Ceiling Gulper

Ceiling Gulper
No. Enc. 1
Alignment: Neutral
Movement: 30' burrowing
        Reach: 10'/HD
Armor Class: 6
Hit Dice: 5
Attacks: Special (See Below)
Damage: Suffocation (2d4)
Save: F4
Morale: 6

Massive, mindless and blind pseudopodous organisms, Ceiling Gulpers are often dismissed by the ignorant and ill-informed as a toothless nuisance when in fact they are quite effective hunters and have decimated many an over-confident party of would-be delvers.

Voracious hunters, Ceiling Gulpers are consummate ambushers driven by instinct and a perverse awareness and appreciation of their surroundings at all times. As much as they prefer to lunge out from a hidden recess to overwhelm their chosen prey, a Ceiling Gulper is never surprised itself. Their entire outer surface is capable to sensing even the slightest vibrations. And yes, it was conclusively proven that Ceiling Gulpers can and do understand spoken words in a variety of languages, even though they cannot speak and lack any real capacity for actual thought. There seems to be no validity to the claims of Ceiling Gulpers mimicking voices or using a form of Ventriloquism to attract the unsuspecting and gullible to their doom...but it has not been completely ruled out.

Heavy Breathers
Ceiling Gulpers position themselves near sections of caves or passages that have restricted air-flow. When likely-seeming prey approaches--and no one agrees just how these unthinking things determine which victims to attack or whom to avoid--the Ceiling Gulper squishes, squeezes and squelches its way into the space, almost always by forcing its way through the ceiling, but sometimes via a convenient pre-existing gap in the wall, or possibly a chimney. The Gulper then proceeds to quickly and effectively suck all the available air out of the space. Torches flicker then go out. Victims who make their Save remain conscious for 10 seconds per CON point. Those who miss the roll lose consciousness in half that time.

A typical 1 HD specimen can remove the air from a 10'x10' square in 1d4 seconds. Their area of effect increases by 10' increment per each additional HD, but the time required remains 1d4 seconds. When the space affected is larger than the Gulper's capacity, the victims gain a +1 to their Saves. Ceiling Gulpers not only suck all the air from the room, they continue to create a great deal of suction that often forms a vacuum, pulling the air right out of the lungs of those surprised by its attack.

Sucks To Be You
Ceiling Gulpers can attempt to swallow anyone smaller than human-sized whom they catch in their area of effect. Simply roll a D20 and if the Gulper scores more than 4 higher than needed to hit, it swallows the victim. Each Ceiling Gulper has 3 gullets (plus 1 additional one per HD). Each gullet is capable of making a swallow attack, but only 1 such attack can be done at a time. Those so swallowed suffer 2d4 crushing damage each round they remain within the gullet. The damage stops when either the character dies, the Gulper is killed, or the victim is successfully extricated, either by cutting their own way out or with some assistance from the outside. Cutting one's way out from the inside requires inflicting 6 or more hit points of damage with a sharp object. It takes 12 points to cut someone loose from the outside, and they'll need to make a Save or suffer half the damage inflicted as the weapons of their well-intentioned colleagues penetrate the Gulper's tissues and strike them as well. Those removed from the gullet of a Ceiling Gulper are deafened for the next 2d4 hours. Save for half duration.

Lucrative Goop
Ceiling Gulpers burrow through the rocky soil surrounding underground cavities, declivities and caverns. They leave behind a slime-trail not unlike certain subterranean slugs, snails and similar beasts, the primary difference being the Ceiling Gulper's trail tends to be spattered across all available surfaces, not laid-down like a soggy mat or drizzled into a pool along the floor of a chamber. These things use their mucousy secretions to help them gain purchase, exert leverage, and to soften-up the material they are crawling through. It also aids in their adhering to surfaces, such as ceilings. The slime loses its adhering qualities over a period of 1d4 hours, depending upon moisture, temperature and other factors. It is possible to convert this slime into a form of glue, but the formula and method of processing is a tightly held secret among the few craftsfolk who know how to make it, allowing them to charge exorbitant rates for the stuff.

Breathing Space
Certain bands, tribes or clans of Morlocks, Eloi-Kru, Mole-grym and other deep-dwelling peoples are alleged to not only hunt and/or trap Ceiling Gulpers, both for food and in order to semi-domesticate them as guard-beasts, but in some cases they have learned how to coax, urge or force the beasts to serve as living pumps or bellows to provide ventilation in confined subterranean regions that would otherwise be completely devoid of breathable air.

Quivering Fungi

Handle With Care...

