I like lore, fluff, background. I do not, however, mostly enjoy the official version much. It seems the publishers don't like investing a lot of page space on it, and maybe they also don't like paying creatives to come up with any creative stuff. And maybe I'm a minority. I mean I know I am, I just don't know if I'm a minority in this particular context.
But ... Oozes. They're propably not the most widely used monsters, but they are among the most justifiably 2-dimensional ones. After all .... they're pools of glob. It's not like there's a secret society of oozes out there somewhere.
... or is there?
No, propably not. But maybe they can be more interesting, regardless. Quick question, btw: Is the mimic a kind of ooze? Maybe a distant cousin? Personally I think so, but you needn't agree with that. Or anything else, obviously.
Oozes are essentially immortal. They don't get sick, don't age, they don't get cancer or Alzheimers, no infirmity or arthritis for these guys. Some divide, others just grow. And grow. And .. grow. Also, they absorb. A sufficiently ancient ooze may have reduced to base nutrients a very, very wide range of things, including but not limited to: Monsters, sentients, spellcasters and so on. What are the odds - do you think - that over time, just every once in a while, if an ooze devours a mindflayer, that it absorbs some of it's mental powers? Just .. as an example.
When things break down, what do they become? If a wizard with spells memorized gets dissolved and becomes part of an ooze, what becomes of his memories, his spells? I've done many things with oozes, including ones that absorbed resistances or regeneration from elementals or trolls, and also oozes that gained not sentience but the memories of sentients they had absorbed. So a mindless ooze with the memories of home and family, 'returning' and trying to hug the old wife and child. Fun stuff. At least, I think so.
And what is an ooze anyways? A liquid creature is essentially impossible. Even jellyfish - while 99% water - have just enough cohesion to retain their shape. Oozes don't. They're more like the T1000. I consider oozes to be something akin to decomposition elementals. They are rot given shape. One might also say they're creatures of entropy. Either way, oozes simply do what they do: Find organic matter, break it down and absorb it.
Two things about oozes I find interesting. One, they dislike the sun. I don't really know why that is, I just feel like they exist only in dark places. And two, over time and in general, they're on a downward trajectory. As in, physically, they're not great climbers, but they do quite well downhill. This leads them to being more common the deeper you go - and it leads me to the idea of the Ur-Ooze, the world-spanning Ooze ocean that forms the bottom layer of the underdark. The Ur-Ooze, being basically as old as life itself, has been collecting in the low places of the earth forever, and is long since past the point of being a creature or monster in the traditional sense. Larger than anything living in the world, it is a divine being of considerable power. When desperate creatures pray to whatever unseen, terrible powers lurk in the dark below - the Ur-Ooze is what answers. It has neither alignment nor ethos, there are no churches in it's name nor clerics fighting it's cause, but it will listen, and respond, and if the price it exacts is met, it may help.
Oh, and I copied the World of Warcraft model once. If you've played the game, you know the deal: Blobs, oozes, with a skull and a few bones floating around in them. In my version, when struck by one of these, they'd absorb blood, and that blood would reveal tracings of a nervous system inside the ooze. These guys would have some remnant of the person they once were in them, memories, abilities, no real intelligence but the memory of intelligence, which might be enough to simulate it.
That's all I have. If you like oozes, or have ideas, or can expand on mine, please let me know. You're also welcome to post here just to state that the official line on oozes is perfectly fine, but maybe don't expect me to engage super hard with that. Let it be enough that I state that I feel differently =)
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Obviously you don't know your science because oozes are COOL.
In fact, one of the interesting thing about D&D is the weird little nods to nature that are in the lore... Like how Kenku are raven people... and ravens are one of the few birds that might actually rival a parrot for mimicked vocabulary...
Considering that slimes are also the decomposers of the world, it's not surprizing your grey oozes come from sewers and bathrooms, and that your encounter these creatures amongst the detritus. It's also no so much that a gelatinous cube is chasing you down, but that you ran into it, by not looking where you were going. Then again, real life carnivorous fungi exist, but they usually eat nematodes and other microscopic animals (Some of my favorite mushrooms do this, including wine caps and oyster)
The dragonblood ooze may be a bit of a this, amped up on magical properties....
And what if, to be honest, oozes and molds were encouraged as part of the ecological cleanup of magical effluent on wizard academy grounds? I mean you really can't tell..
Um .. well, I made this thread because oozes are cool. But this is a fantasy game, and they certainly ain't science.
I do get what you're trying to say: Here's real life decomposition, and that serves as inspiration for fantasy decomposition. And I realise the category of jellies, slimes and molds obviously includes molds - but I don't really agree with that part. Basically, I find the molds to be out of place: They can't move, and they're not liquid.
