Monday 18 August 2014

Together the Kobolds

Print Friendly Version of this pagePrint Get a PDF version of this webpagePDF Soooo this is a filler post inspired by list of stuff suggested to me to blog about a way back.

Their name is lost to time and vaguerys of google plus's archiving service.

Anyway they suggested write about monster that combine together to form a bigger monster

SO that sounds like slime molds

SLime molds:

Quick version : they are single celled organisms that when food is scare join together to make a motile colony organism and then when some other condition they form a "flowering body" that releases spores that float far far away and turn into new single celled organisms.

SO idea 1:
Taking this pretty much as it is have dungeon slimes that are classic anime rpg slimes (small and weak and numerous). If a new niche opens up , say a large alpha predator is removed , the slimes congeal into a giant slime monster (possibly using left over parts of the old one alpha predator; lets call this version The Re-animator Slime Mold) and start using that niche instead.

Making it so it is not obvious that it was all those mini slimes forming the new one would be interesting. Maybe the only clue would be the now complete absence of mini slimes
Other ecological niches in a dungeon the slimes could form is scavengers (presuming they were decomposers before and presuming the difference is scavengers eat things that are recognizable as food and decomposers eat whats left), grazer (you weaponized all the albino cave goat and now only slitted legged jellys graze on the lichens here) , predators of varying prey sizes and habit (chaser, ambusher, stalker).

Presumedly cleaning out the dungeon off all life results in the slimes forming a giant and strange flower stretching out above the dungeons , possible seen as a sign that the place has been blessed by the gods and is now free of the taint of evil. But really it's slime sexing in the wind and now spores are being spread on the wind to seed new dungeon slimes.

Or if the slime spores are just not stuck to the adventurers boots, so next time they explore a place , even if there is not monsters there, there will be after they have left.

Possibly by slime , I could be talking a "protean force of evil" and so all monsters are combinable to make bigger monsters and monster spore spreads on the wind and boot of tomb plunderer.

There was a lot of talk that I don't know where to find now about the dungeon as a living organism, so this would dovetail nicely in with this.


I can't help be thinking of the humanoid ladder of hit dice here (ie kobold-goblin-orc-hobgoblin-ogre) and kobolds quietly insinuating themselves together to make a ogre. Or you hack into a troll and its full of goblins, like all molded together seamlessly.

Can't think of anywhere to go further with that (also warhammer orks were fungus based so lets just make that explored)

Specific Combining Monsters:

Kobobobobold: Kobolds when pushed far and deep enough out of their lairs find a secret places to mold together forming a centipede like kobobobobold. Still thin enough to squeeze in and out of tinest spaces but now a concentrated threat. Like a long line of flesh ringed with mouths yapping away in awful cacophony running along on all the fingers and toes the limbs having formed ribs and structural supports. The great mouth is full of mouths.

Destalt: a unconvincing human simulacrum , it looks wrong , it talks wrong  , something is missing. If it is sufficiently shunned or mocked, it splits into 4 humour elementals;  Blood (air ), Black bile (earth), Phlegm (water ) and yellow bile (fire), which should be somewhat like that body part , somewhat like that elemental and excessive in that temperament  
Or you could do it the other way and have certain knowledge known only by a being that is formed when the 4 humour elementals are combined.

Ghoul Giant:  Something like a tongue and something like a flatworm. Itself 2 metres long, it makes  itself a  giant's  body out of fresh corpses ,molded together with webbings of red blood like gel (that will attempt to bond to any tissue in comes in contact with becoming part of both). This ectopic tissue it uses also hijacks the nervous systems allowing it to animate and control its constituents. It is not undead. It  start with one and then collect (violently subdue , generally smashing only as much of it as it needs to get the body. It is not precise but if renders someone unconscious they can be webbed into itself and controlled).
It will fine tune its body replacing parts with fitter parts and replacing the ones damaged. It is generally limited to about the size of an elephant before its ability to control all its parts and the parts ability to hold the weight cause a limit. Though a larger or abnormal ghoul giant could possible former larger bodies or if the parts were more potent.
It seeks to use this body to access great heights (sometimes carrying spare parts if it feels the journey will lack opportunity to procure more)  and form there it splits its body and reveals its red self and undulates causing a weirdness some say is a prayer to distant sleeping gods others say is a mere mating call.





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