Egelsee Cocktail

A shimmer of hues on the riverbed suddenly bunches up and slithers onto the bank. This slick, multicolored ooze exudes a sickly sweet aroma and leaves a trail of silvery fluids.

Egelsee Cocktail CR 5

XP 1,600

N Small ooze (aquatic)

Init +4; Senses blindsight 60 ft.; Perception -5

Aura stench (20 ft., DC 16, 10 rounds)

----- Defense -----

AC 15, touch 15, flat-footed 11 (+4 Dex, +1 size)

hp 52 (7d8+21)

Fort +5, Ref +6, Will -3

Immune ooze traits

----- Offense -----

Speed 10 ft., climb 10 ft., swim 20 ft.

Melee 2 slams +9 (2d4+3 plus addiction and grab)

Ranged glob +10 (2d4 plus addiction)

Special Attacks fluid drain (1d2 Constitution), glob, grab (Medium)

----- Statistics -----

Str 17, Dex 18, Con 16, Int —, Wis 1, Cha 1

Base Atk +5; CMB +7 (+11 grapple); CMD 21 (can't be tripped)

Skills Climb +11, Swim +11; Racial Modifiers +8 Climb, +8 Swim

SQ addiction, amphibious

----- Ecology -----

Environment any rivers

Organization solitary

Treasure none

----- Special Abilities -----

Addiction (Ex) The fluids that comprise the body of an Egelsee cocktail are highly addictive. Any creature that strikes an Egelsee cocktail with a natural weapon or takes damage from one of its attacks must make a DC 16 Fortitude save or suffer minor addiction to the ooze. This functions just like addiction to a drug (GameMastery Guide), except that relief from the addiction's penalties is provided for one hour by ingesting or being damaged by an Egelsee cocktail rather than by drug intake. This DC is Constitution-based. Addicted creatures are immune to the cocktail's stench ability; they find the aroma pleasant.

Fluid Drain (Ex) Egelsee cocktails feed by draining their victims of fluids. This ability works exactly like blood drain except that it affects any creature with fluid content.

Glob (Ex) As a standard action, an Egelsee cocktail can spew part of itself at a target. Treat this as an attack with a thrown splash weapon (range increment: 10 feet) except it also functions underwater. Roll damage for this attack even if it misses; the Egelsee cocktail deals that amount of damage to itself. Creatures within the splash radius count as being within the cocktail's stench aura for 1 round whether or not they take damage.

Alien oils have leaked from Numeria's Silver Mount for millennia, seeping into the water table. Perhaps some of these fluids crawled already hungry from the Silver Mount; perhaps they settled into the bed of the Egelsee River, waiting for a mischievous god or wizard to animate them. As with many oozes, the origins of the Egelsee cocktail are largely a matter of speculation. Its name derives from its physical makeup: a vile heterogenous brew of alien liquids and the bodily fluids of its victims.

The mindless cocktail lurks in the Egelsee River. It is best disposed to prey on aquatic creatures but will attempt to attack any potential food. Once it has gorged sufficiently, the ooze will discharge a portion of itself. This excretion is a young cocktail in its own right. The cocktails can feed on any fluid, and there are reports of specimens that have assimilated alchemical substances and deadly toxins. Egelsee cocktails of all varieties frequently expel excess river water, preserving the potency of the foul but addictive Silver Mount oils.

Initial Impression: Cocktail? Hmm. Shimmery, addictive, vampire ooze has some mojo, but a funky name. I like how the Glob ability also throws its stench. Not clearly the best, but I think good enough to advance.

Welcome to Round 3! I'm posting this little blurb at the top of my reply for everyone. FYI, I'm not going to crunch all the math in your stat block, for several reasons. One, I don't have an hour for each monster. :) Two, I'm sure you've been very diligent about this and if anything is wrong, it's probably only off by a little bit. Three, if you were writing this for publication in a Paizo book, you'd be using our stat block spreadsheet, which takes care of the math for you--your job is to understand the rules and bring the mojo. :) My focus in this review is on the overall coolness and balance of your monster, with an eye on how efficiently you put it together and a spot-check of stat block elements that catch my eye.

Okay, your monster concept is an ooze made of weird oils or pollutants from Numeria. Neat concept. I think the "cocktail" in the name is a little off, as it makes your monster sound like an exotic drink or an alchemical item.

I like the stench ability, and the addiction is clever. Glob is a neat ability but as written it's not clear if this ability always damages the creature, or only if it misses.

Writing tip: Strengthen the tone of your writing: avoid using "will."

You could just use the blood drain UMR instead of making an "all fluids" version of it.

Overall, I like this monster.

I DO recommend this monster for advancement.