Oozes to clean up the spillage from alchemy and potion brewing at the local wizard's academy is a neat idea, and should create some exciting new varieties of dangerous oozes - not to mention a slew of complaints to the city council about the irresponsible practices of the mages community.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Um .. well, I made this thread because oozes are cool. But this is a fantasy game, and they certainly ain't science.
I do get what you're trying to say: Here's real life decomposition, and that serves as inspiration for fantasy decomposition. And I realise the category of jellies, slimes and molds obviously includes molds - but I don't really agree with that part. Basically, I find the molds to be out of place: They can't move, and they're not liquid.
Oozes to clean up the spillage from alchemy and potion brewing at the local wizard's academy is a neat idea, and should create some exciting new varieties of dangerous oozes - not to mention a slew of complaints to the city council about the irresponsible practices of the mages community.
I kinda figured you liked them.
You undersell the monster manual. It can't be 20 pages of lore on each creature for multiple reasons...
And science is a good place to look into and start when building your lore.
I like the idea of an ooze that absorbed some scrolls (or wizards) and got some spellcasting as a result. Spell absorption would definitely have to be one of its features, like every spell cast against it has a 50% chance of completely failing and healing the ooze instead.
I also like the idea of oozes somewhat reflecting the last thing they ate, with maybe a list of different elements/powers/whatevers to choose from on statblocks. A kind of Kirby ooze, if you will.
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
You undersell the monster manual. It can't be 20 pages of lore on each creature for multiple reasons...
And science is a good place to look into and start when building your lore.
Well - it could. But what I wrote here on oozes and elsewhere on gnolls isn't anywhere near 20 pages. No, I'm not underselling the MM. The MM simply isn't the book I'm looking for. It's a book of monster stats - not monster lore. I play a game of lore - not a game of stats.
Science is sometimes the best place to find inspiration. I'm tropy though (for all my pretentions to the opposite) and find ... most, maybe? .. a lot anyways, of my inspiration in movies, art, books, and so on.
I like the idea of an ooze that absorbed some scrolls (or wizards) and got some spellcasting as a result. Spell absorption would definitely have to be one of its features, like every spell cast against it has a 50% chance of completely failing and healing the ooze instead.
I also like the idea of oozes somewhat reflecting the last thing they ate, with maybe a list of different elements/powers/whatevers to choose from on statblocks. A kind of Kirby ooze, if you will.
Heh - kirby ooze.
Yea, strange and unpredictable spell interactions would be cool. Maybe a firespell makes the ooze more dangerous - and on fire - while it burns. It might eventually die from the flames, but until it does it's faster and has bonus damage. Just an example, I'm not thrilled about it, but as a principle it's cool =)
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Ignoring Jubliex and Ghaunadaur as the primordial fonts of Ooze-kind how about these two:
1) Phychic Gray Ooze and Oblex are the result of an Elder Brain dying after it has come into contact with/be contanimated by the Abyss. The Brain dies and the chaotic contanimation spontaeously dissolves the brain into the cerebral fluid that makes up its home. The psychic energy released by this event causes the fluid to thicken and move from a fluid to a semi-fluid state and become an Ooze. The Ooze no longer has the full might of its previous Elder Brain form but remains somewhat intelligent, ranging from almost feral (the Psychic Gray Ooze) to near genius level (The Elder Oblex) but never quite becoming as intelligent as it used to be. It could be thorised that the new Ooze "evolves" over time, slowly becoming accustomed to its Gray Ooze form and eliminating the chaotic taint before splitting into two or more Oblex Spawn and then into the higher Oblex forms with it developing personalities based on those it has consumed and possibly even becoming embraced by Illithid society again and coming under the sway of a new Elder Brain.
2) Ochre Jelly are Yochlol, punished by Lolth for some grevious error. They are stripped of their very nature and reduced to a creature of the lowest form, indeed one that barely has a form. These are then exiled to the darkest places where they must earn Lolth's favour although few ever gain their demonic form again.
There is lore out there to add depth to oozes, and the MM isn't the end-all, beat-all definitive lore. D&D is purposely vague on several points for people to flavor the established worlds the the table's liking. Maybe, the lack of solid lore is the result of laziness, but it also results in opportunity. Seize the day ooze!
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Oblexes (even just the adult, not elder ones) are by far the monster that has freaked out the party I DM for the most. The whole blob/body snatcher combo makes for some great body horror possibilities
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
There is lore out there to add depth to oozes, and the MM isn't the end-all, beat-all definitive lore. D&D is purposely vague on several points for people to flavor the established worlds the the table's liking. Maybe, the lack of solid lore is the result of laziness, but it also results in opportunity. Seize the day ooze!
"Lack of Solid Lore" was that an intentional joke at a oozes expense? Either way I chuckle groaned at it.
