Special Conversion Thread: Finishing off the oozes

[Shade]

Updated.

I think we're finished with the silatics!

 

[Big Mac]

Updated.

I think we're finished with the silatics!

I love them all and can't wait to tell the SJML (Spelljammer Mailing List) about them.

Thanks for bumping the silatics to the top of the queue for me. And thanks for doing the silver silatic, which was fun, but didn't reduce your number of unconverted oozes.

I might as well stick around. I want to find out if the oozes are going to "stick it" to the giants or if the giants are going to "wipe the floor" with the oozes! (Arf-arf!)

 

[Shade]

And of course, other Spelljammer creatures will pop up from time to time.

 

[Big Mac]

And of course, other Spelljammer creatures will pop up from time to time.

One of the beauties of Spelljammer, is that you can take all the unloved creatures that Wizards of the Coast didn't want to convert, and scatter them across as many planets as it takes to realistically space them out.

A ship and a spelljamming helm can take a bunch of players from a place where they are fighting drow and orcs, to a place where they are battling a bunch of rare monsters from Imagine magazine. So as far as I'm concerned, every monster the Creature Catalogue converts helps Spelljammer. Mind you I think that any GM can twist these conversions to suit their own campaign.

 

[Shade]

Aruchai (alternatively Fleische Kleckse, Blobs of Flesh, Sea of Flesh)
ORIGIN: Limbo
FREQUENCY: Very rare
NO. APPEARING: 10-1000
ARMOR CLASS: 10
MOVE: ¼”
HIT DICE: 4+1
% IN LAIR: See below
TREASURE TYPE: See below
NO. OF ATTACKS: See below
DAMAGE/ATTACK: See below
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Paralyzation + see below
SPECIAL DEFENSES: “Weapon-sticking” + see below
MAGIC RESISTANCE: 75%
INTELLIGENCE: Semi-low
ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Neutral
SIZE: S (4’) + see below
PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil

Aruchai are creatures native to the plane of Limbo — absolute Chaos. The gods there first created the Aruchai (sing. Arucha) for amusement, but accidentally endowed them with slight intelligence. An Arucha’s one purpose in life is to get OUT of Limbo. When a group of Aruchai has killed all of its enemies, and when the number of the enemies was equal to half or more of the number of Aruchai fighting, the corpses of the enemies immediately begin corrupting into new Aruchai. Meanwhile, the Aruchai are instantly transported to the enemies’ native plane, where they terrorize the inhabitants for one day. They may not be slain in the shape of Aruchai on this new plane, but after the one-day period is up the Aruchai reform into the creatures they were before they were defeated by a group of Aruchai. However, the reformed creatures will now all have Chaotic Neutral alignment.

Aruchai appear as formless blobs of rotting, yellow flesh. Their bodies may be seen to be crawling with little red parasites, who greedily slurp up the many fluids the Aruchai excrete at odd times. The Aruchai also excrete a viscous glue which causes them to stick to the ground (thus their slow movement rate). Aruchai are always moving, albeit very slowly. They never stop for rest, and only slow down a little to absorb foods.

Weapons of +3 or less will stick to the Aruchai’s glue-coated bodies if the modified “to hit” roll is below 18. The weapons can be pulled out of an Arucha as per a Web spell. Each round a weapon is stuck the Arucha’s body acids will eat away at it, so it loses a “plus” each round (normal weapons will go into the negatives). If a weapon reaches -5 it will explode, not harming the Aruchai but doing 2-16 pts. damage to all others within a 6” radius.

An Arucha will reach out with shapeless “fingers” at its victim, paralyzing them as per a Gelatinous Cube. It will then proceed to devour its captive by engulfing it and eventually (1 round) suffocating it. The Arucha then digests the enemy and excretes it as pre-Aruchai mess — which will become Aruchai under the conditions detailed above. Aruchai fingers can reach a maximum of 1” from the body.

When there are 100 or more live Aruchai present, they can meld and flow together into Aruchai-Kamoit — a sea of writhing flesh. Their fingers may then reach 2”, they gain +3 “to hit”, and 3 is subtracted from the enemy’s saving throws vs. paralyzation.

Aruchai are invulnerable to cold-based attacks, and weapons of +1 or less do only one point of damage to them per hit. Weapons of +2 or better do as many pts. of damage as their “plus” (i.e., a +3 sword does three points of damage). Normal damage adjustments (due to high strength) do not apply to Aruchai. Damage penalties incurred because of low strength do apply, however. Fire does triple damage vs. the Fleische Kleckse, and so does acid.

Aruchai are treated as size “L” in “Kamoit” state.

Gods and other creatures of Chaos often utilize seas of Aruchai as treasure guards in caverns with low roofs.

Originally appeared in Dragon Magazine #47 (1981).

 

[Big Mac]

I've looked through this a few times and there are a few bits I find very confusing. It is an interesting monster, but I need to work out what the author was intending. I don't think it is written very well.

