Chapter 1: Dungeon Dwellers
Not everything that lives underground chose to be there. Some were driven by instinct or appetite. Some were sealed in by architects who understood what they were building. Some were there before the structures above them existed and will be there after those structures are rubble.
The creatures catalogued here fall into four groups: the restless dead, the formless, constructed things made to serve purposes their makers no longer remember, and things that belong to a different order of existence entirely. What they share is the dark and the patience that the dark produces.
A note on undead in the Known World. The Darkness's banishment ended its physical presence. Its influence did not end with it. The Second Era's death toll — measured in cities, not people — left something behind. In regions where the Darkness held dominion longest, the boundary between death and motion is still thin in ways that it is not elsewhere. Undead encountered near the Dead Lands or within the ruins of Vysandárien are older and stranger than their equivalents elsewhere. A skeleton raised in a Bellarian crypt is a conjurer's tool. A skeleton that has been walking the Shattered Plains since 487 TE is something else. The stat blocks do not distinguish between them. That distinction is the GM's to make.
READING A STAT BLOCK
Entries in this chapter follow this format:
CREATURE NAME
Frequency: — | Appearing: — | Organization: — Intelligence: — | Alignment: — | Size: —
AC — · Move — m [fly — m (MC —)] · HD —+— (avg hp) · AB +— Attack: description and damage Fort — / Reflex — / Will — Special: trait list Morale: — · XP: — · Treasure: —
AC is ascending: higher values are harder to hit. Unarmored is AC 10. AB (Attack Bonus) is added to the d20 attack roll; meet or beat the target's AC to hit. Fort / Reflex / Will are saving throw target numbers: roll d20 equal to or higher to succeed. Fortitude resists physical and metabolic threats (poison, disease, death effects); Reflex resists area effects and things that can be dodged (breath weapons, explosions); Will resists mental and supernatural influence (charm, fear, illusions, energy drain). Movement is given in meters per combat round; flying speed and Maneuver Class follow where applicable.
PART I — THE RESTLESS DEAD
The undead described here share four qualities: they were once alive, they are no longer, something has kept them moving, and that something is not the will of whatever gods they once prayed to. What differs is the mechanism — the necromantic command, the lingering sorrow, the hatred that did not stop when the body did — and the mechanism determines what they are capable of, and what they want, to the extent that want is a meaningful concept for something that does not breathe.
Clerics and paladins may attempt to turn undead as described in Book I, Chapter 3. Holy water inflicts 2d4 damage on a direct hit against all undead listed here, unless an entry specifies otherwise.
SKELETON
Frequency: Rare | Appearing: 3d10 | Organization: None Intelligence: 0 (mindless) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Man-sized (1.8 m)
AC 13 · Move 30 m · HD 1 (4 hp) · AB +1 Attack: By weapon type (as commanded) Fort 16 / Reflex 18 / Will 17 Special: Cold immunity; half damage from slashing and piercing attacks; immune to charm, fear, hold person, sleep; never checks morale; takes 2d4 damage per vial of holy water Morale: — · XP: 120 · Treasure: None
The skeleton is the simplest form of necromantic animation: bone stripped of flesh, bound together by negative energy in place of muscle and tendon, and given a single standing order. The most common orders are guard and attack. Skeletons cannot follow instructions more complex than a few words, and interpret ambiguous commands with the rigid literalism of something with no judgment to bring to the problem.
Skeletons do not tire. They feel no pain and register no fear. One ordered to guard a door will still be guarding it a century later, with no awareness that its creator died generations ago. This persistence is their primary value — a living sentry can be bribed, distracted, or exhausted. A skeleton cannot.
In combat, they fight without hesitation or strategy, attacking in the most direct way available. Slashing and piercing weapons find little purchase against exposed bone; blunt weapons and fire are more reliable. Sunlight does not harm them. Destroying one requires reducing it to 0 hit points; a skeleton collapsed to scattered components can be re-animated by a necromancer if the remains are gathered.
