Black Ooze
A viscous, tar-black substance that manifests
in subterranean dungeons, streaming through walls or pooling in low pits. Smells
like rust and cum, tastes too sweet, feels like body-temp liquid mercury. Any living
thing submerged in the ooze undergoes hideous mutations. This explains the
proliferation of freakish monsters, in certain dungeons.
·
If a single appendage
or extremity is dipped in the ooze, only that extremity will be mutated.
·
The mutated parts
of a creature are immune to further mutation by ooze.
·
If imbibed, whole
body is mutated as if creature hand been submerged. Black ooze turns to inert
dust, after a few minutes, if separated from large mass. Magic might preserve
it for longer.
·
Mutated beings
sometimes form cults around sources of black ooze. “The Nameless King of the
Black Ooze” is depicted as a pillar of black ooze wearing a tarnished silver
crown, and worshipped as a god of lepers, monsters, and outcasts.
Example Mutations: Here’s a few mutations I came up with, suitable for PCs.
Make more of your own.
Body Cavity: Character’s front may split down the middle to reveal
a hollow, tooth-filled inside, like a fleshy iron maiden. May attempt to trap
human-sized or smaller grappled foes inside, for 1d6DMG per turn. May retract
teeth to disguise a friend, like a suit of skin.
Worm-Gut: Your stomach inverts, projecting outward from your
mouth, like a giant maggot, with ivory mandibles. 1d6DMG, 10’ reach. Attacks
are acidic and dissolve most living tissue. No ill effects from eating any kind
of flesh. Stomach regrows after a few days, if severed.
Weapon Fusion: One of your arms becomes a useless, clubbed stump, but
merges with the melee weapon you were holding at the time of mutation. The weapon
can retract into the stump, perfectly concealed.
Face Melt: Your head becomes a constantly churning, swirling mass
of flesh and sensory organs. You may spend a minute sculpting it into a
disguise. You can’t change the color of your features but may alter their size,
shape, and position. The disguise begins to melt again, after 10 minutes,
unless you spend a minute touching it up.
Parasitic Twin: A repressed part of your personality manifests on your
body as a stunted twin, connected by a knot of tissue. Has a handful of
abilities appropriate to the part of your psyche it represents- new languages,
skills, or even a spell. Has goals of its own.
Black Ooze Monsters: Sometimes the black ooze will mutate the mind as well
as the body, producing monstrosities like these.
Living Armor: A knight who exploded inside his full-plate and promptly
went mad after merging with the metal suit. Corded veins and displaced organs
occasionally leak from the gaps. Screams echo from within.
Crybaby: A feeble, naked adult body bent backwards by the weight
of the giant, squalling infant head attached to its neck. Bludgeons anything in
its path.
Cannibal Oak: A gnarled oak tree with branches that end in skeletal
hands. The large knot in its trunk opens like a mouth, revealing a splintery hollow
brimming with blood. Roots serve as tentacles. Hates anything made of flesh.
Longwolf: A mad wolf, as tall as a stag, with an elongated midsection,
giving it the appearance of a furred, quadrupedal serpent. Attempts to surround
its prey with its long body.
The Ridden: This faceless stallion has the upper body of a
deranged human, protruding from where its cock should be. It will attempt to
knock victims down so the human-part can tear them apart and devour them.
Anthropohydra: Resembles a headless, crawling giant, with human
torsos sprouting from its back: a jubilant chorus which begs the PCs to merge
with it.
Ooze Priest: A hooded figure wearing a black robe and thin,
tarnished silver circlet. Its features cannot be discerned beneath the robe. Speaks
with a calm, even voice. Encourages the PCs to bathe in the ooze. The other
monsters ignore it.
The Prison of Kath
The remote town of Kath has failed to
pay tribute to the Capital. No one has heard from the town since before the
winter. Now that spring has melted the mountain pass, the PCs have been
dispatched as an escort to the tax collector. None of the nearby settlements
have been in contact with Kath, either, which disturbs those who have relatives
there. There are whispers that the people of Kath have found religion and cut
themselves off from the outside world. As they approach Kath, the PCs notice
that its fields have not been worked and there are no animals grazing in the
pasture. Many, small, fresh mounds dot the landscape. The city walls have been
hastily fortified, and its gates are bound shut with heavy chains.
·
The town was built
near an ancient military fortification, turned prison. The bowls of the prison
open up into a cave complex, where a pool of black ooze was discovered. The prisoners,
guards, and some of the townsfolk were mutated, many driven to madness and
cannibalism. The prison chaplain leads a cult dedicated to the Nameless King of
the Black Ooze, kidnapping the remaining townsfolk and hurling them into the
slime pit, birthing new monstrosities. The chaplain wishes to overtake the
surrounding countryside, creating a Zion of New Flesh, wiping away the cruel,
petty vanities of the land’s old order.
·
The Warden has
turned into a corpulent, gluttonous beast, relishing human flesh. He pukes up
humanoid slime-monsters.
·
The Prison supposedly
has a hidden vault, containing vast wealth of the old kingdom. (Not quite so
vast, but a nice chunk of change.)
·
Also hides the legendary enchanted blade of an
ancient general (Actually the cursed sword of the executioner, possessed by a
monstrous ghost. The general had a minor, but useful enchanted spear, which PCs
may discover.)
·
One of the prison’s
first inmates was a powerful sorcerer and alchemist, who may have been capable
of creating a philosopher’s stone. (In truth, a minor magician who accidentally
caused the black pool to form, long ago. Left behind a few useful potions and a
spell or two.)
·
The tax collector
is actually a researcher for the capital city council and wishes to procure
samples of black ooze and its mutated victims so that his masters may create
an army of inhuman soldiers. He will only tell the PCs this if absolutely
cornered. He explains away his doggedness by the fact that he is a candidate
for the next city bursar and isn’t going to let a few freaks stand between him
and a promotion.
The mounds in the fields are graves of victims sacrificed
to feed an immense plant-creature, resembling a giant heart with adventitious
roots.
