Slime / Ooze
The Slime of Gloomwharf
Appearance:
The Slime of Gloomwharf can range from anywhere between a small, semi transparent puddle that sometimes moves when prodded with a stick, so a colossal heaving mass that has been known to engulf entire houses and even, if it spreads itself out a bit, entire villages. It mostly tries to maintain a semi spherical shape and is usually an off-green colour depending on its diet.
The Slime consumes biological matter, it can gain limited sustenance from plants but prefers animals and sentient beings such as men and elves. It consumes its victims by enveloping them in its mass. It keeps them alive indefinitely by force feeding them nutrients and channeling bubbles of air into their lungs, using other bubbles to remove waste and gasses.
New victims are kept just under the surface of the slime, over time the victim is steadily transported towards its core as their bodies are steadily dismantled and consumed for nutrients. The slime will then either eject objects it cannot break down such as bone, or repurpose them such as jaws for biting, claws for slashing, etc.
Magic and fire seem to be the slime's main enemies, with water being able to replenish its mass.
Skills and abilities:
Movement: The Slime is capable of moving with great speed. By stretching parts of its mass and shrinking others it is able to slide and rag its way across a landscape with terrifying ease.
Absorption: The Slime can absorb enemies and keep them alive for extended periods of time until it decides to consume them, it does this by steadily drawing the victim further into its mass and dismantling their bodies.
Defence: The Slime can repurpose objects it absorbs as defensive armour, such as bone, rocks, wood and even metal armour taken from victims.
Offence: The slime usually attacks via absorption, seeking to overwhelm its assailants by enveloping them in its mass. It can repurpose objects such as bone and swords to act offensively, however being a Slime it finds sword-fighting difficult.
Stealth & Covert operations: The Slime can dilute itself significantly, slipping into lakes, ponds, rivers and oceans. It also uses this method to transport itself around the world. When being pursued it can sometimes shed chunks of its mass as decoys while it forces itself into the groundwater, creating a oozy bog which then consumes its pursuers. It can also form the shape of men, inhabit armour and even use it as a puppet. People will only notice if they look into the helmet and fine nothing but ooze staring back, or if they watch these puppets move about and notice how they don't walk around...so much as slide and wobble from "leg" to "leg".
Hive mind: The Slime started as a barely sentient lump of gunk, however after steadily consuming hundreds of victims ranging from mice to mages, it has now formed a considerable hive mind intelligence. Depending on its need for nutrients, it will either consume a victims brain for sustenance, or add it to others it has "kept" and use the collective brain power to further grow its hive mind. In certain situations, it will "break off" some of its mass to form a puppet and provide it a brain without enough cognitive power to survive semi autonomously, however the "puppet" is reliant on the hive mind for much of its cognition and guidance.
Background & Personality:
The Slime of Gloomwharf has been a myth for many years, a story parents tell unruly children to make them behave and go to bed at the correct time. They say "If you don't go to bed right now, the Ooze of Gloomwharf will get you!" and "The Slime is going to swallow you whole if you don't eat your cabbage!"
The Slime has no real motivation other than to consume and to add the minds of its victims to its own "hive consciousness". It moves about the land consuming different creatures, preferring sentient creatures to add their minds to its own. It has recently began combining different creates during consumption in an attempt to "spice up" its meals. These usually result in chimera-like nightmares that someones escape the slimes mass and terrorise the peasantry.
Gloomwharf:
The town of Gloomwharf used to be a quiet, peaceful place. Families would live there, till the fields, tend to their livestock, eat, drink, love and die. It would send men to the armies of their lord, the blacksmiths forge would be lit day and night making fine weapons, armour and other items. It's tavern would brew one of the best ales on this side of The Spine. The village was often remarked to be exceptionally beautiful, despite its dreary name.
One day a small Slime crept into the village and took over a cat, inhabiting its body for several days without anyone noticing, before it grew hungry and expanded its mass to another cat, then another, eventually a child was found, struggling to move and breathe under a mass of undulating slime. The villagers, attempted to pull the boy free, only to give the slimy mass more sustenance. As time wore on the village was eventually encircled and consumed by the Slime which eventually came to be known as the Slime of Gloomwharf.
Today the village still stands, however no one travels there any more. Most give it a wide berth, and for good reason. It's inhabitants are gone, however in their place, slimy puppets linger, carrying out the tasks of of the villagers, who's clothes and armour it now occupies. The forge, although long cold and dark, its watched over by a blacksmith made of green translucent gunk, a hammer gripped in an oozy appendage, uselessly banging against an anvil. The fields are worked by blobs in womens clothing, child sized blobs are seen running around the village square. These puppets do not attack unless provoked. The guards in the garrison stand vigil, their spears gripped by bubbling, green sludge for the rest of time.