Creatures for The Dig

I said I'd write a dungeon, didn't I?  Maybe this one?  i should probably get started.

Morlock Squealer

These are morlock children.  They are used in wartime as scouts and lookouts.  Despite their youth, they disciplined fighters.  They do not run away out of cowardice; it just makes better tactical sense to run for reinforcements than to tackle a difficult enemy head-on.

SQUEALER
HD 0
AC 12
Shiv +0 (1d6)
Move 12
Save 16+
Morale 5
Special: Morlock, Run Away.

Morlock: Darkvision.  Immune to pain and charm.

Run Away: Squealers make a morale check at the start of a battle.  Whenever a group of squealers fail their morale check, they run for reinforcements.  And since you'll never find squealers without larger morlocks nearby, squealers will almost always find some.

Morlock (Killian)

These are just normal, humanoid morlocks.  They're the result of a few hundred years of selectively breeding humans to serve their centipede overlords.  They are pale, thin, intelligent, and fanatically loyal to their masters.  They wear loinclothes and a lot of elaborate piercings.

MORLOCK
HD 1
AC 12
Spear or Pickaxe +1 (1d8)
Move 12
Save 15+
Morale 9
Special: Morlock, Subtle.

Morlock: Darkvision.  Immune to pain and charm.

Subtle: 3-in-6 chance to surprise.  Can run away without provoking attacks.  Cannot be tracked in caves.

Anomalocaris

An 8' long beast that was the apex predator of its time.  Looks a bit like a killer shrimp.

ANOMALOCARIS
HD 3
AC 17
Bite +3 (1d8 + Grab)
Swim 10 or Fly 10
Save 13+
Morale 10

Anomalocaris will usually attempt to swim away after it has grabbed a target.  Then it just find a secluded part of the cave where it can grind it's prey to death with its circular mouth.  They have an intense love for trilobites and will attack them preferentially, without fail.

Wiwaxia

About 18” in diameter, these spiny animals are just a symmetrical shell atop a slug-like foot.  It's shell is covered with spines, each 9” long and as sharp as a knife.

WIWAXIA
HD 1
AC 16
Throw Spine +1 (1d6, 30' range)
Move 3
Save 18+
Morale 7
Special: Flurry, Blind

Flurry: Wiwaxia can throw 1d4 spines as a single action.  If someone has a shield readied against a particlar wiwaxia, it blocks half of the spines automatically.

Blind: Wiwaxia listens for nearby threats, and then throws spines reflexively.  Their sense of hearing is about as good as a human's, and a character can sneak past by rolling under their Dexterity.

Opabinia

About 2' long, with undulating side paddles, five eyes, and a prehensile jaw (sort of like an elephant trunk with a lobster claw at the end of it).

OPABINIA
HD 1
AC 14
Bite +3 (1d6)
Swim 12 or Fly 12
Save 15+
Morale 8

After an opabinia succeeds on a hit, it will retreat to chew its food.  After 1d6 minutes, the surviving opabinia will regroup and attack again.  However, this requires a morale check, if they've lost a significant chunk of their hunting group.

Hallucigenia

Hallucigenia is small, but aggressive.  It will mince over to other creatures and strive to attack them with its needle-like legs.  It's face is a featureless bulb, with a sphincter-like mouth at the tip.  It is about 6 inches tall.

HALLUCIGENIA
HD 1
AC 11
Spines +1 (1d4)
Move 6
Save 12+
Morale 10
Special: Guilt

Guilt: After killing a hallucigenia, a character is compelled to feel guilty.  If they fail a save, they will avoid all violence for 1d3 turns.  These feelings of guilt will persist until they do something noble (save an innocent, buy their mom some flowers) or wake up after a night of sleeping.  The guilt will return when the character is laying down to fall asleep.  Once asleep, they will dream of a vast plain of stinking mud, like a primordial sea floor exposed to a large, pale sun.  Here, they will do battle with another hallucigenia, using whatever equipment and spells they had available when they fell asleep.

The nightmare hallucigenia is about 15' tall.  It strides atop 8' tall needles in a convulsive undulation.  It's dorsal tubules whip their air.  But worst of all is the head, which has gone from being a featureless white bulb to a crudely human face, with blue eyes and cruel lips.

NIGHTMARE HALLUCIGENIA
HD 3
AC 13
Spines +3 (1d8)
Move 12
Save 12+
Morale 12

The nightmare hallucigenia will pursue the player relentlessly across the mud until it can kill them.  It can be fought, or it can be escaped (requires outrunning it for 8 hours), but it can never be appeased.  If a PC is killed in the dream, they will die in real life.  Their companions will discover their mangled body in the morning, trampled and pierced as if by a dozen spears, their corpse stinking of the sea floor.

Nascent Primordium

A huge mass of flesh and slime, gently sussurating as internal reactions gas off noxious by-products.  It looks threatening, but if it is never attacked, it will never move nor attack.  Unless the PCs go right up to it and jump in, or something.

NASCENT PRIMORDIUM
HD 5
AC 10
Engulf +5 (1d6 acid damage on subsequent turns)
Move 0
Save 11+
Morale 9
Special: Evolve, Regenerate 1 HP/rnd

Evolve: The primordium is always evolving.  Keep track of the last three things that damaged it.  It gains immunity to those damage types (piercing, bludgeoning, slashing, fire, acid, lightning, etc) and gains the ability to duplicate those attacks.  If you shoot it with an arrow it will grow armored plates and shoot spines (mechanically identical to the arrow).  If you slash it with a sword it will grow immensely thick hair and slashing claws.  If you pound it with a hammer it will become obese and grow huge, pounding paws.

Each time it wants to go somewhere but can't get there in one turn, it will gain +3 Movement, Fly, Swim, or Burrow, up to a maximum of 18 Movement. If it is spoken to, it will attempt to respond by growing a face and imitating the sounds.  Talk to it for a few days and  you may even begin to see it develop a simple intelligence.

Basically, it evolves (Lamarckian style) whenever it senses a need, or to imitate something else.  Determine it's behavior according to those two criteria.

It's a bit out of the scope of the average dungeon encounter, but the primordium could honestly go on to become anything.  It's a blank slate.  It could turn into a Tarrasque and the PCs could teach it morality.  It could turn into a super-doppleganger determined to resurrect all extinct species.  (But most likely the PCs will murder it in some fucking cave.)

Trilobite

TRILOBITE
HD 1
AC 17
Bite +1 (1d6 + Disease)
Move 6
Save 15+
Morale 8
Special: Slashing and piercing damage is halved.

Disease: 1d4 Dex.  For every 3 points of Dex you lose, you gain +1 AC.  Unlike other diseases, the damage from this disease is permanent (if untreated).


Rules for Diseases
Once you're infected:

1. Make a Constitution check at the start of every day.
• If you fail it, you take the stat damage indicated.
• If you pass it, you get +1 to all subsequent Con checks against this disease.
• If you pass 2x in a row, you're cured.
• Rest and medical care can give you a bonus on this check.
2. You automatically fail the first day's constitution check--this is sort of represented by the save you made when you first risked contracting the disease.
3. Stat damage recovers at 1 point/day, but only after you're cured.

Fungal Giants + Moss Men + Disease Rules

Fungal Giants

Fungal giants are rare.

Fungal giants grow spontaneously from marshy ground.  At first only the top of their head is visible, resembling a normal mushroom, but over the course of the next 9 months, the giants head will grow to full size until it is a broad, fungal dome.  The rest of the giants body is underground, and when it is fully grown, it will emerge and begin walking.

Fungal giants walk until their deaths.  From birth, they are intelligent and talkative.  Their minds are filled with thoughts and knowledge that they have absorbed from the last 9 months.  Depending on the surrounding communities, they might be craven or honorable, bold or gossiping.

Fungal giants have only one goal: death.  The will walk to the location where they think they'll do the most good, fall over, and burst.  This location-goal depends on what sort of thoughts they've been absorbing the last 9 months.  If the largest nearby settlement is a human town, the fungal giants usually grow up to be petty and distractable, they will inflict themselves on the human city out of spite.

Sometimes they can be convinced to chill out, and not suicide themselves on a village, but this is difficult to do.  Everyone has a different story about how to calm giants down: riddles, sympathy, proof that humans are good and happy creatures, etc.