Quivering Fungi
No. Enc.: 3d6
Alignment: Neutral
Movement: n/a
Armor Class: 9
Hit Dice: 1d4 hit points
Attacks: 1
Damage: Special
Save: MU1
Morale: n/a

Less a monster, more a hazard to underground navigation, Quivering Fungi are dimly luminescent subterranean relatives of puffball mushrooms. But they're more than just mushroom that glow slightly. Quivering Fungi are hosts to a wide range of symbiotes and parasites, their flesh is rife with colonies of bacteria, so much so that these thriving bacterial colonies are what cause the characteristic 'quivering' motion for which these things are known.

What makes these fungi remarkable and useful to delvers is their soft luminosity, which is derives from a milky fluid that can be tapped, collected and concentrated into a sticky paste that can then be packed into various translucent, organic containers such as insect cocoons, glued-together husks, cured worm-skins, or lanthorns molded from various horns, hooves or portions of crustacean or other carapaces. These light sources are cool, non-flammable, and persist for up to 1d6 days, unless the contents are exposed to air or water, in which case the paste quickly melts and/or evaporates within 1d4 hours, growing steadily dimmer as it dissolves and emitting a rich, heady fragrance that attracts all manner of predators within a 360' radius.

What makes these fungi dangerous to encounter in the wild is their sloppy, bacteria-packed fluids that will spray across a 10' radius should one of them be roughly handled, crushed, stepped-upon, or struck with any force. The soupy mess contained within these fungi is virulently contagious, and anyone exposed to it must make a Save (at -2 penalty) or develop a nasty bacterial infection.

We heartily recommend making use of Gorgonmilk's Dungeonfunk Table, a community project available in a free pdf thanks to Matthew from Rended Press.

Fungal Tyrant

One cannot underestimate the ambition of fungus. They're not like us. What alien impulses motivate them to do the things they do? We'll probably never know. Pernicious pests, sumptuous repasts, hallucinogenic confounders of the young and impressionable. Alas, they are too much like us for either of our good...

Vintage Colloidal Argentotype print from the only surviving page of Laxrimosk's Cthonic Catalogue

Fungal Tyrant
No. Enc.: 1 (1d4)
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: Zero
Armor Class: 6
Hit Dice: 4+
Attacks: 1d4
Damage: 1d4+1 (per each tendril-lash), or by spell/ability
Save: MU6 (2 levels above current HD)
Morale: 11

Special Abilities: Use the following spells at-will; Clairvoyance, Detect Invisible, ESP, Locate Object, Ventriloquism (only within Area of Awareness).

True subterranean hazards to navigation, Fungal Tyrants are the mature, easily visible fruiting-body form of a Fungal Drone that has take root. Once it has insinuated itself into a suitable location, these horrid creatures extend a network of cellular strands into the soil, infiltrating an area of up to a mile or more per HD. This net of filament-like strands acts as a sort of extended nervous system for the Tyrant, allowing it to observe everything that takes place within its personal Area of Awareness through a form of non-invasive ESP.

Deaf, mute and blind, these dreadful fungi abide in dark, damp places selected specifically to take best advantage of the prevailing conditions and terrain as places of ambush. They patiently wait in the dim gloom below for lost travelers, stragglers, or adventurers to prey upon. A well-established clutch of Fungal Tyrants can spur the creation of new tunnels and fresh passages in order to by-pass the monsters.

A Fungal Tyrant acquires INT, WIS and CHAR by consuming the dead brains of intelligent creatures whose bodies have been reduced into a noxious goo by the chemicals exuded by its extended cellular network. Often a Fungal Tyrant benefits from the deaths of creatures that never even knew one was near-by. This is why many Fungal Tyrants can be found near hotly contested underground passageways or key junctions along subterranean trade-routes, as well as forgotten catacombs, ancient grave-sites, and otherwise abandoned necropolises. Fungal Tyrants are not particularly picky about how they acquire brains.

A typical Fungal Tyrant will begin with the spell-casting capabilities of a Magic User of 1st-4th level (roll 1d4), and will improve one level per 2 HD gained through consuming brains.

It is suspected that there are more advanced versions of these monstrosities out there in the deep dark, but little is known and less confirmed, although the Journal of Admunth Delavorme contains a partially expurgated account of a conversation with a huge, old Fungal Tyrant and the afore-mentioned adventurer during which the creature offers to trade various incomprehensibly-named spells of dubious provenance for equivalent knowledge or teachings. It is unclear whether this account is a forgery, a hoax or a legitimate piece of evidence since the Sewer Militia seized the three known copies of the transcribed journal in manuscript form and no longer allow access to it under any circumstances.

