Here's the rough idea, at least
Here's the idea in the rough. I'm working on the mechanics now and I'll have to flesh things out and polish things up a bit. I'm expecting at least a couple of more pages of info about non-mechanical stuff before I think it's complete.
The Undead Leviathan Aggressive Ecology
An Ecological Dance of Death
There are few mobile aggressive ecologies found in the deep oceans, and only one centered upon the rotting carcass of a fallen whale. A whale fall is an unusual event in and of itself, but occasionally these massive bounties of detrital material land in places that simply cannot sustain natural life of any sort: a negative energy sink. These strange negative energies infuse a whale carcass with unholy power giving unlife, mobility, and malevolence — creating an undead leviathan.
The Science: Whale Fall
Before discussing undead leviathans, a brief description of a normal whale fall should prove instructive. Light in the ocean only goes about 1,000m down (after the first 200m it is very dim: the mesopelagic zone commonly called the twilight or midwater zone) and almost all food chains deeper than that are based upon the detrital food chain. Living creatures that die in the top 1,000m drift down in bits and pieces as the carcass is slowly picked at all the way down to the sea bed. By the time the sea bed is reached, a steady supply of organic particles and detritus (marine snow) is all that remains of most of the creatures. But very large creatures like whales often reach the bottom of the ocean in a single large piece. To the creatures at the bottom, this massive influx of food can equal several thousand years of typical marine snow. It is truly a cornucopia of energy and it is devoured at an astounding speed.
The first creatures to converge on the fallen whale are the active scavengers like hagfish, sleeper sharks, rattails, and squat lobsters. These creatures can dine on the soft tissues of a single whale corpse for several months up to several years at a rate of 40 to 60 Kg of flesh each day. Whales are large creatures after all: the massive blue whale’s maximum weight is 190 tons. During this feeding the area around the whale fall becomes saturated with rich organic deposits. These deposits lead to a large community of opportunistic crustaceans and worms around the whale fall. Eventually, anaerobic bacteria create a sulphide-rich environment that will support many different types of clams, mussels, and worms. When all is said and done, the bones of the whale remain. Whale bones are very fat rich and will continue to provide a source of energy for even up to an entire century before ultimately returning to the sea floor.
The Fantasy: Whale Rising
Occasionally, something goes terribly wrong is this natural process — a whale falls into a negative energy sink. After several days the few specialized creatures that can survive in a negative energy sink “colonize” the whale carcass and prepare for the next step in their life cycle. Within a month and undead leviathan rises with its accoutrement ecosystem and swims away, bringing death as it goes.
The first thing noticed about an undead leviathan is its terrible negative energy aura. Within this aura (at least 180 ft. from the creature) any living being is subject to a killing effect. Small creatures die immediately while larger ones swim madly out of the way, hoping to escape the aura before perishing. Inside this aura there is no non-magically dependent life. It’s a floating dead zone with the undead leviathan in the center. Close to the undead leviathan this aura intensifies according to the size and maturity of the creature.
The undead leviathan also regenerates at a tremendous rate, replacing missing parts within days and forming bulbous cancerous protrusions if there is not the standard compliment of mutualistic creatures constantly taking chunks off the undead whale on a daily basis. Without its mucus sharks, leviathan hagfish, and leviathan spiders an undead leviathan would grow into a giant globular mass that sinks to the bottom of the ocean under its own weight. This is guaranteed death sentence to an undead leviathan, as it requires the constant daily death of a certain amount of life (this depends on the size and maturity of an undead leviathan) within its negative energy aura or it will perish — effectively turning back into a whale fall. Unlike normal creatures with regeneration, the undead leviathan takes lethal damage from all attack forms. It appears that its regeneration is some negative side effect of its birth in a negative energy sink. Although the undead leviathan takes lethal damage from all attacks it has an ability that more than makes up for it: fast healing. Each undead leviathan heals at different rates based upon size and maturity, but regardless it always heals quickly.
Life Persists Among Death
But there is magically dependent life within the negative energy aura and it is highly specialized for survival. Once you near the undead leviathan you’ll immediately see at least one (and usually a pair or more) of shark-like creatures swimming around the giant carcass. These are mucus sharks.
Mucus sharks are strange sharks with odd eating habits. These sharks have rounded fins, a weakly developed caudal fin, a long forehead protrusion much like a fleshy unicorn horn, and a protrusible jaw making comparisons between it and the goblin shark obvious. Although dangerous to any living thing swimming nearby, the mucus shark’s main source of food in the undead leviathan itself as well as the creatures killed by its negative energy aura. Mucus sharks typically bite off chunks of the undead leviathan when hungry and in doing so fulfill a necessary role in the undead leviathan’s continued existence. They are also very territorial of their undead leviathan and ruthlessly attack any decent-sized creature that isn’t killed by the leviathan’s negative energy aura: except for leviathan hagfish that is.
