Oozes in fantasy...where's the inspiration?

[Shade]

I've often wondered how oozes first came to be part of the D&D experience. When I try to think of encounters with oozes in fantasy fiction, none come to mind. About the only famous ooze appearances I can recall are from movies like The Blob.

Am I missing some staple oozes in fantasy, or is it perhaps just one of those things that took on a life of its own when added to the game?

(Regardless of the inspiration, I'm glad they're a part of the game, but my curiosity is getting the better of me.)

 

[Umbran]

I'd hazard that at one point someone at the gaming table accidentally dropped a spoonful of pudding on a battlemap...

 

[Gold Roger]

Hey, I know oozes have been a stable in my fantasy for...

wait, let me start over

I have no idea, but they are fun.

 

[Kapture]

RPGs in general, and early DND in particular, were notoriously thievy, borrowing inspiriation from all sorts of mediums. After all, the machine of lum the mad, mighty servant leuk-o, and apparatus of the kwalish, all magical machines, probably don't have that much inspiration in fantasy until after cross-genre stuff hit the fan in the, what, late 80's? And early dragon magazine artilces mixed fantasy creatures and world war 2 games. The Blob and other SF movies probably were the inspiration for oozes.

 

[Corathon]

I can only speculate. Here's a theory.

A lot of D&D's inspiration came from the pulps. The pulps have a fair number of ooze-like creatures in them, from H.P. Lovecraft's shoggoths, C.A. Smith's formless spawn of Tsathoggua, to the titular creature in Joseph Payne Brennan's story "Slime".

 

[Shade]

I'd hazard that at one point someone at the gaming table accidentally dropped a spoonful of pudding on a battlemap...

Wow, in all my years of gaming, no one's ever eaten pudding at the table. Perhaps it's time for that to change.

If our game food-related disasters led to new creatures, we'd see more buffalochickens than owlbears.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser encounter one, as I recall. That and the Blob were probably it.

Of course, once upon a time, green slime was the primary monster of this sort and that was just evil mildew. I think making molds and slime "hazards" instead of monsters gave us needless ooze bloat. (Although some of the new oozes have definitely been keepers.)

 

[Psion]

I can only speculate. Here's a theory.

A lot of D&D's inspiration came from the pulps. The pulps have a fair number of ooze-like creatures in them, from H.P. Lovecraft's shoggoths, C.A. Smith's formless spawn of Tsathoggua, to the titular creature in Joseph Payne Brennan's story "Slime".

Considering a lot of the inspiration of other aspects of the game like necromancy come from this era/format as well (read a little Clark Ashton smith and you will see a lot of D&D necromancy tropes), I don't consider it unlikely.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser encounter one, as I recall. That and the Blob were probably it.

Of course, once upon a time, green slime was the primary monster of this sort and that was just evil mildew. I think making molds and slime "hazards" instead of monsters gave us needless ooze bloat. (Although some of the new oozes have definitely been keepers.)

I also think that there was some Gygax involved in early oozes, which often looked like nothing more than an innocent pool of water on the dungeon floor, certainly nothing to worry yourself about, and may I direct your interest to the jewel-encrusted dagger hanging on the wall above the pool...

Lots of those early monsters were designed as ways for Gygax to try to undermine the metagaming of his players by playing with their expectations.

 

[frankthedm]

Last night i had a dream about alge that acted jut like green slime... eeewwwwwww! I like most gross things, but I feel revolted when i look at alge. And when my hand touches sludge / pipe scum, i have an abosolte fit until i can get it cleaned off.

They need no further inspiration for me, slimes fit well as a monster in my book!