The entities known as little helpers are summoned (oddly enough) using the spell "Summon Little Helper". Each use of the spell summons two little helpers. They are entities of pure energy that look like yellowish, vaguely humanoid-shaped (though child-sized) swirls of light.

A typical Little Helper:
Appearance: 8 Willpower: 13 Dexterity: 10 Strength: 7 Wisdom: 5 Intelligence: 8
Defences: Normal: 500 Fire: -55 Cold: -55 Chemical: -55 Magical: -55 Mental: -55
Alignment: Good Attack: -50 Move Rate: 10 Health: 8 Orders: 10

Although their gaseous nature makes them invulnerable to normal damage they are quite vulnerable to other sorts of damage. They are therefore not powerful in combat.

Picture from Madhouse UK

Their main function is therefore fetching and carrying. Little helpers have 20 backpack slots, although they can neither wear armour nor equip any sort of item. By all accounts they can use training orders and can learn skills from the 'general' category. They are reputed to be particularly useful for doing the housework.

Unfortunately abuse of the abilities of Little Helpers has brought them into disrepute in Bereny. It is rumoured, for example, that one enchanter summoned up to 160 Little Helpers to serve his every whim. Whether it is incidents like this which are to blame or not, a growing resentment of Little Helpers has been evident among the common folk of Bereny.

Some have cited the way they give you static shocks sometimes when they pass by as the reason for their intense dislike. Others speak of a feeling of "wrongness" that comes with the existence of a being made entirely of mystic energy. Or maybe it is just that the common folk have found a focus for the fear and suspicion with which they have always held magic.

Whether this dislike is merited or not, farmers have begun purchasing charms which give their pitchforks a brief magical aura, while tinkers purchase magical daggers, and cutpurses look for magical poisons, increasingly to use on Little Helpers if and when they encounter them. And there have always been those within the adventuring community who bear hatred of magic and those who use it, who are only too pleased to join in

It is against the law to kill Little Helpers, but since they are not truly alive in the way we understand such things, the punishment for doing so is usually little more than a small fine. And with the huge number of Little Helpers killed of late, the courts can rarely be bothered to conduct a full investigation.

If this were not enough, the concentration of so much magic in one place has lead to its own consequences. In places where a large number of Little Helpers have been summoned, the magic used somehow allows a more powerful variation to come through unsummoned. Known as Little Helper Lords, these are superficially similar in appearance to a Little Helper, but these creatures are free-willed entities, and are much more powerful, possessing as they do formidable psychic and telekinetic powers.

Research indicates that Little Helper Lords are of a higher station in their home dimension than ordinary Little Helpers. It seems clear that they are not keen on what they see as the enslavement of their kind, and their anger is directed at the those enchanters in Myriad who have summoned Little Helpers, and at the summonings themselves, which they seek to destroy.

Members are therefore urged to exercise caution and restraint in their use of Little Helpers, least we increase the prejudice suffered by enchanters in the Kingdom.

Addendum: Recently a deterioration in the stability of Little Helpers has become apparent. As a result they have become more likely to ‘fade away’. Despite this they remain markedly more stable than most summonings, but they are more likely to vanish suddenly than they used to be.

An Assembly investigation into this has suggested that overuse of the arcane magics which create and bind Little Helpers has exposed an inherent instability in their structure. There have been a number of occasions when Little Helpers exposed to very particular stressing of their binding magic, have not merely faded away, but have exploded violently, causing damage (and in at least one instance death) to bystanders.  

Further knowledge on this subject is limited to Mages of the Third Circle and above.

Further Addendum: The Regent is at this time considering an amendment to the law to allow Little Helpers not accompanied by their master to be killed. He is seeking advice from the Arcane Guilds on the subject. See News for the latest on this.


A Treatise On the Moral Status of Little Helpers
As part of his review of the laws governing Little Helpers, the Regent raised two important questions:

1) Is it safe to continue summoning Little Helpers, when by doing so we are inviting the enmity of an entire race of beings with unknown capabilities?

2) Is it morally acceptable to summon little helpers, now that we know the truth of their nature?

I have considered these issues at length in my researches. Let us address the second question first,

I think that it is widely accepted that the summonings of enchanters are, in the Regent’s words, "non-living pseudo-beings". However as any enchanter will tell you, this does not mean that they are devoid of will, intelligence, personality or opinion (although, in the case of Fire Sprites, many of us wish that they were). Even the lowliest summoned goblin will venture to give you its (not very illuminating) opinion on matters.

I therefore believe that Little Helpers are not a special case, and that all our summonings had an existence of some sort before they were summoned, and continue to have an existence once they return from whence they came.

I further believe that all such summonings have consented to being summoned. I have never known an enchanter summoning display any indication that it resents being summoned. In some cases the reason is obvious - fire sprites like to burn things. But even a little helper seems to derive enjoyment from the tasks set it, even if asked to do something suicidal. This is one of my reasons for postulating that what we perceive on our plane of existence is somehow a 'shadow' or 'projection' of the summoning from its own plane of existence, and that throughout its period of summoning its primary existence continues to be on its own plane. Even if 'killed' in our world, the summoning continues to exist on its own plane.

I stress that this is but a theory; I can offer no conclusive proof at this time.

However, if we accept that this is so, the animosity of Little Helper Lords assumes a different character, with its foundation in the apparently rigidly heirarchical nature of little helper society. By summoning Little helpers to our dimension, we are giving them a freedom that they do not possess in their own dimension - I believe that this is a freedom of experience and sense, and that in their own dimension they suffer a deprivation of sensory input. Little Helper Lords however, may consider it somehow dangerous to allow their vassals such a freedom, or consider it an offence to their
heirarchy.

I suspect that the reason that Little Helpers were always more stable than other summonings reflected their own desire to remain in this dimension, and that the recent deterioration of this reflects an attempt by their Lords to force them back into their dimension from their side of the dimensional divide, just as their invasion of our dimension reflects an attempt to do the same from our side.

I therefore do not think that there is any moral dilemma involved in the summoning of any sort of summoned entity. I exclude the summoning of evil demonic entities of course, although I don not think that there is anything inherently different in the magics involved, it is just that the entities are being summoned from a different place.

To move on to the Regent’s first question.

This is a question of politics which I feel less qualified to answer. However, if I accept the theory I have postulated above, I think it likely that the 'entire race' of Little Helpers would feel more animosity if we stopped summoning them. The animosity of Little Helper Lords is to be regretted, but perhaps it is them who are being unreasonable? It should be
noted however that this animosity is directed mostly against their own kind, not against us.

A further addendum: Recently there has been a change in the demeanour of summoned Little Helpers. They no longer seem quite so keen to serve as they used to be, indeed their attitude might be described as surly, or even threatening, and they complain openly of having been enslaved. Clearly the Assembly needs to discover what has brought about this change.