When a fungal giant walks into town, it usually shouts out everyone's secrets (which it remembers from its gestation), walks into the town square, and collapses in a cloud of nacreous spores and piles of differently colored dusts, like a spicemonger's cart.

All humans within 1000' must save or contract shambleman's fever (see below).  Furthermore, after 3 days, the body will spawn fungal creatures.  Use any sort of fungal creature you want, but I'm fond of shriekers (2 HD, shriek has 2-in-6 chance of attracting a wandering monster), spitters (shriekers that spit acid, 30' range, 2d4 damage), and snappers (shriekers that bite for 1d8, and surprise on a 4-in-6).

Clearing all of the fungal giant detritus will take 1000 hours of labor just to move it out of town (it's too damp to burn unless dried, which doubles the labor).  Until the location is clear, the area will be filled with a solid yellow haze of spores.  If it is not cleared, the location will usually remain as a fungal oasis for 2d20 years, and draw all sorts of strange inhabitants.

FUNGAL GIANT
HD 20
AC 10
Stomp +5 (2d8) or Swat +5 (2d6 + grab) or Throw +5 (2d8, 100')
Move 12
Morale 12

Fungal giants recover 1 HP per round.  Each time a fungal giant recovers enough HP to bring it back to full HP, it's HP increases by 1, as its flesh heals in such a way as to become fluffier.  It cannot raise its HP higher than 250 in this way.  Fungal giants hate suffering damage.

Fungal giants' bodies are too wet to be flammable.  Only their heads are dry enough to burn.  Damage done to their head will not regenerate.  A PC can climb onto their head: this takes two turns, and the PC must make a successful Str or Dex check on each turn.  Once on their head, a PC gets +2 to hit and damage.

Moss Men

MOSS MEN (a.k.a. Shagbacks, Green Shamblers, Shamblers, Sammies)
HD 2
AC 6
Throw Moss +2 (30', 0 damage, after one turn: 1d8 damage + disease)
Move 6
Morale 6
Int 6

Moss men are 4' tall and resemble a mixture between a slouching, lumpy humanoid and a mountain of leftover spinach.  They shuffle around, eating anything, and rely on predators not seeing through their camouflague.  In a swampy area, they look like just another pile of sludgy moss on a log, and surprise on a 5-in-6.

They are not hyperaggressive, and would rather let healthy adventuring parties move on past them.  They'll only rouse themselves if the party looks injured, a person is travelling alone, they have an opportunity to corner their prey, or they are attacked.

If they were formally human, they will mumble and slur out half-remembered words and phrases during combat.  (Ex. "Good day, go'od day sah, intrust yu inna purchazz?")  If a moss men is ever submerged in water, it disintegrates and dies.

Moss men are capable (and fond) of joining together in a continuous "carpet" of bodies.  They lose no abilities when in a carpet, and joining/leaving is a free action.  When they form a carpet, pool their HP together.

When moss men attack, they are literally throwing parts of their body at you.  They take 1 damage whenever they attack.  On a hit, a quivering lump of mossy sludge sticks to the target.  If the sludge is still attached 1 turn later, it burrows into the skin, dealing 1d8 damage and the target must save or be infected with shambleman's fever.  If they spend their whole turn doing it, a person can scrape off one of their own lumps automatically, or pull one off an ally with a Dexterity check.

Shambleman's fever does 1d6 Dex damage.  A person who succumbs turns into a moss man.

Rules for Diseases
Once you're infected:

1. Make a Constitution check at the start of every day.
• If you fail it, you take the stat damage indicated.
• If you pass it, you get +1 to all subsequent Con checks against this disease.
• If you pass 2x in a row, you're cured.
• Rest and medical care can give you a bonus on this check.
2. You automatically fail the first day's constitution check--this is sort of represented by the save you made when you first risked contracting the disease.
3. Stat damage recovers at 1 point/day, but only after you're cured.

Map for The Dig + Cambrian Organisms

So here's the map for The Dig, a minidungeon on Hex 0905 of the Frogstar Peninsula hexcrawl.

I'm planning on sticking the map on the right side of a page, so the elongated shape won't be too annoying.

Basically, morlocks and their chelinausca master were digging a secret subterranean highway nearby when they noticed a bunch of humans excavating fossils a nearby hillside.  They've decided to kill all the humans.  Rocks from fossil beds (and oil reservoirs) are pretty much impregnated with about 1000 ghosts/cu. ft., so it wasn't too hard for the chelinausca necromancer to agitate the ghosts into forming a life node, which is causing the fossils to spontaneously reincarnate as organic ghost manifestations.  Their biologies are built from their own memories, so some details aren't quite right.  Anomalocaris, for example, is twice as big as it should be and can fly for some reason.

HEX 0312 The Fragrant Mother

HEX 0312 The Fragrant Mother

This is another part of my Frogstar Peninsula Hexcrawl, typed up all pretty.

I'm trying to fill it with bunches of minidungeons (see also: Blowhole Caverns) so that's what this is, pretty much.

A History Lesson

Once there was a big, semi-intelligent plant called the Fragrant Mother.  It looked like a toothy rose plant 40' high.  It was inhabited by bog mermaids, who lived inside it and took care of it.  Together, they did some pretty great things, including making immorality elixir (see Room 7) and keeping this part of the swamp safe from the Ape King.

But then all of the bog mermaids died, were driven off, or started hibernating.  So now pixies have moved into the Fragrant Mother.

The Pixies

They're capricious, flighty, and a bit naïve, but they're not malicious.  They aren't as good at taking care of the Fragrant Mother, but it's their home and they aren't leaving.  They'll defend their home against thieves and murderhobos tenaciously, but they don't like bloodshed and will try to avoid killing people when there are other options.

They know that the Fragrant Mother is a little bit sick, and they suspect that there's something wrong down in the root cellar (Rooms 8-13).  They're too afraid to look, though.  If an adventurer wants to get on their good side, cleaning out the basement might be a good place to start.

The Fragrant Mother

She's an old plant, and she's halfways sentient.  Or at least, she's sentient in her dreams.  When she's awake she's just a big, carnivorous plant that has a vague sense of who her friends are (or at least, these tiny creatures that scrape the parasites off.  She used to be a political power in the swamp, complete with mystic  powers and miracle cures, but now she's just a big dungeon fill of happy-go-lucky pixies.

Unless she has a reason not to, she'll spend most days spreading charm pollen into the air.  PCs who enter her hex have a chance to smell the potent, heady perfume of her scent.  Unless they leave the hex immediately, they'll walk right up her, dazed, a sleepwalker.  Then she'll pick up the person (gently), raise them to her mouth (a toothy rose 14' across) and give them a sniff.  If they smell like violence, fear, hate, or greed, she'll eat them.  Otherwise she'll let them go (but there's a 20% chance that she's hungry and will try to eat the person anyway).

The pixies are here often enough to be desensitized to the pollen.  Slapping someone who's under the effects of the charm pollen will snap them out of it.

FRAGRANT MOTHER: HD 14, AC 13, tendrils +9/+9 (1d8 or grab, 30' reach, arms have 2 HD independent or body and 17 Str), grabbed opponents may be squeezed automatically for 1d8 damage each turn if she wants to hurt you, after spending 1 turn lifting you, she can swallow you for 2d6 acid damage (stomach has 3 HD, if you want to try cutting your way out), MV 0, ML 9; Sniff—can vaguely read minds, emotions, and especially intentions by getting a good whiff; Charm pollen—sort of like the charm spell, except makes people walk up to her and stand there like dopes, 3 mile radius; Sleep pollen—as sleep spell, 100' radius

The Dungeon

Both doors to the Fragrant Mother are hidden, but the pixies come and go often enough that any observer who watching the Fragrant Mother for any length of time will figure out that there is some sort of entrance hidden behind the thick leaves.  (The doors are obvious from the inside.)  The second story entrance is 10' up in the air, so some climbing may be required.

Each room will have 1d3-1 pixies in it (min 0).  Pixie stats are listed in Room 2.

a Squeeze
There are two places in the basement where the passage is too narrow for a full grown human to move easily.

