#slugspawn

[thecreaturecodex]

Slugspawn

Image © Paizo Publishing

[Sponsored by @coldbloodassassin, who asked for the slugspawn from Carrion Crown: Wake of the Watcher to be converted from a hazard to a full monster. It is a little weird in the adventure as published, and this art, which is from WotW, makes it look as if it was intended to be an independent creature originally. WotW has a very large Bestiary section (this is the PF1e module that introduced a ton of Cthulhu Mythos monsters), so it's entirely possible that this was its own stat block at one point in development before being changed for the finished product to save word count. Lucky for me, I don't have a word count.]

Slugspawn CR 5 CE Aberration This creature appears to be a greenish-black slug the size of a human arm. On its underside, it has a lamprey-like maw with layers of rasping teeth

Slugspawn are the juvenile stage of the moits of Shub-Nugganoth, grotesque creatures that use humanoids are hosts to create eruptions of parasitic plague. A slugspawn is barely sapient, existing only to lurk in a dark corner somewhere and wait for a passerby to infest. Slugspawn are slow but patient, and can eat insects, mold and other detritus if these are available, and survive for up to a year on reserves of fat if they are not. They require the thoughts of a host, preferably a humanoid, in order to molt and reach maturity and intelligence.

Slugspawn attack from hiding, attempting to ambush a victim and burrow inside of it without the victim noticing more than a faint twinge of pain. Although cold damage or surgical intervention can pull a slugspawn from its host, this must be done quickly before the aberration wraps around the host’s brain stem. There, it feeds on the thought energy of its host, but also provides blanket protection from mind-influencing effects. The infestation initially seems relatively benign, and the infested may go about their lives as normal until the moit suddenly and violently transforms into a spawning canker. This is universally fatal to the host, and the host’s corpse becomes little more than a puppet and layer of protection for a tentacled horror.

Slugspawn CR 5 XP 1,600 CN Tiny aberration Init +7; Senses darkvision 60 ft., tremorsens 30 ft., Perception +5

Defense AC 20, touch 20, flat-footed 12 (+2 size, +7 Dex, +1 dodge) hp 51 (6d8+24) Fort +6, Ref +10, Will +4 Immune mind-influencing effects; Vulnerable cold, remove disease

Offense Speed 10 ft., climb 10 ft. Melee bite +13 (1d2+2 plus infestation) Space 2 ½ ft.; Reach 0 ft.

Statistics Str 14, Dex 25, Con 16, Int 3, Wis 8, Cha 9 Base Atk +4; CMB +9; CMD 21 (cannot be tripped) Feats Dodge, Mobility, Weapon Finesse Skills Climb +10, Perception +5, Stealth +21 Languages Aklo (cannot speak) SQ camouflage

Ecology Environment any land Organization solitary, clot (2-6) or infestation (7-12) Treasure none

Special Abilities Camouflage (Su) If a slugspawn is seen, a DC 20 Knowledge (dungeoneering) or DC 25 Knowledge (nature) check is required to tell that it is not a harmless, albeit oversized, slug. Infestation (Ex) A creature bitten by a slugspawn must succeed a DC 16 Reflex save, or the slugspawn burrows through the skin and begins to infest the creature. Any amount of damage reduction is enough to resist the initial infestation. The save DC is Constitution based. On the first round of infestation, dealing cold damage to the victim can eject the slugspawn and save the host—but only if the victim takes 10 or more points within 1 round of being infested. Cutting the slugspawn out also works, but the longer it remains in a host, the more damage this method does. Cutting it out requires a slashing weapon and a DC 25 Heal check, and deals 1d6 points of damage per round that the host has been infested. If the Heal check is successful, the slugspawn is removed. After 3 rounds, though, the slugspawn has reached the host’s brain and cannot be surgically removed without killing the host. Remove disease kills any slugspawn in a host. A slugspawn ejected through cold damage or a Heal check is stunned for 1 round after being ejected. A creature host to a slugspawn is immune to mind-influencing effects. 2d6 days after the initial infestation, a humanoid or native outsider host metamorphoses into a spawning canker, and cannot be returned to life with any means other than a true resurrection, miracle or wish spell. Hosts of other creature types have variable gestation periods, and may never metamorphose at all, subject to GM discretion. Vulnerable to Remove Disease (Su) If a slugspawn is targeted with a remove disease spell or similar effect, it must succeed a Fortitude save against the save DC of the spell or die instantly. If they succeed, the slugspawn still takes 1d4 points of damage per caster level.

