A pokie is a small furry creature with large ears and a pointed snoot. They are born no bigger than a thimble, but grow to be no more than six inches from nose to butt, with a further six inches of bushy tail. Pokies are masupials, and so carry their young in a pouch until the young are old enough to strike out on their own.

Pokies are like magpies and pack-rats, in that they collect odd or shiny items they find and stash them in their nest. This may seem a simple enough prospect until one realizes where pokies keep their nests:

when a young pokie strikes out on his or her own, he or she migrates to areas populated by sentient beings, and homes to a pocket of a coat or trousers, or the pocket of a cloak, or someone's purse or backpack. It then attempts to empathically bond with its host and earn its keep in the form of feeding and treats by anticipating its host's wants and furnishing forth a needed item from the nest, or going to procure a needed item if it is not already contained in the nest.

Younger and more inexperienced pokies have been known to get their host in trouble by holding out a weapon when the host was trying to de-escalate things, but older and more experienced pokies have learned the subtle differences in the empathic inflections of their hosts to anticipate strategic mind-changes. Older pokies are also able to manage several nests at a time (as opposed to attempting to pack one nest beyond its reasonable capacity).

Pokies have been known to mourn dead hosts, and it is not uncommon for a pokie to dump the contents of its nest into a casket, or on a grave or funeral pyre. Pokies who were particularly bonded to their host may fall into a depression and die shortly after their host dies.

Pokies are rare because of their mating habits: they will only mate with a pokie who is bonded to someone their host likes.