Howlbear's Moving Castle: Oozes in Generica

"Listen...you smell something?" -Ray Stantz, Ghostbusters

"I have nothing more to say about slimes. They creep me out" -Saul Spidermin

Oozes in Remlia

There is no underground creature more odd and beguiling than oozes. They do not require sleep, they can live for hundreds of years on the most meagre forms of sustenance, and their form of reproduction is horrifying at best. They are driven only by their desire to consume organic materials.

Oozes are typically found underground, in damp dungeon complexes, abandoned wind catches, and watery caverns. They are normally driven away by heat, fire, and arid climates, but like any monster there are always exceptions.

For every ooze encountered there is a 1 in 6 chance that it is semi-intelligent, capable of communicating with its pseudopods, taking the shape of any creature’s face that it comes in contact with.

Intelligent ooze mimicry.

Many witches believe that black puddings carry the ability to absorb and amplify emotions. If kept in a space where negative emotions are abundant, black puddings will grow bigger and faster. A negatively charged black pudding causes the creatures it surrounds to be more aggressive, violent, and foul-tempered. Positive emotions cause the opposite to be true. Very rich witches keep underground rivers of black puddings, channelling their emotional energy.

River of slime.

Origins

It is said that long ago, the portly old god Gastromar pitied the elves who walked the lands of the northern continent.

Elves were made by the calculating efficiency of Ulaa, goddess of life eternal and endless warfare. The white elves were her magnum opus; a pitiless mortal creature that lived for centuries, needed neither rest nor food, and took pleasure only in conquest and victory.

Gastromar was a god of feasting and indulgence, of all pleasures culinary and cultural. To see such a beautiful race as these white elves be unable to enjoy such joys made him sad. “I know better than Ulaa, with that great stick up her ass,” Gastromar said to himself, “I will make a gift of my enjoyments to these pitiable elves”.

But Gastromar knew little of influencing mortals. He’d grown too comfortable in the warm halls of Celestia, and found the material plane to just out of his reach.

So he turned to an intermediary. He sought a helpful deity who could carry out his instructions. However, Gastromar was naive. He made the request of a Faceless One.

The Faceless One brought suckling boar and sweet ambrosias down from Celestia, basted and glazed with Gastromar’s love of food, garnished with his love of spirited drink, served with a side of his culinary snobbery. The white elves took and shared this food with one another. They ate and grew full, knowing hunger and desire for the first time. Gastromar was pleased.

But the Faceless One gave more. He gave them a jellied dessert, with ravenous hunger and almighty hatred floating in it like so much fruit cocktail. The elves who ate this grew too hungry. They turned on their fellow white elves and ripped them apart. They feasted on each other's skin and muscle. Their hunger for flesh could not be sated. Their bodies and their minds softened, becoming like jelly. Their stomach acids burned away at them, hungering for meat to dissolve.

They became the first oozes. Ulaa and the other goddesses were horrified.

So Gastromar isn’t allowed to influence the material plane any more.

Slime Disease

If you come in physical contact with an ooze (taking damage, being grappled, touching one with bare skin) you run the risk of contracting Slime Disease. At the end of combat, or any form of encounter with an ooze, all characters that have come in contact with the ooze must make a DC 10 Constitution save. Failure means you contract Slime Disease.

Symptoms: Slurred speech, itching and burning skin, heartburn, you absorb and retain water through the skin.

Check: At the end of every long rest, make a DC 10 + CR of the infecting Ooze (Rounded down, minimum of 1) Constitution check.

1st check failure: Your body starts to lose cohesion. Your skin becomes translucent and gel-like. You take a -2 penalty to Intelligence and Wisdom scores, but any unarmed melee attack you make deals 1d4 acid damage.

2nd check failure: Your body becomes wholly slime-like. You can no longer gain the benefits from wearing armour, your speed is halved, and your total amount of hit dice is halved. However, you gain the Amorphous trait, and you can regain spent hit dice by absorbing and digesting organic material (like fallen enemies).

Treating a creature infected with Slime Disease as if they are still human is adorable, if inadvisable.

3rd check failure: You wholly become the same kind of ooze creature that infected you. You retain only a fraction of your former memories, and you treat all nearby organic creatures as hostile.

Cure: If you roll 3 Constitution check successes before 3 failures, you are cured of the disease. Any changes and losses incurred from failures are permanent unless magically treated. Slime Disease (and all of its effects) can be cured and reversed with a successful Restoration spell.

Human noble succumbing to Slime Disease.

Random Types of Oozes Encountered in Remlia (d6):

Slimes. When babies and small children are eaten by a gelatinous cube, sometimes their consciousnesses persist, separating from the cube through mitosis. Slimes are the ooze embodiment of childlike beings; happy, curious, playful, and unaware of the damage they can cause.
Rust Oozes. These reddish-brown gels feed on ferrous and non-ferrous metals alike. They can engulf creatures, and will dissolve the metal off of their bodies in 1d4 rounds. Their digestive acids cannot eat through flesh, however.
Jellolopes. Sometimes the ambient magic of the Everwood distorts creatures within it. When an ooze begins to devour a deer, moose, fawn, centaur, or horse, sometimes the ooze portion will affix itself to the creature’s body, fashioning itself into a humanoid shape.
Silver Skeleton Cube. Rumours of a floating skeleton made of silver abound in southern Remlia. In actuality, it is a cursed succubus doomed to be eternally dissolved and reformed within a gelatinous cube; leaving only her silvered skeleton suspended within the ooze. Killing the ooze frees the succubus, who regrows her flesh.
Ooze Knight. An intelligent ooze within a solid suit of armour, wandering the countryside with its visor down, protecting it from the elements. The ooze knight was a former paladin who was devoured by an ooze. His faith was so strong that he retained his memories and purpose, now seeking to challenge others it happens upon.
Pudding Lord. The pudding lord is a highly intelligent sentient parasite. It disguises itself as a dessert, served at noble functions and banquets. Once eaten, it persists inside of its victim’s body, subtly altering their personality and taking over their mind. When the pudding lord is threatened, it violently erupts from the victim’s body and attacks.