Another option for oozes...Have them the result of Far Realm incursions, if a rift or portal to the Far Realm opens up it causes the physical reality of the Material Realm to warp and form "bubbles" of Far Realm reality. These bubbles are what denizens of the Material Realm came to know as Oozes. Those killed by an Ooze may be lucky enough to find their spirits/soul pass onto the after life but their physical remains are not so lucky. The physical body is dissolved by an oozes acidic nature but is ultimately re-incorporated in the Far Realm as a Gibbering Mouther. Should anyone try to Planeshift to the Far Realm then 1d10 Gibbering Mouthers are spewed into the area where the spellcaster Planeshifted from (in a manner similar to the way a Nightwalker is pulled from the Negative Plane if anyone tries to planeshift there).
Why does multi-quote basically never work? Is that just for me?
@Rob76
The grey ooze and oblex are neat. I mean that's actually some fairly vivid and useful background - but for me, it bites into what I wanna do with oozes, and what I wanna do with mind flayers. My thoughts on oozes are already here. My mind flayers are ... well, same but different. If anyone ever read Brian Lumley's Necroscope novels, it's like that - but with mind flayers.
Ochre jellies kinda fall in the same hole. Sorta. My ochre jellies are more reddish than yellow, and I like to use them in sort of ... rusty environs.
@EricHVela
I'm not sure I agree with you. I think D&D is vague primarily to save money - and also because most of the stuff they make is just so deplorably bad. They have talented folk employed, and when their best people get time to do things right, we get things like Planescape, or Dark Sun, or ... well, those are kinda the ones I like. Ravenloft, I guess. I'm propably forgetting something. But the vast majority is straight up trash, deserving nothing more than the midden.
@AntonSirius
I didn't even know about the oblexes until just now. But yea, they're some scare monsters.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I always just thought of them as kinds of giant amoeba with different characteristics
Yea, me too - once upon a time. But a giant single-celled organism would simply burst if you cut it's outer membrane. No, to me, oozes are ... more like nanomachines, really? I mean, they're absolutely not, but they work in a similar way, it's constituent particles or interacting to let it move and attack and so forth.
Do oozes float or sink in water? Or is that a variable?
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Or maybe just dissolve and die? Although, that's the least interesting option, and also, I don't consider them to be strictly alive to begin with.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I always just thought of them as kinds of giant amoeba with different characteristics
Yea, me too - once upon a time. But a giant single-celled organism would simply burst if you cut it's outer membrane. No, to me, oozes are ... more like nanomachines, really? I mean, they're absolutely not, but they work in a similar way, it's constituent particles or interacting to let it move and attack and so forth.
Do oozes float or sink in water? Or is that a variable?
I don't think you're a million miles away from some cannonical lore with regards to oozes being nano-machines. Part of the lore surrounding Jubliex is that he/she/it is a single entity but also every Ooze and Slime (possibly Mold as well) at the same time and he/she//it can exert it's influence and sieze control over any Ooze anywhere in the "multiverse" at any time and so all Oozes could be acting in acocrdance with some form of higher programming via Jubliex's will, the vast majority of other creatures are not aware of it and just see them as mindless and/or destructive forces. So you could say they each perform a automated task when left to their own devices but are also part of some larger gesalt entity capable of intricate planning and attacks when one or more is being controlled by such a higher will..
To usurp a little bit from a cartoon from the 1990's, The Pirates of Dark Water had quite an interesting premise, sea water was turning into something called Dark Water, which acted in a very Ooze like fashion so maybe you could have Ooze exposed to water absorb it and convert it into more mass and grow. I can't recall everything about it as I don't think the cartoon has been replayed in the UK for about 20+ years.
To pull a little bit from 3rd edition; you also have the Ghaunadan (link to wiki here: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Ghaunadan) who were ooze shapeshifters which you could probably mimic (pardon the pun) with Changelings in 5e. These could give you another intelligent ooze that might show them evolving or developing into a sentient creature, albeit one that is solely following the ideals/strictures of Ghaunadaur who is a Chaotic Evil Entity. Side note, not sure what it says about me that my favourite character I played in 3rd edition was a Cleric of Ghaunadaur.
I don't think you're a million miles away from some cannonical lore with regards to oozes being nano-machines. Part of the lore surrounding Jubliex is that he/she/it is a single entity but also every Ooze and Slime (possibly Mold as well) at the same time and he/she//it can exert it's influence and sieze control over any Ooze anywhere in the "multiverse" at any time and so all Oozes could be acting in acocrdance with some form of higher programming via Jubliex's will, the vast majority of other creatures are not aware of it and just see them as mindless and/or destructive forces. So you could say they each perform a automated task when left to their own devices but are also part of some larger gesalt entity capable of intricate planning and attacks when one or more is being controlled by such a higher will..