1 Table
15' long mahogany table, with white oak inlays, covered in squiggles, actually a very accurate map of the swamp.  A red bead marks the current location.  Pixies pushed table here to seal hole to Room 8 [Flood].  Scrape marks on floor from moved table.

2 Houses
5 pixie houses.  Look like elaborate bird houses made from flower stems and braided honey suckle.  Glowing flowers on wall.  Pet fire beetle (4' long) snuffles in his sleeping bowl. Sixteen fairies live here.

At any given time, 1d8 fairies are in this room and another 1d8 fairies are in the other rooms.  The rest are out foraging in the woods.

SMALL FIRE BEETLE: HD 2, AC 14, bite +2 (1d4), MV slow, ML 7; Spew Fire—15' cone, usable 1/day, does 2d4 damage (save for half) and outlines the target in boiling, phosphorescent liquid.

PIXIE: HD 1d6, AC 14, tiny sword -1 (1d4) or tiny iron arrow +3 (1d4), MV fast, ML 7; Each pixie knows a random level 1 spell that they can cast 1/day.  Their chieftain has HD 2d6 and is named Strongwillow.

3 Plants
Wall-mounted turtleshell planters hold a dozen different types of swamp flowers.  Irrigated by rainwater funneled in from outside.  Smells like dirt.  Pixies here will be singing to flowers, easily surprised.  Each flower is a “book”, and imparts its knowledge if smelled.  One flower is a spell book containing a single spell called guiding light (see appendix).  The stairs in this room resemble a stack of crocodiles.  Oddly enough it looks like someone has taken an axe to these carved crocodiles, and hacked them halfway to pieces.  Stairs up to Room 4 [Armor].

4 Armor
Slightly overgrown treasure room.  2 rusty spears and 1 rusty harpoon.  Opalescent pixie breastplate (let's a pixie read thoughts).  Armored sleeve (+1 AC piecemeal, masterwork) with cuniform on the shoulder.  3 Chicken Feather Arrows (see appendix).  The Saddle of Horses (see appendix).  3 crates containing rotted silk (worthless).  1 crate containing 16 sealed jars of spices, each one worth 30s and stamped with bogfolk cuniform.  Stairs down to Room 3 [Plants].

5 Fountain of Dreams
Fountain is the most prized possession of the pixies.  If drank, it will remove exhaustion and give a player opalescent skin.  The next time they sleep, they will be incorporeal until the morning, and able to fly at their full walking speed.  If the dreamer flies into the center of the Fragrant Mother's primary blossom, they'll be able to talk to her directly.  (She is bestial when awake, but Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 14 when asleep.)  There is a 3% chance that the character remains incorporeal and never wakes up.  Can be used to scout out adjacent hexes, but flight is slow.

A family of mice lives under the fountain.  It's magic has made them weird, and they will approach pixies, sing a rude song about mermaids, and run away.  The pixies think they're adorable, and tolerate them very well.

6 Wood
Beautiful tapestry (worth 100s) of different colored fish scales sewn onto human leather.  Depicts bog merfolk cavorting around a giant flower, drinking from yellow horns.  One plays on a glowing flute.  Also in room is a wooden carafe and what looks like a totem pole that is sticking out the backs of it's forearms horizontally so as to make a ladder up to Room 7 [Seed].  Totem pole-ladder will attack anyone who touches it without first washing themselves with water from the carafe.  It wants to keep Room 7 clean.

TOTEM POLE-LADDER: HD 3, AC 13, Punch +1 (1d8), MV slow, ML 12; Fall Over—can fall on someone for double damage on a hit, but then spends the next turn standing up; half damage from bludgeoning.

7 Seed
This is where the bog merfolk wizards once cultivated the immortality berries, which could be made into immortality elixir.

This room is softly lit by a pale red glow from the Fragrant Mother's primary bloom, above.  6 flower pots full of ancient, withered vines are covered in yellow-brown inlaid murals.  (If a flower pot is investigated, it is revealed to be covered in gold wire, and worth 100s each as art.)  Small bag of what smells like dried manure (actually magical neverending bag of manure, good for fires).  Small work table holds gardening tools and an unlocked chest.  Unlocked chest contains the remains of a giant tadpole skeleton, a packet of still-viable strangle vine seeds, and three vials that once held immortality elixir.

The first vial has long since dried up, and contains only dust and an immortal mushroom.  The second vial is filled with a murky brown sludge.  If imbibed, it kills the drinker (no save) and raises them as a mindless plant ghoul one round later.  The third vial still retains its potency.

If the third vial is poured in the mouth of a corpse, a small tree will instantly grow from the corpse, which will bear one cluster of berries after only a minute.  The person who eats all of these berries will gradually transform into the dead person over the course of two weeks.  At first personality traits will be adopted, then memories, then physical changes, and then finally the new creature will forget all of its former memories, and will completely resemble the deceased in every way, except that the new person will be the prime of their youth.  If the elixir is drank by a living creature, they will die (no save) and a plant will grow out of them in exactly the same fashion.  The elixir is nearly priceless.

8 Flood
3' of stagnant, black water on the ground, filled with scum and insect larvae.  This is where the pixies threw all of the bogfolk furniture that they didn't want.  Scoop-like couches.  Spiral beds centered around a thick pole (for bogfolk to curl up around).   Root-wooden walls have carvings of bogfolk daily life, but are badly defaced by deep gouges and scratches.  If examined, the gouges are also mirrored on the bottom of the table that blocks the hole above.  (These are scratches made by Gurdelgur trying to escape.)

Gurdelgur usually hides in the water here, watching the only entrance.  She is a bog mermaid ghoul, and she is very patient.  The most observant person in the party has a small chance to see her, and succeeds if they roll under their Wisdom -6.  Gurdelgur will wait until the party is distracted, and then attack the weakest looking person.  If the PCs leave the room, she'll follow, swimming along in the shallow, dirty water (this gives the most observant PC another chance to see her.)

GURDELGUR: HD 3, AC 13, Claws +3/+3 (1d4 + lung rot), MV average, ML 7; Lung Rot—target struck by a claw attack must save or endure their lungs filling up with necrotic swamp water.  This lasts 1d6 rounds and targets take 1d6 damage damage each turn unless they spend that turn coughing up swamp water.  (Bog mermaid ghouls lack the traditional paralysis, and inflict lung rot instead.)

9 Crackle
3' of stagnant, black water on the ground. Low-hanging roots scrape at head and shoulders of people at human height.  A few fat-bodied weevils parasitize the roots of the Fragrant Mother.  Make a crackling sound as they munch on the roots—heard before they are seen.  Gross but harmless.  Would take about an hour to remove all of them.

10 Mummy
3' of stagnant, black water on the ground.   Mummified bogfolk priest days named Morothmo is in here, coiled up inside a broad, flat, cylindrical sarcophagus.  Lid depicts his visage.  Cruel, calm, heady-lidded.  Inside is the priest himself, holding the Flute of Fair Weather and wearing a tarnished bronze torc with a black spinel the size of a baby's fist (worth 500s).  If the torc is stolen, Morothmo will animate 24 hours later and stalk the thief for three days, first leaving signs, then appearing in the corner of their vision, and then finally attacking them on the third day in order to retrieve his torc.  However, he will not pursue anyone beyond the boundaries of the swamp, and will not seek revenge if a PC sells his necklace--he's too dead to carry a grudge.

Gurdelgur is terrified of Morothmo and will not enter his room.

MOROTHMO: HD 6, AC 13, Claws +6/+6 (1d6 + lung rot), MV average, ML 10; Lung Rot works the same as with Gurdelgur, in Room 8.

11 Root
3' of stagnant, black water on the ground.  There is an indentation in the wall here that looks not unlike a chair.  Or at least a place to sit that has armrests.  If a person sits there, the roots will begin to mesh with the person.  A person could jump out safely when they realize what's happening, but if they linger more than a few seconds, the roots will mesh with their body and assimilate it.  All that will be left in the roots is a paper-thin husk of skin and hair.

Seven days later, the Fragrant Mother will bear a fruit.  77 days after being planted, the fruit will grow into a pod, which will rebirth the assimilated person whole, and free from disease and mutation.  The person will also lose 1 point of Dex and gain 1 point of Str.

