Monday 18 November 2013

Amorphous Monsters of the Manuals

Amorphous was meant to be low forms of life but some DnD ones intelligent or psionic while others dumb as plants. Comparing monsters stats like INT brought up some interesting issues. Some slimes immune to spells, some resist charm, paralyses and other spells possibly as they have no brains or nervous systems. Possibly like undead these critters need common spell resistance like undead. 

Have stuck to mostly as is for now. I will do the open source and new content stuff later. Should include things l can use in Psychon or SF too. Interesting this first class was full of critters that kill you. More like traps. Asphyxiate in rounds, paralyse in your sleep and kill you, rot away your flesh and just kill you don't damage like flame breath, acid blood, spells and everything else in game. Monsters with different destroy armour rates. Monsters with own micro rules to kill you all different. Gygax could be a bastard. Trapper and lurker above could have been same thing really. A wall hanging one could fake rock or clever ones could be works of art like tapestries. Both similar attack but different asphyxiation rates and Trapper has wierd damage system that it cant hurt high AC characters with damage.

Possible standardise spells don't effect zero intelligence creatures - like paralyses and psychological attacks. I upped INT of a lurker to 1 as it was described as having some animal like cunning and could be charmed or made to fear and was meant to be a kind of manta ray thing. Ive decided it is more of a evolved moronic trapper.

Have ummed and ahhhed if worms and slugs belong here or open arthropods to all invertebrates. Considered putting fungi here too. I envision class as macrocellular life or colonies like coral or man o war rather than individuals. Abilities are implied to be biological rather than magical one important distinction.

Possibly standardise asphyxiation attacks, and corrode armour attacks. Also could use for a spell or item if standardised.


Have done Ad&D Monster Manual covering section one will start on FF and MM2. Then add some more of my own. Fill in some holes existing. Use wikipedia descriptions more. Revert some things like Stirges (owls), Chimera, Salamander, Kobold to more mythic versions but keep dnd ones as other variants or different things. AdnD salamanders are fire demons to me.




Amorphous
HD AC Move Size Alignment Intelligence Attacks Damage



















This is my format so far

Possibly man of war needed here




Grey Ooze (Crawling Horror)
HD AC Move Size Alignment Intelligence Attacks Damage
3+3 12 1 M Neutral 1 1 Grab 2d8
  • Immune to magic, heat and cold, but not electrical damage or weapons
  • corrodes armour (1 round per 3pts) or weapons on touch but not wood or stone
  • Resembles wet stone, ambush predator, live in caves, wells or cellars
  • Some specimens smarter, faster or may have a psionic ability

Black Pudding (Dark Devourer)
HD AC Move Size Alignment Intelligence Attacks Damage
10 14 6 S-L Neutral 0 1 Grab 3d8
  • Immune to cold, electrical or weapons make split, harmed by fire
  • Corrodes armour (1 round per 3pts), inches of wood or flesh
  • Scavenger hunter found underground, squeeze through small holes, clings to ceilings or walls

Gelatinous Cube (Gel Hexahedron)
HD AC Move Size Alignment Intelligence Attacks Damage
4 12 6 L Neutral 0 1 Touch 2d4
  • Immune to electrical, psychological effects or paralyses cold does 1d4 damage slows for 1d6 rounds
  • Paralysing touch 4d4 rounds, difficult to see so surprised on 1-3 on d6
  • Scavenger cleans dungeons of scraps, excrement and corpses. Contains coins, gems or even potion bottles

Green Slime (Loathsome Slime)
HD AC Move Size Alignment Intelligence Attacks Damage
2 11 1 S Neutral 0 1 Touch Special
  • Immune to spells or weapons, harmed by fire, killed by Cure Disease spell
  • corrodes armour (1 round per 3pts) then destroys flesh in 1-4 rounds if not scraped or burned off
  • Clings to ceilings and drops on prey eating plant or animal matter, dwells in caves and dark place

Lurker Above
HD AC Move Size Alignment  Intelligence  Attacks Damage
9 15 1/9 L Neutral 1 1 (1d4 victims) 1d6
  • Crushes victims who asphyxiate in 1d4+1 rounds, trapped prey cannot fight unless holding weapon -4 to hit
  • Subterranean dwellers hide in ceilings and blend in surprise 1-4 on d6, crawls or floats slowly 1 or may glide 9

