Monster Monday: Gelatinous Hypercube - The Slime Out of Time

Today's Monster Monday is the gelatinous hypercube, an ooze from the astral plane that has become untethered from causality. To the eyes of those who travel forward through time at a constant rate and for whom actions precede reactions (that is to say, most mortals), gelatinous hypercubes seem to rapidly shift between different versions of themselves, often jumping around erratically in space as they appear at random points on their personal timelines. Those engulfed by the gelatinous hypercube find themselves frozen in time and rapidly aged or de-aged at random.

Yeah, it's sort of a joke monster, but gelatinous cubes are sort of joke monsters too.

tesseract gif by Jason Hise via Wikimedia

A gelatinous hypercube prowls the astral sea

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2018 Jonah Bomgaars.

Monster Monday: Seafoam Slime, the Coastal Creeper

Today's Monster Monday is seafoam slime, an aquatic ooze that lurks in the shallows waiting to rush out like a rogue wave and tackle its prey, pinning them and filling their lungs with foamy water so that it can drag them back into the surf to feed.

The seafoam slime has Improved Bull Rush, Trip, and Drag, allowing it to unleash a barrage of combat maneuvers designed to disrupt a small part of adventurers in a way that feels very natural for what basically amounts to a living wave. It may be a CR 4 monster, but its Drown ability means it can easily incapacitate an unwary adventurer if it gets the drop on them.

photo by Brocken Inaglory, via Wikimedia

Sea foam at Ocean Beach, San Francisco

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2017 Jonah Bomgaars.

Monster Monday: Goo Bat Swarm

Today's Monster Monday is the goo bat, a blood-sucking ball of ooze with bat wings. Goo bats swarm their prey, glomming on to them to slow them down with a thick layer of slime which begins to siphon the blood from their body. They leave behind jellified corpses that burst open into new swarms of goo bats.

Whoa, is that an original illustration? Well, it sure as heck ain't a professional illustration. I got a tablet, so I'm going to start drawing some of the monsters I stat up. The goal is that eventually every Monster Monday will have its own original illustration (and I'll gradually get better at drawing them).

Hey, Halloween is coming up! Starting this Wednesday, I will be posting a new skeleton stat block every day until Halloween. It's an event I'm calling: d20 Despot's Seven Spooky Skeletons.

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2017 Jonah Bomgaars.

Monster Monday: Quicksilver Ooze, the Fastest Slime in the Dungeon

Today's Monster Monday is the quicksilver ooze, a fast-moving slime that eats treasure and poisons your blood.

Most oozes move so slowly that a canny adventurer can avoid combat with them entirely by simply walking away.  Good encounter design, or at least the element of surprise, is required to make many oozes a viable threat to a party.  The famous gelatinous cube, for example, is best employed as a surprise (its natural transparency and tendency to conform to the dimensions of a typical dungeon corridor means some adventurers literally walk right into it) or in conjunction with traps (personally, I'm a fan of the ol' gelatinous-cube-at-the-bottom-of-a-pit-trap goof).  Oozes are slow bags of acidic hit points - it's a niche they fill well.  But sometimes you want to use an ooze outside of their niche.  That was the idea behind the bombardier ooze, which can engage adventurers at range by shooting out gobs of acid.  The idea for the quicksilver ooze came from a similar place: what if there was an ooze that you couldn't outrun?

photo by bionerd, via Wikimedia

I called it the quicksilver ooze because mercury (aka quicksilver) is runny and already looks like some kind of sentient alien slime.  To make the monster more than just a fast ooze, I did some research (i.e. read the wikipedia article) on mercury and gave the quicksilver ooze some of the attributes of the element.  The ooze is temperature sensitive - slowed by cold damage and hastened by fire damage - because one of mercury's most famous attributes is its sensitivity to temperature (hence its use in thermometers).  Its slam attack, of course, gives its victims heavy metal poisoning.  And because mercury dissolves and amalgamates many other metals, including gold and silver, I decided this should be one of those mean monsters that eats your treasure.

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2017 Jonah Bomgaars.

Monster Monday: Bombardier Ooze, the Living Slime Cannon

"I'm so sick of all these damn oozes!"  Galnar fired off another scorching ray at the nearest gelatinous cube, blasting a fiery hole right through it.  No sooner had it dissolved into a pile of goo than two grey slimes slithered past it toward the party of adventurers.  The wizard swore.  "They just keep coming!"

"This is what we signed up for when we agreed to take on the Slime Cult.  Which, by the way: nice name guys.  Real creative."  Shantara nocked another arrow to her shortbow and let fly.  It arced through the air and sunk deep into an opaque blob of quivering purple goo, which squealed and melted into an inanimate puddle.  "My real objection is that the things are so gosh-darned slow that we finish them off before I get a chance to use my rad new holy sword."  The halfling paladin patted the scabbard at her hip.  

"Closing to melee would be illogical," Fanath said, cool and calm as ever.  "As long as we keep moving faster than the enemy, it is most efficient to engage them at range."  

"What bothers me is how these globs of goo were able to overwhelm the defenders of Castle Dejamine," said Galnar.  The eerie bare walls and empty stone halls of that dead fortress crept back into his mind, and he suppressed a shudder.  

As if in answer, a massive blob of bubbling green pustules slithered into view.  Before either Shantara or Farnath could draw their bows, the seething slime shot out three globs of acid, striking each of the three heroes squarely in the chest.  