To usurp a little bit from a cartoon from the 1990's, The Pirates of Dark Water had quite an interesting premise, sea water was turning into something called Dark Water, which acted in a very Ooze like fashion so maybe you could have Ooze exposed to water absorb it and convert it into more mass and grow. I can't recall everything about it as I don't think the cartoon has been replayed in the UK for about 20+ years.
To pull a little bit from 3rd edition; you also have the Ghaunadan (link to wiki here: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Ghaunadan) who were ooze shapeshifters which you could probably mimic (pardon the pun) with Changelings in 5e. These could give you another intelligent ooze that might show them evolving or developing into a sentient creature, albeit one that is solely following the ideals/strictures of Ghaunadaur who is a Chaotic Evil Entity. Side note, not sure what it says about me that my favourite character I played in 3rd edition was a Cleric of Ghaunadaur.
It's interesting. See, I like ranting about how bad I think the official lore is - but that's not to say I necessarily think my own alternatives are just super amazing fantastic. After all, the official dudes are paid professionals, while I'm just some rando in an office in Copenhagen, who really should get back to my sales work, right?
I like my oozes as 'decomposition made flesh' (for a very lose definition of flesh), so I don't want them to be extensions of Jubilex's will. Unless, that is, Jubilex isn't some base demon, but a divinity of decomposition. Like He Who Shalt Not be Named Here (that's Nurgle, btw). But on the other hand, I'm kinda flattered when my stuff overlaps the official stuff somewhat - particularly, when it overlaps some of the better stuff =)
Yea, oozes getting into the oceans could be bad. They're just full of nutrition, so potentially, a single ooze could grow quite, quite huge indeed. With resulting death and disaster for all shore-dwelling folk (and those in the actual oceans too, of course - bad time to be sahuagin, I guess).
Ghaunadans are cool. I don't know if I'm particularly down with the tendency of all gods to have their own custom race. I mean it makes sense after a fashion, but as you may imagine from my overall stance, I'm not too happy with it. I've thrown everything D&D has to say about religion out the door, and have a stance of 'all religions, all the time everywhere'. What I mean by that is that there are myriad gods high and low, great and small, and while some may unwisely tie their hopes on one particular god, the wise spread their eggs into many baskets - finding a local patron when travelling, paying their respect to the druids and the shrine of whatever fertility goddess governs the lands during sowing and harvest months, and so on. So ... north of the great mountains live men with the heads of beasts - and their gods do have a tendency towards having the heads of beasts too, sure. But that's not the point.
This is becoming a major tangent. But anyways.
No god is a god of the beastheaded men. But they have gods of a number of fairly dark concepts (the main 'beast headed' race are Yuan-ti), so they have a Goddess of the Green Court - the Green Court being synonymous with intrigue, deceit, treachery, and promotion by murder. But she's not a goddess of intrigue, deceit, treachery, and promotion by murder. She's the Goddess of the Green Court, which also is synonomous with royalty, purity (of a kind, right), beauty, luxury and the right to rule - for those able and willing. She's very ... sensuality, perfume, silk, poisoned daggers, whispered secrets.
And now - back to oozes =D
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I always just thought of them as kinds of giant amoeba with different characteristics
Yea, me too - once upon a time. But a giant single-celled organism would simply burst if you cut it's outer membrane. No, to me, oozes are ... more like nanomachines, really? I mean, they're absolutely not, but they work in a similar way, it's constituent particles or interacting to let it move and attack and so forth.
Do oozes float or sink in water? Or is that a variable?
That nanomachine/floating comment reminds me of the portuguese man'o'war that looks like a jellyfish but is a colony of organisms, now thats no ooze but gets maybe close enough?
And science is a good place to look into and start when building your lore.
Science is sometimes the best place to find inspiration. I'm tropy though (for all my pretentions to the opposite) and find ... most, maybe? .. a lot anyways, of my inspiration in movies, art, books, and so on.
A lot of movies etc. get their ideas, at least the basis of their ideas from science. So even if you're going for the tropes, you're pro'ly still getting at least some of it from science in a roundabout way.
There is lore out there to add depth to oozes, and the MM isn't the end-all, beat-all definitive lore. D&D is purposely vague on several points for people to flavor the established worlds the the table's liking. Maybe, the lack of solid lore is the result of laziness, but it also results in opportunity. Seize the day ooze!
I'm not sure I agree with you. I think D&D is vague primarily to save money - and also because most of the stuff they make is just so deplorably bad. They have talented folk employed, and when their best people get time to do things right, we get things like Planescape, or Dark Sun, or ... well, those are kinda the ones I like. Ravenloft, I guess. I'm propably forgetting something. But the vast majority is straight up trash, deserving nothing more than the midden.
