FREQUENCY: Very rare
NO. APPEARING: 1
ARMOR CLASS: 2
MOVE: 9"//21”
HIT DICE: 3
% IN LAIR: Nil
TREASURE TYPE: [[Q]] (x3) or [[X]]
NO. OF ATTACKS: 3
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1/1/1-3
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Nil
SPECIAL DEFENSES: Nil
MAGIC RESISTANCE: 25%
INTELLIGENCE: Low
ALIGNMENT: Neutral evil
SIZE: S (2’ tall)
LEVEL/X.P. VALUE: V/ 325
+ 3/hp
Nalgs are little horrors
from the planes of
Gehenna,
Hades, and Tarterus.
They are
minor demons
that commonly serve as
familiars to evil clerics
or magic-users,
though they may be found
on the material
plane for other reasons.
Each nalg can take
the forms of two of the
following creatures:
stirge, horsefly, poisonous
snake, or weasel.
In the form of a horsefly,
a nalg flies at 18“,
has an AC of 0, and renders
a painful but
harmless bite.
In its natural form, the
nalg attacks with
claws and teeth. Its bite
does 1-3 points of
damage, and a victim must
save vs. poison
each time he is bitten;
if a saving throw is
failed, the victim will
be blinded for 2-12
rounds thereafter. This
blindness attack
only affects a given target
once during an
encounter; subsequent bites
will do dam-
age, but will not extend
or worsen the
blindness. However, if a
nalg chooses to do
so (or is ordered to do
so by its master), it
can hold onto a victim after
a successful bite
and drain blood at 1-3 points
per round
thereafter. The blood drain
will last until
the nalg is killed, until
it drains 12 hit
points worth of blood, or
unless it detaches
itself at some point previous
to either of
those occurrences. While
it is attached, the
nalg’s armor class is worsened
to 8, with
respect to attacks made
upon it by anyone
other than the victim of
the blood drain.
During the nalg’s blood-draining
attack, the
victim must save vs. poison
in every round
or be blinded for 7-12 rounds
thereafter —
assuming the victim lives
that long. After
draining blood, the nalg
must rest for a day
before it tries to do so
again, regardless of
how much blood it drained.
The nalg can use phantasmal
force as the
magic-user spell once per
day. Of course, it
must concentrate on the
illusion to maintain
it. A nalg is harmed only
by magical weap-
ons or those made of nickel
or a nickel alloy.
Like the imp and quasit,
the nalg cares
nothing for the master it
serves. It performs
as a familiar partly out
of fear and partly
because of its lust for
power. A nalg strives
to bring woe to others and
power to itself. It
is little concerned with
such abstractions as
law and chaos, though some
nalgs have a
bias in one or the other
of those directions.
In its usual state, the
nalg is a small hairy
creature with clawed hands,
froglike legs,
and two-toed, webbed feet.
It has a long,
foxlike muzzle filled with
razor-sharp teeth.
Dirty pink skin surrounds
its baleful yellow
eyes. Elsewhere, its pink
mottled hide is
partially covered with sparse,
coarse hair of
a dull black or dirty white
color. Unless it
has gorged itself recently,
the nalg looks
somewhat like a skeleton.