If anyone repeats this process multiple times, the same thing happens, except that they will not gain a point a Strength on subsequent passages (they will still lose a point of Dex, however).  Too many uses of this fruit-based rejuvenation will turn a person into wood.  The pixies do not know about this function.

If no one tends to the fruit that grows, there is only a 50% chance that it germinates and grows into a pod.  Otherwise, the pixies eat it, or it falls into water that is too wet for it to survive, etc.

12 Worms
3' of stagnant, black water on the ground.  1 plump worm (3' long) gnaws on the roots here.  This is what is making the Fragrant Mother ill.  If the worm is attacked, two more worms will burrow up from the ground.  If these worms are killed and no further vermin are allowed to infest the Fragrant Mother, it will begin bearing immortality berries in 3 years.

PLUMP WORM: HD 1, AC 10, Bite +1 (1d6), MV slow, ML 8; Acid Blood—any weapon that hits a plump worm is damaged and gains a Notch or a Ding or just has a 50% chance to become useless.

13 Runes
3' of stagnant, black water on the ground.  The bog mermaid runes on the walls here spell out the history of the Fragrant Mother and the decline of the bog people.  It also describes how the immortality fruit was made into immortality elixir (but lacks a detailed recipe) as well as how the roots in Room 11 function.

A mound of smelly rubbish in the corner holds Gurdelgur's treasure: a leathery goat bladder containing 204 silver, 9 gold, and a magic blowgun (+1/+3 vs amphibians) made from blackened witch-reed, and engraved with the bog folk runes for “friendship”.

Appendix: New Items

Saddle of Horses
No, the name is not redundant.  This ancient saddle is made from horse leather.  The pommel is in the shape of a stylized horse's head.  And if the saddle is ever strapped to a creature's back, that creature will turn into a horse for as long as the saddle remains on.

The horse is just a horse.  It cannot talk or cast spells.  The only non-horsey part about it is its mind, which it retains from its previous form.  Since bucking a saddle onto someone is pretty tricky even when they're cooperating, it is only possible to put the Saddle of Horses on a willing or helpless target.  Horses cannot take their own saddles off.  You need thumbs for that.  Once you've been a horse you will dream about horses 1d6 times a week for the rest of your life.

The Saddle's last known owner was the famed bounty hunter Phineas Rage, who was fond of riding his bounties back to the sheriff's office.

Flute of Fair Weather
This is one of the most important artifacts in bog folk culture.  They'd do a lot to recover it (if they knew where it was), and they'd be very grateful it if were returned.

If the Flute of Fair Weather is played by a human, it will get windy after 1 hour of continuous playing, overcast after 2, rainy after 4, and stormy after 8.  If the human is not an experienced flautist, they will lose control of the magic in the worst way possible.

In the hands of a bog mermaid, the flute has more powers, all of them weather-related.  Notably, it can be used to calm down storms and summon up stiff winds (although it cannot control the direction).

Chicken Feather Arrows
A target struck by one of these arrows must save or flee in terror for 1d6 rounds.  But if the arrow is used to shoot an egg—and kind of egg—it will instead turn into a full-grown chicken.


Appendix: New Spells

Guiding Light
Magic-User 1
A ball of light shaped like a 6' goldfish flies from your mouth.  It is as bright as a torch.  The goldfish immediately tries to find the fastest “way out”, and then immediately swims in that direction at a walking pace.  The goldfish cannot be halted, slowed, or dimmed (though it can be dispelled).  As a mindless spell construct, the goldfish has no concept of safety or accessibility, and will swim right through doors without slowing (because that is a path you could take, see?).  Big or non-euclidean dungeons confuse the fish, but in general, it can lead you out of a dungeon no deeper than 1 level per caster level.  If there are no ways out, or there is no “out”, the fish will freak out for a few seconds and then explode.

HEX 0609 Blowhole Caverns

HEX 0609

Parties will find the blowhole caverns by either (a) finding an old pirate treasure map in a different dungeon, (b) hearing rumors about barnacle men dragging their captives back in this direction, or (c) just stumbling upon the burned-down inn in hex 0609 on my Frogstar Peninsula hexcrawl.

Notes: Pirate Treasure Map
It gives accurate directions to the blowhole caverns, but since it was written long ago, it makes no mention of the barnacle men.  The edges of the paper are singed, and if the map is heated, it will reveal hidden words that read: "Fire's hot breath yields these words, true, but ye'll find nothing but wisdom until the water swallows ye."

This is a clue to the treasure room that can only be reached by jumping into the whirlpool in room 13.  There aren't any other clues that might convince the party to jump into the whirlpool, so if the PCs arrive here without a treasure map, you might want to put the map somewhere in the dungeon for the PCs to find.  I recommend the pirate corpse in Room 7 [Drowning Room].

Notes: Tidal Cavern
This is a TIDAL CAVERN. The map below assumes that it is at low tide.  The tide comes in and goes out twice per day.  Unless you prefer a more complicated method, roll 1d12 when the party arrives at the dungeon to determine where the waterline is.
Low tide = 3 hours.
Tide coming in = 3 hours.
High tide = 3 hours.
Tide going out = 3 hours.
The tidal height is a whopping 9'.  None of the rooms in the dungeon are higher than 9' tall, and so they will all be underwater during high tide.  When the tide is changing, the water level changes by 1' every 20' minutes.

Due to wind and sea-spray, unprotected light sources have a 1-in-6 chance to extinguish themselves every 10 minutes (or whenever you make a wandering monsters check).

Notes: Barnacle Men
All of the barnacle men are male.  Young barnacle people are all female, and they are hidden in secret crevices and cracks out in the ocean, but within 300' of shore, where they are visited by barnacle men.  Only when they get older will they grow testicles and become ambulatory.

Barnacle men are disgusting, pink, insect-like humanoids that look like someone threw up in a conical shell after a seafood buffet.  They eat by sticking their heads out of their shells and waving their 5'-long "mustaches" into a plankton-rich sea current--but they much prefer the lifestock of the surface dwellers.  They eat people, too.

They have a long pair of crablike arms that they can use to claw at people, but they prefer to wield spears (which are too big to bring into their shell).  They also make use of a wide variety of deadly, semi-domesticated sea life, usually tidal organisms (you'll see).

They toddle around on a quartet of pink, crab-like legs, but at a very slow pace.  Since they are too slow to run away, whenever they fall to 1 hp or fail a morale check, they retreat into their shells, which are 6" thick and stronger than cement.

BARNACLE MAN: HD 2, AC 14, Claw (1d4) or Spear (1d8), Movement 1/4 that of a human.  Can retreat into their shell which makes them immobile but also makes them immune to all weapon damage (except bludgeoning, which does 1 damage per hit) until their shell is breached.  Their shell has HD 1 and AC 0, and after it has been breached you can just look down there and stab them in their stupid, screaming faces.  Or pour burning lamp oil in.  Whatever.

Some barnacle men carry DEATH CONE SPEARS, topped with a deadly cone snail.  They get -2 to hit with these, and do 0 damage, but the poison the snail injects is Save or Die.  The snails are highly visible and vibrantly colored, and I would also allow PCs to make an Int check to recognize the deadly coloration patterns even if they had never seen one before.

Some barnacle men carry PURPLE URCHINS, which they launch from slings.  On a hit, the poisonous urchin does 1d3 damage for two consecutive rounds.  The target must also make a save or have a random appendage be paralyzed.  Paralysis lasts for 1d6 hours if the save is failed, and 1d6 minutes if it succeeds.

Blowhole Cavern

0 Burnt Out Bed and Breakfast Hotel
This burned down wreck is atop the cliffs.  It used to be a quaint little bed and breakfast until the barnacle men burned it down (burning down human habitations is beautifully ironic to them).  It used to be two stories, but has now been well-scattered across the yellow grass.  Nothing useful can be found, except for a couple of ropes tied to a thick beam (which the barnacle men sometimes use to temporarily tie up prisoners and captured livestock).  An obvious and well-traveled path leads down the cliffside.

Off to the east is a blowhole, spouting water out of the rocks every few seconds.  PCs investigating the blowhole will not notice anything of interest unless they actually climb 50' down the extremely slippery rocks while getting blasted by water, which they can do if they have an iron spike and a hammer. See Room 16 [Blowhole].

