Copyright 2009 Wizards of the Coast.

This article is part of a series! Click here to see the rest.

Sprites are super-tiny humanoid fey, tinier even than the pixies that would show up as a playable option in Heroes of the Feywild. I think they’ve been in the game since at least AD&D 1st Edition in some for or another.

The Lore

Sprites in earlier editions tended to be described as just tiny fairy folk who liked all the usual Victorian Fairy things like song and dance and pastoral nature. They might have a propensity for pranks, but normally didn’t get more aggressive than that unless the PCs were out to exterminate them. A single sprite was pretty much harmless, but they often came in large numbers.

These aren’t the sprites from earlier editions. These are Umbral Sprites.

Umbral Sprites are just as tiny as the nice variety, but they’re cruel, violent, and territorial. Interactions between them and the PCs skip right past the talky and pranky stages and go right to combat as swarms of these things descend upon them. A single umbral sprite is still harmless to an adventurer, but a swarm of them is dangerous enough to get monster stats.

Though these tiny terrors are native to the Feywild, they tend to seek out areas that contain crossings to the Shadowfell to claim as territory. Spriggans and ill-intentioned gnomes tend to ally with them and use them as diversions for subtler schemes. It’s hard to notice gnomes sneaking into your vaults when you have a cloud of angry sprites poking out your eyes.

The Numbers

This entry gives us stats for a fairly small swarm of umbral sprites. This is a Medium swarm composed of Fey Humanoids, and counts as a Level 4 Controller with 55 HP. It has blindsight with range 6, a ground speed of 4, and a flight speed of 6 with Hover.

It also has the standard swarm traits: it takes half damage from single-target attacks, and extra damage from area attacks. Its Swarm Attack aura (1) deals 3 damage to creatures caught inside.

Its basic attack is a Swarm of Fangs and Blades, but aside from the name it’s nothing spectacular. Their special Darkwave attack (recharge 5+) is more impressive. It’s a Close Burst 3 that targets Reflex, does necrotic damage, and creates a zone of darkness that lasts for a durn.

They also have the gnome’s Fade Away power, becoming invisible as a reaction to taking damage once per encounter. This invisibility lasts for a turn, or until they hit or miss with an attack.

When fighting a group of PCs, they’re going to rely on Darkwave to keep them in the dark and will use basic attacks and the swarm aura to deal damage while that power recharges. The sprites are unaffected by their own darkness due to their blindsight.

Sample Encounters and Final Impressions.

You can model a larger group of umbral sprites by using several swarms in an encounter, or by increasing the level and size of a single one. They also make me think about adapting The Dreams of Ruin to 4e, because they look like they are the base creature for Murdersprites. A murdersprite swarm is probably more like a Colossal Level 14-18 Brute, though.

The sample encounter is Level 5, and is a grab-bag of Feywild hazards: 2 ettercap fang guards working with 2 sprite swarms and 2 fey panthers.