Helmlings & Potlings

Helmlings, and their cousins, potlings, are tiny humanoid creatures that you often only see the legs of, coming out of the helmet they live in. They abund, of course, in dungeons and other places where you can find discarded helmets and other pieces of armour, as the hat has to be unattended for quite some time before a helmling choses it as its home ; they very rarely happen to elect a helmet kept in an exposition room, but sometimes do, and are akin to pest for the servants made to maintain those rooms, who then have to chase them to get the helm back as it is carried away by two small but fast and steady legs.

Potlings are more of a nuisance, as they will take any contenant left alone as their new dwelling ; you truly can't leave a cauldron or an empty jar outside for more than two days before it starts scooting away with its newly acquired legs. You then have to fight the potling to get it back, or get ambushed on your way to the well a few days later.

Helmlings are tiny, but fierce and brave, oftentimes seen wielding daggers as swords when they show their arms. and will act as a tiny knight would when encountered ; with displays of courage and chivalry. More likely, the helmling has not found a weapon, and will just headbutt you with force to defend itself, if made to. If not armed, it will probably try to scutter away on its tiny legs.

When the creature is sleeping, the hat simply rests upright, and a faint snoring sound can be heard if you have good enough ears.

They dont speak any known or intelligible language, and no attempt to communicate has been met with succes so far ; when they are heard talking to one another, or arguing, it is through some echo-ridden child-like gibberish that they seem to understand fine, but that is so far removed from any dialect, even the most obscure ones, that linguist try their best to evade the subject when it is brought up.

For centuries, wizards and scholars alike have been puzzled by these tiny creatures, as its spawning has never been observed by anyone. You can find a helmling, you can even sometimes capture it, you can even keep it in captivity in a vivarium for years, but no one truly has seen one get inside of a helmet ; they always seem to chose the perfect moment, when nobody is looking, to get inside the hat. Their true nature is still shrouded in mystery and subject to heated debates in the academies, and multiple schools of thougts are conflicting over what they really are and how they reproduce. Teratozoologists are convinced they are, of course, magical creatures, spontaneously appearing when a helm is available, Elficologists insist that they are in fact from the fairy people, while necromancers suppose that they come from the souls of the dead warriors that were originally wearing the armour.

Spontaneous generation hypothesis

It is believed that they just pop out of thin air right inside of the helmet, as maggots would spawn on a chunk of rotting meat. If we can't see it outside of the armour piece, perhaps its because it does not exist outside of the helmet ? Their biology is very misunderstood, as attempts to remove them from their shell without destroying both has always been met with failure. Savants basically know that they do eat, in small quantities from time to time, by bringing the food inside their helmet and making a chewing sound, but it is not known if they do need sustenance, or if they just mimic other living beings. The fact that they are found in dungeons without a regular acces to food might indicate that they are indeed able to survive for a long time without a meal, or more grimly, that adventurer or monster carrion can sustain them quite fine.

The hermit crab idea

Another popular theory among zoologists is that they are akin to hermit crabs, and shed their shell for a bigger one once they are grown enough and don't fit anymore, but, while popular, it is more of a joke that teachers tell their young students as a fact while discussing the weird biology of the helmling.

Faery hypothesis

Those that spent their whole lives studing the litlle folk will tell you with assurance that helmlings and potlings are in fact, fays, a sub-class of the gnome family, to be precise, and that if you cannot encounter a helmling without a helm, it is because they remain invisible until they inhabit it. They would be some kind of trikster folk, as would explain their sometimes playful nature, and their child-like (to our eyes at least) display of chivalry would be a mocking mimicry of the previous users of the helm, instead of a genuine show of honor and culture. Of course, none of that would explain why they would not be burned by the iron, but if the fae folk was an easy subject to study, elficologists would not have chosen it, as they often are people who like to overcomplicate everything, and refuse simple explainations.

Souls of warriors hypothesis

The last and grimmest hypothesis is held by necromancers, mostly younger ones, because the older ones have started looking for a way to turn themselves into liches anyway, and dont really care about things so tiny anymore, is that the helmlings are spirits of the dead warriors, returning to their gear after being slain. They are not affected by attemps to turn the dead, nor have ever been summoned by a necromancer, despite some attempts years ago, so it is more of a musing than a solid theory.