Initial Impression: An ooze with issues of modern terminology feels a bit more Gamma World than Golarion.

On reflection, I'm not as fond of this ooze as the other ooze, but given how difficult it is to design an interesting ooze in the first place I'm inclined to give it some slack. The use of "cocktail" in the name is off-puttingly modern, the whole addiction shtick could just go away and become something more like an aboleth's domination ability (which avoids all sorts of weird 12-step recovery from Egelsee Anonymous).

The ecology of it creating a new ooze EVERY TIME IT FEEDS is a bit of a setting problem (these things would be everywhere), but easy enough to fix.

Overall, I'm a bit on the fence about this one, but it's interesting enough to keep me interested in what you'd do next round.

I DO recommend this monster for advancement.

Michael, welcome to Round 3!

Now that I’ve read all 16 entries, I can say that there are some real strong entries here—more strong entries than spots, unfortunately. Some good submissions won’t make the cut. I am only going to recommend 8 of you since only 8 can advance. In close cases, I took into account your prior work.

What I am looking for: I’m a big picture guy more than a minute details guy. I don’t think just seeing if you crunched out the rules properly is the right way to judge a good entry for this round. Of course you need to execute the stat block properly. Luckily, Sean and Wolfgang are way more qualified than I am to talk about the nit picks and issues with the stat block so I will leave that to them. My comments to you will be more “big picture.” For me, I want to see a monster that is fun and playable—a monster that leaps of the page and makes me find a way to incorporate it at the game table. That, to me, is a superstar monster. So here we go…

You got my Initial Impressions above. I still feel the same: not one of the best but good enough to advance in a tight round. Your prior work also helped you here.

Design (name, overall design choices, design niche, playability/usability, challenge): A-
I don’t like the name, but it’s not fatal (though it took you from an A to an A-). I like the addiction-inspired ooze. Funky. I dinged that design choice in Shawn’s Awakened last round, but this one does it right. Big swing. Nice job.

Execution (quality of writing, organization, Golarion-specific, use of proper format, quality of content—description, summary of powers, rules execution, mechanics innovation): A
Without repeating Sean, the stench and glob are really fun abilities and work nicely together.

Tilt (did it grab me, do I want to use one in an adventure?, mojo, just plain fun factor): A
This grabbed me for sure. Oozes are tough and you did it.

Overall: A
Michael, you squeaked into one of my last recommend spots this round with this interesting ooze.

Final Verdict: I DO RECOMMEND this monster advance.

Michael, I thought your gloves were great in Round 1 and I thought your Round 2 archetype was really good. This one had some missteps but it was good enough, particularly when viewed in light of your body of work. I hope the voters agree.

Good luck!

Nice one Michael, you really brought the creativity this round. And anything with "a vile heterogenous brew of alien liquids" is gonna be killer. I love the orgins of this creature (nice nod to Numeria and possible outer space inception) and I really like its thematic/flavour visuals and mechanical capabilities.

I particularly liked the small but important tweak to the Fluid drain ability - making it much more deadly (broader application) and piggy-backing of an established mechanic. A sign of an adroit design superstar.

The addiction shows even more design chops - that the addict wants to get nearewr the creature rather thasn further awa (combined with crazed visuals of an addicted PC trying to schlurpp one of these suckers down) and the little tweak that makes the addicted not affected by the stench. Marvellous, and logically on theme with application of mechanic tweaks.

Then you bring the Superstar again - you mention other alchemical varieties - so this is really just one of a bunch of horrid creations. Fantastic.

My only nitpick is also the name thing, Cocktail doesn't do it for me at all, though the explanation in the description is well-reasoned and makes perfect sense. And an editor/developer can change that with a few keystrokes. Again, nicely done Michael, your Outsea Delver was tight and this is too.

I think I agree with the bulk of folks so far.

The name definitely throws me, but I like a lot of other things about this. Nice Golarion-tie in, and I really like the addiction aspect. It's a neat way to bring in what I suspect is a lesser-used ruleset while not actually having to involve drugs. Being addicted to being hurt by the monster could set up all sorts of cool ideas.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a Numeria location involving these (and some cool trap) next round.

Michael!
My fellow Bay Arean!

As of last round, you became the guy I most to win...and you still are!
But 'cocktail' ? Cocktail??? Don't taze me, bro!

Dude- "Egelsee Effluent" is RIGHT THERE for the picking!
It alliterates, it sounds grosser & more toxic (inna good way), and is more semantically precise to boot.

Or even Egelsee Sludge. Or Swill.

Regardless- I still dig this monster, it absolutely gets my vote, and you are still the guy I want to win!

Go forth, my brother! Prevail!