[monstersdownthepath]

Ia Shub-Nishurath

School: Conjuration (Calling); Level: 9 Casting Time: 90 minutes Components: V, S, F (A circle of unworked standing stones within a deep and ancient forest), Sacrifice (see below), SC (9, up to 20)

Skill Checks: Knowledge (Arcana) DC 29, 3 successes; Knowledge (Religion) DC 29, 3 successes; Linguistics DC 29, 3 successes. Range: Close. Target: The surrounding forest. Duration: Instantaneous; see text Saving Throw: None; Spell Resistance: No

Backlash: The primary caster and all secondary casters take 1d4 Wisdom, Strength, and Constitution damage. Failure: The primary caster is immediately slain, a Spawning Canker erupting from their body. All secondary casters roll a d20; any who roll a 1 are similarly slain, while the rest are infested with Slugspawn.

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Effect

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This ritual can only be performed at night. The casters must gather sacrifices to perform this ritual; Small-size or larger living, warm-blooded creatures whose total combined Hit Dice equal or exceed 50. The secondary casters must debase themselves before Shub-Nishurath for the duration of the ritual, fornicating with one another in such a way that at least one new life is conceived in her name, while the primary caster executes the sacrifices one by one and uses their blood to write symbols in a corrupt form of Aklo across the standing stones and the bodies of the secondary casters.

If the casters can assemble a number of victims exceeding 50 total HD, the Mother of a Thousand Young is especially pleased. For every 50 total hit dice contributed to this slaughter beyond the initial 50, one non-Linguistics skill check is treated as an automatic success. If more than ten sapient creatures are sacrificed for this ritual, Shub-Nishurath blesses the children conceived on this night; any such child born to one of the secondary casters is born with a horrific deformity that changes its creature type to Aberration and overrides any racial ability score bonuses it may have otherwise had, but grants it immunity to disease and poison, and a +2 bonus to Str, Dex, and Con that persists as it ages into a proper servant of the Black Goat of the Woods.

This is merely a side effect of the Mother’s attention, however. The primary effect of this ritual is that it prompts the Black Goat to send her aid. This manifests as 1d6+1 Dark Young of Shub-Nishurath lumbering from the surrounding trees and standing at the edge of the circle. For every 50 total hit dice contributed to the slaughter beyond the initial 50, one additional Dark Young is called. Once the ritual concludes, the Dark Young feed upon the remains of the sacrifices for the next hour; after this feeding, the Dark Young fall under the command of the casters. They possess a starting attitude of helpful towards the primary caster, friendly towards secondary casters who successfully conceived during the ritual, and indifferent to all other secondary casters.

Provided the primary caster does nothing that would negatively impact their attitude, the Dark Young perfectly follow the orders of the primary caster for the next month, but beyond this point, the primary caster must begin making efforts to keep the Dark Young’s attitude helpful. Typically, a Dark Young may be appeased by offering it a sacrifice of living creatures possessing a total combined HD of the Dark Young’s own, but some may harder or easier to keep in line, at the DM’s discretion.

[zippdementia]

Part 66 Alignment May Vary: Fight Against a Strange Monster

Azor Khul looks over the stunned players, who are all staring past him at the huge expanse of darkness that makes up space, and the bright sun whose overpowering light cannot pierce that darkness, and the worlds that circle that sun. In a moment of pure confusion, they all gain a bare taste of understanding, of seeing their role in the universe and having just the barest glimmer of how insignificant they are.

