Editing Jermlaine (section)

==Biology==
Standing only a foot tall at most, jermlaine most remind views of a cross between a degenerate [[gnome]] and a humanoid mole rat. Whilst their basic body outline is humanoid, their large, pointed ears, big noses, and sharp claw-like nails add a certain rodent-like cast to their mien. Jermlaine are naturally hairless, save for the odd clump or tuft of stringy hair. Their skin is an earthern gray-brown color, prone to warts, and about 50% too big for them; draping their body in deep wrinkles and loose folds, to the point that the "baggy clothing" a viewer typically mistakes them for wearing is actually a naked jermlaine clad in nothing but it's own skin - even their "leather helmets" are just their pointy skulls wrapped in their own thickly folded skin. They will sometimes appropriate rags or scraps and use those for extra clothing, however.

The eyes of a jermlaine are weak; they can't handle bright light, but their infravision is similarly limited, restricted to a mere 30 feet. However, their senses of hearing and smell are extremely sharp - they can even detect invisible creatures roughly half the time.

For their size, jermlaine are remarkable quick and agile, which they exploit to their fullest advantage when raiding, attacking, or fleeing from danger.

The vocal chords of jermlaine are quite limited, restricting them to the kind of high-pitched chittering and squeaking noises one would hear from a rat. In fact they can speak to rats as if under a permanent Speak With Animals spell, but they're physically incapable of speaking humanoid languages, although they can most certainly understand them.

Jermlaine typically live about a third as long as humans do, usually dying around their 60s if they are lucky enough to make it to old age. Female jermlaine give birth to one or two offspring after a 3 month gestation; 75% of jermlaine are born male, but the attrition rate for male jermlaine is much higher, so by adulthood, there is typically an equal number of males and females in a clan.

Weirdly, jermlaine who have managed to live to the age of 60 manifest the ability to absorb magical energy; by spending 1d4 rounds (in the Monstrous Manual) or minutes (in the Ecology) handling a non-artifact or non-relic magical item, a jermlaine elder can permanently drain it of all its energy, rendering it useless. For obvious reasons, they lost this power in 3rd edition.

In AD&D, jermlaine are believed to be distantly related to [[gnome]]s in some way. In "Ecology of the Jermlaine", jermlaine are said to be part of a greater [[gremlin]] family, and specifically related to the Mite and Synad species. It speculates that all three may represent different stages in a line of devolution, starting from the base gnome form and then ultimately ending at the jermlaine, the most devolved of the group.