Pukwudgies (singular, pukwudgie ) are two-to-three-feet-tall humanoid fey creatures that resemble small humans but with enlarged noses, fingers, and ears. A pukwudgie’s gray skin is very smooth and glows a soft blue under moonlight and starlight. Instead of hair, pukwudgies have manes of quills—much like those of a porcupine—that extend from their foreheads, down their necks, and midway down their backs. They are magical creatures that can turn into monstrous, troll-like porcupines whose front sides resemble the features of trolls and their backsides are covered with bristling quills.

Pukwudgies have a strong affinity for porcupines, which they often keep as pets. Legends also speak of their ability to steal the souls of people using strange rituals.

These fey creatures have absolutely no sense of morals or right and wrong. They do, however, have a keen sense of empathy. This empathy is so intense that when a nearby creature expresses an extreme emotion, such as fear, anger, or happiness, pukwudgies feel the same emotion.

Oddly enough, pukwudgies delight in negative emotions such as fear, pain, anger, and sadness and seek them out. When creatures exhibit these emotions, the pukwudgies are compelled to continue the behavior that sparked those emotional responses so that they too may feel the same way. However, when a creature expresses joy, happiness, gratitude, elation, or other positive emotions, pukwudgies feel genuine pain and revulsion, and are compelled to avoid behaviors that would create such positive emotions.

This trait of pukwudgies allows clever beings—such as archfey of the Fey Plane—to control the somewhat easily manipulated pukwudgies, simply using their emotions and the emotions of others to influence their behavior.