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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charles Rampant" data-source="post: 6965949" data-attributes="member: 32659">Today we look at the Boggle, the first of many Fey in the book. <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f7/D%26DBoggle.JPG/200px-D%26DBoggle.JPG" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />The art in Volo’s is fun. The boggle is kind of disgusting, kind of monstrous, but also kind of adorable, with a telling combination of a teddy bear and skulls behind it. Its a very characterful picture, with the bushy eyebrows and furtive movements, and it really helps to cement these guys as ambiguous wee blighters. Now that we’re onto the Fey, I thought that I’d mention my biggest bugbear (heh) with Volo’s: it has loads of Fey in it, but basically no description of their society or rulers. About the only real clues you get are snippets scattered throughout this chapter and the Hag entry in chapter one. It is irksome to me that they couldn’t have provided a page for this purpose - or considered dedicating part of chapter 1 to an overview of the Fey and their culture,  in place of one of the races there. Anyway, let’s move on to the Boggle itself.These little fellas are a lot of fun, but I suspect that they’ll not see a lot of use. Mischevous little blighters - essentially gremlins - who get formed when an intelligent creature feels lonely, they have a lot to recommend them as roleplaying encounters; chaotic but not evil means that you can use them in a number of ways. Having one turn against its evil master and approach the party for help eliminating him, with it speeding around the place disabling traps and whatnot, could be good fun. Equally, they could be happily serving someone that the party speaks to - say, a Warlock of an Archfey - and provide some interesting roleplaying in that situation. I can see these guys being a viable antagonist, but probably only for very low level games; if your campaign starts with the players as children all living in the same castle and growing up together, for example. In that kind of situation, then a recurring Boggle might be a good addition, especially if the players have a lot of freedom to deal with it as they see fit, which allows for a roleplaying moment of showing their characters’ basic natures. Otherwise, I think that you could definitely use them in alliance with other Fey - one or two might make a surprisingly substantial change to a combat against a Hag, for example. I get the impression from Volo’s that the Fey will make much better opponents for low level parties in general, considering their fairly low CR across the board.As to their combat stats, they are basically incapable of doing any real harm to a party. However, their abilities try very hard to depict them as annoying and disruptive, with the ability to squeeze and pop around the place, and excrete oil to get away from people. This matches their inclination to mischief, rather than murder. Otherwise, they are perhaps the most complex CR 1/8th monster in the game, but still not very complex for all that. Final analysis: use them to amuse and entertain your players, not put them in fear for their characters’ lives.</blockquote>

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