There are also rumors of a stunted off-shoot or sub-type of the known form of Fungal Tyrant, colloquially called 'Fungal Bullies,' that are covered with vivid ochre or burgundy spots. These smaller (2HD+) creatures lack much of the spell-casting abilities of their larger brethren, but make up for it by their hyper-malevolent toxicity and ability to make anything within their Area of Awareness succumb to a form of rot very similar to that inflicted by mummies. In fact, ancient fragmentary records transcribed from clay tablets recovered from ancient subterranean ruins seem to indicate that these creatures may have more than a passing connection to certain forms of mummification, leading some less cautious scholars to assert that the rotting ability of some mummies may in fact be derived from these particular fungi. So far the three official expeditions that have set out to determine the accuracy of this hypothesis have all gone missing without a trace.

Ferruginous Blob

Ferruginous Blob
No. Enc.: 1d2 (1d6)
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 20' (6')
Armor Class: 7
Hit Dice: 2+
Attacks: 1
Damage: 1d8 or by weapon (Plus rust effect)
Save: F2
Morale: 10

Weird amorphous horrors that lurk far beneath the mapped or traveled sections of the deep dark, Ferruginous Blobs are the degenerate spawn of things that withdrew from conventional subterranean society long, long ago in order to pursue their bizarrre vocation; they create peculiar, non-ferrous enchanted weapons suited pretty much only to their own use.

Acutely aware of vibration and magnetism, the Ferruginous Blobs also possess highly developed olfactory senses and have countless tiny overlapping taste-buds scattered randomly across their outer membranes. They can detect iron from more than a mile away. Even underground. And they have an unholy, unquenchable appetite for the stuff.

Any normal, non-enchanted iron or steel that comes into contact with a Ferruginous Blob will only do so once, which will allow weapons to inflict their damage, but then they will crumble into rust that the creature will attempt to absorb. Enchanted iron/steel gains a Save, and must lose its magical bonuses 1 at a time, as per a Rust Monster's attack (LL, p. 93-94).

A typical Ferruginous Blob will be wielding a +1 weapon fashioned from some strange alloy that might be an esoteric form of bronze, or something else entirely. So far the two samples recovered have defied all attempts at alchemical analysis.

Ferruginous Blobs usually gain an additional +1 bonus or extra special ability for their weapon every other HD.

According to some sources, these things gain extra HD from destroying enchanted steel weapons, but this is probably just another old Midwives' tale.

NPC: Janeska

Janeska

5th Level Fighter/5th Level Magic User, Lawful Morlock-descended demihuman

S14 I18 W13 C10 D16 Ch11; hp 26, DC ??

[infravision 60', +2 reaction with Albino Apes, -2 reaction with Neanderthals]

Tunnel-Runner Skills

Move Silently: 40%, Hide in Shadows: 30%, Hear Noise: 1-3

(These Skills are strongly attuned to operating underground and in tunnels. Conditions are too disorienting for Janeska to use these skills above-ground or outside her ancestral tunnels unless she were to train as a Thief.)

Possessions: Janeska wears leather armor crafted from the hide of a gigantic cthonic-eel (+2 armor, resists electrical attacks) and wields a rapier forged from the remains of the iron golem that was used to destroy her former mentor's isolated retreat by enemies she is unwilling to name openly. (+2 rapier, INT 12, Psyche 1, Will 13, unaligned; casts cloudkill once a day, dispels magic on a natural 20). Janeska also wears a dull red square-cut ruby set in a silver-wire wound eye-socket cut out of a larger than normal humanoid skull that is a pendulum for detecting Ley-Lines and underground passages.

Description: Battle-hardened by her youth amid the buried jungles of Aman Utal, Janeska has the pale skin of her Morlock father, but the unruly tangled hair of her mother, a half-elven sorceress who woefully underestimated the depravity and subterfuge of the Morlock Underkings of Aman Utal. Janeska is a pragmatic, cold-eyed mercenary who takes the long-view of things, which in her case is just simply acknowledging the inevitable. She has been displaced in time and until she discovers some sort of device, artifact or spell that can help her return to her own time-line, she must get by as best she may.

Services Rendered

Janeska is a mercenary and could easily allow herself to become a hireling for the right price. High-level characters might engage her services as a henchman, if they show signs of having expertise that Janeska might find useful, or if they are inclined to pursue rumors, treasure maps or other clues to places where temporal anomalies have been reported. Anyone wanting to hire a guide to the buried jungles of Aman Utal would find Janeska a real life-saver in addition to being just about the only person in the world who knows how to get there from here. Janeska can track Ley-Lines, or find/reveal/map-out underground passages in the local area and sometimes does this for the price of a few beers and a chance to join-in on some exploration if the group appeals to her (roll reaction).