1 Treacherous Cliffside
Switchback paths.  Narrow paths descend 60'.  Safe as long as you travel slowly and have a free hand.

2 Helican Rock
This smooth-sided rock sticks up 10' above the high-water mark.  It is white-slick with helican shit.  The helican is a 400 lb bastard of a bird that is constantly squatting atop it like a constipated gargoyle, leering with red, watery eyes.  It's smart enough to avoid well-armed groups, but if someone is alone, or if the party decides to go for a swim, it'll fly over and try to gulp someone down.  (Anyone who gets swallowed by the blowhole and ejected out here will also be quickly assaulted by the fucking bird.)

If the PCs watch the helican for any length of time, they'll see it regurgitate a half-digested dolphin, break it up into smaller pieces, and then swallow the pieces.

HELICAN: HD 4, AC 12, 1d6+1 damage + automatic grab if so desired (it can rake with talons if it doesn't want to swallow someone, or if its mouth is full), Morale 9.

• First attack: attack successful = 1d6+1 damage + grab in mouth.
• already in mouth: attack roll successful = 1d6+1 damage + swallowed.
• already in pouch: 1d6+1 damage automatically (and helican will go sit on its rock)
• Players can crawl from pouch to mouth, and mouth to freedom, with a strength contest (vs Str 17) or can cut their way out with a small, sharp weapon (gullet has effective AC 12 and HP 5)

3 Black Rock Beach

Steep, rocky beach.  Masses of dried, stinking kelp + flies that are interested in stinking kelp. Obvious entrance to Room 6 [Drowning Room] on left side of the beach.  Three black boulders on the right side of the beach.  

The highest boulder hides another entrance to the dungeon that leads to Room 8 [Crab Man].  The entrance will be noticed if PCs investigate it, and can be shoved by a mob of people with a combined Str score of at least 40, or the crab man (the crab man is freakishly good at moving rocks; that's what the barnacle men keep him around for).  Call for a Wisdom check to see if the PCs notice the Halfway Hidden Beach.  

4 Halfway Hidden Beach

Contains an intact oar, a broken oar, a small length of chain, and an intact glass fishing-net buoy (filled with the exhalations from an ancient glassblower, worth 5s).  A hidden sea-tunnel near the beach goes to Room 16 [Blowhole], but the PCs won't discover that unless they have diving gear, see that entry for more details.

5 Hidden Beach

Will only be noticed if the PCs swim/paddle around the outcropping.  Leads to a choke point guarded by the pair of barnacle men in Room 15 [Trophy Room].

6 Drowning Room

Northeast corner of the room is underwater, even at low tide.  The water hides a plethora of harmless starfish and an underwater tunnel to Room 8 [Death Cone Farm].

Southwest corner of the room has what appears to be part of a stone boat (dragged here from Room 9).  A small hatch appears to hide a small compartment "belowdecks", and can be opened by pulling on a stone ring (requires a combined Strength of 20).  However, opening the hatch only triggers a trap: a huge boulder falls from its perch above the door, and traps PCs in the room.  Like the boulders outside, the rock can be shoved by a combined Strength of 40 but only from the outside.  PCs trapped in the room are usually quite trapped.  The inside of the hatch compartment contains only a simple mechanism and a grinning human skull with a penny in each eye socket.

Northwest corner contains a narrow passage to Room 7.  Halflings can slip through readily enough, but humans will have to squeeze (and remove bulky armor) to fit.  Barnacle men are way too bulky to fit through.

7 Dead Pirate

This room is too small to hold more than 3 people at a time.  A tiny sliver of sunlight is visible 50' above, but nothing bigger than a rat could escape this way.  On the wall, scrawled chalk reads "no way out" and "no treasure no treasure no treasure no treasure no no"

A pirate skeleton is here, clutching an empty bottle of rum and a rusty-but-still-sharp cutlass engraved with "Don't Fuck It Up".  In his pocket is a piece of chalk and 34 pieces of silver. 

8 Death Cone Farm

This room is completely underwater (and is extremely dark).  If there are at least 3 torches back in room 6 or 8, there will be a tiny bit of light, enough to make out that the floor of the room is covered with dozens of brightly colored cone snails.  The snails are enclosed by "fences" made from iron spikes and fishing line, which the snails cannot climb over.

Any PC who swims down the bottom of this room or messes with the snails is inviting some stings from the Death Cone Snails (save or die).  Any PC who feels along the roof will soon find the other exit leading to Room 9.

It takes about 3 turns to swim into or out of this room.  Since a PC who hyperventilates before diving can hold their breath for a number of turns equal to their Constitution before beginning to suffocate (save or unconscious), most PCs will have a few turns to grope around before continuing.  Characters with Con 12+ can even reach air on the far side with half+ of their oxygen left.  The far side is, however, quite dark.

9 Crab Man

The center of this room is the wreckage of an ancient boat.  It's alabaster white, even after the eons.  It is absolutely covered in starfish, of all the colors of the rainbow.  The boat is magnificent and mysterious (how did it even get through the too-small door?) has long been stripped of anything interesting or valuable (and you can even see the crowbar marks).  The water is filled with large, ghostly crabs, which are both timid and harmless.

The crab man lives on the SW side of the room.  He is an ex-slave, a refugee from the fish people.  His body bears the scars from the harsh lifestyle (and a linguist might be able to read the graffiti that has been carved into his scarred shell, but that linguist would probably blush).  He escaped here with two of his companions, one of whom died from injuries sustained during the escape, and the other died from shell rot shortly after.  (They have since been laid to rest in Room 10.)  The crab man is supposed to stand guard here, but he spends 50% of his time sleeping in the shallows and the rest of his time moping.  He has a spear wound in his side that has now grown infected (inflicted by a barnacle man as motivation to keep watch more diligently).

If he spots intruders, he will attack half-heartedly, and make a Morale check when his HP falls below half.  He will react to food with hesitation, and to kindness with an obscene amount of gratitude (though he has trouble expressing it).

SAD CRAB MAN: HD 4, AC 16, Claws +1/+1 to hit, 1d6/1d6 damage, Morale 5.  Amphibious, but in danger of drying out.

10 Sea Cucumber Farm

Little underwater gates keep the sea cucumbers from wandering into Room 11 (Crab Man Graveyard). There are 221 large sea cucumbers here, each of which is sufficient for a day's rations (although they weigh 3x as much, unless dried).  They can be tasty if you know the recipes, and extremely disgusting if you do not.  A single barnacle man is here, tending the farm.

BARNACLE MAN: HD 2, AC 12, Claw 1d4 or Spear 1d8, can retreat into shell, Morale 7, Movement 1/4, will retreat into water at first sign of trouble.

11 Crab Man Graveyard

The exoskeletons of two crab men can be found on the floor here, laid out in a pleasing pattern.  They are slowly growing moss.  They can be made into effective splint mail, if you find the right kind of armorsmith.  However, disturbing the remains will enrage the sad crab man in Room 9, and actually trying to steal them will make him your implacable enemy.

12 False Hoard

A huge, wooden chest dominates this room, halfway buried under sand.  There are a few visible bricks against the wall, behind the chest.  The chest shows signs of having already been forced open, and contains only seashells (with a human skull at the bottom, a copper penny in each eye socket).  The inside of the chest's lid has some letters carefully carved into it.  The letters read "If ye hope to get your hands on my treasure while keeping them dry, think again.  But prithee, take a hat for your troubles and a tuppence for a grog.  Ye deserve that much."

If the chest is removed and some of the sand is cleared away, it will reveal a small trap door.  Beneath the trap door is a half-flooded, narrow (2' wide) tunnel that leads to Room 18 [Giant Starfish].  If it is not low tide, this tunnel is completely underwater.

13 Whirlpool

This room contains a whirlpool. When the tide is going out, the whirlpool is expelling water up (where it runs into small rivulets in the wall and is lost).  When the tide is coming in, the whirlpool is sucking water down.  During other times, the water is still.  The whirlpool is about 80' deep, and the walls are lined with (non-poisonous) urchins.  At the other end is Room 14a [Genuine Treasure Hoard].  The amount of time it takes to swim to Room 14a depends on the tide.

