If the PCs travel in the Dream Diver, no matter where they go, the craft attracts the attention of a strange and mysterious creature. This nameless Limbo Thing seeps through the maelstrom and finds itself drawn to the size and movement of the craft. It approaches and latches onto the outside of the sphere.
Considering that the PCs most likely have only the portholes of the Dream Diver to observe the surrounding environment, they probably have no chance to observe the Thing’s approach. In this case, those inside don’t become aware of it until they hear it moving on the outside of the hull.
DMs may wish to play up the creepiness of this encounter. At first, only one character inside the craft hears the creature-just a slithering or scraping on the outside. Looking through the portholes reveals nothing.
Then the noise comes again. Now, a different character hears the noise. This continues until the PCs go outside to check (requiring a shaping of the outside environment for safety) or until the thing suddenly and startlingly appears at a porthole. Green in color with purplish, pulsing veins running through its body, the thing is flat and slightly malleable. Its somewhat squarish body measures 10 feet across if spread flat, with a pseudopod extending off each “corner.” The pseudopods stretch up to 6 feet and end in single bony claws.
Eventually, things go from creepy to temfying as the Thing eats away at the ship’s hull with its chaotic disruption power. A creature of chaos, the Thing can disrupt matter or energy and convert it into the random stuff of Limbo. It soon begins to dissolve the Dream Diver itself, requiring that the PCs defend their craft against this foe. The damage listed below in the creature’s statistics is the damage that it inflicts upon the craft (or on characters). If the thing suffers 15 points of damage from a magical attack, or 25 points from physical attacks, it attempts to flee into the swirling maelstrom.
NAMELESS LIMBO THING: AC 6 ; MV 12; HD 12; hp 51; THACO 9; #AT 4; Dmg ld4/ld4/ld4/ld4 (pseudopods); SA touch disrupts matter, inflicting 3d6 additional points of damage—save vs. spell for half: SD Regenerates 1 hit point a round; SZ L (10’ across); ML steady (11); Int avg (9); AL CN; XP 5,000.
Originally appeared in Tales from the Infinite Staircase (1998).
