Will-o'-Wisp

AX.GHW.13.05.02

Type: Fae, Standard

Power Package: Standard (5D)

Size: Small (light-form, roughly basketball-sized)
Attributes: Body 1D · Speed 3D · Wit 2D
Talents: Athletics 2D · Lore 1D · Stealth 2D
Health: 31 (20 + 1 + 10)
Defense: 3 (1 + (3+0)÷3)
Saves: Body 3D · Speed 5D · Wit 3D

Attacks

Luring Light (Primary Action): Wit + Lore vs Wit Save, target is drawn toward the wisp (see below)
Disorienting Flash (Primary Action): Speed + Athletics, all targets in Close range; success = Disadvantage on all navigation and Notice rolls for the next scene

Category Traits

Cold Iron Vulnerability: +2 damage from cold iron; suppressed for 1 round on hit
Rowan Aversion: Must spend Primary Action to cross rowan barriers
Incorporeal Movement: The wisp passes through non-iron physical barriers. Walls, doors, and fences do not impede it.

Special Abilities

Luring Light: A character who fails the Wit Save is compelled to follow the wisp toward a destination of its choosing. They believe they are navigating purposefully. On a success, they recognize the compulsion and resist. The effect lasts until they reach the wisp's chosen destination, take damage, or succeed on a Wit Save (may retry each round once aware). Multiple wisps stacking this effect each require a separate save.
Terrain Mastery: The wisp knows its territory (typically a natural area, marsh, forest, moorland) completely. Characters following it through its territory take an additional -1D to all Speed and Athletics checks due to the terrain it leads them through.
Immunity to Conventional Weapons: The wisp's light-form cannot be harmed by non-iron weapons. Iron, cold iron and blessed weapons affect it normally. Salt rounds have no effect.

Tactics

Wisps lead victims into dangerous terrain, deep water, cliffs, bogs, or toward other fae. They do not attack directly unless cornered. Their threat is entirely in misdirection and environmental exposure. Wisps are not malicious in a human sense; they follow an alien logic that may be territorial, hunger-based, or simply old habit.

Lore & Ecology

Will-o'-wisps cluster near liminal geography, wetlands, fogs, thin places where the boundary between the ordinary world and the Liminal is weak. Their lights have been reported across every continent, under dozens of names: fuegos fatuos, hitodama, aleya. They are among the most ancient fae, predating human settlement in most regions where they appear.

Destruction/Banishment

Iron-core rounds or cold iron weapons can destroy a wisp. Alternatively, capturing its light in a cold iron vessel (Wit + Athletics vs Threshold 3 while it is suppressed by iron contact) imprisons it. Banishment by true name (Wit + Resonance vs Threshold 3) works but wisps are old enough that their true names are difficult to find; Lore research requires access to pre-modern regional folklore sources.

Scene Materials

Investigation: accounts of wandering lights, bodies found drowned or at the base of cliffs (no apparent cause of death), missing persons in natural areas. Terrain: water, fog, dense vegetation, low visibility. Combat environment: difficult footing, separation from companions.