Mimic
HD AC Move Size Alignment  Intelligence  Attacks Damage
7-10 14 3 L Neutral 2-10 1 Punch 3d4 + Glue
  • Touch glues pseudopod to victim till dead, can create another or concentrate on crushing victim
  • Disguises as chest, door, rock or other object, smart ones may speak or trade, less aggressive

Ochre Jelly
HD AC Move Size Alignment  Intelligence  Attacks Damage
6 13 3 M Neutral 0 1 Touch 3d4
  • Lightning splits into two smaller jellies, destroys leather armour and clothing
  • Seep about in caves eating anything living or dead organic, can cling to ceilings to attack

Roper
HD AC Move Size Alignment  Intelligence  Attacks Damage
10-12 20 3 L CE 15-16 1 Bite/6 tentacles 5d4/weakness
  • Immune to Lightning, half damage from cold, -4 save from fire, 80% magic resistant
  • Tentacles 2-5 long, grip and can drag into bite 1 per round, STR-10 save to break, half STR in 1d3 rounds of being held from strength drain effect, cumulative per tentacle, +4 to bite held target dragged into maw
  • Flesh eating horrors often blend into cave features such as stalagmites, gizzard may hold coins or gems

Slithering Tracker
HD AC Move Size Alignment  Intelligence  Attacks Damage
5 15 12 S Neutral 9-12 1 Paralyses
  • Follows prey to attack in sleep or when alone, almost invisible, clings to ceilings, silent
  • Paralyses remains while touching, drains humans bodily fluids in one hour leaving a husk

Trapper
HD AC Move Size Alignment  Intelligence  Attacks Damage
12 18 3 L Neutral 13-14 4+ Special
  • Resistant to fire and cold, half damage or none if save counts
  • Covers floor often with a tempting item in centre, almost undetectable when hidden, treasure kept underneath
  • Inflicts (AC-20)+4 damage, all victims asphyxiate in 6 rounds, those on edge get DEX save to escape
  • Subterranean dwellers that have adapted to man made lairs can cover up to 400 square foot

Fiend Folio stuff to Add

Adherer, Algoid, Enveloper, Flumph (Stinking Skyjelly or spaghetti monster), Imorph, Kelpie (I like monster but will rename as I want a proper faerie demon water horse - has own microsystem for drowning), Protein Polymorph (needs a better name), Stun Jully, Tentamort (a streach but id rather it be a colonial organism with a stinger not true bone)

Cifal close but more of a bug swarm man. Denzelian a bore. Sandman I will put under supernatural.

MM2 stuff to Add

Crystal Ooze, Executioners hood, Gibbering Mouther, 3 Extra puddings, Slime Creature, Olive Slime.

Mudman more of a construct. Algoid colonies im happy to be amorphous but Memory moss I will put under plants. Phycomid more fungal. Sandling more elemental.

Some Ideas to Add


Shoggoth, formless spawn, moonbeast

Gammaworld Macrobes and some other ideas worked well in Psychon

Translucent Jelly, Crimsin Jelly (whole set of colours for pychon), Ameboid, Dungeon Jelly, Eye Macrobe, Ball Macrobe, Sword Macrobe, Corpse Slime, Syliva Tree, Sitting Slime, amorph, killer ameba, blob, sewer crawler, Giant viruses, flagellum, shuddering mass, Macrobe Tower, brain jelly

More jellyfish things or extra flumph breeds.

Some words to use jelly, ooze, crawler,  blob, slime, goo, sludge, gunk, mire, scum, glop, mucilaginous, mucoid, spawn, chunder, glob, mass

Some humanoid things

Draselites in star frontiers might count. Dr Who Axons and Omega's cell guards with energy weapon claw on humanoid blobs. Sure some more Dr who stuff might count. Plenty infectious slime in Dr Who. Movies like green slime, the blob, the thing, hedora, the stuff, space1999 creatures in dragons domain and a few episodes

Will see what other interesting features come from doing this.

I have no idea what happened to formatting and column width with this post
My keyboard needs a vacuum

Pic is a single cell bigger than some frogs

1 comment:

  1. Im hoping animals section will be briefer with less special powers - a dysney book on animal facts would be fine - dnd books dont need 1 page entries on every cat, canine, bear etc - most fish, cetaceans fit easily together - i will see these projects can blow out

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