| Level | -1 |
| Alignment | |
| Adjective | Sprite |
| Images of sprites | |
Source: Bestiary, pg(s). 308 | |
Sprite
(Redirected from Sprite swarm)
| Sprite | |
|---|---|
| |
| (Creature) | |
Sprite swarm
(Creature)
Sprites are primitive, diminutive forest fey of the First World.1
Appearance
Sprites resemble tiny winged humanoids who rarely grow taller than nine inches and weigh up to two pounds.1 Their features vary wildly but often mimic other forms of nature, such as insects, bats, and even dragons.2
Some sprites are also naturally magically luminescent and are known as luminous sprites. Unusually large sprites are known as pixies.3
Culture
Sprites are exuberant pranksters who choose to defend magic and nature, though not all recipients of their protection want or need it. They are curious about magic,2 and some sprites are receptive to becoming a spellcaster's familiar. Many First World sprites are distrustful of all other creatures, including other fey,1 though sprites in the Universe often band together with other sprites.2
On Golarion
Sprites' curiosity about magic leads some to risk traveling to the Universe, where they explored the arts of music and pranks, and guarded locations of nature and magic. However, many who remained in the Universe for long periods lost their wings, and the children of sprites in the Universe also lacked wings.2
These progeny, known as the Wingless, are renowned for their powerful affinity for magic and eventually grow distinct, larger wings than their First World kin upon maturing, which they do at the same rate as humans. Sprites in the Universe can survive for more than a millennium as long as they stay out of fatal trouble, and many try to return to the First World for reincarnation before their deaths. A few, however, are so driven by curiosity that they intentionally want to attempt to enter the mortal cycle of souls.2
Sprites who travel together to live on Golarion congregate near interesting locations and form villages, and not only welcome but celebrate the arrival of new sprites to their communities.2
Sprites on the Universe have long adopted dogs, especially corgis, as mounts, and a common pattern of color on the backs of corgis is referred to as a faerie saddle.3 Taldan dog breeders impressed with the loyalty and agility of faerie mounts, dog-like creatures of the First World commonly used as a mount by other fey, bred their corgis to specifically resemble faerie mounts.4
Adventurers
Wingless who become adventurers are most often bards, rogues, or sorcerers, though sprite rangers and druids do exist and tap into their love of nature. Similarly, sprite witches and wizards are even more enthusiastic about learning the secrets of magic, and sprite oracles approach the contradictions of their mystery from the experience of living the contradictions between the fey and mortal worlds.5
Religion
Most sprites worship the Eldest of the First World, particularly Shyka and the trickster Lantern King. They also respect Desna, and some claim her as one of their own, for her sprite-like common depiction as a woman with butterfly wings. Cayden Cailean and Shelyn are also compatible with sprite tendencies.2
Chaneques
The vile fey known as chaneques often hunt and kill sprites, using their skulls as ingredients in their soul-stealing bombs.6
Types of sprites
Natives of the Universe often try to classify sprites by characteristics, a tendency sprites themselves do not share (and find amusing).2
References
Paizo published a major chapter about sprites in Fey Revisited and featured sprites as an ancestry in Ancestry Guide.
For additional as-yet unincorporated sources about this subject, see the Meta page.
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 . “Monsters A to Z” in Bestiary 3, 256. Paizo Inc., 2011
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 . “Sprite” in Ancestry Guide, 126–127. Paizo Inc., 2021
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 . “Sprite” in Ancestry Guide, 129. Paizo Inc., 2021
- ↑ . “Bestiary” in Prisoners of the Blight, 82. Paizo Inc., 2017
- ↑ . “Sprite” in Ancestry Guide, 130. Paizo Inc., 2021
- ↑ . Bestiary 4, 28. Paizo Inc., 2013