Ümlaut
Gremlin%20Hobkins%2002.png

Nature: NPC
Race: Hobkins Malefactor
Class: Wilder
Surge: Leader
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Gender: Male

First Encountered: 17.1 "A Midwinter Night's Shindig"

Information: Interestingly enough, Ümlaut is not only more intelligent and aware than the common hobkins, which is to be expected of the psychic malefactors, but he has also shown himself to be both more refined and intellectual in his humor and pranking, as well as starting up philosophical discussions about the nature of violence and human nature.

While most gremlins have a decidedly physical sense of humour, focusing on sabotaging equipment or arranging for physical injury, Ümlaut seems to have developed an appreciation for more subtle and cerebral ways of messing with people, and has thus far been seen constantly engaging in sadistic mind-games and ways to mentally fuck with people.

As a good example of this is the name he has chosen for himself, which he tends to 'mis-pronounce' on purpose, as a simple and effortless way to annoy and frustrate anyone who knows and cares about language. On a similar linguistic note, he pretended to not speak common during initial introductions, limiting himself to only speaking the Aklo language…..except that what he actually said in Aklo was more or less equivalent to "rhubarb, rhubarb, bla bla blah, rhubarb"; in other words pure nonsense that was only meant to sound like he was actually saying something.

Despite being an utterly sadistic monster who literally finds the highest pleasure in life to be gained from inflicting pain and suffering on other sentient beings, Ümlaut still behaves in a remarkably civilized manner (despite his painful fondness for puns), and not at all like the "mindless stab-monster" many would expect of an evil little gremlin. While he comes across as very intense at first, he also showed great insight and ability to reflect on larger issues and perspectives.

Indeed, when forced to interact peacefully with humanoids, he used that rare situation to try and get a better understanding about the mortal mentality and point of view, asking deep questions about why they have the beliefs about violence that they do, why they believe weapons can bring safety, and other such difficult matters.

And yet, despite being what one might consider a rather "intellectual" gremlin, Ümlaut is still the creature who smiled fondly at the memory of how awesome it was when he managed to trick police officers into accidentally slaughtering the population they were meant to protect.

While he might indeed find enjoyment in annoying people with confusing word-games, or spend hours trying to formulate theories on the cause for conflict … he still finds murderous carnage and lethal collateral damage funny.

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