The leviathan hagfish is poisonous to consume and tastes wretched even to a shark used to eating undead whale for most meals. These larger versions of their common cousin continually feast upon an undead leviathan, looking like unhealthy spaghetti trailing off the swimming corpse. It’s not uncommon to find dozens of leviathan hagfish latched upon a passing undead leviathan, but their rampant spread is usually stopped by the stranger leviathan spider living within the whale carcass itself. Leviathan hagfish are somewhat aggressive and occasionally attack a mucus shark coming in for a bite of undead leviathan, but the sharks tremendously slippery hide usually prevents any hagfish from latching on. And if a latch on occurs, the mucus shark simply swims outside of the undead leviathan’s negative energy aura, banking on the chance that it’s currently above 10,000 ft. deep. Any hagfish that starts suffering from pressure differential damage usually quickly retreats back to its host leviathan.
Within the giant carcass of an undead leviathan lives the last of the trio of creatures. Perhaps the strangest of all, the leviathan spider forms colonies (much like ants) within an undead leviathan. An individual leviathan spider looks like a mass of white and gray twisted barbed wire with eight legs. They’re spikey, diminutive (rarely do they exceed 10 inches in footprint), and harmless individually. Leviathan spiders spend most of their time tunneling through the rancid flesh of the undead leviathan, ensuring that its regeneration doesn’t close any of their hive tunnels. There is no shortage of space, for remember that the heart of a blue whale is as big as a small room (and weighs 1,000 lbs.), and its great veins allow a Halfling to travel along them without difficulty. Leviathan spiders live solely off the flesh of their host and would be parasites if they did not perform several useful functions for the undead leviathan.
The leviathan spiders primary beneficial purpose is to reign in leviathan hagfish. Whenever a hagfish, or group of hagfish have dug too deeply into the flesh of an undead leviathan, the leviathan spiders swarm and drive off or kill the hagfish. Without spiders the undead leviathan would be consumed in a feeding orgy of hagfish. The second beneficial purpose of leviathan spiders is defense. Whenever the undead leviathan (the spiders nest and only food source) sustains more than half its hit points in damage, swarms of leviathan spiders pour out of its wounds to attack any nearby unfortunates. This includes hagfish, mucus sharks, and anything else. Luckily, these swarms usually last for only a few minutes.
More Fantastic: Whale Rising — Literally
But the most terrifying aspect of an undead leviathan only occurs towards the end of its “life” cycle. After growing for around 20 years it performs a metamorphosis. At the appointed time, its negative energy aura ceases working and it swims to the nearest shore and beaches itself. As soon as it is beached, it ceases all unlife functions as is again merely a whale corpse. During the next week, the leviathan spiders within the carcass cease all activity as well, seeking the deepest part of the whale and forming calciferous shells that look like ostrich eggs around themselves. After a period of two week in which the undead leviathan bloats and swells tremendously, it returns to unlife with an even more deadly negative energy aura.
A few hours after its negative energy aura returns the undead leviathan’s gut splits open, spilling out hundreds of feet of entrails that whip and thrash around, crushing anything within their considerable reach. Anything except one creature: skeletal scavengers. Any scavenger birds killed in this first burst form the latest creature compliment to the undead whale, rising within hours to peck and pick away the bulbous growths that used to be the providence of mucus sharks and leviathan hagfish. The instant after death, their flesh begins to melt away, leaving only bony bird skeletons behind —bony bird skeletons that fly and viciously defend their master to the best of their ability.
As soon as a flock of skeletal scavengers are protectively circling over the beached undead leviathan, it rises, a rotted behemoth and takes to the air for two months of madness, insanity and death to every living creature within hundreds of miles. The greater undead leviathan flies just high enough so its guts reach the ground and continue their utter destruction as it feeds and feeds and feeds from its expanded negative energy aura. As if this wasn’t bad enough, the change in elevation triggers the cocooned whale spiders to burst out of their shells. They swarm within the carcass of the creature spawning frantically, trying to reproduce as much as possible to ensure the continuation of their species and dropping their progeny to the ground where they race off towards the nearest body of salt water.
After two months of devastating and feeding, the undead leviathan returns to the ocean, flying over the waves for days until its flying ability disappears and it falls to the water. It then swims straight down to the bottom and dies, creating a new negative energy sink in its passing.
So, what do ya'll think? Good, bad, indifferent? Although I hate to do it, this is all copyright of Expeditious Retreat Press for right now. However, when I put it out it'll all be OGC, like the rest of our products. Now, I need to find the right artist...
joe b.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
It's not ready for the light of day, and won't be for a while, but I'm having such a blast right now it's probably illegal in some countries.
