Poppet

Inhabiting mainly the numerous graveyards that dot the Death's Head Orchard, Poppets are diminutive imp-like creatures that delight in giving travelers who might stray into their domains in the dead of night a proper, yet harmless, scare.

Physical Features

A Poppet is a tiny, often a mere five to eight inches tall, bipedal creature with a disproportionately large head and wispy hair growing upon said head. The eyes are large and featureless, often grey or black in coloration. Lanky, short arms and legs end in small hands and feet with clawed fingers and toes.

Behavior

A Poppet considers its graveyard to belong wholly to itself, and anyone who trespasses for an extended period of time becomes a target to their vehement, but luckily benign, ire. When such a trespasser crosses into the graveyard, the Poppet will start to devise an ambush of diabolic proportions. To achieve this, the little creature will move rocks, rodent skulls and bones, twigs, branches and strings it has hoarded into strategic positions in such a stealthy manner that rare is the traveler who notices a Poppet setting up their scare.

Once the preparations are made, the Poppet will move to a carefully chosen location where it will begin to cry like a small child, intent on luring the trespasser to itself. This will inevitably cause the intruder to walk into the trap prepared by the Poppet. Once the trap is sprung, the Poppet jumps out from its hiding place and screeches loudly, while the bones and skulls it had so meticulously placed spring into view, attached onto twigs and branches in such a way that they resemble tiny skeletons.

Usually the surprise alone is enough to make most victims jump, which seems to give the Poppet no end of joy, as the little imp-like creature cackles loudly at the victim, rolling on the ground clutching its belly. If the victim attempts to harm the Poppet, they demonstrate the ability to simply vanish in a puff of smoke.

Habitat

A Poppet usually lives in a graveyard, making its home most often in a mausoleum if one is available. An eagle-eyed traveler may be able to discern that a graveyard houses a Poppet by spying tiny little tombstones and obelisks sticking out of the ground, as the little creatures tend to craft these out of stones they find. Why they do this is unclear, though evidently it has something to do with marking their territory.

Poppets that do not have a graveyard to call their own usually live in caves, but exhibit the same behavioral traits as their graveyard cousins.

Sapience

Poppets, while they clearly exhibit signs of sapience, do not communicate in any meaningful way and no signs of a Poppet society are evident. Their propensity to scare other creatures may very well be instinctual.

You little s#%t!

–A grave robber right after getting jumpscared by a Poppet

Lifespan

Unknown

Average Height

6 - 8in

Average Weight

1.4 - 2lbs

Geographic Distribution

• Death's Head Orchard

by Midjourney

_{A Poppet}