Aruchai (alternatively Fleische Kleckse, Blobs of Flesh, Sea of Flesh)
ORIGIN: Limbo
FREQUENCY: Very rare
NO. APPEARING: 10-1000
ARMOR CLASS: 10
MOVE: ¼”
HIT DICE: 4+1
% IN LAIR: See below
TREASURE TYPE: See below
NO. OF ATTACKS: See below
DAMAGE/ATTACK: See below
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Paralyzation + see below
SPECIAL DEFENSES: “Weapon-sticking” + see below
MAGIC RESISTANCE: 75%
INTELLIGENCE: Semi-low
ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Neutral
SIZE: S (4’) + see below
PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil

No real problems with this apart from the excessive amount of "see below".

Aruchai are creatures native to the plane of Limbo — absolute Chaos. The gods there first created the Aruchai (sing. Arucha) for amusement, but accidentally endowed them with slight intelligence. An Arucha’s one purpose in life is to get OUT of Limbo. When a group of Aruchai has killed all of its enemies, and when the number of the enemies was equal to half or more of the number of Aruchai fighting, the corpses of the enemies immediately begin corrupting into new Aruchai. Meanwhile, the Aruchai are instantly transported to the enemies’ native plane, where they terrorize the inhabitants for one day. They may not be slain in the shape of Aruchai on this new plane, but after the one-day period is up the Aruchai reform into the creatures they were before they were defeated by a group of Aruchai. However, the reformed creatures will now all have Chaotic Neutral alignment.

Wow. This paragraph reads like the legal blurb on the back of a credit card application.

If I understand correctly, if 4 aruchai are on the plane of limbo and attack and kill two three or four orc (on the plane of limbo) they are transported to the material plane. They then somehow become immortal for one day. And on the second day they turn into orcs (but keep their chaotic neutral alignment).

Meanwhile the bodies of the two three or four orcs turn into new aruchai and wander around the plane of limbo.

However, if the 4 aruchai only kill one orc none of this happens.

There are several different things going on here. They are all good ideas, but this whole thing is tied up in knots. It is really clunky.

For example, do the aruchai turned into orcs gain the stats and abilities of orcs? Do they gain the abilities of the very orcs they killed? Do they look exactly like the orcs they killed or do look different?

What would happen if the aruchai killed some orcs, hopped over to the material plane and then killed a fire elemental before they finished transforming into orcs? Do they stop turning into orcs and hop over to the elemental plane of fire? Do the dead elementals turn into aruchai on the material plane?

My understanding of this creature is that:

* = It has some sort of doppelganger like ability to copy the form of its victims. For some reason this process takes 24 hours, during which the aruchai seems to be agressive and much harder to kill than their original (first) form. Then it takes on a third form - the form of its victim on its home plane.

* = Something the aruchai does to its victims make them turn into aruchai after they die. (This would seem to suggest that the number of aruchai on the plane of limbo would remain fairly static, with dead victims being mostly equal to the aruchai that vanish.)

Aruchai appear as formless blobs of rotting, yellow flesh. Their bodies may be seen to be crawling with little red parasites, who greedily slurp up the many fluids the Aruchai excrete at odd times. The Aruchai also excrete a viscous glue which causes them to stick to the ground (thus their slow movement rate). Aruchai are always moving, albeit very slowly. They never stop for rest, and only slow down a little to absorb foods.

I wonder what the little red parasites do. Maybe they infect people killed by aruchai and make their bodies turn into new aruchai.

The little red parasites are obviously immune to the aruchai's glue.

Do these parasites need their own monster entry?

Weapons of +3 or less will stick to the Aruchai’s glue-coated bodies if the modified “to hit” roll is below 18. The weapons can be pulled out of an Arucha as per a Web spell. Each round a weapon is stuck the Arucha’s body acids will eat away at it, so it loses a “plus” each round (normal weapons will go into the negatives). If a weapon reaches -5 it will explode, not harming the Aruchai but doing 2-16 pts. damage to all others within a 6” radius.

This is an interesting ability (or should I say set of abilities), but it doesn't seem to fit in with any other monster I've seen.

Maybe the stickyness of the weapons could be done by making any attack on the aruchai grant it an attack of opportunity that can only be used for attempts to grab weapons.

Or maybe it would be easier drop that and just have its skin act like a web spell.

The acid effect that makes weapons explode reminds me of the silatic in some ways. But this creature doesn't seem to feed on any particular type of weapon. (So both a whip and a mace would do the same amount of explosive damage.)

An Arucha will reach out with shapeless “fingers” at its victim, paralyzing them as per a Gelatinous Cube. It will then proceed to devour its captive by engulfing it and eventually (1 round) suffocating it. The Arucha then digests the enemy and excretes it as pre-Aruchai mess — which will become Aruchai under the conditions detailed above. Aruchai fingers can reach a maximum of 1” from the body.

The fingers are good, but how many does it have? Or do the fingers act as a mass and form one single attack? Or does this ability just give us a 1 inch "paralization zone" around the creature?

The actual absorption sounds pretty similar to what a gelatinous cube does, but with the overun being a lot slower. I'd guess that part could just copy the cube.