ZOMBIE
Frequency: Rare | Appearing: 3d10 | Organization: None Intelligence: 0 (mindless) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Man-sized (1.8 m)
AC 12 · Move 20 m · HD 2 (9 hp) · AB +1 Attack: Slam 1d8 Fort 15 / Reflex 17 / Will 16 Special: Immune to charm, fear, hold person, sleep; never checks morale; always acts last in initiative order; takes 2d4 damage per vial of holy water Morale: — · XP: 65 · Treasure: None
A zombie is a skeleton with flesh still attached — more durable, considerably slower. The decomposition state varies by age and climate: a fresh specimen from a temperate crypt looks nearly human at a distance; an older one from the Dead Lands is something no one mistakes for anything living. In all cases, the smell announces them well before they are visible.
Zombies serve necromancers who want laborers that do not require pay, and those who want combatants that do not require convincing. They follow single commands and cannot be given conditional instructions. They cannot open doors, climb ropes, or complete any task requiring more than a few seconds of sustained, complex movement. They are cheaper to create than skeletons because the ritual components are simpler.
Because a zombie's nervous system has not been fully replaced by negative energy — the flesh still carries inertia from its former state — zombies always act last in any round, regardless of initiative results. In combat, the only thing they do reliably is absorb hits and keep advancing. Their slam attack is the weight of a dead person who does not stop when hurt.
WALKER
Frequency: Uncommon (Dead Lands and Vysandárien only) | Appearing: 2d8 | Organization: None Intelligence: 0 (mindless) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Man-sized (1.8 m)
AC 12 · Move 20 m · HD 2 (9 hp) · AB +1 Attack: Slam 1d8 + Festering Wound Fort 15 / Reflex 17 / Will 16 Special: Immune to charm, fear, hold person, sleep; never checks morale; Festering Wound (see below); fire or complete dismemberment required for permanent destruction; not subject to clerical turning; drawn to obsidian concentrations Morale: — · XP: 270 · Treasure: None
Walkers do not hunger. The distinction matters because hunger is finite — a thing that can be satisfied and made to stop. Whatever moves them has no equivalent mechanism. They do not pause.
A walker's origin is the residual influence of the Darkness in the places where it held dominion longest: the Dead Lands, the deep ruins of Vysandárien, and those sections of the Shattered Plains where the Second Era's mass graves were never properly sealed. They were not created by any necromancer. They were not created at all, in any purposeful sense. They are what happens when enough death accumulates in a place that still carries the Darkness's imprint — the dead begin to move, and they do not stop. They look like zombies, move like zombies, and hit like zombies. Two things distinguish them.
First: walkers cannot be turned by clerics or paladins. The power that raises them predates any divine compact currently recognized in the Known World; it does not respond to theological authority of the Third Era. Second: their wounds fester with unnatural speed. Any creature struck by a walker must make a Fort save (target 15) or the wound becomes infected, imposing a −1 penalty to all attack rolls until properly treated (a Cure Disease spell, or three days of rest with a successful Healing proficiency check). Multiple failed saves on the same target do not stack the penalty beyond −1, but each additional failure extends recovery time by one day.
A walker reduced to 0 hit points falls and does not move. Unless the body is burned or dismembered — both actions taking time that is not always available — it will resume moving within 24 hours. Entire expeditions into Vysandárien have collapsed because the company failed to account for the time cost of destroying their dead. Walkers cluster near obsidian deposits, not because they seek the material but because the same Darkness-scarred geology that produces dragon glass produces them. The Chroniclers have documented this correlation without explaining it.