Because you were mean to it once. 🤷♂️ (I don’t really know.)
EricHVela is right though, they do intentionally leave some stuff vague so we can create our own stuff in those spaces. If they didn’t the game wouldn’t be as fun. Like, for example, your idea about the “Ur-Ooze” (I liked that btw). If there was definitive lore about everything then there wouldn’t have been room for you to imagine that, and that’s cool, so I’m glad you imagined it. Sure, some stuff WotC does is because they’re cheap, and some stuff is because they’re lazy, and some stuff is because they’re stupid. However some of it is because they’re not really all that stupid after all, and leaving room for people like you to imagine stuff like that is one of the smart things they do.
Also, the really cool stuff you liked about settings like Planescape and DarkSun were probably developed way back when TSR was publishing D&D back when WotC only did CCGs.
That nanomachine/floating comment reminds me of the portuguese man'o'war that looks like a jellyfish but is a colony of organisms, now thats no ooze but gets maybe close enough?
What, they are? I always thought they were jellyfish. Looked'm up, and you're right - of course. Cool.
Because you were mean to it once. 🤷♂️ (I don’t really know.)
It was mean to me!
As you can see, right now it's working. So odd =)
EricHVela is right though, they do intentionally leave some stuff vague so we can create our own stuff in those spaces. If they didn’t the game wouldn’t be as fun. Like, for example, your idea about the “Ur-Ooze” (I liked that btw). If there was definitive lore about everything then there wouldn’t have been room for you to imagine that, and that’s cool, so I’m glad you imagined it. Sure, some stuff WotC does is because they’re cheap, and some stuff is because they’re lazy, and some stuff is because they’re stupid. However some of it is because they’re not really all that stupid after all, and leaving room for people like you to imagine stuff like that is one of the smart things they do.
Also, the really cool stuff you liked about settings like Planescape and DarkSun were probably developed way back when TSR was publishing D&D back when WotC only did CCGs.
That's just what they want you to believe.
No, I ... agree? Like, I hated Dragonlance for many reasons (primarily for turning dragons into mules), but in part because they filled up the map. Everywhere was used, there were basically no blank spots to do anything. You could chose which of the locations from the books you wanted to visit, that was that.
So you (and EricHVela) are right - I don't even want the official material to be exhaustively detailed. What I want is for the official stuff to be good! Like Planescape, or Dark Sun, or Ravenloft to a certain extent.
And I do want enemies to be less 2-dimensional.
Oh, and ... thanks. Truth is, I came up with the Ur-Ooze as I was typing the OP, thinking about the nature of oozes.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
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I like lore, fluff, background. I do not, however, mostly enjoy the official version much. It seems the publishers don't like investing a lot of page space on it, and maybe they also don't like paying creatives to come up with any creative stuff. And maybe I'm a minority. I mean I know I am, I just don't know if I'm a minority in this particular context.
But ... Oozes. They're propably not the most widely used monsters, but they are among the most justifiably 2-dimensional ones. After all .... they're pools of glob. It's not like there's a secret society of oozes out there somewhere.
... or is there?
No, propably not. But maybe they can be more interesting, regardless. Quick question, btw: Is the mimic a kind of ooze? Maybe a distant cousin? Personally I think so, but you needn't agree with that. Or anything else, obviously.
Oozes are essentially immortal. They don't get sick, don't age, they don't get cancer or Alzheimers, no infirmity or arthritis for these guys. Some divide, others just grow. And grow. And .. grow. Also, they absorb. A sufficiently ancient ooze may have reduced to base nutrients a very, very wide range of things, including but not limited to: Monsters, sentients, spellcasters and so on. What are the odds - do you think - that over time, just every once in a while, if an ooze devours a mindflayer, that it absorbs some of it's mental powers? Just .. as an example.
When things break down, what do they become? If a wizard with spells memorized gets dissolved and becomes part of an ooze, what becomes of his memories, his spells? I've done many things with oozes, including ones that absorbed resistances or regeneration from elementals or trolls, and also oozes that gained not sentience but the memories of sentients they had absorbed. So a mindless ooze with the memories of home and family, 'returning' and trying to hug the old wife and child. Fun stuff. At least, I think so.
And what is an ooze anyways? A liquid creature is essentially impossible. Even jellyfish - while 99% water - have just enough cohesion to retain their shape. Oozes don't. They're more like the T1000. I consider oozes to be something akin to decomposition elementals. They are rot given shape. One might also say they're creatures of entropy. Either way, oozes simply do what they do: Find organic matter, break it down and absorb it.
