This is the product of my last thread on monsters from the obscure horror novel The Bridge. Many thanks to Indagare for giving me an approximate CR to start with when using the Monster Creation rules.
I think I've calculated save DCs, hp and other stats correctly based on the rules, but I still definitely want some outside opinions. Is it way too strong/weak for CR 12? Did I calculate something wrong? Any input is appreciated.
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Drew was less than six feet away from the rail when the massive liquid blowback erupted: a solid pillar of displaced fluid that shot from the creek to the peak of Black Bridge in a fraction of a second. It towered above him and stayed there, impossible: fracturing physics, disemboweling logic.
Coalescing into form.
The creature loomed, not freeze-framed or static but swaying like a wind funnel, an enormous oily serpent. Against the black sky, it did not look real; but he could feel the incredible life-shredding charge of its presence, pulsating in the air. It made every hair on his body stand on end in total, mortal terror
And then the lightning struck, releasing him utterly from his sanity. In the light, he could see all too clearly the things that suffered and swirled within it. Could see the rusted struts and rotted shells of the barrels: skeletal, clawing. Could see the multicolored Rorschach toxins that were its blood and soul.
Could see the hundreds and hundreds of fish: not dead, no longer alive.
All of them staring. At him.
With new eyes...
Then the lightning decayed; and before he could scream, the black wall descended upon him.
-The Bridge
All civilizations produce waste, from the cow manure on a peasant’s farm to the spent fuel rods that once powered the reactors of unfathomably advanced civilizations, outwardly silent and still as they radiate killing energy.
Regardless of the intentions of the society that produced them, these substances alter the environment they are introduced into, disrupting the balance of nature. Manure runoff might encourage the growth of algae, choking the life from streams and lakes, while the fuel rods warp the essence of heredity itself with their invisible power. Still other toxins subtly infiltrate the landscape, soaking into the plants and animals around them until fruit and meat become poisonous to those who consume them.
Still, disturbing though these effects may be, in areas where careless alchemists or wizards have set up shop, there lies the potential for something far worse. When these individuals cast the byproducts of their experiments into the environment, the swill of enchanting, necromantic and transmutative elixirs can mix together with other waste and breathe a terrible form of life into it. Poisons, acids, carcinogens and mutagens take on an unholy, unified sentience. Where once the waste harmed life with the innocence of the inanimate, now there is conscious malice, a drive to twist or destroy all in its path; to remake the world in its own cancerous image.
This is the Corruption.
The Corruption begins as a single ooze, a living mass of deadly chemicals that suddenly wakes to sentience and sapience. This requires a large amount of hazardous waste, generally the result of years or even decades of dumping, as well as a certain amount of twisted luck. Generally, even ideal conditions result in only small amounts of waste animating in a mindless state, resulting in the relatively harmless alchemical ooze swarms.
No one knows just what makes the difference (some believe the influence of the Great Old One known as Xhamen-Dor is at work, while others credit random chance), but in the minutest fraction of cases, the entire poisonous mass animates as one organism, with powers and intelligence far beyond a normal alchemical ooze.
NE Huge ooze
Init +2; Senses Blindsight 60 ft., Perception +15
Aura anti-life (20 ft., DC 21), stench (30 ft., DC 21, 5 rounds)
DEFENSE
AC 6 (-2 Dex, -2 size)
hp 127 (15d8+60)
Fort +10, Ref +3, Will +7
Immune acid, disease, poison, ooze traits; SR 23
Weaknesses vulnerability to fire
OFFENSE
Speed 20 ft., swim 20 ft.
Melee Slam +19 (4d6+12 plus 2d6 acid and disease)
Space 15 ft.; Reach 10 ft.
Special Attacks acid, disease
STATISTICS
Str 26, Dex 6, Con 18, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 14
Base Attack +11; CMB +21; CMD 29
Skills Climb +23, Knowledge (arcana) +16 Perception +15, Swim +16
Feats Ability Focus (disease), Cleave, Diehard, Endurance, Great Cleave, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Power Attack
SQ animating touch, ash spawn, ooze traits
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Acid (Ex) A Corruption ooze-form contains extremely corrosive chemicals that dissolve organic matter and metal but do not affect stone. Each time a creature suffers damage from the ooze-form’s acid, its clothing and armor take the same amount of damage from the acid. A DC 21 Reflex save prevents damage to clothing and armor. A metal or wooden weapon that strikes a Corruption ooze-form takes 2d6 acid damage unless the weapon's wielder succeeds on a DC 21 Reflex save. The save DCs are Constitution-based.
Animating Touch (Su) The Corruption’s bizarre nature gives it dominion over all things unnatural, and it can breathe life into inanimate objects through physical contact. For solid objects, this acts in a similar manner to the Animate Objects spell, save that it is permanent and the time it takes to animate an object depends on its size. Fine, Diminutive and Tiny objects can be animated as a standard action. Small objects take a full round action to animate, Medium objects require a minute, and Large or larger objects require an hour. For this reason, the Corruption generally does not animate solid objects of significant size during combat.