When there are 100 or more live Aruchai present, they can meld and flow together into Aruchai-Kamoit — a sea of writhing flesh. Their fingers may then reach 2”, they gain +3 “to hit”, and 3 is subtracted from the enemy’s saving throws vs. paralyzation.

This sounds a bit like those shape changing creatures from Star Trek Deep Space Nine. They could merge together. I think the aruchai-kamoit might need a second set of stats.

The blurb doesn't actually say if the aruchai-kamoit is a one way process or if the creatures can split off and turn back into a standard aruchai.

Aruchai are invulnerable to cold-based attacks, and weapons of +1 or less do only one point of damage to them per hit. Weapons of +2 or better do as many pts. of damage as their “plus” (i.e., a +3 sword does three points of damage). Normal damage adjustments (due to high strength) do not apply to Aruchai. Damage penalties incurred because of low strength do apply, however. Fire does triple damage vs. the Fleische Kleckse, and so does acid.

This uber-damage reduction (combined with the sticky-weapon disolving acid) probably means that you would be better off throwing two dozen logs at this creature. It is bizarre that a giant can't do more damage to this creature than a goblin.

Immunity to cold and vulnerabilty to heat work (although this creature already has too many effect going on). The vulnerability to acid is a bit weird considering that it gives off its own acid. (Maybe it actually gives off alkali instead of acid. I could see that causing a reaction that damages the creature. However, I don't know if D&D uses alkaline as well as acid. Maybe a less scientific explanation could explain this vulnerability.)

Aruchai are treated as size “L” in “Kamoit” state.

That can go into the second stat block.

Gods and other creatures of Chaos often utilize seas of Aruchai as treasure guards in caverns with low roofs.

A "sea" would seem to be the second (larger) form of the creature. (I would guess that "sea" would be the collective noun used to describe a group of these creatures (instead of tribe, clan or gang).

This creature is really like a bunch of random abilities that were rolled up on some sort of monster generation table. I think that half the battle with this monster is going to be getting past the really bad design and working out what the "spirit" of this creature is.

 

[freyar]

Wow. This paragraph reads like the legal blurb on the back of a credit card application.

No joke! These are weird and confusing critters.

Here's how I read the transforming bit. The orcs would turn into immortal aruchai for one day, which they spend on the Material Plane, then get sucked back to Limbo and get turned back into orcs, though now CN. The original aruchai are still wandering around Limbo somewhere and nothing ever happened to them.

Clearly, we need to make some sense of this. There are some monsters with "take over the bodies of the dead" abilities (yellow musk creeper maybe?), and I'll see about looking some up.

I wonder what the little red parasites do. Maybe they infect people killed by aruchai and make their bodies turn into new aruchai.

The little red parasites are obviously immune to the aruchai's glue.

Do these parasites need their own monster entry?

I actually think that the parasites might be part of the aruchai that are just disconnected. Seriously, these are practically aberrations, like a gibbering mouther.

This is an interesting ability (or should I say set of abilities), but it doesn't seem to fit in with any other monster I've seen.

Maybe the stickyness of the weapons could be done by making any attack on the aruchai grant it an attack of opportunity that can only be used for attempts to grab weapons.

Or maybe it would be easier drop that and just have its skin act like a web spell.

The acid effect that makes weapons explode reminds me of the silatic in some ways. But this creature doesn't seem to feed on any particular type of weapon. (So both a whip and a mace would do the same amount of explosive damage.)

Yeah, this is weird, too. I'm not sure how much sense this ability really makes in 3e speak.

Actually, let's deal with type first: anyone else think this might be an aberration, or are we going with ooze?

 

[Shade]

Actually, let's deal with type first: anyone else think this might be an aberration, or are we going with ooze?

I'm still thinking ooze, mainly because they remind me of the teratomorph and flesh jelly.

 

[freyar]

Ok, ooze it is! Abilities? Int is semi-low, but I don't think we have other clues.

 

[Big Mac]

No joke! These are weird and confusing critters.

I think this is going to be hard work, but as one of you said in another thread, that will make it fun.

The problem is the bits of text that are in conflict with each other. Whatever we do with this, I can see someone out there looking at the original and thinking we have made a mistake.

If we can weigh up the alternatives, perhaps we can illiminate ones that don't work. Did Dragon Magazine actually do anything with these creatures (like use them in an adventure in the same magazine?) Any additional information about them could help proove or disproove someone's theory about what the blurb-text means.

Failing all that, I think we will have to go with what makes more sense to us, what is easiest for a GM to run or what is more fun to put into a game.

Here's how I read the transforming bit. The orcs would turn into immortal aruchai for one day, which they spend on the Material Plane, then get sucked back to Limbo and get turned back into orcs, though now CN. The original aruchai are still wandering around Limbo somewhere and nothing ever happened to them.

Hmm. I've just re-read that and I think that different sentences in the text suggest my interpretation and then your interpretation. (This monster should probably have been referred back to the author by the editor of the magazine. Do you think there is any chance that the author is contactable? Maybe we could send him/her a polite email asking for a clarification.)