A Sordid Past

Janeska doesn't talk about her childhood. She never mentions her mother. Any references to her mixed-blood or odd parentage will inspire her to re-roll her CHAR Reaction Roll at a -4 penalty. Her father does send agents to try to either recruit her or kill her, depending upon his current mood or state of sanity. Morlocks do not trust her because of her mixed blood and most have shunned her. Janeska has a lot of history with the Morlocks, Ghouls, and quite a number of sorcerers, but she reveals as little of it as is possible.

It's Complicated...

Janeska's various previous exploits have brought her into conflict with various factions of ghouls. She has few allies that she can count on among them, and as she has helped-out vampire-hunters and other undead destroying parties, no ghoul will openly acknowledge her as a friend, despite various favors she has performed for a trio of ghoul sorcerers in the past.

Spells in Janeska's Repertoire

Black Touch

Charnel Breath

Detect Ley-Line

Discern Weak-Point

Dirt to Meat

Forestall Collapse

Tap Ley-Line

Player Option: Half-Morlock

Half-Morlock
Requirements: INT 10+
Prime Requisite: Player's Choice
Hit Dice: D8 (regardless of class)
Maximum Level: 10 (No Limit within Aman Utal and certain other places)

Half-Morlocks have Infravision to 60' and can move silently while underground but are reduced to 1/2 their normal movement rate when doing so.

They can wear any armor and use any weapons but prefer short swords, stabbing spears and similar things well-suited to use in cramped spaces and confined tunnels.

Any Half-Morlock with an INT or WIS over 15 can use spells as a magic-user or cleric, much as Elves are able to do, or they can become a dual-class Fighter/Magic-user or Thief/Magic-user, as long as they meet the criteria for the other class as well.

Half-Morlocks with a CHAR of 12+ can pass as extremely pale, shaggy-haired humans or demi-humans. Those lacking in CHAR look like disfigured humanoids who take after their Morlock ancestry, which allows them to move about among other, full-blooded Morlocks in a similar manner.

They gain a +2 bonus to reaction rolls regarding Albino Apes and Goblinoids (but only if the Half-Morlock  has not personally attacked these creatures), and a -2 penalty with Neanderthals and Eloi.

Dwarves are entirely neutral in respect to Morlocks, based on old dealings that neither side will discuss openly.

The taint of Morlock blood remains active within human bloodlines for 3d4 generations, but only 1d4 for demihumans and rarely past the second generation among humanoids, though there are some exceptions, as always.

Spell: Forestall Collapse

Forestall Collapse
Level: 2
Duration: 1d4 Turns/level
Range: Touch

Caster magically reinforces walls and ceilings so that they hold fast for the duration of the spell, allowing them to pass through the area before it fully collapses.

Spell: Black Touch

Black Touch
Level: 3
Duration: 1d4 rounds
Range: Touch

Caster's fingers/hands take on the form of small black puddings, doing 3d6 damage and allowing them to climb surfaces as though they were a black pudding. Black Puddings will respond as though caster has made a neutral CHAR Reaction while the spell is in effect. Use of ESP (or possibly Empathy, or a variant of Speak With [whatever] such as Speak With Blobs) during the duration of this spell will enable direct communication with Black Puddings and the caster attempting this gets to roll a formal CHAR Reaction Roll with a +4 bonus. Any Black Pudding befriended in this manner will remain friendly to the caster until such time as the caster either attacks, harms or attempts to coerce the Black Pudding with some version of Charm or Control magic.

---

It is rumored that repeated use of this spell runs a slight chance of permanently corrupting the caster's flesh, causing them to take on more and more of the appearance and form of a Black Pudding...but of course that is rubbish and nonsense, and totally unconfirmed by any reputable scholar or spell-caster...

Spell: Dirt to Meat

Dirt to Meat
Level: 3
Duration: Permanent*
Range: 10'

Caster converts 1d4 pounds of dirt or gravel into lumps of raw, quivering meat that will almost certainly attract flies, carcass scavengers and others. The lump of meat produced by this spell will quickly rot if not provided a regular blood-flow or otherwise supported such as by being immersed in special alchemical solutions or by being stitched into a golemic matrix. Left untended, the mass of pseudoflesh will spoil within 1d4 hours, after which it will begin to deliquesce, leaving behind a thoroughly nasty residue that will reek of decayed flesh for 3d4 days.

The meat is edible.

It is also a prime component in various rites and spells having to deal with the creation of certain types of golems, animated entities, and other constructs.