The "addiction" idea is really fun! My first reaction on reading that was to ask myself "what, you're addicted one round after getting hit? That works even faster than heroine!" But then again, these are powerful alien oils at work here, so all bets are off!

On my first reading of the Egelsee Cocktail I thought a lot the comments were spot on...but having now re-read it more closely, I think the entry itself actually answers many of these nitpicks.

You could just use the blood drain UMR instead of making an "all fluids" version of it.

I think this may miss the point that the ooze really does drain/absorb/incorporate ANY fluid, which is half the fun of this monster! (or maybe I'm missing the point...what's a UMR?) Take this sentence from the description: "The cocktails can feed on any fluid, and there are reports of specimens that have assimilated alchemical substances and deadly toxins. Egelsee cocktails of all varieties..." Assimilating all kinds of fluids (alchemical substances, baby! deadly toxins!) is open-ended gold for a GM. You can easily take this creature as a base and spice it the way you like for a little extra weird, or CR bump. Straight-forward "blood drain" would remove some of this flexibility. As it is, every encounter with one of these creatures can (and should!) be unique based on what poisons or other goos it has gobbled up lately. As the quote from the entry says, this ooze comes in "all varieties."

My only nitpick is also the name thing, Cocktail doesn't do it for me at all, though the explanation in the description is well-reasoned and makes perfect sense. And an editor/developer can change that with a few keystrokes.

I think "cocktail" was chosen for the reasons I mentioned above: that these things go around gobbling up all sorts of different liquids, and iterations of the creature can be very different depending...but I still agree that the initial reaction to the word cocktail is more important than coming to understand why it was chosen 10 minutes after you've read the monster description.

Maybe "Egelsee Amalgam" but that also is a bit off...seems more solid and less fluid than cocktail. "Effluent" as suggested by Markus was also good, but misses some of the mixing aspect maybe? I don't know.

The ecology of it creating a new ooze EVERY TIME IT FEEDS is a bit of a setting problem (these things would be everywhere), but easy enough to fix.

I don't think it's supposed to create a new ooze every time it feeds. The description simply says "Once it has gorged sufficiently..." although this does beg the question... Still, "sufficiently" allows the GM to decide exactly how rare or numerous these things are in their world. Open ended :-)

Overall I like the flexibility of this entry. The addiction aspect is already quirky and fun, but what I love the most is potential for unique "varieties" of this alien ooze.

Naming: Don't take this personally, but the creature name is awful. "Cocktail" is entirely the wrong flavor, it's not even close. SA names are functional. Naming hurts this one.

Cool Factor: Happily, though, you managed to overcome that deficit and more with the sheer coolness of the monster. Great origin with a tie to the world. Weird toxic sludge ooze! That causes you to become addicted to being damaged by it! The addiction is top-notch superstar for all the reasons OSW mentioned. This creature is fun on either side of the GM screen.

Michael, I think this monster puts you in the top 2 or 3 favorites. Nicely done!

Michael, I think you hit a hard target here: an interesting ooze. It may have some small flaws, but you did pretty well with your idea and execution, so that's impressive.

I like Numerian monsters, and while 'cocktails' aren't somethign that fits a lot of adventures, seeing as these only exist in the same country you're likely to encounter robots and ray guns... I'll say it's pretty much spot on for where you chose it. Anywhere else in Golarion, not so much - a near hit.

Requiring the an underused mechanic for a monster like this is... risky. And that part I don't like as much. Especially because it's also not the straight up addicition rules, it's slightly different.

I like the abilities you have - glob, stench, fluid drain... but given your initial description, I would have also loved if it had some sort of hide bonus while in water. I mean, it makes total sense for a translucent ooze that lives in a river.

The name nearly turned me off this one, but I would have missed a great litte creature with creepy powers and a coll background flavor.

This one gets my vote!

Good luck with the remainder of the contest!

This deserves a bump and has my vote, great work thus far...

I agree with pretty much everyone else here. The name is tough, but otherwise it's a GREAT monster and I definitely plan to incorporate it into one of my campaigns. The addiction rules are easily overlooked normally, but I think this could be a really fun encounter that could even end up as a weapon the PCs can use against others if they can find a way to collect the ooze.

Well done, and you get my vote!

I too agree with pretty much everyone else. "Cocktail" is a weird name for a monster. I also found myself wondering what happens to people who try to eat the ooze or the bits it throws... After all, if one way to sate the addiction is to eat the ooze then there should be some downside to that.

Definitely getting my vote!

