Monday, October 11, 2010

Creature Feature 10: Glorpers

As undead horrors go, glorpers out-rival vampires for verisimilitude - they are entirely indistinguishable from the living. The only give away is the caution they must show against moderate impacts, and the appalling results should their caution fail. A glorper's body is a barely-contained mass of necrotic jelly, under intense pressure beneath the thin wall of force created by its own will to remain human. For this reason, glorpers move slowly, are terrified of dogs and children and avoid crowds and slippery surfaces. Some impacts will only partially burst them, and with enough feedings they can reconstitute the loss, but severe events like falling down stairs or being trampled will disperse them beyond what their will can reform. If the remnants of such unfortunates are not properly cleansed with purified water, they will remain conscious of their state for all eternity.

COMBAT:
Once a month a glorper must feed on enough subdued humans to satiate the necrotic jelly that forms it - otherwise the jelly destabilizes and the glorper cannot hold itself together. It feeds by draining constitution points as it seeps necrotic jelly onto the victim, melding with their own flesh and absorbing it. The glorper can let them live, but rarely does as few wish to spread their condition.

A glorper's jelly infects those that contact it with the condition. Each day they match their will against the infection; when they have failed enough times to equal their constitution they have fully succumbed and are now glorpers themselves.

Glorpers attack sleeping victims, always. If forced to fight, they will do so from a distance as they try to flee. A glorper is capable of launching one of the following as a missile each round - both eyes, the tongue, or as many fingers as it wishes. All burst on contact and risk infecting the target. The eyes do not leave the glorper blinded, but do instantly blind the target with no save for one day. The tongue makes the target mute for a day and nauseous for 5 rounds. Each finger does acidic damage. These limbs must all be regrown over the course of a month.

Any blow disables a glorper, but also splashes necrotic jelly five feet in each direction. Any blow dealing more that half its hit points will completely splatter it over a 10-foot radius. Pure water will dissolve it without this effect, in a one-to-one ratio.

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