There are several dozen variant forms of this spell, most developed either by Grafters, Pseudri or Morlocks. Those developed by the Morlocks are exceeding disgusting, disconcerting or just plain grotesque in the extreme.

Nicheclops

Nicheclops
No. Enc.: 1d4 (2d4)
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 20' (10')
Armor Class: 5
Hit Dice: 6
Attacks: 1+slime
Damage: 3d4 +poison (2d6) +Secondary Effect (see table below)
Save: F3
Morale: 8

Ancient cyclopean mummies that have been infested with a strange, symbiotic form of toxic algae-like slime, the Nicheclops are dreadful but slow-moving creatures who are no longer completely living, dead, or undead, but inhabit a bizarre limnal zone in-between. Driven insane by their unnatural existence, the Nicheclops spend years at a time ensconced within their burial niches deep underground, their bodies suspended in a form of hibernation while their astrally-projected spirits wander distant planes it wouldn't be wise to mention.

All Nicheclops have an innate ability to animate and control 1d4 writhing masses of green slime, which they then use to drive off interlopers or those imprudent enough to disturb their weird trances.

If disturbed enough to be awakened from their extraplanar projection, a typical Nicheclops will slowly arise from their niche, assess the situation using whatever spells seem appropriate (ESP, Detect Alignment, Detect Lie, Clairvoyance, Clairaudience, See Invisible, Detect Magic, etc.) for a period of 1d4 turns, after which the Nicheclops will unleash an all-out assault upon the interlopers using its slime, massive bulk and whatever spells it has available. It will attack mercilessly until all the intruders are killed or driven off, or it is destroyed. The slimy remnants and remains of a destroyed Nicheclops will slowly recede back into its niche and reform over a period of several weeks in order to resume its trance, unless it is treated with lots and lots of magical fire. 

Particularly old and venerable Nicheclops are rumored to have 10 or more HD and regenerate as a Troll.

Nicheclops generally have 1d4 of the following spells:

1. Vistas of Unplumbed Space
2. Daemoniacal Cyst (Variant 3: encases target, not caster...)
3. Elliptical Confoundity
4. Unfix Boundaries
5. Cerebral Conception (The Demented Variant form...)
6. Evocation of Unknown Forces
7. Assault of Chaos
8. Terrible Conception
9. Malign and Particular Suspension of Natural Law
10. Crystalize Skull

Secondary Effects of Nicheclops Slime

1. Save at -2 penalty or your skin begins to tear itself loose and literally crawl off of your body, causing 2d4 damage/turn until either it is free at last, or the effect is dispelled by destroying the Nicheclops. (Takes 3d6 turns for the skin to tear free. The skin can move about, but has no intelligence, 1 HD and can only attempt to choke for 1d4 damage, if it can't just slither away into the unknown depths. Magical healing will cause the victim to regrow fresh skin, not restore any that has torn free.)
2. Victim suffers a horribly disfiguring experience with necromantically-tinged digestive juices; Save or lose 1d4 CHAR,with a base 30% chance that each point affected is permanently lost.
3. You've been engulfed by Green Slime. (LL p. 80)
4. You've been infected with a greenish slime that has gotten under your skin and has gone dormant. Once you die, the slime will reanimate you as a zombie within 1d4 turns.
5. Recipient of slime is now affected by Commune (LL p. 20) spell that opens a channel to some unnameable, outermost thing that heretofore was completely oblivious to their existence. You do get to ask three questions...but do you have the courage/sanity to withstand the answers?
6. Victim has been affected by Cause Disease. (LL p. 21)
7. Insanity. Just insanity. No physical damage from the slime during this encounter.
8. You can never cast or use Detect Magic ever again. That part of your brain has just been destroyed by the slime. Every time someone else uses this spell within 30' of you, roll a Save or a small portion of your brain deliquesces into a rancid blob-ette of slime causing 2d6 damage and driving you insane with agony, making it impossible to cast spells or speak coherently. There is a 20% chance of the slime going dormant again, otherwise it will force its way out of your skull inflicting 2d6 damage/turn until it finally breaks free regardless of whether you're still alive or not.
9. Necrosis (LL p. 25)
10. Fear (LL p. 25)
11. Feeblemind (LL p. 31)
12. You've become the involuntary subject of a Contact Other Plane spell (LL p. 29), unfortunately you are ill-equipped to enjoy the experience and the plane in question is not one you'd normally wish to associate with, but the natives are friendly, after a fashion and will answer your questions in some peculiar alien dialect that you'll remember for the rest of your life, though you'll most likely never get it properly translated.