Night of the Shark (2e)
2e
Apodalypse, Full-Fledged Apodalypse, Ravening Apodalypse, Undead Apodalypse, Ever-Hungry Flesh-Cannibalizing Apodalypse, Voracious Apodalypse: The apodalypse is the fruit of a misguided experiment gone horribly wrong. The combination of necromantically animated shark tissue implanted in still living humane birthed an aquatic monstrosity that requires the flesh of living creatures to retain its form and "life."
If [an apodalypse progeny's] subsumption is successful, the victim is irrevocably lost, and the progeny takes possession of the still-living husk. If allowed the time to slowly incorporate the recently acquired flesh, it transforms itself (over a month's time) into an apodalypse with minimum hit points.
The unholy tome titled The Nekton Fragments bears the formulae and recipes responsible for creating this creature with an undead “core” that is sheathed in a husk of still-living flesh.
This was the chamber where Sharone and Dr. Bondwood created the apodalypse from a recipe pieced together from The Nekton Fragments.
Sharone believes that the creation of the apodalypse was a freak chance that occurred only through the misapplication of knowledge found in The Nekton Fragments; the odds of another such disaster are so low as to be absolutely nil. (This is a wildly false belief!)
The Nekton Fragments contain a process, not unlike those which are recorded in manuals of golem construction, that describes the method in which a living humanoid can be transformed through careful surgery into a being capable of existing below the waves without the need to breathe the air. The process can only be conducted by a wizard of at least 10th level and requires a living humanoid body and a volume of tissue from a recently deceased shark. The text describes the procedure, which requires the necrotic tissue to be enchanted by a special spell (provided by The Nekton Fragments) immediately before implantation into the living being. Any wizard who possesses the 5th-level animate dead spell instantly detects the similarity between that spell and the 5th-level spell named in the text as enliven (enliven creates a link between the necrotic tissue and the Negative Energy planes this spell is only effective if used in conjunction with the other procedures described in the text).
The procedure requires a full 12 hours of surgery mixed with spell casting. Following the procedure, the patient has a straight 75% chance of dying and moldering away in a single turn. If the procedure is successful, an immature apodalypse is born with the outward form of the humanoid subject, but with the mindless, insatiable hunger of a beast that requires the living flesh of others to survive.
The Fortunate Son contains no living beings, yet it is inhabited by the spawn of the creature initially engendered by Sharone’s misguided experhents, as well as the unquiet spirits of all those slain by that unholy creation.
Undead Tail Section: A goliath creature some call a mottled worm (a cousin to the land-based purple worm) is responsible for the passages that still exist within the seamount. By a calamity not recorded in these pages, it perished in the tunnels of its making, perhaps due to a rockfall of tremendous proportions which even now covers almost all of its remains, save for its tails spine.
Life has long since fled from this hulk, but with the coming of the apodalypse, its progeny, and an unhealthy influence from the Negative Energy material plane, the tail section has reanim ated.
Apodalypse, Nightmare Creature, Beast, Strange Creature, Horror, Nightmare: ?
Undead: ?
Ghast: ?
Captain Sharone, Ghost, Dead Captain: The ghost resides in the hold and cannot physically leave the site of her death, nor can she protect the PCs from the various threats that reside upon the ship.
Her eventual death occurred under such extreme emotional pain and self-recrimination that a ghost was born of her tormented spirit. Because the captain perished alone and mourned in this chamber, her ghost is unable to leave the secret cabin.
“You've seen the devastation wrought on this ship that was once mine to command. Know you that it was by my unwitting hand that the horror of the apodalypse was created. My crew was slaughtered while I hid here in my secret sanctuary, weak and lacking my spells that might otherwise have turned the tide of death. It is my curse to linger here in the ship of evil omen so long as the apodalypse also lingers on the edge of life, bringing death to all that it encounters. . . .”
Ghoul: The purser was one of the first to die after seaman Tim was transformed into the ravening apodalypse; it seems the purser was in the habit of shorting Tim on payday and keeping the balance for himself. The fury of the apodalypse's initial attack killed the purser straight off, and in the fullness of time the remains reanimated (due to the strong Negative Energy influence infesting the ship).
Ghoul, Famished Beastie: ?
Skeleton: ?
Dr. Bondwood, Skeleton: ?
Unquiet Spirit: The Fortunate Son contains no living beings, yet it is inhabited by the spawn of the creature initially engendered by Sharone’s misguided experhents, as well as the unquiet spirits of all those slain by that unholy creation.
Wight, Undead Wight: Unfortunately, any such exploration of the muck draws the attention of the two undead wights that were birthed here from the bones of two humanoids who died in this pool seeking sanctuary. The pronounced effect of various Negative Energy links soon proved sufficient to animate these two.
Zombie, Animate Zombie: Due to the proximity of the progeny throughout the ship (and the Subtle Negative Energy influence exerted by these creatures), the remains became animate zombie.
