Delvers: has anyone ever used these guys?

[Brianfowler713]

Delver
Pg. 35 of the M.M, 3.5.
Huge aberration, Cr 9 with 15d8+ HD.
The weird picture of these guys has intrugued me (for reasons Vecna only know and Boccob is suspicious) since I first saw him(?).

However I don't think I have ever seen these guys in a Dungeon Module or a homemade thing.
Has anyone ever used Delvers, or does everyone pass them off as oversized Flumphs?

[Fatespinner]

Brianfowler713 wrote:

Delver

Pg. 35 of the M.M, 3.5.
Huge aberration, Cr 9 with 15d8+ HD.
The weird picture of these guys has intrugued me (for reasons Vecna only know and Boccob is suspicious) since I first saw him(?).

However I don't think I have ever seen these guys in a Dungeon Module or a homemade thing.
Has anyone ever used Delvers, or does everyone pass them off as oversized Flumphs?

We fought one of these ONCE in an Underdark campaign. Our DM was describing it and we were all like "WTF?" I don't remember any details of the fight though. This was easily 3 or 4 years ago.

[Andrew Turner]

Delver is on p. 39 of MMI---can anyone say, "Horta?"

No, I've referenced them as "in the area--watch out," but never had a realistic opportunity to use them.

I feel like the Delver is one of those geek monsters. From the description and characteristics, the designer who came up with it probably had an affection for a certain 1967 episode of Star Trek...

[Fatespinner]

Andrew Turner wrote:

I feel like the Delver is one of those geek monsters. From the description and characteristics, the designer who came up with it probably had an affection for a certain 1967 episode of Star Trek...

Oh, you mean one involving a certain silicon-based lifeform that strangely resembled a plate of nachos rolling around on a skateboard?

[David Schwartz]

I had a reference to a delver in Aztec Mythos I, but it got changed to a dragon. If you're running an Aztec campaign, delvers make good servitors of Tlaltecuhtli (lit. the Earth Lord), the froglike husband of Coatlicue. He's very much the devouring earth aspect - among other things, he bit off Tezcatlipoca's foot when the night god got too close to the ground.

As to me actually running a delver... not yet.

[Jeremy Walker]

Brianfowler713 wrote:

However I don't think I have ever seen these guys in a Dungeon Module or a homemade thing.

There's a delver in area 17 of "Chains of Blackmaw" in issue 135, but that's the only one I remember.

[Craig Shackleton]

Hill Giant wrote:

I had a reference to a delver in Aztec Mythos I, but it got changed to a dragon. If you're running an Aztec campaign, delvers make good servitors of Tlaltecuhtli (lit. the Earth Lord), the froglike husband of Coatlicue. He's very much the devouring earth aspect - among other things, he bit off Tezcatlipoca's foot when the night god got too close to the ground.

As to me actually running a delver... not yet.

Threadjack alert!

Hill Giant, I just realized who you are. I ran a sci-fi game called Cluster for a while that you played in when I lived in NZ. I saw your 'World Famous in New Zealand' letter to the editor after your first couple of articles got published. Congrats on your extensive writing credits!

Craig Shackleton,
The Rambling Scribe

[Krome]

Our GM hit us with two Delvers last year. We were mid teen levels then. Caught us by surprise and we had a hard fight. Should have been easy but we did not remember anything about them and our spells were not prepared for a combat at the time. We were expecting an Indiana Jones-type relic hunt with lots of traps. Turned out two delvers were part of a trap. Lesson learned. ALWAYS prepare your spells for combat.

[David Schwartz]

Rambling Scribe wrote:

Threadjack alert!

Hill Giant, I just realized who you are. I ran a sci-fi game called Cluster for a while that you played in when I lived in NZ. I saw your 'World Famous in New Zealand' letter to the editor after your first couple of articles got published. Congrats on your extensive writing credits!

Yeah, I've been meaning to say 'hi!', but I wasn't quite brave enough to threadjack just to say, 'remember me?'. But since you broke the ice...

I remember Cluster - I missed one session, and the other players decided my character was the type to drink the vial of alien goo! We should get in touch, I'd love to hear what you've done with the system.

For my part, I was pleased to see your name in Dragon recently ('Hey, I know that guy!'). I definitely plan to use the your alternate stat-gen system in some future campaign.

Enough threadjacking from me; how 'bout them Huge aberrations?

[MaxSlasher26]

Hmm...I've never used one, but now I want to. It would be a creature from MM1 that is so overlooked that even the most skilled PCs won't remember what it can do...

[Great Green God]

I actually got to use them in something that is still sort of in the editing stage with a "third party" mostly online game publisher. Anyhow my vision of the things is that they are sort of like great earth whales scooping up minerals like plankton and crushing everything else. In the piece I did there is one particularly old and ornery advanced one who's attitude I imagine is similar to that megacroc on the cover of Dungeon 145. As you can imagine dwarves probably don't get along with these guys to well.

Anyhow, I'll point folks intrested in it to it the moment it's not so virtual,
GGG

[Joshua Randall]

"A slam attack by a delver leaves a patch of slime .... An opponent’s armor and clothing dissolve and become useless immediately unless the wearer succeeds on a DC 22 Reflex save. Weapons that strike a delver also dissolve immediately unless the wielder succeeds on a DC 22 Reflex save."

Yuck. That's almost as bad as the rust monster's effect. At least there's a save, but your players are going to hate you when they start losing armor and weapons to the delver's slime.

I'd probably make the slime deal a certain amount of damage to the armor or weapon, rather than destroy it outright, with Ref 1/2 DC 22.

[Onrie]

oh wow, a rust monster on steroids. I have got to use this monster soon