With that as his backdrop, Azor Khul speaks.

“You disrupted my plans, and for that I have removed you from everything you know and hold dear. Welcome to a new life amongst the stars. Only, you will not be able to appreciate it for long.”

With that, Azor Khul launches a massive psychic attack against the players, so strong that they feel even the slugspawn wrapped around their brains quiver from its impact. But the slugspawn hold and the attack has no power. What’s more, in its aftermath, the illusion of Azor Khul’s Dragonborn form is peeling away, removing its imprint on their minds to reveal who Azor Khul really is: a Mindflayer, an Ultitharid.

When the creature realizes that its attack has had no effect, it makes a gurgling sound deep beneath its face tentacles. One of the tentacles slides under the rest, inserting itself down the creature’s gullet where it can vibrate and begin to make an approximation of speech.

“So, you see my true identity. You use pieces of the master itself to block my powers. How dare you use the master’s gifts. They are not for you!”

The Ultitharid then reaches to the side and grips a weapon laying there: a huge gun much like the one Imoaza has. It hefts the weapon and calls out a challenge:

“Now the true fight begins!”

But before the players can engage, Aldric suddenly winces and looks down at his bag of holding. It is glowing red hot. Acting quickly, he darts a hand inside of it and pulls out the object that is risking burning a hole through even the magic of the bag. 

It is a shard of Jade, retrieved from Nysyries’ body, taken originally from Tyrion’s belongings, handed down to him by Karina after their adventures in the Tomb of Haggemoth, the last remnant of a Jade Statue that Targaryen and his sister Jade once controlled, that Tywin died to retrieve, that Karina and Shando and Targaryen retrieved from a golden palace on the Moonsea months and months ago, that long before that was stolen from the Yuan Ti and fashioned by an ancient race of worshippers into a statue of the gods, that originally came to the Yuan Ti from The Surveyor, who kept it on his ship to contain the essence of the Star Spawn. It is the catalyst of this entire campaign, and now it comes full circle and fulfills its ultimate purpose.

In front of them all, the Jade Shard burns white hot, falls from Aldric’s hand as he startles, and smashes to pieces on the ship’s metal floor. As if in answer, a mighty roar sounds from outside of the control room and beneath them. It is the roar of the awakened Star Spawn.

Azor Khul guffaws: “You have brought the final piece of my god to us, just as my god foretold! Now he will awaken and you will know a true eternity of terror!”

And without further ado, Azor Khul the Mindflayer fires his weapon, showering the room in bright red laser blasts. The players dive for cover and initiative begins.

Synopsis of the Fight

This is a very fun fight to set up for the players. An Ultitharid with the gun that Azor Khul has would probably be too much of a challenge for the players but their ability to block all of his psychic attacks turns the battle into a fair fight. Also, they have some incredibly powerful weapons that they have taken from the ship and can bring to bear on the fight. In turn, Azor Khul has been given some legendary actions so that he can become a true boss character and match the players in the action economy. He can fire his weapon for 2 legendary actions, move for 1, and make a regular attack with his tentacles for 1. As a reaction he can activate a technological shield that boosts his AC (but he has limited use of this) and his gun fires lasers as well as a multitude of grenades, including stun grenades, fragmentation grenades, and poison smoke grenades.

The players split up instantly, darting behind various desks for cover and Azor Khul, once he realizes they have guns too, does the same, rolling behind cover as Aldric fires blasts from his pistols that burn holes in the walls and floor. Imoaza tries to lob a grenade at Azor Khul but he’s too quick, rolling away from it and behind another desk. Then Carrick gets a great shot in, blasting Azor Khul in the shoulder with his anti-matter rifle and doing the first serious damage of the fight.