GHOUL / GHAST
GHOUL
Frequency: Uncommon | Appearing: 2d12 | Organization: Pack Intelligence: Low (5–7) | Alignment: Chaotic Evil | Size: Man-sized (1.5–1.8 m)
AC 14 · Move 30 m · HD 2 (9 hp) · AB +1 Attack: 2 claws 1d3, bite 1d6 Fort 15 / Reflex 17 / Will 16 Special: Paralysis (each attack; Fort 15 or paralyzed 1d6+2 rounds; Aelár immune); humanoids killed rise as ghouls in 1d4 nights unless body is blessed or destroyed; immune to sleep and charm; takes 2d4 damage per vial of holy water Morale: 11 · XP: 175 · Treasure: B
GHAST
Frequency: Rare | Appearing: 1d6 | Organization: Pack Intelligence: High (13–14) | Alignment: Chaotic Evil | Size: Man-sized (1.5–1.8 m)
AC 16 · Move 45 m · HD 4 (18 hp) · AB +3 Attack: 2 claws 1d4, bite 1d8 Fort 14 / Reflex 16 / Will 15 Special: Paralysis (each attack; Fort 13 or paralyzed 1d6+4 rounds; no creature immune, including Aelár); Stench (Reflex 14 or −2 to all attack rolls while within 3 m; re-roll each round); immune to sleep and charm; takes 2d4 damage per vial of holy water Morale: 11 · XP: 1,400 · Treasure: B
Ghouls are what remains when the transformation into undeath retains memory but destroys will. They remember their former lives — their names, their relationships, the texture of a specific afternoon twenty years ago — and that memory does nothing but fuel the hunger. They are not insane. They are fully aware of what they are doing when they pull apart someone they once knew.
They look almost human in poor light: upright, roughly the right dimensions, moving with something that approximates purpose. Closer inspection reveals the elongated tongue, fingers that end in something more than nails, and a jaw that opens wider than any living mouth should. Graveyards near old battlefields are their preferred habitat; prey is easy to find there. They do not need to eat to maintain their undead existence, but a ghoul that goes without food for too long degrades into something worse — a thing that cannot think about anything other than satisfying the hunger.
In combat, ghouls are driven by appetite more than strategy, which makes them dangerous and predictable in equal measure. Their touch paralyzes most humanoids (Aelár are immune; the theological explanation for this has not been agreed upon in 1,380 years of debate). A human killed by a ghoul will rise as one within four nights unless the body is destroyed or blessed. Ghasts are faster, more intelligent, and stronger. Their paralytic touch affects Aelár as readily as anyone else, and they produce a stench that imposes real costs on anyone trying to fight them at close range. Ghasts command packs of lesser ghouls through force rather than any legible social structure; the lesser ghouls comply because the ghast is the most dangerous thing in the room.
SHADOW
Frequency: Rare | Appearing: 2d10 | Organization: Band Intelligence: Low (5–7) | Alignment: Chaotic Evil | Size: Man-sized (1.8 m)
AC 13 · Move 35 m · HD 3+3 (16 hp) · AB +3 Attack: Touch 1d4+1 + Strength drain Fort 15 / Reflex 17 / Will 16 Special: Strength drain (1 point per hit; no save; Strength recovers at 1 point per 2d4 rounds; humanoids reduced to Str 0 or 0 hp rise as shadows under the killer's control); 90% invisible in dim or unlit conditions; immune to non-magical weapons and cold-based attacks; immune to charm, hold person, sleep; never checks morale; takes 2d4 damage per vial of holy water Morale: — · XP: 975 · Treasure: F
A shadow is difficult to recognize in the moment it matters: it reads as a normal shadow first, cast by the wrong object at the wrong angle. Then it moves contrary to the light source. By then it is already close.
Shadows are incorporeal — the negative-energy silhouettes of humanoid bodies, shapes without the substance that would give them weight. In any dim or unlit area, they are 90% invisible; in direct lantern light or brighter, they are visible but not obvious; in full darkness, they are simply part of the dark. Groups of shadows often represent a hierarchy of creator and created: an elder shadow and the humanoids it has killed, who are now shadows themselves. The elder's command over its spawn holds until the elder is destroyed; at that point the spawn become free-willed.
