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Gremlin

Gremlin · The Machine-Breaking Yokai — A Prankster of the Modern Technological Age

A small, cunning modern creature that secretly breaks machines and devices. Born in the early 20th century among aircraft mechanics as an unseen being causing inexplicable malfunctions. Small and nimble and mischievous, it slips into planes, engines, and electronics to commit sabotage. The newest form of creature born of technological civilization.

Origin

Derived from the military slang and lore of British air-force pilots and mechanics in the World War eras. Popularized through Roald Dahl's story and others, established as a modern creature personifying the misfortune and breakdown of the technological age.

Features

Small nimble build, cunning expression
Secretly breaks machines and devices
Targets planes, engines, and electronics
Personification of inexplicable accident and misfortune

Stories

Appears as a being personifying the misfortune of technological civilization and a saboteur of comic horror and adventure. Used in modern narratives of uncontrollable accident, human arrogance, and dependence on machines.

Weakness

Obsessed with pranks and sabotage, easily driven off once caught. Individually weak, and helpless in an environment without machines.

Related Items

Goblin

Goblin · The Cunning Little Folk — Raiders Who Live by Numbers and Guile

The goblin is the most pervasive 'small raiding humanoid' of modern Anglophone fantasy, descended from the spiteful little fairies of medieval European folklore and codified through three textual layers: the Victorian children's literature of Christina Rossetti's 'Goblin Market' (1862) and George MacDonald's 'The Princess and the Goblin' (Edinburgh, 1872), J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Hobbit' (1937) — chapters four to six, the Goblins of the Misty Mountains — and the 1974 Dungeons & Dragons original boxed set by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. Goblins stand ninety to one hundred and twenty centimetres tall with wiry, sinewy bodies, oversized ears and noses, yellow-green or ashen skin, yellow eyes and sharp canines. They live in tribal warrens in caves, ruins and dark forests, surviving on traps, ambushes and raids. Their individual combat power is low — Challenge Rating 1/4 (7 hit points, AC 15) in the fifth-edition D&D Monster Manual (2014) — but their numbers, cunning and improvisation make them an enduring threat. Their alignment was fixed as Neutral Evil in the 1977 AD&D Monster Manual and remains so. The same lineage appears in the Greenskins of Warhammer Fantasy (from 1983), the Gringotts goblins of J.K. Rowling's 'Harry Potter' (1997 onward), the Kezan goblins of Blizzard's 'World of Warcraft' (2004 onward) and the post-colonial readings of R.F. Kuang's 'Babel' (2022).

Shadow 판타지 판타지 종족