This pisses Azor Khul off, and he moves forward aggressively, using his shield to block further shots, and lobbing a grenade at Carrick and Aldric to force them to separate and take cover. Imoaza pops up from behind her cover to try and take a shot but Azor Khul hits her square in the chest with a stun grenade and she falls prone over one of the consoles, completely unable to move. Then Aldric leaps up from behind cover and rushes at Azor Khul with Blackrazor, who screams out that he wants his souls back! Azor Khul chuckles at the blade’s mad proclamation and closes with Aldric, using his tentacles like sharpened blades, whipping them around Aldric and forcing the mercenary off his guard. Then Azor Khul dodges away again, leaping behind a desk and looking at Imoaza’s prone form:

“Let me show you what happens to those who oppose Azor Khul,” he says, ominously, moving for the snake-woman.

“Hey, I’m not finished with you, yet!” Aldric says and jumps onto a chair, not realizing it has wheels. It rolls across the command center but Aldric rides it as well as he does any mount and leaps off at the last moment, landing a critical hit on Azor Khul, slicing through his gun and ripping open his futuristic armor. Azor Khul lets out a cry of pain and rage and instantly turns to Aldric, wrapping his tentacles around the mercenary’s skull.

“See?” he growls. “You wield a dark power, too. We could have worked together, you and I. But now that time has passed. It’s time you give me back my god’s gifts.”

Then the tentacles dig into Aldric’s head and the mercenary begins to scream as the slugspawn begins to be pulled forcibly from his brain.

Seeing his friend’s plight, Carrick closes with the distracted Azor Khul and at point blank range pulls the trigger on his anti-matter rifle. A huge blast (a critical hit) rips Azor Khul’s body to pieces, completely decimating it. However, the head remains attached by its tentacles to Aldric and it continues to rip at his brain.

“Holy shit,” Carrick says, and pulls free his whip, releasing its fiery energy into one long lashing line. With a precision that comes from somewhere deep in his memories, he slashes the tentacles from the head and brings Azor Khul’s campaign of terror to an end.

Aldric stumbles back, pulling at the tentacles attached to him like dreadlocks, ripping them from his skull with gasps and cries of pain. Imoaza stumbles to her feet too, finally free of the effects of the stun grenade. Carrick looks at the body of Azor Khul and everyone waits for a quip.

“Welcome to Faerun,” Carrick says.

Rematch

But the fight isn’t over yet. The party has barely had a chance to heal up (Aldric full healing himself with a special injectable he got from Fiona... who didn’t understand his innuendo no matter how many times he made “injectable” into a dirty joke) before the doors to the control room are ripped asunder and the awakened Star Spawn enters the room. The players are ready, lined up ont he other side of the room with guns a-blazing. They blast the beast a number of times as it forces its bulk through the hole it left and pulls itself with huge arms towards the players.

Aldric’s gun seems to do little to it, and Imoaza launches a fragmentation grenade directly into its face with no effect, but Carrick’s anti-matter rifle rips huge chunks of flesh off the beast and it roars appreciatively and heads for him, grabbing him in powerful clawed hands and dashing him dizzingly against the line of consoles. Carrick, for whom this fight is a rematch from eons ago, stays steadfast, continuing to fire his rifle at point blank range until it finally sighs and ejects its spent energy cartridge. Aldric moves in at this point with Blackrazor,but he is shoved aside by a mighty swipe from the beast, knocking him halfway across the room.

Things look dire until Imoaza, who still doesn’t know how to use her weapon fully, presses a random button on the side of her gun and launches, unexpectedly, a disrupter beam at the beast. It does massive damage and the Star Spawn reacts by focusing its gaze on her, channeling its own disrupter beam through its eyes. Imoaza is hit and she begins to dissipate, her body disintegrating. Desperately she casts her final “save me from death” spell, an ice shield that encases her to protect her from further harm, but the Star Spawn takes advantage of her delay to teleport next to her and smash through the shield with its powerful claws. Then it lifts her up and again gazes directly into her and her body begins to turn to ash.