• Tide coming in, whirlpool sucking = 6 rounds, -1 round if Str check passed.
• Low Tide = 2x as long.
• High Tide = 2x as long, then +2 rounds.
• Tide going out, whirlpool expelling = 3x as long.
• Unless you can see+swim well enough to avoid bumping into walls, a swimmer will take 1d6 damage from the urchins, unless the tide is coming in and the whirlpool is sucking, since laminar flow keeps you off the wall.

13a Genuine Treasure Hoard

If a PC claws their way out of the water, they'll find themselves in a small (20' diameter) round cave, with a couple of (usable) torches stuck onto iron spikes.  On the other ends of the room is a pile of coins with a skeletonized pirate captain sitting atop it.

High-backed wooden chair holds an imposing pirate skeleton, wearing a dusty red coat with gold embroidery (worth 10s).  Heavy, buckled boots hold a silver dagger (worth 30s).  And a magnificent pirate hat crowns its head. The skeleton still has a big, black beard, braided into knots, into which 4 gold coins have been tied.  He also holds a bottle of rum, and a skeletonized parrot sits on his shoulder.  There is a cutlass at his side.  This is the Dread Captain Crippley, famed for his wit, greed, and swordsmanship.

All of this is atop what appears to be a small mountain of gold and silver coins.  Actually, it's a mound-like rock, since the half of the cavern that the Captain sits on is a good 5' higher than the other.  The coins are carefully arranged to give an appearance of value, but it's really just one layer of coins.  Still, there are 100 gold coins, 300 silver, and 900 copper.  (This game uses the silver standard, 1s = 1xp). His mug and his sword are magical (see Appendix).

As soon as anyone touches a coin, approaches the Captain, or messes with the Captain, the skeleton will speak.  "Oh?  Do you supposed you've earned that gold, lad?" or something.  Really, the Captain just wants to taunt the PCs for a couple of rounds before leaping out of his chair and attacking them, which he will do at the moment that he judges is most dramatic.

In death, as in life, this is all just one big game to Captain Crippley.  He will joke and taunt.  He will even wink, which is quite the feat if you've got no eyelids.  "Why are you fighting so hard, boy?  Death ain't nearly as bad as it's made out to be."  "Bah!  You fight like a dairy farmer!" Etc.  His parrot will fly around only for as long as the captain is still standing.  If Captain is defeated, he will compliment the party and ask them one small favor: to leave the coins in his beard behind.  If he was particularly impressed by their wit and swordsmanship (and if they leave his beard-coins behind), he will offer to come along and offer his piratical wisdom and swordsmanship lessons (otherwise he's going to move on to afterlife).

Swimming from Room 13a back to Room 13 [Whirlpool] is the same as swimming in, except the direction of the whirlpool is reversed.  During high tide this room will fill halfway with water, but the air has no where to go, and so it will not be fully underwater at high tide (while two people can hold onto the captain's chair, everyone else will need to tread water for 3 hours, which requires a Constitution check. Letting tired people switch off allows them to make Constitution checks with bonuses).

CAPTAIN CRIPPLEY: HD 5, AC 12, Scimitar 1d6+2, Morale 12, If an opponent attacks Captain Crippley with a held weapon and misses, they must also beat the Captain in a Dexterity contest (Dex 18) or be disarmed (their sword sailing off into the water), Crippley is also a skeleton, and takes half damage from weapon attacks that aren't bludgeoning.  He is resistant to being turned.

CRIPPLEY'S PARROT: HD 1d6, AC 16, Claw 1 damage, On a critical hit, he plucks out an eyeball and scratches the other eyelid, blinding that PC until the bleeding is bandaged and the eye rinsed out.  If there is only one light source in the room, the parrot will also attempt to rip it away (Str 8 for this purpose) and throw it in the water.

14 Purple Urchin Farm

Another underwater farm with fishing line fences.  33 purple urchins in the water, and 3 slings hanging from the east wall.  Next to the slings, a single barnacle man tends to the farm.  If he is attacked he will pull a sling off the wall and begin launching urchins.

BARNACLE MAN: HD 2, AC 12, Claw 1d4 or Sling urchin (1d3/turn for 2 turns, save or 1 limb paralyzed 1d6 hours), can retreat into shell, Morale 7, Movement 1/4, will retreat and raise the alarm if it looks like PCs will make it across.

15 Trophy Room

Gruesome displays.  Walls are covered with captured fishing nets (worth 40s).  Tangled in the nets are 12 fishermen skeletons.  Their flesh was eaten (knife marks on the bones) and then they were redressed and hung up here as a symbol of barnacle man superiority.  There are also 18 oars hanging on the wall, most of which have been defaced with barnacle man carvings, depicting anti-human violence.  There is a rowboat hanging from the ceiling, which has been covered with spikes to look more fearsome.  2 barnacle men stand guard here, watching the entrance from Room 5 [Hidden Beach].  They have spears and shields (!) and are prepared to control this choke point (since the tunnel from Room 5 to the Trophy Room is only wide enough for 1 person).  They will, however, be surprised by PCs approaching quietly from the west.

BARNACLE MAN: HD 2, AC 13 (w/ shield), Claw 1d4 or Spear 1d8, Can retreat into shell, Morale 7, Movement 1/4.  

16 Blowhole

Unlike every other room in the dungeon, this one is lit by natural light coming from above.  The floor isn't flat, and actually slopes into the blowhole on the SE half of the room.  Anyone in the room must make a Dexterity check whenever they charge, run, or are struck in combat. Failure means they fall into the blowhole.  Barnacle men have suction cup feet, and so they never risk falling into the blowhole (but attack shrimp do).

The blowhole is extremely powerful and erupts every 1d4+1 rounds.  A player who falls into the blowhole while it is erupting gets a small chance to grab hold of the rocks (Roll half Dexterity or lower) or else they take 1d6 damage and are blasted up onto the rocks on top of the cliff, near Room 0.  

If a player falls into the blowhole when it is not erupting, they are slurped outside of the dungeon.  They take 1d6 damage from banging into rocks and emerge 1 round later from a cave beneath Room 4 [Half-hidden Beach].  This puts them in proximity of the Helican (Room 2) who usually attacks.  It takes 15 rounds of swimming and a Str check to get back to Blowhole via this tunnel, due to complex and weird hydrodynamics, where they must suffer being blown up as described in the last paragraph.

Three Barnacle men sit by the N wall in this room, eating sea cucumbers and playing a game involving shoes stripped from fishermen.  One carries a spear, one carries a death cone spear, and one carries a 4' bamboo spear.  When they notice the party, the first two will engage while the third runs to summon the attack shrimp in Room 17 (by blowing bubbles in their pool).  The attack shrimp will arrive 2 rounds later, and the waddling barnacle man the round after that with a sling and 3 purple urchins.  Attack shrimp are extremely noisy, and constantly chirp, scream, and warble.

BARNACLE MAN: HD 2, AC 12, Claw 1d4 or Spear 1d8 or Sling urchin (1d3/turn for 2 turns, save or 1 limb paralyzed 1d6 hours), Can retreat into shell, Morale 7, Movement 1/4.  Death cone spears get a relative -2 to attack and deal 0 damage, but they have a lethal poison.  After one sting, the barnacle man will remove the snail (takes a turn) and fight with the spear as normal. 

17 Kitchen

5 Barnacle men use a small oven (stolen from Room 0, the bed and breakfast) to cook kelp, carrots, and a fisherman's leg.  Two human captives (Molly and Ol' Gimlet) are tied up against the wall.  One of the barnacle men is a chieftain with a fancy hat, HD 3, a spear, and a sling (3 urchins in a bag at his waist).  His hat has 10 gold coins hanging from the brim on fishing line, like a pom-pommed sombrero.  The chieftain is larger, crueler, older, and smarter than his peers.  Smart enough to speak Common, actually.

18 Giant Starfish

A gigantic fucking starfish lives in this pool, 15' from tip to tip.  The barnacle men feed it garbage, and hope to grow it large enough to one day attack the human town of Angelspit.  The starfish is very passive unless attacked, or if more than one person splashes around in its pool, which contains some scattered coins (10g, 25s) and a mermaid figurehead from some ship (worth 50s but very heavy).  Some brickwork is visible on the western wall, going down to the floor, which is also partially bricked (though completely obscured by sand).  If the sand is cleared away, it will reveal a trapdoor, which leads to a secret, half-flooded, 2' wide tunnel to Room 12 [False Hoard].