They feed on Strength, not flesh. Each successful touch drains 1 point from the target — no saving throw, though the effect is slow and recovery is automatic with rest (1 point per 2d4 rounds). A humanoid whose Strength reaches 0 is incapacitated and will rise as a shadow under the command of whatever killed them. Non-magical weapons pass through a shadow harmlessly; cold does the same. Fire, direct sunlight, and holy water all work. Direct sunlight in the field is a weapon as much as a torch.
WIGHT
Frequency: Uncommon | Appearing: 2d8 | Organization: Solitary Intelligence: Average (8–10) | Alignment: Lawful Evil | Size: Man-sized (1.2–2.1 m)
AC 15 · Move 35 m · HD 4+3 (21 hp) · AB +5 Attack: Claw/bite 1d4 + Energy drain Fort 14 / Reflex 16 / Will 15 Special: Energy drain (1 level or HD per hit; no save; humanoids drained to 0 levels rise as wights with half HD under killer's control, gaining full strength and free will if master is destroyed); cannot attack in full direct sunlight; immune to non-magical non-silver weapons; silver weapons effective; immune to charm, hold person, sleep, cold, poison, paralysis; instantly destroyed by raise dead or resurrection; takes 2d4 damage per vial of holy water Morale: 14 · XP: 1,400 · Treasure: B
Wights are pain that did not stop when the body did. The source was always sorrow, always loss — but what kind of sorrow produces a wight rather than simple death is something scholars have never agreed on. What is consistent is the transformation: the flesh dries, the hands curl into claws, the eyes burn with light from somewhere other than reflected flame.
Unlike skeletons or zombies, wights retain functional intelligence and some memory of their former lives. They use both to hate. They do not interact with other wights except as master and spawn — an elder and the people it has killed, now wights themselves at half strength, under the elder's command until the elder is destroyed. They hate sunlight and make their lairs in lightless places, but never far from settlements because they must kill the living. In full direct sunlight they cannot attack; this is their one reliable vulnerability. Wights found in the occupied territories of Norderenn — particularly in villages that bore the worst of the Cadmano advance fifteen years ago — tend to be fresher than those found elsewhere, and more purposeful about it.
Each successful attack drains one level or Hit Die from the target. There is no saving throw. A character drained to 0 levels dies and rises as a wight by the following nightfall. Non-magical weapons, regardless of material except silver, pass through a wight without effect. Silver weapons work. Magical weapons work. The priestly magic capable of raising the dead — raise dead, resurrection — destroys a wight instantly upon contact, which is itself a tactical consideration given the spells' cost.
WRAITH
Frequency: Uncommon | Appearing: 2d6 | Organization: Pack Intelligence: Average (11–12) | Alignment: Lawful Evil | Size: Man-sized (1.8 m)
AC 16 · Move 35 m / fly 70 m (MC 2) · HD 5+3 (25 hp) · AB +5 Attack: Touch 1d6 + Energy drain Fort 14 / Reflex 16 / Will 15 Special: Energy drain (1 level or HD per hit; no save; humanoids killed rise as wraiths with half HD under killer's control; spawn become free-willed if master destroyed); immune to non-magical weapons; silver weapons inflict half damage; immune to charm, hold person, sleep, cold, poison, paralysis; powerless in direct sunlight (not destroyed); takes 2d4 damage per vial of holy water Morale: 15 · XP: 4,000 · Treasure: E
A wraith looks like a person seen through moving water — the shape is recognizable, the details are wrong, the movement is not quite right. They can fly, which wights cannot, and they use this to approach from above or through spaces that flesh cannot navigate. They appear most often in ruins, particularly in or near the places where they died.
What made a person a wraith in life was a particular quality of evil combined with a strong attachment to the material world that did not release at death. The wraith holds onto this and still wants it. Its intelligence is functional, and it applies that intelligence to its attacks: the weak members of a party are eliminated first, methodically, before engaging the stronger ones. The planning is deliberate.