Just then, Aldric leaps up onto the monsters back and with both him and Blackrazor yelling triumphantly, he drives Blackrazor down into the Starspawn’s skull.

There is a massive explosion of light as the sword pierces the beast’s hide and Blackrazor drinks in the soul of this otherworldly, ancient creature. Blackrazor laughs as the power fills it and the sword reaches its original power leve. “Daaaaaayum, Aldric,” he says. “We are entering a whole new era, buddy. This is about to be a new age. Blackrazor is back! Onwards and upwards. You are going get so powerful, Aldric. Things are gonna get good. Let’s figure out how to land this ship so we can find more souls. We need more souls, Aldric.”

It turns out that landing the ship is not going to be so easy, however. Aldric and his companions meet back up with Fiona and Bob (Fiona is now wearing a different body, that of a young Asian looking girl... or at least, the Faerun version of Asian). Fiona ignores Aldric’s new bout of one-liners and attempts to hit on her tell and tells them that the ship is now on a set course for an unknown destination. In addition, they need to be put into hibernation in order to facilitate the removal of the slugspawn from their brains. The process will only take a few days, but they don’t have much time: the psychic emanations of the Star Spawn and of Azor Khul have sped up the growth process of the slugspawn. Only the hibernation chambers can slow them down!

The players comply, quickly getting into three separate hibernation chambers, which look like beds... or coffins.

“You know,” Aldric tells Fiona as he crawls inside his chamber. “There’s not a lot of room in here, but I can make some for you if you want to join me.”

Fiona just smiles and closes the glass cover of the chamber. All goes black. The players roll for their slugspawn and no one’s head explodes. The slugspawn are removed successfully.

The next thing the players know, the glass covers open.

Awakening

You all wake up to the sound of a repetitive blaring horn. Each of you is in a tube whose purpose is not immediately clear. Behind you is soft padding and in front of you is a see through cover made of some kind of hard glass. The world beyond this cover is darkness punctuated by frequent bursts of light that seem to come in time with the blaring horns. The light illuminates a large room.

It takes the companions a moment to remember where they are. Their limbs don’t seem to be working right and they fall-flop out of their tubes. Clearly something is wrong. They call for Fiona and Bob, but no one comes. They explore a little and find that the ship seems old... much older and more dilapidated then when they went to sleep. They find their guns at a charging station, but Imoaza’s grenade launcher has rusted and broken. Aldric’s laser pistol and Carrick’s anti-matter rifle are in better condition, but have long ago lost their energy charge and can’t be fired (they still take these weapons).

Eventually, they find the control room. Here, Fiona, or what’s left of her, has fallen prone over a console. Her head has been split open, revealing the mechanical innards inside (Aldric finally puts together he’s been attempting to fraternize with some kind of machine... which is totally fine by him). The computer she was working on is still functional and after some experimentation and guessing at passwords, Carrick remembers how to log in an use a computer from his past days as The Surveyor and begins typing in questions.

Where are we? You are on a space vessel belonging to “The Surveyor.” Welcome! The vessel has been called many things by different races: The Star Wanderer, The Comet, The Lifebringer, The Fire in the Sky. The Surveyor never named it himself.

No, no, I mean where are we in space? What the Surveyor was going to do next or where he was going is unknown. Current location is outside of the River Styx.

What happened? Something went wrong during the journey. Further information unavailable.

How long have we been out here? 9,999,999,999,999... and then the computer sizzles and pops as the calculation breaks it. At the same moment, the back wall of the control room, made of glass of some kind, which has been dark until now, suddenly becomes see through again and they can see outside the ship.