19 Harem

This is the chieftain's harem.  A miniature reef has been built here, out of chunks of a real reef.  5 barnacle women grow on the rocks here.  They are the size of children, completely immobile, no smarter than dogs, and will sing lovely, dissonant songs if it is low tide and they are above water.  One of them wears a tiara worth 50s.  Another one has earring cemented to it (worth 25s if pried off).  If any barnacle-wives are killed but some barnacle men are left alive, the barnacle men will stage a retributive strike against the town of Angelspit in 1d6 days, involving 4d6 barnacle men, 4d6 attack shrip and firebombs.

BARNACLE WOMAN: HD 1, AC 12, Claw 1d3, Can retreat into shell, Morale 2, Movement 0.  

20 Attack Shrimp Pens

This is a shallow pool where the barnacle men keep their attack shrimp, each the size of a small wolf and with a mouth like a cutlery drawer.  They will attack if they see humans in the room, or if their caretaker (in Room 16 [Blowhole]) summons them by blowing bubbled into the pool.  The pool is too murky for PCs to see anything, but it contains 7 attack shrimp.

ATTACK SHRIMP: HD 1, AC 13, Bite1d4, Morale 11, Movement 1.5x.  If they do max damage on a bite, they attach onto a person's face and deal automatic damage on subsequent rounds.  They can jump 30' easily.  They are as tenacious as wolverines, and each one killed has a 25% chance to stagger to it's feet next round with 1 hp.

21 BARNACLE MAN SHAMAN

Two shelves containing twelve jars of spices and jellies.  Jar #8 contains a saffron gel that functions a potion of dominate person (same rules as a love potion).  Jar #11 contains green slime.  A translucent glass sphere in the center of the room is filled with bubbling, boiling water in which a set of human bones percolates indefinitely (functions as a crystal ball).  Painted shark jaws adorn the walls.  A broad-lipped bowl in the corner (4' wide, 1' deep) contains a family of softly glowing seahorses.  A small jar beside the seahorse bowl contains shredded, dried sea cucumbers.  The seahorses are telepathic, and function as a spell book.  If anyone feeds the seahorses (they only eat dried, shredded sea cucumbers), they will be telepathically contacted by the seahorses, who are eager to discuss interesting spells (and their spellbook nature will be obvious).  

Spellbook contains 3 first-level spells (sleep, grease, ink spray) and 2 second-level spells (octopus gambit, ESP).

Beside the seahorses, a similar bowl contains a family of tiny, striped cleaner shrimp.  (See Appendix). In a corner is an tall jar containing 500s, 500c and a heap of piratical tricorn hats stolen from the chest in Room 12 [False Hoard].

In the center of the room is an even larger bowl filled with black syrup, where the shaman does his work.  Soaking in the black syrup will restore 1 hp per minute.  Two of the shamans mutated, dominated servants guard the west side of the room, formerly bog mermaids, now glassy-eyed freaks.  They will not attack unless attacked, or if the shaman commands them.  The shaman will be sitting beside his black syrup bowl, meditating inside his shell, with a death cone spear in a water jar beside him.  He will be instantly alerted if someone attacks his mind-slave servants, but will not hear anything else (barnacle men have atrocious hearing, and the blowhole is quite loud).  Hilariously, his defense has a huge flaw: anyone who gently shoulders the two servants aside and saunters into the room will not alert him (he is pretty deep into his meditations).

If the shaman is killed before his servants, they will be freed from their compulsions.  Make a roll to see if they rush out seeking immediate vengeance against the barnacle men, break down crying, or attack the PCs anyway (equal chance of each).

HOOK-HANDED BOG MERMAID: HD 3, AC 11, Hooks 1d3/1d3, rends for 1d6 if both hooks hit, Movement 3/4.

ARMOR-TAIL BOG MERMAID: HD 3, AC 11, Tail slam 1d6+1, if tail slam hits and the number showing on the attack roll die is an even number, the PC is wrapped up in the tail for automatic constriction damage on subsequent rounds, Constriction 1d8+1 (Str 14)

BARNACLE MAN SHAMAN: HD 3, AC 12, Claw 1d4 or Spear 0/1d8, Can retreat into shell, Morale 7, Movement 1/4.  Death cone spears get a relative -2 to attack and deal 0 damage, but they have a lethal poison.  After one sting, the barnacle man will remove the snail (takes a turn) and fight with the spear as normal.

Spells prepared: sleep, ink spray, octopus gambit

obligatory barnacle pokemon

New Spells

Ink Spray

Magic-User 1

Sprays a 15' cone of ink.  Everyone in that cone who fails a Save is blinded for 1d6 rounds, or until they spend a round wiping their eyes.  Creatures of HD 4 or less get no save.

Octopus Gambit

Magic-User 2

One target within 30' who fails a save is suddenly covered with 1d6 octopi, who are appear already attached to the target.  Each octopi deals 1 damage each turn until removed, and effectively has HP 1 and AC 10, but can be pulled off with a Strength check (Octopi have 3 strength).  Still, a player cannot remove more than 1 octopus per turn by themselves.

New Items

Captain Crippley's Mug

This mug can be used to find the nearest tavern.  Whenever the mug is pointed at the nearest barrel of alcoholic drink, the holder will taste it in his mouth (illusory taste).  Range: 100 miles.

Captain Crippley's Scimitar

This is a magical scimitar +1 that counts as a +3 when fighting paladins, policemen, town guards, or other lawful folk who are trying to arrest/kill you.  Once per day, it can also allow you to instantly escape from a grapple, hold, or restraint.

Enchanted Cleaner Shrimp

These long-legged shrimp will clean your teeth if you open your mouth and hold still.  They'll also bind your wounds and treat your diseases.  In in synchronized attack, they'll froth bubbles and quickly scrub a rock clean of green slime.  They can give a sufferer a new chance to make a saving throw against a disease or poison.  They can purify poisonous food by frothing onto it.  And if they are eaten, they function as a potion of cure light wounds.  However, whenever a shrimp is eaten, the remaining shrimp must make a morale check or run away (Morale 10).  There are 5 shrimp in this family, but they can be bred in an alchemical laboratory or a common tide pool.  They need water and food, and will dry out after 1 hour if not submerged.

Encounters on the Sea of Suloi

So my Centerra setting is pretty much just South America.  There's a big continent that stretches from sunbaked wasteland in the north to frozen wasteland in the south.  And there's an ocean on each side.

South America, pretty much

And since I'm currently working on a hex crawl centered around the Frogstar Peninsula (i.e. this place). . .

I figure I should do some more write-ups about the Sea of Suloi (i.e. this place).

the prismatic waters, the sea of suloi, and the arcade

Technically, everything that is blue in that picture is the Sea of Suloi.  The southwestern part is called the Prismatic Waters and the northeastern part is called the Arcade.

The Prismatic Waters are called that because they change colors.  Like, without warning, the whole ocean will suddenly change colors from Pantone 15-5217 to 17-5641.  It happens in an eyeblink.  If you're at sea and watching the horizon, you can see it sweep across the ocean like a shockwave.  The colors don't seem to do anything, but some of them herald certain ocean-wide effects.  Every sailors most feared color is this one.  They won't even name it out loud.  It is literally the worst luck.  It's a baseless superstition everywhere else except the Prismatic Sea, where it really does herald Bad Things.

pure evil

Wizards think that the color changes occur because of a massive, enchanted prism prison beneath the waves that holds a rainbow elemental.  Different colors correspond to different emotions, and these emotional releases affect the outside world.  (Purple, of course, represents fear.)  But then again, wizards are idiots.  Scholars believe that this is the result of tiny organisms in the water (bacteria?  viruses?  abiotic prions?) that are attuned and reacting to some external stimuli.

The Arcade was named thus because it sometimes has a lot of columns.  The columns are waterspouts.  Ocean tornadoes.  They happen all the time in the Arcade, and no one knows why.

But not only are the waterspouts constant, they're also weird.  They form during storms as often as they form during clear weather.  The form rows.  They form pairs that spiral around each other like DNA.  They form arches, and funnel the water from one part of the ocean to another.  The arches look like rainbows; you can sail safely beneath them.  (It is said to be good luck.)

