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CanadienneBacon Effigy is the better name, definitely. Picayune as a whole has a magical realism vibe that I'm really liking.
5e tends to be less crunchy than 3.x. In general, ability drain and level drain have been replaced with effects that sit on top of the base character. For example, undead with life drain reduces the target's hit point maximum, and many traits trigger based on the target's current hit points. There are also no null stats, even though I actually liked those. Racial/monster hit dice have also yet to be introduced (if they're going to be), but we’ll just stick with class hit dice for now.
A rough workup:
Speed. You have a fly speed of 40 ft.
Elemental. You are immune to fire and poison damage, exhaustion, and the paralyzed, petrified, and poisoned conditions. You don't need air, food, drink, or sleep. Healing magic has no effect on you (but you can still benefit from temporary hit points and resting).
Incorporeal. You have resistance to any nonmagical, physical damage; this never includes force, psychic, or radiant damage. You are also immune to the grappled, prone, and restrained conditions.
You cannot taste, touch, or smell, and you automatically fail Perception checks based on these senses. You can only pick up or lift a tenth of what a creature of your size and Strength normally could, and your ability to carry objects is limited to what you can hold in your hands. You cannot wear armour or clothing.
Phasing. You can move through other creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain. If you end your turn inside a solid object, you take 1d10 force damage.
Corrupting Thoughts. You know the vicious mockery cantrip. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for it.
Attack cantrips as a racial trait are actually quite powerful in 5e, because of the way they improve as characters level up.
Paraphrased from 5e's version of the ghost (MM p147):
Possession.One living creature that the ghost can see within 5 feet of it must succeed on a Charisma saving throw or be possessed by the ghost. The ghost then disappears, and the target is incapacitated and loses control of its body. The ghost now controls the body but doesn't deprive the target of awareness. The ghost can't be targeted by any attack, spell, or other effect, except ones that turn undead, and it retains its alignment, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, and immunity to being charmed or frightened. It otherwise uses the possessed target's statistics, but doesn't gain access to the target's knowledge, class features, or proficiencies.
The possession lasts until the body drops to 0 hit points, the ghost ends it as a bonus action, or the ghost is forced out by an effect like the dispel evil and good spell. When the possession ends, the ghost reappears in an unoccupied space within 5 feet of the body. The target is immune to this ghost's Possession for 24 hours after succeeding on the saving throw or after the possession ends.
For now, we’ll say you can use this ability a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier. You must complete a long rest before you can do so again.
This isn’t at all balanced as a player race, and not every exception is accounted for. There will probably be a lot of Rule Zero stuff as we go along-- hopefully not in a stifling way, but as unique obstacles to be overcome.
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Queenie We can add
enlarge/reduce to the fairy’s class spell list, but don’t feel like you’re holding up the party by being tiny and flying. Between your character and Picayune, the challenge will be finding ways for them to follow. I don’t think that’s such a bad thing. It adds to the character of the game.
