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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Salamander Napolean" data-source="post: 343350" data-attributes="member: 6296">The Unknown OozesA Traveler’s Handbook of Beneficial Zoaplasms; By Professor X.V. StobWobble, Gnomish ZoologistForward:Every spelunker and subterranean expeditioner recognizes the commonest types of dangerous oozes, slimes, jellies, and molds, but how often does one hear of the helpful and valuable species of these amorphous animals?  Too rarely, I’m afraid.  Alas, most underground explorers wander right past these fascinating and fantastic organisms without even realizing their incredible usefulness.  Little research from this field is accessible to those outside of the community of natural-philosophers, and the lay-people to whom it would be most advantageous are regrettably  uninformed.  This dungeoneers’ pamphlet intends to change all that, by providing a simple and accessible catalogue of  beneficial zoaplasms.Steel Slime: This grayish slime of dull iron colouration is a slow moving insectivore that usually rests in a thin coat over a tunnel’s walls and ceiling.  When endangered, the slime has the amazing ability to harden into a metaline substance resembling polished steel in appearance and physical properties.  When certain alchemicals are used to poison the slime it permanently solidifies. (Ladies’ Nightblack of Elder Basilisk, Heinrich’s Confusant Gel, et al.) Thus, the slime is often used as a sealant, for emergency structural reinforcement, and in a variety of ingenious traps.Marzigott’s Wondrous Soap:  (an ooze)Sold commercially under this name, this ooze is also known as Creakrion Tonic, or more commonly as “rinse” amongst the denizens of the Underdark.  This helpful goop feeds off loose particles of dirt and debris, w/o harming living tissue or clothing.  Passing through a pool of it is a quick substitute for bathing or a handy delousing.  Gerrow Tar (a pudding)    For some reason this zoaplasm preserves flesh and vegetable matter submerged within it from the natural effects of corruption.  It is often used by dwellers in the Underdark to preserve food and dead bodies from decay.  Dark elves often store undead in vats of this tar.Wheatmold:Not mold on wheat, but a walking fungus that draws vital, nutrivating elements from cavern mud and rock slime. It is harvested extensively underground, but is difficult to eat due to it’s lack of taste and poor texture.  A cavern of wheat mold will quickly be sapped of moisture unless it has a constant influx of water or systemized irrigation.  wheatmold is the foundation of many unlikely underground ecologies.  Queen Margot’s Ooze: or Fragrant Ooze.    This timid and transparent zoaplasm communicates with others of its kind and defends itself by producing a variety of powerful scents.  Its ever changing fragrances delight the noses of mortals and proboscises of monsters alike.  So much so, in fact, that adventurers report that wearing its perfumes prevent aggression  from otherwise hostile monsters, and the scents charming effects on humanoids are well documented.  The Ooze is especially hard to notice as it dwells exclusively on cavern ceilings amongst the stalactites.  The Infamous Executioner-Queen kept hers hidden in the chandelier.  Friatic Sugar Pudding: (or White Pudding)    The Sugary syrup that can be squeezed out of the body of this animal makes it the Underdark’s equivalent to the domestic bee.  The pudding produces this substance to attract insects to devour, or even small animals.  A variety of products are made from  white-syrup , including the Deurgars’ partially toxic Century and a Day Rum.Bird Lime:  (an ooze)One of the strangest of the superterranean zoaplasms.  This ooze waits in the highest branches of the forest canopy waiting to trap unsuspecting birds in its sticky secretions.  It dissolves the bird, except for the feathers which it collects until it has gathered a great mass.  Then, during its sporing , it releases hundreds of tiny oozes that take flight on these borrowed wings.  One might mistake a cloud of these spores as a flock of mottled avians erratically winging in all directions until examined more closely.  Lung Mold:    Does the average voyager into the Deepearth ever wonder how fire-snuffing phlogistons are removed from the air, making it possible to breathe?  Probably not, but the answer lies with these ugly fungal sacs that scamper along cavern ceilings and walls.  Lung molds appear very similar to hornets nests that slowly expand and contract with their respirative  cycle. The air near a colony  of these creatures always remains especially fresh and pure.  When they are exposed to smoke, the lung molds make human-like coughs and wheezings that often startle cautious travelers., and poisonous fumes or gases cause the molds to drop from their perches and flee towards the nearest egress.  Dwarven miners often keep large nets or cages of these creatures to warn of gas leaks.  Emerald Jelly:  (or Mackleheim’s Marmalade or Barrel-Raft)    This domestic zoaplasm has a number of unusual properties; When it contacting water it hardens to the consistency of corkwood; it is highly inflammable and when ignited spreads itself chaotically in all directions; and it is incredibly sticky.  Gnomish Deep-Sailors on the Underlakes of Garcalar breed this jelly to create emergency rafts and to load into their fire shot catapults.Bubbling Ichor: (or Altruistic Ooze)This zoaplasm is not uncommon but often overlooked, due to its muddy colour and appearance.  When applied to a fresh, open wound where the blood has yet to coagulate, the ooze speeds the natural healing process to just a few minutes, but in the process destroys itself.  Wounds healed by the Bubbling Ichor leave pale greenish scars that never fade.  