction, Path
of Biothaumaturgy, Path of Conjuring, Path of Transmutation, Technomancy).
Gremlins may also take either Hands of Destruction or Technomancy
"as a Discipline," meaning the gremlin may advance in it irrespective of
progress in another path -- but it does not grant rituals.
- Origin:Many gremlins, fascinated by humans and their machines,
stayed on earth during the Separation (or were catapulted into our Realm by
irreproducible magical or mechanical accidents). Those that remembered their
fae selves worked in jobs that allowed them to create and especially to destroy
all manner of contraptions, maintaining Contacts and Allies with
their own kind and even the odd nocker. Gremlins of any Origin are as likely
as any fairy to possess Magic Items; those of Earthly Origin tend to
develop Influence in Industry, Transportation, and University. -- During
the war, even before the Reawakening, gremlins were delighting in the destruction
and, until the return of the Unseelie Court to earth and its pact with the Allies,
were particularly fond of sabotaging planes on all sides of the conflict.
- Appearance: Gremlins appear much as nockers -- pointed features,
white hair, wrinkles giving them an elderly appearance, and so on. Some few
appear more inhuman, or grow to do so as they increase in Rank, with yellow-orange
or purple skin or even reptilian scales. Many of low Rank can pass as human,
more can pass as nockers.
- Note: In our setting, goblins and gremlins are different sorts of creatures; goblins aren't even immortal.