Two things about oozes I find interesting. One, they dislike the sun. I don't really know why that is, I just feel like they exist only in dark places. And two, over time and in general, they're on a downward trajectory. As in, physically, they're not great climbers, but they do quite well downhill. This leads them to being more common the deeper you go - and it leads me to the idea of the Ur-Ooze, the world-spanning Ooze ocean that forms the bottom layer of the underdark. The Ur-Ooze, being basically as old as life itself, has been collecting in the low places of the earth forever, and is long since past the point of being a creature or monster in the traditional sense. Larger than anything living in the world, it is a divine being of considerable power. When desperate creatures pray to whatever unseen, terrible powers lurk in the dark below - the Ur-Ooze is what answers. It has neither alignment nor ethos, there are no churches in it's name nor clerics fighting it's cause, but it will listen, and respond, and if the price it exacts is met, it may help.
Oh, and I copied the World of Warcraft model once. If you've played the game, you know the deal: Blobs, oozes, with a skull and a few bones floating around in them. In my version, when struck by one of these, they'd absorb blood, and that blood would reveal tracings of a nervous system inside the ooze. These guys would have some remnant of the person they once were in them, memories, abilities, no real intelligence but the memory of intelligence, which might be enough to simulate it.
That's all I have. If you like oozes, or have ideas, or can expand on mine, please let me know. You're also welcome to post here just to state that the official line on oozes is perfectly fine, but maybe don't expect me to engage super hard with that. Let it be enough that I state that I feel differently =)
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Obviously you don't know your science because oozes are COOL.
In fact, one of the interesting thing about D&D is the weird little nods to nature that are in the lore... Like how Kenku are raven people... and ravens are one of the few birds that might actually rival a parrot for mimicked vocabulary...
Well, oozes are kinda like that. Related to mushrooms and fungi, without a brain, without even a nervous system, slimes and oozes are highly mobile and fantastic at finding materials to break down and decompose..
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/slime-mold-smart-brainless-cognition/
Considering that slimes are also the decomposers of the world, it's not surprizing your grey oozes come from sewers and bathrooms, and that your encounter these creatures amongst the detritus. It's also no so much that a gelatinous cube is chasing you down, but that you ran into it, by not looking where you were going. Then again, real life carnivorous fungi exist, but they usually eat nematodes and other microscopic animals (Some of my favorite mushrooms do this, including wine caps and oyster)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivorous_fungus
The dragonblood ooze may be a bit of a this, amped up on magical properties....
And what if, to be honest, oozes and molds were encouraged as part of the ecological cleanup of magical effluent on wizard academy grounds? I mean you really can't tell..
Um .. well, I made this thread because oozes are cool. But this is a fantasy game, and they certainly ain't science.
I do get what you're trying to say: Here's real life decomposition, and that serves as inspiration for fantasy decomposition. And I realise the category of jellies, slimes and molds obviously includes molds - but I don't really agree with that part. Basically, I find the molds to be out of place: They can't move, and they're not liquid.
Oozes to clean up the spillage from alchemy and potion brewing at the local wizard's academy is a neat idea, and should create some exciting new varieties of dangerous oozes - not to mention a slew of complaints to the city council about the irresponsible practices of the mages community.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I kinda figured you liked them.
You undersell the monster manual. It can't be 20 pages of lore on each creature for multiple reasons...
And science is a good place to look into and start when building your lore.
I like the idea of an ooze that absorbed some scrolls (or wizards) and got some spellcasting as a result. Spell absorption would definitely have to be one of its features, like every spell cast against it has a 50% chance of completely failing and healing the ooze instead.
I also like the idea of oozes somewhat reflecting the last thing they ate, with maybe a list of different elements/powers/whatevers to choose from on statblocks. A kind of Kirby ooze, if you will.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Well - it could. But what I wrote here on oozes and elsewhere on gnolls isn't anywhere near 20 pages. No, I'm not underselling the MM. The MM simply isn't the book I'm looking for. It's a book of monster stats - not monster lore. I play a game of lore - not a game of stats.
Science is sometimes the best place to find inspiration. I'm tropy though (for all my pretentions to the opposite) and find ... most, maybe? .. a lot anyways, of my inspiration in movies, art, books, and so on.
Heh - kirby ooze.
Yea, strange and unpredictable spell interactions would be cool. Maybe a firespell makes the ooze more dangerous - and on fire - while it burns. It might eventually die from the flames, but until it does it's faster and has bonus damage. Just an example, I'm not thrilled about it, but as a principle it's cool =)
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Ignoring Jubliex and Ghaunadaur as the primordial fonts of Ooze-kind how about these two:
1) Phychic Gray Ooze and Oblex are the result of an Elder Brain dying after it has come into contact with/be contanimated by the Abyss. The Brain dies and the chaotic contanimation spontaeously dissolves the brain into the cerebral fluid that makes up its home. The psychic energy released by this event causes the fluid to thicken and move from a fluid to a semi-fluid state and become an Ooze. The Ooze no longer has the full might of its previous Elder Brain form but remains somewhat intelligent, ranging from almost feral (the Psychic Gray Ooze) to near genius level (The Elder Oblex) but never quite becoming as intelligent as it used to be. It could be thorised that the new Ooze "evolves" over time, slowly becoming accustomed to its Gray Ooze form and eliminating the chaotic taint before splitting into two or more Oblex Spawn and then into the higher Oblex forms with it developing personalities based on those it has consumed and possibly even becoming embraced by Illithid society again and coming under the sway of a new Elder Brain.
