Noble Gossamer Working Draft
Gossamer, Noble
Colossal Aberration
Hit Dice: 58d8+464 (725 hp)
Initiative: +4
Speed: Fly 200 ft. (clumsy)
Armor Class: 32 (–8 size, –4 Dex, +18 natural, +16 deflection), touch 14, flat-footed 32
Base Attack/Grapple: +43/+70
Attack: Sting +46 melee (1d8 acid plus poison)
Full Attack: 20 stings +46 melee (1d8 acid plus poison)
Space/Reach: 120 ft./30 ft. (500 ft. with sting)
Special Attacks: Acid, attach, corrosive grasp, poison
Special Qualities: Airy, deliquescence, fast healing 6*, fire resistance 10*, voidborn
* due to feat
Saves: Fort +33, Ref +21, Will +38
Abilities: Str 33, Dex 3, Con 26, Int 3, Wis 12, Cha 4
Skills: Spot +62
Feats: Diehard, Dire Charge, Endurance, Energy Resistance (Fire), Epic Endurance, Epic Fortitude, Epic Reflexes, Epic Will, Fast Healing×2, Flyby Attack, Great Fortitude, Hover, Improved Initiation, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Perfect Health, Run, Superior Initiative, Wingover
Environment: Space
Organization: Solitary, smack (2–4), or flotilla (5–8)
Challenge Rating: 20
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 59–116 HD (Colossal)
Level Adjustment: —
A vast jellyfish floats in space. Its translucent flesh glows with cool colors that flow across its skin in waves, and lightning-like flashes zip across the clouds of light within its pearly interior. The creature is titanic; its body is wider than many ships are long, the numerous tentacles that radiate from its base must reach hundreds of yards. Most of its body is comprised of balloon-like sails.
Enormous relatives of the common gossamer, a noble gossamer is a colonial organism formed from countless smaller jelly-creatures living as one. Noble gossamers are social creatures who often travel in small groups. Their beautiful color display appear to be some sort of communication. A relaxed gossamer glows green, blue or purple, with the occasional flicker of yellow or orange. Alarmed gossamers flash bright red and amber.
Noble gossamers are predators who actively hunt creatures much smaller than themselves. They will attack ships, plucking crew and passengers off the decks with their tentacles. They prefer to hunt alone, but will form a flotilla with other gossamers to fight an enemy to strong to face individually. There is only one creature that naturally predates noble gossamers, the gammaroid. A single noble gossamer is no match for a gammaroid, but a flotilla of them can often defeat one of these space chelonians.
A noble gossamer's diaphanous body is mostly empty space, but is not as delicate as a standard gossamer. They can enter the gravity field or air envelope of anything less massive than a small planetoid without collapsing and dying under their own weight.
An average-sized noble gossamer is 120 feet in diameter and weighs 500 tons; its stinging tentacles are up to 500 feet long. The largest ones can span 250 feet.
Combat
Instead of concentrating upon one or two enemies, a noble gossamer prefers to attack as many opponents as it can reach. The creature attempts to grab opponents with its stinging tentacles, then keeps hold while its acid and poison kills the prey.
A noble gossamer has hundreds of tentacles (approximately ten for every Hit Dice it possesses), but can attack with no more than twenty of them at any given time. If a tentacle becomes badly injured in a fight, the gossamer can simply substitute one of its hundreds of "spare" tentacles for it.
A noble gossamer’s tentacles are AC 16 and have 10 hit points each. An opponent can attack a noble gossamer’s tentacles with a sunder attempt as if they were weapons. If a noble gossamer is currently grappling a target with the tentacle that is being attacked, it usually uses another limb to make its attack of opportunity against the opponent making the sunder attempt. Severing one of a noble gossamer’s tentacles does no damage to the gossamer itself. The creature regrows severed tentacles in 1d10+10 days.
A noble gossamer can attack or grapple a Small or Medium opponent with only two tentacles at once. It can target a larger foe with two additional tentacles for each extra 5 feet of space the opponent has, provided that the gossamer has the reach. Against a Tiny or smaller opponent, the creature can use only one tentacle. It can use a maximum of two tentacles against all foes in any single 5-foot by 5-foot area.
Acid (Ex): A gossamer's acidic enzymes only damage organic materials, such as flesh or leather.
Airy (Ex): Since a noble gossamer is constantly pulsating and its anatomy is made up of a (relatively) small amount of living tissue and lots of empty space, it is difficult to know where to attack the creature. Any melee or ranged attack directed at a noble gossamer has a 20% miss chance. The blow or missile may pass through the creature’s body without harming it. Even a true seeing effect is useless for determining where and how to strike the creature.
Attach (Ex): If a noble gossamer hits an opponent with a tentacle attack, its sticky tentacle automatically attaches to the opponent. An attached noble gossamer is effectively grappling its prey, but has the option to simply use its tentacle to hold the opponent (–20 penalty on grapple checks, but the gossamer is not considered grappled).
A noble gossamer gains a +2 racial bonus on grapple checks per tentacle it has attached to an opponent (e.g. +6 for three tentacles).
Corrosive Grasp (Ex): Every round a noble gossamer keeps hold of an opponent with its acid-secreting tentacles, it automatically inflicts 1d8 acid damage per tentacle that has hold of the opponent (e.g. four tentacles do 4d8 acid damage). In addition, the opponent is automatically exposed to poison attacks from all tentacles that are holding it.
Deliquescence (Ex): 1d3 rounds after a gossamer noble dies, its remains melt into a foul-smelling puddle 300 ft. across. The viscous liquid of the puddle is corrosive and poisonous. Contact with the fluid does 1d8 point of acid damage and exposes the touching object to the gossamer's poison (see below). The dangerous properties of the fluid evaporate away 1d10+10 minutes after the creature deliquesced.
Poison (Ex): A gossamer's tentacles secrete poisonous enzymes that can sicken or paralyze on contact. The liquid remains of a recently dead gossamer are also poisonous, and remain dangerous until 1d10+10 minutes after the creature's Deliquescence (see above).
Noble Gossamer poison: Contact (tentacles or body fluid), Fort DC 47, initial damage 2d8 Dex, secondary damage 1d12 Dex and nauseated for 1d3 minutes. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Voidborn (Ex): A gossamer can exist comfortably in the harsh conditions of space. It takes no damage from radiation or vacuum. However, a noble gossamer is vulnerable to gravity and pressure. If a noble gossamer enters the air envelope or gravity field of a creature or object that masses at least one billion tons, it immediately collapses in on itself and dies.
In Spelljammer
A noble gossamer collapses if it enters the gravity field or air envelope of anything that masses at least a billion tons (two million times the weight of the noble gossamer). If you're using the Spelljammer campaign setting, creatures and objects produce a gravity field approximately three times wider than their dimensions (e.g. a 2 foot by 3 foot by 6 foot sarcophagus generates a gravity field roughly 4 foot by 9 foot by 18 foot). This gravity field is what retains the creature's air envelope (if any), so the air envelope will be the same size as the gravity field. A particularly big object or creature also produces a gravity well that has a much larger radius. The pull of such gravity wells is usually too weak to cause gossamers to collapse.
For convenience, it may be simpler to assume most creatures have gravity fields three times wider than their Space, so a Medium size creature (Space: 5 ft.) has a gravity field 15 ft. wide, a Large creature (Space: 10 ft.) has a gravity field 30 ft. wide, and so on.