No ranger of the Underdark worth his salts would miss noticing this valuable animal in times of trouble.Lantern Mold: (or Drowfoe or Lesser Wormsbane)     This peculiar mold grows in great garden clusters and has the strange ability to transmute sound into an internal phosphorescence.  In the middle of a lantern patch no sound can be heard, but every shout or drumbeat produces luminous pulses of many colours.  These molds are often used as a sort of natural alarm or trap to blind light-sensitive enemies.Singing Slimes: (Shadow Slime)    This class of slimes transmutes any light that contacts it into unearthly tones of music.  They are hard to perceive due to the natural shadow aura that surrounds them, but they usually coalesce in large pools of water.  They are often kept by civilized races who enjoy listening to their songs, or who use them as an alarm against torch-bearing approachers.  If singing slime and lantern molds come near each other the two rush together and cause an alchemical  explosion of light and sound that will most likely deafen and blind those who witness this rare phenomenon.Laughing Wax: (a slime)    This thickish slime makes a noise similar to laughter when it hears speech.   The laughter is infectious and causes everyone hearing it to laugh uncontrollably.  It’s effects can be avoided simply by plugging one’s ears, but it makes communication very difficult.  Dwarves put this creature in prison cells to prevent plots of escape.Sir Arkathap’s Soup: (a pudding)    According to popular legend, Sir Arkathap the Revelator tricked a group of man-eating  Hobgoblins into eating this brownish pudding instead.  It is completely harmless to touch, but eating the soup results in a terrible stomach pangs as the zoaplasm passes unharmed and alive through the digestive tract.  In fact the only abnormal quality it has is that it always remains at about room temperature no matter how hot its surroundings.  Due to this quality it is often used as a safety measure near large forges or furnaces.  Legend has it that the knight convinced the Hobgoblins that he would make a better soup than a roast, and willingly climbed in the cauldron over a large fire.  Hours later, when they were paralyzed with stomach pain he hopped out of the pot and walked away.Edible Oozes:    This catch-all category includes any number of oozes, slimes, jellies, and molds that are fit for consumption by a hungry spelunker.  Their tastes range from unsavory to bland to exquisite.  Generally, they all have to be baked or boiled for some time to nullify impurities and ensure that they’re actually dead.  This is a list of some more common  species:  Pumpernickel Paste, Dripping Donna, Bread Moss, Hiblexian Naectar, Fungal Lavain, Violet Ooze, Tangerin Ooze, Bittered Bees’ Wax, Kobold Gelatin, Cricottam Cheeses, Amber Delight, and Cricket Leg Waldorf.Greedgrip Mildew: (a slime)    This foul slime only grows on the surface of gold, silver, and other precious metals.  It generally makes piles of treasure appear as a mound of some sort of monster offal.  The mildew rarely moves except to flee open flame which it greatly fears.  Although many wouldn’t describe this excrement-like creature as a beneficial zoaplasm, those trying to disguise an abundance of treasure consider the greedgrip mold worth a fortune.Extrockla Lava: (a pudding)    This creature is a fiery hot elemental ooze that puddles in low areas.  It’s incredibly dangerous if touched or stepped in, but rarely attacks unless provoked.  The Extrockla lava appears just as normal lava to the inobservant, but one with a proper education in gnomish institute of highest-learning would realize that it burns at several hundred degrees less  than the temperature required to melt stone.  Evil architects often use these zoaplasms to fill moats and so on, and they provide the infinitely useful benefits of fire without the corruption of the air supply.  About once a century these creatures suddenly migrate en masse to their Deepearth mating grounds in Aidiucumeon Volcano.  Crawling Carpet: (a mold)    This slowly moving mold covers the floors of some caverns and tunnels like a thick carpet of chummus.  One probably wouldn’t notice the mold is even moving unless they were to observe it for several hours.  Places the creature has already traversed are polished with a slick glaze that makes the floor as slippery as ice.Tree Jelly: (or Magnetic Jelly or Iron Jelly or Turquoise Jelly)    This superterranean jelly nests in hollow trees    and travels out at night to pilfer metal items which it magnetically fuses to construct strange sculptures.  No one knows why they make these constructs which appear to serve no purpose.  The Jellies natural magnetism disturbs the use of compasses.  If threatened by ferrous weaponry, it will magnetize all metal in a nearby vicinity and then flee.  Forest Gnomes find these creatures to be especially humorous, and often leave metal items unattended in the woods to see what they will build next. Olive Slime: (or Magebane)    This unremarkable slime of light green colour usually goes unnoticed unless close by to wizardly combat.  The incantation “magic missile,” which is apparently universally known and employed by those types, always strikes the slime instead of its intended target.  This seems to be an accidental quality of the slimes nature as the missiles will eventually destroy it. Slime Lords of Mough: (an ooze)    A mortal who has become infected with the “Blukin River Dissolution Sickness” by spending too much time in the river, begins to melt into an ooze.  Often the person will retain some degree of sentience, and develop a generally cheery temperament and helpful disposition; a rarity in the Blukin Valley.  The great zoological pioneer into the field of zoaplasms, Dr. Sydrik Yarbreld, underwent this metamorphic process, and was last seen floating out to sea.   This volume is dedicated to his memory.   Prof. X.V.S.W.</blockquote>

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