2) Ochre Jelly are Yochlol, punished by Lolth for some grevious error. They are stripped of their very nature and reduced to a creature of the lowest form, indeed one that barely has a form. These are then exiled to the darkest places where they must earn Lolth's favour although few ever gain their demonic form again.
Rob76 totally beat me to it.
There is lore out there to add depth to oozes, and the MM isn't the end-all, beat-all definitive lore. D&D is purposely vague on several points for people to flavor the established worlds the the table's liking. Maybe, the lack of solid lore is the result of laziness, but it also results in opportunity. Seize the
dayooze!Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Oblexes (even just the adult, not elder ones) are by far the monster that has freaked out the party I DM for the most. The whole blob/body snatcher combo makes for some great body horror possibilities
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
"Lack of Solid Lore" was that an intentional joke at a oozes expense? Either way I chuckle groaned at it.
Another option for oozes...Have them the result of Far Realm incursions, if a rift or portal to the Far Realm opens up it causes the physical reality of the Material Realm to warp and form "bubbles" of Far Realm reality. These bubbles are what denizens of the Material Realm came to know as Oozes. Those killed by an Ooze may be lucky enough to find their spirits/soul pass onto the after life but their physical remains are not so lucky. The physical body is dissolved by an oozes acidic nature but is ultimately re-incorporated in the Far Realm as a Gibbering Mouther. Should anyone try to Planeshift to the Far Realm then 1d10 Gibbering Mouthers are spewed into the area where the spellcaster Planeshifted from (in a manner similar to the way a Nightwalker is pulled from the Negative Plane if anyone tries to planeshift there).
Why does multi-quote basically never work? Is that just for me?
@Rob76
The grey ooze and oblex are neat. I mean that's actually some fairly vivid and useful background - but for me, it bites into what I wanna do with oozes, and what I wanna do with mind flayers. My thoughts on oozes are already here. My mind flayers are ... well, same but different. If anyone ever read Brian Lumley's Necroscope novels, it's like that - but with mind flayers.
Ochre jellies kinda fall in the same hole. Sorta. My ochre jellies are more reddish than yellow, and I like to use them in sort of ... rusty environs.
@EricHVela
I'm not sure I agree with you. I think D&D is vague primarily to save money - and also because most of the stuff they make is just so deplorably bad. They have talented folk employed, and when their best people get time to do things right, we get things like Planescape, or Dark Sun, or ... well, those are kinda the ones I like. Ravenloft, I guess. I'm propably forgetting something. But the vast majority is straight up trash, deserving nothing more than the midden.
@AntonSirius
I didn't even know about the oblexes until just now. But yea, they're some scare monsters.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I always just thought of them as kinds of giant amoeba with different characteristics
Yea, me too - once upon a time. But a giant single-celled organism would simply burst if you cut it's outer membrane. No, to me, oozes are ... more like nanomachines, really? I mean, they're absolutely not, but they work in a similar way, it's constituent particles or interacting to let it move and attack and so forth.
Do oozes float or sink in water? Or is that a variable?
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Or do they simply spread?
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Or maybe just dissolve and die? Although, that's the least interesting option, and also, I don't consider them to be strictly alive to begin with.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I don't think you're a million miles away from some cannonical lore with regards to oozes being nano-machines. Part of the lore surrounding Jubliex is that he/she/it is a single entity but also every Ooze and Slime (possibly Mold as well) at the same time and he/she//it can exert it's influence and sieze control over any Ooze anywhere in the "multiverse" at any time and so all Oozes could be acting in acocrdance with some form of higher programming via Jubliex's will, the vast majority of other creatures are not aware of it and just see them as mindless and/or destructive forces. So you could say they each perform a automated task when left to their own devices but are also part of some larger gesalt entity capable of intricate planning and attacks when one or more is being controlled by such a higher will..
To usurp a little bit from a cartoon from the 1990's, The Pirates of Dark Water had quite an interesting premise, sea water was turning into something called Dark Water, which acted in a very Ooze like fashion so maybe you could have Ooze exposed to water absorb it and convert it into more mass and grow. I can't recall everything about it as I don't think the cartoon has been replayed in the UK for about 20+ years.