Of course this also makes the Arcade incredibly dangerous for ships.  Most boats go around it.  Even the merfolk, with their mostly-submerged boats, still risk getting their sails torn off by waterspouts.

And of course the ecology of the place is all jacked up, too.  Enormous flying things filter the filter the plankton out of the air (which is constantly filled with plankton-containing mist).  There is a species of large dolphin that rides the waterspouts for fun.  But most animals have a hard time surviving in this place.  Near the boundaries of the Arcade, it is not uncommon to witness a rain of anchovies, kelp, or tiny squid.

it's rare that I find a picture of exactly the image I was thinking of

And strange things happen in the middle of the Sea of Suloi, too.  

The Sea of Suloi is a remarkably shallow sea.  Between a major river (the mighty Shunatula) emptying into it and massive algae blooms, there is a lot of biomass drifting to to the bottom of the ocean.  The sludgey, sandy bottom is a vibrant ecosystem (and not truly comparable to anything we have on Earth).

Biology Digression: There is a type of colonial yeast that grows in the nutrient-rich sludge on the ocean floor.  These yeast-colonies grow over the course of decades and resemble oversized sponge-corals.  These yeast-colonies are eaten by a species of giant sea cucumber which burrows holes through the yeast-coral, forming a tunnel system.  These tunnel systems form their own microecosystems, and are home to all sorts of specialized animals.  These creatures produce a large amount of gaseous waste, which eventually infuses into the yeast-coral to such a degrees that the whole thing becomes bouyant.

No one in Centerra has any notion about anything in the previous paragraph, however.  I only mention it to you, dear reader, so that the next paragraph will make sense.

Every so often in the Sea of Suloi, a giant island of spongy mud will explode to the surface in the middle of the ocean.  These sponge islands, called cucumber baskets, spongetunnels, kingmuds, or brinestacks, are hundreds of feet across and full of tunnels.  These tunnels are full of lots of animals, but they are also full of giant sea cucumbers, a fantastic delicacy--the dish of kings.  A dried giant sea cucumber is worth its weight in gold.

And so everyone is thrilled when one of the sponge islands erupts to the surface.  Although the air around a sponge island is dangerous immediately after it surfaces, people will flock to the site because such great treasures can be found inside of it.  There are specialized ships and crews that search out these floating islands and make good profit by doing to, even though their appearance is mostly random.

And they are quite dangerous places.  The giant sea cucumbers can defend themselves by shooting sticky, acidic intestines from their anuses (google it) but they are not the most dangerous of the sublittoral organisms that live there.  And there are environmental dangers, too.  Drowning, "bad air", becoming trapped in a smaller tunnel, and--the biggest danger--that the whole island might flip over.

they stink on the outside
they smell even worse on the inside
especially if they've been drying in the sun for a couple of days

But it's not only the specialists who venture into these death traps.  Merchant galleons, whalers, passenger ships, pilgrimage barges, poet joyjiggers--nearly all ships will stop and investigate one of these things, simply because a giant sea cucumber is worth a small fortune.

Side note: despite the fact that the merfolk are the hated enemies of all land-dwellers (and vice versa), giant sea cucumbers are the merfolk's greatest export.  Merfolk smugglers and human smugglers do profitable business with each, and have shared many a glass of wine as they grow rich together.  Both groups are hated by their respective species as traitors.  (The merfolks' biggest import is tinplated steel.)

Physics Digression: The solubility of a gas in a liquid is (roughly) proportionate to the pressure.  So when the pressure drops, previously dissolved gases will appear as bubbles (like opening a soda can).  This is true for yeast-coral-islands that rise to the surface.  As they rise, they become more bouyant, not less. Their eruption from the surface of the water is a violent, dramatic process.  The waves capsize small boats, the ocean turns brown with mud, and black crabs rain from the air.

money in the bank

So if Centerra is analogous to South America, there is also cheap Panama Canal knockoff (although it's really more like the Sea of Marmara).  Go back to that close up picture near the top (#3) and you can see where the Sea of Suloi meets the Sea of Fish.  It's a pair of small oceans: the Valdine Sea and the Queen's Sea.

Like the Panama Canal, all ship traffic that wants to go from one ocean to the other must pass through there.  These two small seas are ruled by merfolk--it's probably their biggest stronghold.  (They even have some land-based colonies, like Valdina).  And since merfolk generally hate humans*, very little traffic gets through.

*Merfolk have weird ideas about identity.  They hate humans on the institutional, conceptual level, but are much friendlier to lone humans.  This friendliness sometimes extends to small groups.  Sometimes.

The only people who get through the Valdine sea are the friends of the merfolk, and that's a very short list.  The weirdos from Valdina get free passage, but there aren't many of them, so whatever.  Most of the ship's you'll see there are pirate ships and smugglers that have managed to get into the good favor of the merfolk.

Interestingly, the Valdine and Queen's Seas have currents.  In the winter, the ocean pours from east to west, draining the Sea of Fish into the Sea of Suloi.  Millions of gallons of water per day.  It's impossible to sail against the current.  And in the summer, the inverse occurs.  Because of this, the Valdine and Queen's sea are only bidirectionally navigable about 70% of the year.

No one has any idea why the seas do this.

Encounters on the Open Ocean
After every X days of sailing, roll a d6.

1 Harmless sea creatures
2 Dangerous sea creatures
3-4 Other ship
5-6 No encounter


Harmless Sea Creatures

1 Mermaids
2 Butterfly migration
3 Sea gulls or other birds
4 Whales
5 Anomalocarisoid
    (beautiful but stay the fuck out of the water)
6 Straylight marauader
    (at surface to release planula, will tan you in ~3 minutes, don't stare directly at it)
7 Octopus dog
    (looks like an octopus, acts like a friendly dog, climbs on board, dances for food)
8 Freak Wave
    (easy sailing check)
9 St. Elmo's Fire
    (Green will-o'-wisps temporarily infest sail, harmless unless disturbed)
10 Eel migration
    (Good eating)
11 Mist people
    (look more like small, vertical pillars of mist, but sailors insist they're people)
12 Local effect: water color change, waterspout formation, or cucumber basket.
    (Depending on location.  Waterspouts require an immediate sailing check vs disaster.)

the first 25 seconds of this video are useless and annoying

but you get to see a sea cucumber poop later on, so there is that

Dangerous Ocean Creature Disposition

1 Mating / birthing / courtship display
2 Fighting / eating something else
    1 Harmless sea creature
    2 Dangerous sea creature
    3 Another ship
3 Hunting Cautiously
4 Hunting Patiently
5 Hunting Playfully
6 Hunting Desperately
7 Hunting Erratically
8 Berserker Mode


Dangerous Ocean Creatures

1 Sharks
2 Giant Shark
3 Flying Squid (magical flight, sneak in your window and eat you in your hammock)
2 Giant Mantis Shrimp
3 Flying Eyeballs (paralyzing gaze)
4 Dire Pelicans
5 Tiger Seals (Sorta cute, really fucking scary, like dire wolves)
6 Memory Fog
    1 Adrift and starving
    2 Lost love
    3 Mutiny
    4 Drowning
7 Sirens
8 Napalm Squid
9 Barnacle King
10 Dunkleosteus
11 Razor Rays
12 Phantom Mantas
13 Maelstrom Maw (Charybdis + Sarlacc)
14 Brine Slime (floating ooze, vulnerable to fire)
15 Weresharks
16 Flotsam Elemental (only destroys ships, does not attack people)
17 Ship Golem (insane relic of ancient war)
18 Sailback crocodiles (supposedly taught sailing to humans, sailors respectful but scared)
19 Cumulonictus
20 Bad news. . .
    1 Stygian Spike Kings (1d3)
    2 Corpiculata Infectatus (terminal stage)
    3 Leviathan
        1 Serpentine
        2 Fusiform
        3 Insectile
        4 Mantaform
    4 The Witch Whale
        1 Curiosity
        2 Enslavement
        3 Madness
        4 Devour

GUYS THIS WAS A REAL ANIMAL ONCE

DUNKLEOSTEUS AND  HIS LITTLE BUDDY, DAVY

NOTICE TEH TADPOLE TAIL IS SUPER ADORABLE