However, while it can take a very long time to animate solid objects, unnatural liquids, such as potions, flasks of acid and barrels of hazardous waste can be animated much faster. Containers of liquid from Fine to Huge can be animated as a standard action, while Gargantuan and Colossal volumes of liquid require a full round (for the upper reaches of the Colossal category, a lake’s worth of toxic waste, for instance, a minute may be required). Liquids thus animated become an ooze of the appropriate size category. Potions have a tendency to become alchemical oozes, while hazardous waste awakens as another Corruption Ooze-form (these tend to be Medium size or larger; apply the Young template once or twice to produce Large or Medium ooze-forms).
Note that only unnatural substances and objects are subject to the Corruption’s animating touch. A large boulder, for instance, cannot be animated, but a statue carved from stone may be.
Attended or magical objects may make a Will save (DC 19) to resist being animated and/or brought under the Corruption’s control. The save is Charisma-based.
Anti-Life Aura (Su) The Corruption is an abomination, its very existence a blasphemy against nature. This innate perversion of existence radiates outward from an ooze-form, unnerving and even physically harming living creatures. All living creatures within 20 feet of a Corruption ooze-form must make a DC 21 Fortitude save or be nauseated (this starts as a tingling in the affected’s lips and extremities, followed by a buzzing inside the head and a burning of the eyes). A creature that makes the save is immune to the ooze-form’s anti-life aura for the next 24 hours, though they still get the unmistakable sense that something is unspeakably, nightmarishly wrong with the monster they face. Heal breaks the effect, as does leaving the aura’s area of effect.
Constructs and Undead are immune to the anti-life aura.
Ash Spawn (Su) When a Corruption ooze-form is killed with fire, the flammable chemicals inside of it burn in a flash, dealing 6d6 fire damage to all creatures in a 20 foot radius (Reflex save DC 21 for half damage). The burn produces a cloud of ash that fouls any water it settles into, turning it to acid. Worse, if there are rainclouds overhead, the ash can rise into them and dissolve into the water droplets in the clouds. The resulting black rain deals 2d6 acid damage per round. Those slain by the black rain dissolve into a gory paste, while those who survive must save against the Disease special attack (same DCs and rapid progression as below). At times, the Corruption may deliberately invoke this ability, setting an ooze-form or specialized Newspawn ablaze in order to seed a thunderstorm and spread itself over a wider area.
Disease (Su) An ooze-form’s slam attack transmits a potent mixture of arcane transmutation, twisted microbial life and mutagenic toxins. Living creatures slain by an ooze-form rise 1d4 minutes later as Newspawn, but those not immediately killed suffer from disease effects as their immune systems struggle against the chemicals. For all intents and purposes the same as Mana Fever (from the Mana Wasted mutant template), the Corruption ooze-form’s mutagenic chemicals are far more concentrated than they are in its spawn, meaning that the disease progresses much more quickly.
Mana Fever injury; save Fort DC 23; onset 1d4 minutes; frequency 1/hour; effect 1d3 Con damage, 1d3 Cha drain; cure 2 consecutive saves.
Anyone who lives with this variant of mana fever for 7 hours straight without dying becomes immune to the disease, but also becomes a Newspawn.
Stench (Ex) A Corruption ooze-form exudes an ugly, vaguely industrial reek with the distinct underlying scent of decomposition. All living creatures (except those with the stench special ability) within 30 feet must succeed on a Fortitude save (DC 21) or be sickened for 5 rounds. Creatures that successfully save cannot be affected by that ooze-form's stench for 24 hours.
Who might the author be for The Bridge? Your monster and the quoted passage has piqued my interest.
Who might the author be for The Bridge? Your monster and the quoted passage has piqued my interest.
Two authors, actually: John Skipp and Craig Spector.
Bear in mind that the sugenre of horror this book belongs to is known as "Splatterpunk", which should give you an idea as to the level of violence present. Also,
You may be totally fine with both of those things, but I figured I ought to warn you just in case.
Oh yeah, that's no problem. Thanks for the info.
*adds to Amazon wishlist*
This looks really good to me. I'm a poor judge of difficulty, but you don't mention if the Newspawn are controlled by the Corruption nor whether there is a limited number it can have at a given time (like how a necromancer or evil cleric can only control a certain number of undead or a certain amount of HD).
This looks really good to me. I'm a poor judge of difficulty, but you don't mention if the Newspawn are controlled by the Corruption nor whether there is a limited number it can have at a given time (like how a necromancer or evil cleric can only control a certain number of undead or a certain amount of HD).
The Corruption is controlled by a hive mind, which hypothetically should have no upper limit (since each assimilated creature adds its brain's processing power to the whole, like a distributed computer network), but going by the book, there does seem to be some sort of limit on how many creatures the hive mind can control.
The thing, though, is that the collective consciousness can adapt. Let me refer to the book here. This is just after the use of the Ash Spawn ability:
And still the rain came down.