Ahead of you stretches the unfathomable expanse of what the computer called space. It stretches on further than any plains, forest, or ocean. It is like staring into infinity and the impossibility of how huge it is staggers you. The blackness is dotted here and there by distant lights, like the night sky, and by a huge red circle which dominates the sky. currently is dominated by huge rocks which fill your view. The rocks tumble like lazy titans against the glass window as your vessel pushes past them and you hear again the smashing sound, this time accompanied by a thin crack appearing in the glass. Then the alarms that have been going off throughout the ship suddenly blare to life in this room and all the doors in the room open as one. A female voice all around you suddenly speaks a warning: “Warning. Hull breach imminent. Escape pods will be launched in T minus four minutes.”

There’s nothing for it except to run. The players have no idea where the escape pods are, except for a brief glance Imoaza got at the map of the ship while they were hunting down Azor Khul and Carrick’s uncertain memories from days very much gone by. The next section is a mad dash about the ship while the countdown continues, until finally at T-Minus 30 seconds they locate the escape pods and cram themselves inside of one.

Disaster strikes at this moment: the hull of the ship is breached by an asteroid and Aldric, who is climbing inside the pod, is whipped backwards and out of the pod by the sudden rush of air, saved at the last minute by gripping the edges of the pod door and pulling himself by sheer strength back into the pod. However, he rolls a failure on his strength check so while he isn’t blasted into space, he does not get off free. Blackrazor is torn from his grasp and goes spinning away into the abyss. The sudden loss of his blade shows Aldric just how tied to it he was: he instantly feels sick and a crazy thought enters his mind to let go of his hold and leap into space after the blade. But Carrick is grabbing his arm then, pulling into the pod fully, and the door slams shut.

The pod shakes as it is ejected from the ship. A single window shows them a dizzying view of the red planet spinning around and around them as they tumble down towards its surface. Then flames appear as they hit the atmosphere and then there is a mighty jolt as they hit ground. Battered and beaten, the companions push open the door of the pod and collapse onto red rock and sand. The pod chimes happily behind them “Have a nice day!” before dying in a burst of static and sparks.

Getting up, they see they have skidded to a halt on the edge of a large cliff side. Beyond that, they see a vast landscape filled with red sand and punctuated by a maze of red cliffs and canyons. In the far distance a massive city sprawls across the horizon. Not just a piece of it: the entire horizon is dominated by the city scape. It is the largest city any of them have ever fathomed, let alone seen, and it is nothing like cities on Faerun. Even at this distance they can see the buildings are tall, angular, and oddly shaped. Some are uniform rectangles, but others incorporate curved domes or odd geometrical patterns. The view is obscurred somewhat by a light dust storm which kicks up flurries of red sand all around them.

“Where the hell are we?” Carrick asks.

If only he knew how ironic the question was.

[monstersdownthepath]

The Slugspawn of Shub-Niggurath are arm-length, slime-coated horrors the color of rancid seawater. They're clever ambush predators, actually leaping upwards to 10 feet towards potential prey, burrowing directly through skin as though it's not even there. So efficient and swift is their burrowing that they deal no actual hitpoint damage to their prey. Any amount of damage reduction blocks the infestation, and 10 points of cold damage instantly kills Slugspawn on or freshly inside a host... On the first round only. By round 2, the slug is too deep inside and must be removed with a Heal check or Remove Disease. On round 3, the slug has reached the victim's brain and wrapped itself around it. At this point, only death or Remove Disease kills the creature. The infestation seems benign at first, or even helpful, since the Slugspawn catches and devours all incoming mind-affecting effects, but as it feeds upon the victim's thoughts, it undergoes a metamorphosis into a Spawning Canker, a writhing mass of lengthy limbs that explodes from the host's head after 2d6 days pass. The limbs animate the host's body as a shell, granting them additional protection as they feed on the remains, and sustain themselves by drinking Charisma from other creatures. Upon being glutted on Charisma, the Canker bursts forth into a swarm of Slugspawn... But particularly lucky ones may instead turn into one of the Dark Young.