All right, need to stop my googeling of birds, and take a look at this last week of TAADAD contributions. I do not have a need to mention one hero that keeps the ball running while the rest of us have lives and struggle to keep up. Heh, well it has really poped up some really great stuff!
A is for the Antropophagus Aenglum Gentlemen Club by +Josefin Magnusson
This Gentlemens club is well dressed, rich and extremly influential. They do share a common craving and that is the taste of the forbidden meal. Maybe they do just because they can, as usually are the case with these kind of high society gentlemen. They come to the dungeon where the creature known as the butcher have their special treat in store.
E is for the Eldricht Omnino liber coquus and the keepers of the perfect meal
(For a while I was wondering if each post I made were gonna be related to food.)
There is a book that claim to be the complete book of recepies. The civilized society shun the book as it is said to contain several recepies with both elven, dwarven and human ingridients. The keepers of the perfect meal are the guardians of this book, and they revere it as the most holy of relics.
F is for the Flail of the Fallen Angel of Death
A distant sound of hammers on metal echoes down the corridor. No light emanates from the ajar door at the end of the hall. Light cast into the room reveals forges and anvils, manned by accursed, zombie dwarven smiths. The forges are cold, the slack tubs long dry, the bellows cracked and wheezing. Yet the undead smiths still labor, pounding rusty bars with shivered hammers, going through the motions practiced in life.
Perhaps they attempted to forge a tool or weapon from a cursed metal, perhaps some greed has consumed them, pushing them to labor past death, or perhaps this is all their souls have ever known.
Mindless, eyeless, they push past an intruder to carry the iron in rusty tongs back to the dead coals.
1. ENTRANCE
2. GUARD ROOM
2a. Low Wall
2b. Prison/Animal Pen
3. THE PIT
4. LIVING SPACE
4a. The Chief's Hut
5. THE WARM ROOM
6. ESCAPE PASSAGE
Note on the entrance: At first glance the passage leading into area 2 looks to be blocked by a huge boulder - however a relatively easy search of the area will reveal that the boulder has had grooves chiselled into it's base (which have also been greased with animal fat) so that it can be pulled/pushed along a set of crude mine cart tracks (pilfered from another section of the dungeon).
However, once closed, the goblins usually hammer several wedges into place - making it extremely difficult to force open ...but once they are removed, the boulder can be pulled along the tracks (using the ropes provided), or pushed open from the outside (though even then it still takes a considerable effort to do so).
Lost and abandoned, this familiar of a doomed wizard slinks in the dungeon dark. She is tattered and scarred, one eye lost to an unnamed hazard months ago. Resilient to magics and predation, she lurks alone and unbonded.
Cunning and habituated to the dark, the Graymalkin subsists on rats, small spiders, and the leavings of other dungeon inhabitants. Scraps of arcane magics and the fallout of cast spells allow her to keep a tenuous hold on intelligence and sanity. A lost creature, perhaps, but she patrols her corner of the dungeon. She is wary of those who would make a quick meal of her, but senses when another possible bond-companion approaches. She remains cautious, following the party, assessing their worth, retreating if she is spotted, fading as another shadow in lamplight.
If they make it past this trap, or that lair, perhaps they are worthy to join. Cautious, she approaches, finding the one who will be her new bond-companion. Once the graymalkin bonds, she will guide the party through her corner of the dungeon, passing traps, pointing out bolt-holes, fading through a door into an unoccupied room.
Graymalkin (unbonded familiar)HD: 2
AC: 6/13
Atk: 2 claws (1d3)
Special: Bonds to a PC in the party, preferably magic user, or barring that, the PC with the highest DEX. As a familiar, she adds her HP to that of the PC. +2 all saves against magic. Confers darkvision on PC. Ability to perform a limited passwall once per day (limited to bonded character only. Can only pass through a door or similar barricade).
Lamplight illuminates a pinkish mass covering the floor, a number of humanoid copses scattered about. Someone cautiously pokes one of the bodies with a staff or spear. The 'corpse' opens its eyes and arises, lumbering toward the party. A number of others crawl to their feet, as well. Slimy tendrils stretch from their bodies back to the mass, and the bodies move in a strangely concerted manner.
A semi-intelligent ooze, perhaps originally meant as pest control, it was the product of an
alchemist's lab or
vivimancer's vat. Not a true ooze, it is a mass of neurons, sensing and questing for prey. It escaped and evolved, and rather than simply consuming, now co-opts some prey as weapons and sensory organs.
The pink leathery ooze extrudes tendrils, controlling 2d4 victim-puppets. Massive, the ooze may extend up to two tendrils with puppets up to 50 feet away from its central blob to reconnoiter away from its body, or to act as lures to draw prey towards itself and its victim-puppet appendages. If in need of new puppets, it will pummel or grapple intelligent prey to unconsciousness, and take over its nervous system and senses via neural connection through a tendril. The connection and hijacking of the prey's nervous system takes 6 turns (one hour). A victim may be rescued within 3 turns, but will lose 1d3 INT and CON.
HD: 9 (Ooze), 1 or 2 (puppets)
AC: 8/12 (Ooze), natural or worn AC (puppets)
Atk: Slam 1d10+1 (Ooze), 1d6 (puppets)
Move: 1 (Ooze), 3 (puppets)
Defenses: Ooze takes 1/2 damage from normal weapons, acid, and electricity. Puppets have similar resistances to mind-controlling spells (sleep, charm, etc.) as undead due to their networked nature. If a victim-puppet is severed from the slime, it will collapse, dead from the shock of separation.
I is for the Ilanuran Ibis by +V. A.
A jade ibis statue, approximately 20 pounds in weight, and strangely warm to the touch. The market value for such a statue is approximately 1000 GP.
However, a closer assessment of the ibis will reveal that it exudes a faint divine power. Clerics associated with deities of death or resurrection will recognize the ibis as a powerful relic of resurrection, increasing focus and communication with the deceased's soul. If a party member dies, and their body is wrapped up with the sculpture, the relic arrests all decomposition. Severed limbs will reattach, and disfiguring damage (acid, burns, etc.) will fade from the corpse. If the sculpture is presented to a cleric of an appropriate deity as part of a resurrection fee, the presence of the ibis will increase the likelihood of resurrection by 10%.