It came in many colors now, an oilslick rainbow that crowded the sky. Like its brethren at the bridge, it had lost all but peripheral touch with Overmind. There were simply too many drops to imbue with one single consciousness.
The connection remained as a sort of collective unconscious: a molecule of telepathic toxicity that stayed in touch with its essence, implicitly recognizing itself in every face it saw.
But as it landed and spattered and pooled, a group consciousness reemerged. Not Overmind, precisely, but a shared beingness that evolved very quickly into a shared identity. A second-level Overbeing.
A new elemental.
The spirit of the New Blood of the Earth.
So if it corrupts and assimilates a certain number of creatures, it temporarily loses control of some of them, but it seems that the hive mind can reassemble and redefine itself after a delay. During the delay, most Newspawn fall asleep.
The effort had been exhausting, leaving even the Overcore tapped and drained. The malaise was contagious, shared in common by all Its creatures, great and small. Dragging them inexorably toward an agonizing, fitful, rejuvenating slumber.
Leaving behind only the slow-metabolizing Plant Spawn, the witless rumbling Machine Spawn, and the handful of mad raw Savage Spawn that were not afterborn with the capacity for sleep.
At a guess, anything with an Intelligence score goes to sleep, while mindless things like Vermin, some Plants and animated objects continue to function, but without any sort of intelligent guidance. They probably just wander aimlessly and attack any non-Newspawn organism that they come across.
When the hive mind wakes, the Corruption now has a new HD limit for its control, allowing it to spread further.
What is the HD limit? It's going to be high, but we can't really rely on the book for this, because when it goes to sleep, the Corruption has just used its Ash Spawn to hit (conservative estimate) 150,000 people.
In game terms, we should probably go with something smaller.
What is the HD limit? It's going to be high, but we can't really rely on the book for this, because when it goes to sleep, the Corruption has just used its Ash Spawn to hit (conservative estimate) 150,000 people.
In game terms, we should probably go with something smaller.
Yeah, that's going to be really hard to stop once it gets started. You could always say that it can control an unlimited number of vermin and constructs, but it there would be some kind of limit as to the number of plants and animals that it corrupted for it to control. Even if the spawn won't attack the corruption or other spawn, it would be easier if they weren't part of the hive mind.
Perhaps you could have it where once a certain HD amount of animals has been reached, the Corruption splits and a new one is formed? 2 HD/level is the way control undead and control plants work. You could use its CR for a level so it could control up to 24 HD worth of creatures, not counting vermin and constructs.
It could also be possible that the hivemind doesn't work so well over long distances. Most control spells are within about 30 ft. (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels). Beyond that point spawn could act out whatever orders were given last until they return closer to the Corruption.
Thoughts?
Yeah, that's going to be really hard to stop once it gets started. You could always say that it can control an unlimited number of vermin and constructs, but it there would be some kind of limit as to the number of plants and animals that it corrupted for it to control. Even if the spawn won't attack the corruption or other spawn, it would be easier if they weren't part of the hive mind.
Perhaps you could have it where once a certain HD amount of animals has been reached, the Corruption splits and a new one is formed? 2 HD/level is the way control undead and control plants work. You could use its CR for a level so it could control up to 24 HD worth of creatures, not counting vermin and constructs.
It could also be possible that the hivemind doesn't work so well over long distances. Most control spells are within about 30 ft. (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels). Beyond that point spawn could act out whatever orders were given last until they return closer to the Corruption.
Thoughts?
I've had a thought on that. It could be that the Corruption's control over intelligent creatures is closely tied to the number of ooze-forms in existence. After all, the Ash Spawn it uses at the book's climax involves setting an ungodly amount of ooze afire.
Turns out they were off by about two decimal places. 100,000 * 440 = 44,000,000 pounds. Divide by 2,000 pounds per ton and you get 22,000 tons, or 22 kilotons, a little bigger than the Fat Man bomb dropped on Nagasaki (which had a yield of 20 kilotons).
Not that I'd want to be anywhere near an explosion that big, living ash or not.
So tens of thousands of HD of intelligent Newspawn require tens of thousands of tons of ooze, along with a recuperative period where the hive mind puts itself back together.
Given all this, I'd say that the ooze-form I statted above (which has 15 HD) can tie 30 HD of Newspawn with an Intelligence score to itself and to each other with a hive mind. Mindless Newspawn (defined here as Newspawn whose base creatures had an intelligence of "-") and animated objects do not count against this limit, but are also not controllable beyond very basic commands (equivalent to what a necromancer might give to skeletons or zombies).
An ooze-form can create more Newspawn beyond this limit, but they are not under its control and simply act like predatory animals, hunting and killing whatever enters their territory.
As such, in an effort to spread, the Corruption likely has intelligent Newspawn actively seek out other sources of hazardous waste or pollution that it can awaken as more ooze-forms. If a storm is available, it may gather all these ooze-forms together and utilize their Ash Spawn ability to corrupt living things over an extremely wide area.