Cask Imp
Image © Privateer Press, accessed at their website here
[Iron Kingdoms is the setting for the miniatures games Hordes and Warmachine, as well as for a number of spinoff tabletop, board and card games. The vibe is steampunk dark fantasy, with armies of mechs and monsters fighting each other. I'm most familiar with it, unsurprisingly for me, from their monster books: two volumes of Monsternomicon from the 3.x era of OGL games, and a more recent 5e version of the Monsternomicon funded through Kickstarter.
As a not-technically-D&D-but-decidedly-inspired-by-D&D setting, Iron Kingdoms has a lot of monsters that overlap with more traditional fantasy RPGs. One of the faction in the Hordes game, which gets a lot of stat-blocks particularly from the 5e Monsternomicon, are the grymkin, who are the souls of the wicked dead returned to full life as a monstrous caricature of their former vices, or twisted further into living weapons. The cask imps are the least malicious of the lot, and also share a lot in common with some folkloric faeries, so I figured I'd start there.]
Cask Imp CR 2 CN Fey This little humanoid has a ruddy face, a swollen warty nose, and a trace of webbing between its clawed fingers. It appears to be fully ensconced in a small barrel, wearing it like a suit of armor.
Cask imps, sometimes referred to as abbey lubbers or clurichauns, are fey parasites, living off of the alcohol produced by mortal societies. It is hypothesized that they are the descendants of other types of fey who became so devoted to intoxicating spirits that it changed them physically, warping their connection to the natural world. They can turn into a faintly malty liquid, and use this form to seep into buildings under the door and into casks through a bunghole or crack. Cask imps, as the name suggests, spend much of their time inside ale casks, wine barrels and other bulk alcohol storage, slowly drinking it and eavesdropping on the people nearby.
A cask imp can peer into the thoughts of anyone who has been recently drinking, and use this ability to pick who is the ripest for their pranks and shenanigans. They can mentally control the inebriated, and use this power to keep an evening at a tavern or pub interesting. This entertainment usually comes in the form of pushing their victim to embarrass themselves through drunken bets, grand romantic gestures or just tomfoolery. Cask imps sometimes start bar fights, particularly when their drink supplies are running low and they want a distraction to move to a different cask or pick some pockets.
If a cask imp is found out, they are much more likely to flee than to fight to the death. They are cowards by nature, taking cover inside of their barrel armor and lashing out with their sharp fingernails. If they can catch multiple enemies in a cluster, they can belch a concentrated blast of intoxicating vapor on them, and then typically make their escape in liquid form while their aggressors are laying on the floor giggling. Cask imps do collect treasure, which they often keep tucked away in an unused corner; this treasure mostly consists of dropped coins and jewelry, fine bottles of liquor, and potions, elixirs and other liquid alchemical or magical items.
A cask imp stands between three and four feet tall, and tends towards the stout. Although cask imps physically resemble a caricature of an alcoholic, they are immune to any long term damage from heavy alcohol use.