Each touch drains one level or Hit Die — no saving throw. Humanoids killed this way rise as wraiths with half the full HD, under the killer's command. If the commanding wraith is destroyed, its spawn simultaneously become free-willed and gain full strength — a consideration when fighting wraith packs, since killing the dominant wraith may produce a worse problem than the original. Silver inflicts half damage rather than none; magical weapons inflict full damage. Sunlight renders a wraith powerless but does not destroy it; reducing it to 0 hit points in sunlight still requires the work.
SPECTER
Frequency: Rare | Appearing: 1d6 | Organization: Solitary Intelligence: High (13–14) | Alignment: Lawful Evil | Size: Man-sized (1.8 m)
AC 18 · Move 45 m / fly 90 m (MC 2) · HD 7+3 (34 hp) · AB +7 Attack: Touch 1d8 + Energy drain Fort 13 / Reflex 15 / Will 14 Special: Energy drain (2 levels or HD per hit; no save; humanoids drained to 0 rise as specters under killer's control; master gains full HP across all HD upon spawn creation; spawn become free-willed if master destroyed); immune to non-magical weapons, cold, poison, paralysis; immune to charm, hold person, sleep; powerless in direct sunlight (not destroyed); raise dead destroys on contact unless Fort save made (target 13); takes 2d4 damage per vial of holy water Morale: 15 · XP: 8,000 · Treasure: Q×3, X, Y
The specter remembers everything. This is the characteristic that separates it from other undead: the memories did not degrade with the body. A specter that was an educated person in life is still an educated person — it retains language, judgment, strategic thinking, and full recall of every relationship and slight it accumulated in its lifetime. None of this produces anything other than hatred. The clarity of the memory sharpens the hatred into something with edges.
Specters appear as they did in life — translucent, visible in most light conditions, recognizable to those who knew them. They avoid sunlight, which causes them pain and strips their ability to act, though it does not destroy them. Specters prefer isolation: ruins, forgotten places, deep tombs. They are found in groups only rarely, and then almost always as a master-and-spawn configuration, with the thrall specters resenting the master's control and unable to act against it. Some specters encountered in Vysandárien date from before the Third Era — former court mages and generals of the Darkness whose refusal to die persisted past the banishment. They are not more powerful than other specters, but they know things about the Second Era that no living scholar does.
The specter drains two levels or Hit Dice per successful touch — twice the rate of a wraith. Any humanoid it kills rises immediately as a specter under its command, and the specter-master regains full HP across all its HD at the moment of creation. Combat with a specter is a race: every casualty strengthens the enemy. Engage from multiple angles if possible. A specter plans before it attacks — approach the engagement as though it has already planned one.
MUMMY
Frequency: Rare | Appearing: 2d4 | Organization: Pack Intelligence: Low (5–7) | Alignment: Lawful Evil | Size: Man-sized (1.8 m)
AC 17 · Move 20 m · HD 6+3 (30 hp) · AB +7 Attack: Slam 1d12 + Mummy Rot Fort 13 / Reflex 15 / Will 14 Special: Mummy Rot (each hit inflicts the disease; Charisma drains 2 points per month; death at Cha 0; only Cure Disease fully treats; magical healing 10% effective while infected; Regenerate functions normally but does not cure); Fear (sight; Will 14 or paralyzed with fear 1d4 rounds; humans +2 bonus to Will save); immune to non-magical weapons; magical weapons inflict half damage; immune to cold; immune to charm, hold person, sleep; fire vulnerability (torch inflicts 1d3 damage; burning oil inflicts 1d8 first round and 2d8 second; magical fire inflicts +1 per damage die); takes 2d4 damage per vial of holy water Morale: 15 · XP: 3,000 · Treasure: D, P
The mummy is a funerary creation, made not from the battlefield dead or the victims of other undead, but from deliberate ritual — someone wrapped this body, inscribed these words, performed these rites — intending to produce something that would wake when disturbed and not stop until the disturbance was ended. It is a trap built from a corpse.
