Sableye

Eight kilos packed into fifty centimetres of height. The disproportion has an explanation in its own Pokédex entries: it digs with its claws to unearth rocks and gems, eats them, and the substances in what it consumes solidify on top of it until they stick to its skin. The crystals on its back aren't decoration. They're sediment.

It lives in dark caves, and everything said about it comes from there. The entries insist on two ideas that don't quite fit together: that it leads a very peaceful life underground, and that people are still very afraid of it. What links them is always the same superstition — when the gems in its eyes shine ominously, it's stealing someone's soul. Its eyes, says the first entry, are precious stones from eating so many gems.

One description brings it down a peg at once. It likes jewellery so much that it prowls near Carbink, but Gabite always gets there first. A gem thief whose loot is stolen by someone else before it arrives.

It doesn't evolve and doesn't come from anything: the chain starts and ends with it. The only alternate form it has is Mega Evolution. Its official category is the Darkness Pokémon.

380 total points, and not a single individual stat above 75. Attack and Defense sit at 75, both Special stats at 65, while HP and Speed share a 50 that leaves it moving late against almost everything. Defeating it yields 1 Attack and 1 Defense.

That Speed would matter if the plan were to hit first. It isn't. Prankster, its hidden Ability, gives priority to all its status moves, and that's where it makes sense: Will-O-Wisp to burn a physical attacker before it moves, Taunt to leave anything that only knows how to boost its stats with no options, and Encore to trap an opponent in the wrong move. Of its other two Abilities, Keen Eye is unremarkable and Stall — always moving last — is actively counterproductive on a Pokémon that's already slow by nature.

Defensively, its type combination is the best thing it has going for it. Dark and Ghost grant immunity to Normal, Fighting and Psychic, and until Generation VI that pairing had no weaknesses at all, something it shared only with Spiritomb. The Fairy type broke it: today, it's its only weak point, but it's a major one.

On the attacking side, things are worse, because Dark and Ghost overlap almost completely and hit the same targets. Foul Play, learned at level 48, is its most powerful attack at 95, and Poltergeist comes via TM with 110 in exchange for requiring the opponent to be holding an item. With 50 HP and 75 Defense, it can't survive a direct exchange.

In a normal playthrough it works as a nuisance: burn, silence, and keep stealing turns with Recover while the team gets on with the job.

The Human-Like Egg Group and nothing else, with no second group to open up combinations. The gender ratio is 50%, so any pair will do and there's no need to go through Ditto to get a female. Its 25 incubation cycles come to around 6630 steps, which is on the high side.

Six moves can come from the Egg, and two of them genuinely change something. Sucker Punch, with 70 power and priority, gives it the only fast hit it will ever have. Recover is what keeps everything else going, because without it a Pokémon with 50 HP won't last the turns it needs to burn things and burn them again. The other four — Torment, Swagger, Feint and Metal Burst — are niche.

Evolution condition: none. It comes out of the Egg exactly as it's going to stay, and the only thing that can change its form is Mega Evolution, which isn't permanent. It grows at a Medium Slow rate and starts with 35 base friendship, among the lowest.

Its habitat is the cave, and in the wild it usually carries a Wide Lens. Its catch rate is 45: the figure for a difficult Pokémon, the same one used for a starter, so it's worth weakening it or putting it to sleep before wasting Poké Balls.