To pull a little bit from 3rd edition; you also have the Ghaunadan (link to wiki here: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Ghaunadan) who were ooze shapeshifters which you could probably mimic (pardon the pun) with Changelings in 5e. These could give you another intelligent ooze that might show them evolving or developing into a sentient creature, albeit one that is solely following the ideals/strictures of Ghaunadaur who is a Chaotic Evil Entity. Side note, not sure what it says about me that my favourite character I played in 3rd edition was a Cleric of Ghaunadaur.
It's interesting. See, I like ranting about how bad I think the official lore is - but that's not to say I necessarily think my own alternatives are just super amazing fantastic. After all, the official dudes are paid professionals, while I'm just some rando in an office in Copenhagen, who really should get back to my sales work, right?
I like my oozes as 'decomposition made flesh' (for a very lose definition of flesh), so I don't want them to be extensions of Jubilex's will. Unless, that is, Jubilex isn't some base demon, but a divinity of decomposition. Like He Who Shalt Not be Named Here (that's Nurgle, btw). But on the other hand, I'm kinda flattered when my stuff overlaps the official stuff somewhat - particularly, when it overlaps some of the better stuff =)
Yea, oozes getting into the oceans could be bad. They're just full of nutrition, so potentially, a single ooze could grow quite, quite huge indeed. With resulting death and disaster for all shore-dwelling folk (and those in the actual oceans too, of course - bad time to be sahuagin, I guess).
Ghaunadans are cool. I don't know if I'm particularly down with the tendency of all gods to have their own custom race. I mean it makes sense after a fashion, but as you may imagine from my overall stance, I'm not too happy with it. I've thrown everything D&D has to say about religion out the door, and have a stance of 'all religions, all the time everywhere'. What I mean by that is that there are myriad gods high and low, great and small, and while some may unwisely tie their hopes on one particular god, the wise spread their eggs into many baskets - finding a local patron when travelling, paying their respect to the druids and the shrine of whatever fertility goddess governs the lands during sowing and harvest months, and so on. So ... north of the great mountains live men with the heads of beasts - and their gods do have a tendency towards having the heads of beasts too, sure. But that's not the point.
This is becoming a major tangent. But anyways.
No god is a god of the beastheaded men. But they have gods of a number of fairly dark concepts (the main 'beast headed' race are Yuan-ti), so they have a Goddess of the Green Court - the Green Court being synonymous with intrigue, deceit, treachery, and promotion by murder. But she's not a goddess of intrigue, deceit, treachery, and promotion by murder. She's the Goddess of the Green Court, which also is synonomous with royalty, purity (of a kind, right), beauty, luxury and the right to rule - for those able and willing. She's very ... sensuality, perfume, silk, poisoned daggers, whispered secrets.
And now - back to oozes =D
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
That nanomachine/floating comment reminds me of the portuguese man'o'war that looks like a jellyfish but is a colony of organisms, now thats no ooze but gets maybe close enough?
A lot of movies etc. get their ideas, at least the basis of their ideas from science. So even if you're going for the tropes, you're pro'ly still getting at least some of it from science in a roundabout way.
Because you were mean to it once. 🤷♂️ (I don’t really know.)
EricHVela is right though, they do intentionally leave some stuff vague so we can create our own stuff in those spaces. If they didn’t the game wouldn’t be as fun. Like, for example, your idea about the “Ur-Ooze” (I liked that btw). If there was definitive lore about everything then there wouldn’t have been room for you to imagine that, and that’s cool, so I’m glad you imagined it. Sure, some stuff WotC does is because they’re cheap, and some stuff is because they’re lazy, and some stuff is because they’re stupid. However some of it is because they’re not really all that stupid after all, and leaving room for people like you to imagine stuff like that is one of the smart things they do.
Also, the really cool stuff you liked about settings like Planescape and DarkSun were probably developed way back when TSR was publishing D&D back when WotC only did CCGs.
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What, they are? I always thought they were jellyfish. Looked'm up, and you're right - of course. Cool.
It was mean to me!
As you can see, right now it's working. So odd =)
That's just what they want you to believe.
No, I ... agree? Like, I hated Dragonlance for many reasons (primarily for turning dragons into mules), but in part because they filled up the map. Everywhere was used, there were basically no blank spots to do anything. You could chose which of the locations from the books you wanted to visit, that was that.
So you (and EricHVela) are right - I don't even want the official material to be exhaustively detailed. What I want is for the official stuff to be good! Like Planescape, or Dark Sun, or Ravenloft to a certain extent.
And I do want enemies to be less 2-dimensional.
Oh, and ... thanks. Truth is, I came up with the Ur-Ooze as I was typing the OP, thinking about the nature of oozes.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.