Most mummies are found in the burial chambers they were placed in: First Men tombs in the Shattered Plains, pre-Third Era vaults near the Zurnak Quarries, and older sites whose construction predates the current calendar. They do not wander. They do not hunt. They wait with the patience of something that has no other occupation, and when their threshold is crossed, they act without hesitation. Some chambers have remained sealed and untouched for eight hundred years. The mummies inside are no less effective for the wait.
The mummy's physical attack carries a disease that does not respond to normal healing. Charisma drains slowly, over months; victims who do not receive a Cure Disease spell in time fall apart at the rate of a process that began the moment they were struck. Magical healing is 10% effective while the rot is active — a deliberate cruelty built into the condition. The mummy is highly vulnerable to fire, which is notable given that almost everything in a burial chamber is old, dry, and flammable. Including the mummy.
LICH
Frequency: Very Rare | Appearing: 1 | Organization: Solitary Intelligence: Exceptional (18–20) | Alignment: Any Evil | Size: Man-sized (1.8 m)
AC 20 · Move 35 m · HD 18+ (varies) · AB +13 (base; retains class levels) Attack: Touch 1d10 + Paralysis Fort 9 / Reflex 10 / Will 9 Special: Fear Aura (creatures of fewer than 5 HD flee 5d4 rounds; Will 14 or flee); Touch Paralysis (permanent until dispelled; Fort 9 to resist); spellcasting at minimum 18th level (wizard or priest; retains all abilities and spells); immune to charm, death spell, polymorph, sleep, cold, electrical attacks, non-magical weapons; Phylactery (body reforms in 24 hours if destroyed while phylactery intact; permanent destruction requires locating and destroying the phylactery) Morale: 20 · XP: Varies (minimum 30,000) · Treasure: Varies
The lich began as something that valued its own mind so much that it refused to let the mind end when the body did. The ritual for becoming a lich requires years of study, the construction of a phylactery — an arcane container for the soul, costing at minimum 1,500 gp per caster level to craft from specific components — followed by the practitioner's ritual suicide. If the phylactery is flawless, the caster wakes. If it is not, the caster's soul is simply destroyed. There is no margin for error and no method of testing it beforehand.
What the lich wants, having survived this process, varies. Some want knowledge — they spend centuries accumulating it, protecting it, adding to it. Some have goals that predate their transformation, still in progress. A few pursued the lich's existence as the goal itself: they became this in order to continue existing, and continuing to exist is what they do. All liches are wizards or priests of exceptional power; the ritual is unavailable to anyone whose magical ability is insufficient to complete it. A lich encountered in a dungeon context represents a spellcasting threat comparable to the most powerful living practitioners in the Known World, combined with the physical combat abilities of the undead. The spellcasting has not degraded. The patience for using it strategically has only increased.
The lich's presence causes creatures of fewer than 5 HD to flee. Its touch paralyzes — permanently, until the effect is dispelled, regardless of the victim's constitution. It cannot be killed in any permanent sense while its phylactery exists: reducing the body to 0 hit points sends it to dormancy, from which it recovers in 24 hours. A lich that has had centuries to secure its phylactery has had centuries to make that discovery extremely difficult. The relevant question when the party encounters a lich is not how to kill it — that is a solved problem, given sufficient magical resources — but where it has hidden what keeps it alive.
PART II — THE FORMLESS
Oozes have no will, no territory, and no instinct beyond consumption. They move toward organic matter or away from aversive stimuli with the purposiveness of a chemical reaction rather than a creature. This makes them simultaneously the easiest dungeon threat to understand and some of the most reliably lethal: they do not change plans, do not flee, and do not negotiate.
Each ooze type processes matter differently. The differences are practical — a party that knows how to handle a black pudding may handle a gray ooze incorrectly and lose a sword in the process. Familiarity with the specific type matters more than general knowledge of the category.