10 Wizards

1. Parazited by a mushroom colony. Hazy eyed, perpetually hallucinating. Spends most of his time napping. Robes, hair and beard always damp and funky smelling. Lives out of society in his tower, 

all windows shut or draped to preserve from the light, with his two apprentices, on their way to be colonized too. The fungi feeds off connexion to magic. All the books of his giant and otherwise complete library are moldy. The knowledge is now in the mycellium, the apprentices never talked to the wizard or each other since they moved in. 

2. Has seen the inside of a dying star by mistake during a scrying spell gone wrong. No more face, a big black hole instead. Impossible geometry, a voice seemingly coming from all angles, as a scream and a whisper at the same time. Looks like a bad reflection from a bent mirror when not looked at directly. Perhaps hovering, maybe vibrating. Colors fading. Knows what is between this reality and the next. Sometimes speaks backwards.

3. No longer has skin, due to a disagreement with a devil. Always in pain, slightly slimy. Knows everything there is to know about distils and cauldrons. Renowned alchemist, looking always deeper for the secrets of the natural world. After having spend his life searching for answers in the material world, he had to ask around in another, but lost his epidermis after talking back a little too much to a devil he had convocated for trading secrets with. Understandably still holds a grudge with the devil that took his skin, and is conspiring with other  otherwordly entities to get it back.

4. Due to too much star gazing, the wizard can no longer understand what people mean when they speak aloud, only what the movement and placement of the sky prophecizes. Spends more time looking at the planets than writing down what they say. No longer can they predict what people would do based on their behavior or their promises. The future remains only in the stars for them.

5. Spent too long studying wall scriptures and clay pot inscriptions, in a city deserted of all life for centuries.  Is now hearing voices and seeing shadows in the corner of their eyes, always paranoïd, always checking behind themselves. Has a small notebook that they keep against their heart and frantically clutch when they are surprised. Very knowledgeable on past civilisations, and especially the reasons they disappeared, sometimes overnight.

6. Is there even someone under that robe and that hat ? You cannot be sure, everytime you think you can have a glimpse of the wizard, there is dust in your eye, the sun shines unpromptedly, or your friend moves in front of you. The old dude is not making it easy either, he wears a scarf, long gloves, even indoors. and never looks anyone in the eyes, always shifting in place. He is a specialist of forgotten secrets and hidden truths that he dedicated his life to.

7. The old man lives in a lighthouse next to the windy ocean, on a cliffside. He claims he can read the movement of the waves and will never go to a place where he can no longer see the water. His abode smells like salt and dried kelp. This wizard spends his days on the beaches and the creeks, gathering sand, salt, seashells and algea, and his nights feverishly watching the ocean with a rusty looking glass. Will not shut up about the upcoming end of the age of man, but is suddently silent and shifty when asked what will come next, and trying to avoid the subject. the bottom of his robes are always wet.

8. Sleeping in an open grave, claims he can listen to the secrets of the worms, the maggots and the bugs during the night. This wizard says he is not one, and that everything he ever wrote down in his spell book has been dictated by his nightly  visitors. Seems always distracted and listening to three different things at the same time, and often mumbling in response. Has a 3-day beard every day. Is always questionning the ingredients when he is preparing a potion, expecting answers that he is the only one to hear. When asked about something he is repeating it multiple time, and seem as surprised as you  are by the answers. Grave dirt, worms and maggots are always falling from his sleeves.

9. This wizard is now made of stone, with two fiery eyes. He has been stuck to the wall of a mountain for years now, perhaps decades, after a duel with his rival. People from around the country bring him offerings, because his eyes never stopped burning since then. He can still communicate during nights of storms, where he can project his thoughts in the cracking of thunder. It is said that he can see everything that happends in the mountain through the eyes of the birds of prey flying in circles high above. The wizard is eager to share his knowledge of evocation spells whith whoever asks.

10. His skin is weirdly textured, almost like it has fingerprints sometimes dotting his arms or his forehead, his eyes are a deep dark color, and seem dead and full of life at the same time. Like marbles filled with a roaring fire. The voice is deep and rocky, too deep, too rocky... This is not the original wizard, this one has been fabricated years ago in the laboratories, out of clay, herbs and oils. The wizard gave it life with a fire that was stolen from a city of spirits. He taughts him everything he knew, and one day died of old age in between scrolls and books. The homonculus assumed his place and continued his oeuvre, his research into the creation of artificial life.