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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mearls" data-source="post: 3259632" data-attributes="member: 697">I got a lot of mileage out of needlemen in a 1e Greyhawk game I ran. In the campaign, they were unholy pilgrims who came from across the world to corrupt the Gnarley Forest. They wore thick, flowing robes to disguise their features, and posed as monks and travelers. The first time the party encountered them, the PCs stopped to talk with what looked like a group of holymen. When the PCs were clumped together to talk to the needleman leader, the mob pulled back their robes and blasted the party with hundreds of needles. It was a pretty cool moment, and it creeped out the players.The key was all in the description. The name needleman is lame, so in the game I never used it. To the players, the needlemen were mutated human/plant hybrids who captured travellers and buried them alive in loam to feed them to various evil demon plants. They were the vanguard of a strange, demonic invasion.The needles were also spores that allowed the needlemen to track their prey and basically scry on them until all the tiny needles were removed and destroyed. IMC, a needleman maintained a psychic link to a fired needle to a range of 10 miles.</blockquote>