Puffle

Tiny elemental, neutral good

Armor Class 11
Hit Points 2 (1d4)
Speed 0 ft., fly 50 ft. (hover)

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
2 (-4)	12 (+1)	10 (+0)	10 (+0)	16 (+3)	7 (-2)

Skills Perception +5
Senses passive Perception 15
Languages —
Challenge 0 (0 or 10 XP)
Proficiency Bonus +2

SPECIAL TRAITS

• Unique Anatomy. The puffle doesn’t require food.

ACTIONS

• Beak. Melee Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 1 piercing damage.
• Detect Emotions. The puffle attempts to detect the emotions of a creature within 60 feet of it. The target must make a DC 13 Wisdom saving throw. If it fails, the puffle gains insight into its emotional state until the start of the puffle’s next turn. The target knows that the puffle is probing its mind.

BONUS ACTIONS

• Cloudy Escape. If within 10 feet of clouds, smoke, or fog, the puffle can take the Dodge, Disengage, or Hide action as a bonus action.

REACTIONS

• Intangibility. When the puffle takes damage, it can use its Reaction to become intangible until the end of its next turn. While intangible, the puffle is immune to bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing damage from nonmagical attacks. The puffle can move through other creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain. It takes 5 (1d10) force damage if it ends its turn inside an object. The intangibility ends early if the puffle makes an attack. Although other creatures and objects can pass through the puffle, it is still visible while intangible.

TACTICS

Puffles prefer open spaces with room to move and can be found in any environment except underground. They have been observed on the Material Plane, the Elemental Plane of Air, and other planes such as the Fey Realm. They are diurnal and are not active at night unless operating as a familiar. Those who keep them as familiars often catch them dozing during nighttime activities. When located in the wild, puffles may be playing, resting, exploring, or traveling toward a source of emotion. While all puffles are empathetic and respond to strongly expressed emotions, they are more likely to take direct action when in the safety of a group. Use the Puffle Responses to Emotions table to determine a puffle’s behavior when faced with a particular emotion. The table does not include every possible emotion. The GM may add emotions or adjust the behaviors as desired and has the final say on puffle responses to emotions.

ABOUT

Thought to originate on the Elemental Plane of Air, puffles are playful creatures that are drawn to strong emotions.

Happiness, fear, sadness, and anger are just a few of the emotional states that attract these rare creatures. Most notably, their behavior differs based on the emotion encountered.

Bafflingly Bird-like. Although they are not birds, puffles resemble them with their beaks, talons, and feathers. They do not have wings but can fly. Despite their elemental nature, a puffle is often referred to as a “ball of feathers.”

Cloud Cover. Puffles are often encountered in fog, smoke, and clouds. Not only do these cloudy conditions offer camouflage, but they present opportunities for play. Puffles like to chase each other into and through the cloudy air.

Distinct Sound. Sound is one of the puffle’s most powerful tools to interact with the emotions around it. Puffles make the sound “ooh-uh”, but they use tone and repetition to express different things. If a puffle is confronted with fear, the “ooh-uh” is repeated many times quickly in a sharp tone. If it experiences happiness, it makes the sound more slowly and repeats it only a few times periodically.

Fading Feathers. Puffles rarely lose feathers. If they do, it is most likely from combat. In any case, once removed, puffle feathers fade into nothing after 24 hours, making them an expensive magical ingredient.

Familiar Friends. Puffles make great familiars, but those that are not spirits summoned by the find familiar spell may struggle to avoid responding to nearby emotions. With training, a familiar puffle may resist the emotions around it.

Wobbly Moves. Puffles are not the most graceful fliers. As they hover about, periodically they seem to wobble for no discernable reason. When flying in a direction, they sometimes swerve as if encountering a hidden obstacle. Other times it is as if they forget that they are hovering and must stabilize themselves before falling.

Puffle Responses to Emotions

Emotion/Puffle Response

Anger Puffles do not like anger. If the anger comes from two or more creatures in an altercation, a swarm of puffles my try to charm one or more participants to temporarily cease the hostilities. Alternatively, they may make disapproving sounds from a safe distance.

Fear Puffles may attempt to soothe an unaligned, neutral, or good creature that is experiencing fear. They do this by moving near the creature and making soothing sounds. The puffles may defend the frightened creature from harm. Alternatively, they might try to lead the creature to safety.

Happiness Puffles want to be near happiness. They will approach and sway in unison while making delightful sounds when they encounter it.

Love When puffles spot love, they make catcalling sounds or do fly-bys making happy sounds. They may even couple up in a hover in front of two lovers momentarily.

Sadness When confronted with sadness, puffles make mournful sounds to show solidarity with sad creatures or exhibit playful antics to try and distract them.