@Michael Pruess: The name "cocktail" is absolutely dreadful, but you've managed to overcome that handicap with some interesting mechanics. I'm ambivalent about the addiction mechanics in general, but the idea of having an addictive ooze shows creativity. But the truly ingenious part of this monster is the glob special attack, which I think is clever and well-executed.

This monster gets the Epic Meepo seal of approval, and one of my votes this round.

I like the interesting aspects of this ooze, primarily the stench and glob abilities - not as big a fan of the addiction though. So, someone gets hit and addicted, and then says "hmm, there's a Small sized stash of my addiction right here, and I feel great when it attacks me and drains my fluids - so I'm just going to enjoy the high while it kills me. End of addiciton with death. Not really the long term drug addiction as initially implied. I think it would work better almost as a variant of the captivating lure/song ability of a harpy or something, but triggered when someone is damaged by it, instead of when hearing a song. That makes the monster even scarier to me - if it hits you once - you WANT to let it kill you. I'd maybe make it work as a poison, to more clearly define what's immune to it, how to cure it, and not worry about the addiction sub-rules.

Great job overall though.

Unfortunately, this one didn't grab me. The addiction ability is really the shining star idea of this entry; but for me that also winds up counting against it just because while I like the idea, the execution in this case is weird. The ooze hits you, you really like the feeling of it hitting you/draining your fluids, so you what, lie down and let it have lunch? I mean, that's okay, but it feels like wasted potential. This would have been a more appealing entry if it weren't done up as a short term predator, but a long term parasite. It slams/globs at you, you get addicted, and then let it attach to you, slowly feeding for days or weeks, all while you go about your business, smelling weird, having a strange shimmying bulge underneath your shirt, and hey, potentially spawning more oozes and infecting more people.

I commend you for choosing an ooze and bringing something new to the creature type. I braced myself for another boring engulfy, splitty ooze, but this has some exciting abilities that really seem to belong to an ooze. Great work, and best of luck in the voting!

Thanks all for the various criticisms and kudos. Special thanks to those of you (the majority hehe) who were turned off by the name, yet fought through that and took a closer look regardless. I'll respond to individual topics in spoiler tags below.
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Okay, fine, I guess I should say something about that dang name...

A few of you kind of got into my face about the name. On the one hand I deserve that. On the other, it was intentional, and I can defend that intention. I won't waste words doing it here, though, because I think the point is moot. Ultimately it's apparent that the name was a misstep. First impressions matter a lot and the name of the monster is the very first of first impressions. So yeah, I've been kicking myself for that for almost a week now. Yeah. Oops. As the name was the main complaint I received—the only consistent complaint, in fact—I do hope that that one mistake won't cost me the round. That said, the competition is tight, and everyone else put forward very strong entries. No matter how the poll turns out, I'm pretty happy with this little guy, and very honored to receive the approval and votes I did.

I will say that none of the alternate names suggested thus far come close to capturing the meaning of the name I gave the monster. ;)

P.S.—past the edit window for my previous post—there is a rogue talent called 'deadly cocktail' and a class feature called 'fiery cocktail'; both uses of the word are basically identical to mine in function. I totally buy Sean's comment about the monster name sounding more like an item than like a monster, but I'm kind of skeptical about claims of the term's anachronism in Pathfinder (either the rules or the setting). Thoughts?

P.S.—past the edit window for my previous post—there is a rogue talent called 'deadly cocktail' and a class feature called 'fiery cocktail'; both uses of the word are basically identical to mine in function. I totally buy Sean's comment about the monster name sounding more like an item than like a monster, but I'm kind of skeptical about claims of the term's anachronism in Pathfinder (either the rules or the setting). Thoughts?

I agree that the name isn't as horrible as some have made it out to be. It's not perfect, but it's not a killer to me at all. I love the mechanics that you included, and I REALLY hope to see your encounter in the next round :-D

Congratulations Michael,

The oozes never grab me like they do others, but I think you still have created something good. As a GM this would be a good encounter to have, a little less so at the other end of the table where there is a monster some characters will begin keeping in their basement. Interesting choice adding the addiction to a monster, we hear a lot of that in the current vampire genre. Well played. Overall you get the SP and my last vote. It was the gloves that pulled you through (all things being tied). Between the two you have shown I will like to run your adventures.

I'd like to note that you should be proud - I think your ooze was the most top-8 inspiring monster of the bunch.

Thanks, RonarsCorruption! I do feel proud, for that, and for making top 8, which honestly is more than I could have hoped for at the outset. :)

I agree that the initial response to the word cocktail is more significant than realizing why it was chosen after reading the monster description ten minutes later. I believe "cocktail" was chosen for the reasons I mentioned above: that these things go around chowing geometry dash scratch down on all sorts of different liquids, and iterations of the creature can be very different depending.