Shantara looked up at Farnath for approval, but he had already drawn his twin axes.  "I believe now would be an appropriate time to engage the enemy in melee."

Shantara smiled and drew her glowing sword.  Together, the two rushed at the slime, slashing and hewing at its bubbling exterior with magically tempered steel.  In between firing magic missiles, Galnar watched as the green beast extended its sickening pseudopods at the gleaming paladin and sucked her into its body.  Farnath redoubled his attacks, muscles rippling with new strength as righteous rage overtook his usual levelheadedness.  The ooze tensed and then launched a huge glob of goo up in a long arc.  Shantara floated helplessly within the flying orb, eyes wide, as it came plummeting down toward Galnar.  The wizard barely had time to erect a shimmering barrier of force around himself before the whole area was bathed in sizzling acid.  

Shantara's face was pressed flat against the top of Galnar's barrier, arms and legs splayed out very much like a starfish Galnar had once seen on the inside of a glass tank.  He dismissed the barrier with a wave and caught the petite paladin as she fell.  "You know, It's times like these that I really appreciate you meatshields," he said with a smirk.  "How did you enjoy your first experience flying?"

Shantara responded by vomiting on his robes.

"Whoa, okay, appreciation over.  You're getting to be as bad as that slime."

The halfling wiped her mouth with a corner of her cape and set off toward the ooze again.  "Call me meatshield one more time and see if you get any more healing," she called back over her shoulder.

"Hey, you're a paladin, you have to heal me!  ...right?"

Today's Monster Monday is the bombardier ooze, a slime that can take on foes in melee or at range.  With its ability to fire small orbs of acid at up to three targets per round or launch a massive glob of acid that explodes in a burst, this is not an ooze that clever adventuring parties can simply take out from a safe distance.

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2016 Jonah Bomgaars.

Monster Monday: Sewer Slick, Low-Level Diseased Slime

Today's Monster Monday is the sewer slick, a small ooze that thrives on filth and decay, commonly found in middens, caves, and of course sewers.  These low-level slimes can spread disease with their touch, as expected for a creature that feeds primarily on excrement.

My goal in creating these oozes is to provide GMs with a slime that has a Challenge Rating of less than 1 to populate low-level dungeons.  Most oozes are too tough for a party of 1st level adventurers delving into a goblin warren or kobold den.  Sewer slicks add some slimy variety to beginner dungeons without creating an unintentional boss battle, threatening a Total Party Kill, or ruining the party's weapons or armor, as some of the more common lower-level oozes tend to do.  GMs who pay attention to dungeon ecology know that even kobolds need to poop - sewer slicks are the perfect monster to inhabit the recesses of a dank toilet cave.

For your own sake and mine, I will refrain from finding a stock photo to represent these coprophagous monsters.

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2016 Jonah Bomgaars.

Monster Monday: Ice Cube - The Freezing Ooze

Today's Monster Monday is an ice cube, an arctic version of the gelatinous cube that will literally chill you to the bone and leave behind nothing more than an eerily lifelike ice sculpture.

Photo by Editor at Large, via Wikimedia

Ice cubes will be making an appearance in this winter's holiday adventure, The Chaining of Krampus, a continuation of last year's Escape from the Lair of the Krampus.  I'll be trying to get that adventure finished as soon as possible - hopefully earlier than last year's embarrassing release date of December 26th.  I'll also try to make it shorter than last year's installment, which tended to take two sessions to finish.  Stay tuned to d20 Despot for more news on this free Christmas-themed adventure!

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2015 Jonah Bomgaars.

Monster Monday: Figgy Pudding - The Holiday Monster that Really Brings It.

'Tis the season for holiday-themed D&D adventures!  You've heard of the deadly black pudding, but today's Monster Monday is its lesser-known Christmastime cousin, the Figgy Pudding, a truly terrifying dessert wreathed in alcoholic flames that are sure to fill you with seasonal warmth.

illustration by Kent Hamilton

Consider this a preview of next week's post: a short little one-shot Holiday dungeon crawl I'm calling ESCAPE FROM THE LAIR OF THE KRAMPUS!

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is (C)2014 Jonah Bomgaars.

Monster Monday - Embalming Ooze and Pickled Zombie Template

Earlier this week I released a one-shot nautical horror adventure called Horrors of the Floating Garden.  Some of the monsters therein are pickled zombies, the reanimated corpses of preserved biological specimens.  I neglected to include the template I created for pickled zombies, so I'm presenting it here along with a sample pickled dire rat and an entirely new monster that creates pickled zombies out of the corpses of those it slays.

The curators at the British Natural History Museum insisted that this was not the star spawn of Cthulhu

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is (C)2014 Jonah Bomgaars.

Monster Monday: Lodestone Ooze

I know updates have been irregular throughout the infancy of my blog, so I am going to try to inject a little bit of regularity with a segment I'm calling: Monster Monday.  I chose monsters because you can always use more monsters, and I have an ever-growing Word doc with about 90 pages of homebrewed monster content.  All monsters will be Pathfinder-compatible and available under the d20 OGL.

Today's Monster Monday monster is the Lodestone Ooze, a dastardly slime that builds on the rules for magnetism I established in my post about magnetism spells.  This creature is a "gotcha monster" in the same vein as the rust monster or grey ooze in that it's attacks tend to damage the players' beloved equipment.

The OGL, PFSRD-compatible monster is available after the jump.
The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is (C)2013 Jonah Bomgaars.