Oozes are immune to all mind-affecting effects. They cannot be charmed, frightened, paralyzed, or reasoned with. Effects that deal damage work; effects that require the target to have a mind do not.
GRAY OOZE
Frequency: Rare | Appearing: 1d3 | Organization: Solitary Intelligence: 1 (near-mindless) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Man-sized (1–2 m diameter)
AC 12 · Move 3 m · HD 3+3 (17 hp) · AB +3 Attack: Touch 2d8 Fort 15 / Reflex 17 / Will 16 Special: Immune to fire, cold, all spells; metal corrosion (armor struck corrodes: chain in 1 round, plate in 2 rounds; enchantment delays 1 round per bonus; metal weapons that strike corrode identically); never checks morale Morale: — · XP: 650 · Treasure: None
A gray ooze at rest resembles a wet stone outcropping — a patch of dark, slightly glistening rock roughly half a meter thick. The resemblance is not camouflage in any active sense; the creature simply looks like the surfaces it inhabits. Miners in the Vithurian complex have developed a heuristic for identifying them: if a wet-looking patch of wall or floor was in a different position yesterday, leave the corridor and report it. The ooze does not pursue. It finds another spot and waits.
Gray oozes feed by contact. They are slow enough that anything with working legs can outpace them indefinitely, which is why their primary victims are the sleeping, the unconscious, and the very unlucky. They reproduce by leaving small egg-like shells in damp recesses; newly hatched oozes devour their shells and begin their own patient drift through the rock.
The gray ooze's defining characteristic in combat is not its damage — 2d8 is serious but not exceptional — but its corrosive effect on metal. Armor struck by a gray ooze begins to degrade immediately: chain mail becomes useless in one round, plate mail in two. Enchantment delays this by one round per bonus. Metal weapons that hit a gray ooze corrode at the same rate. The ooze is immune to fire, cold, and all spells without exception. The only reliable approach is physical attack with non-metal weapons, and abandoning the affected equipment immediately.
OCHRE JELLY
Frequency: Uncommon | Appearing: 1d3 | Organization: Solitary Intelligence: 0 (mindless) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Man-sized to Large (1–3.5 m diameter)
AC 12 · Move 10 m · HD 6 (27 hp) · AB +5 Attack: Touch 1d10+2 Fort 13 / Reflex 15 / Will 14 Special: Electricity causes division into 2d2 smaller jellies (each deals 1d6+1, grows to full size with nutrition); immune to cold; never checks morale Morale: — · XP: 420 · Treasure: None
An ochre jelly looks like a rusty orange mold — thick, slow-moving, roughly circular, with the texture of something that belongs in a drain rather than a dungeon corridor. It feeds on carrion and organic refuse: the remains of other creatures' kills, old leather, anything decomposing. It supplements this diet with whatever living creatures come within reach, which it digests by engulfing and dissolving over a span of hours.
Ochre jellies are found wherever organic waste accumulates in volume. Sewers below larger cities, the lower levels of refuse-pits, and the floors of ancient vaults that have seen centuries of organic debris all provide adequate nutrition. They share habitat with otyughs — the otyugh prefers fresher material, the jelly takes what the otyugh ignores.
The ochre jelly's counterintuitive quality is its response to electricity: it divides. A lightning bolt or similar effect does not damage the jelly; it produces 2d2 smaller copies, each dealing 1d6+1 on a hit and growing to full size with sufficient nutrition. Slashing weapons have no effect for the same reason. The reliable approach is fire or blunt force, neither of which triggers division. Cold slows the jelly as though affected by a slow spell and is worth using for positioning even if it does not kill.
GELATINOUS CUBE
Frequency: Uncommon | Appearing: 1 | Organization: Solitary Intelligence: 0 (mindless) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Large (3 m cube)
AC 12 · Move 20 m · HD 4 (18 hp) · AB +3 Attack: Touch 2d4 Fort 14 / Reflex 16 / Will 15 Special: Paralysis (touch; Reflex 15 or paralyzed 5d4 rounds; paralyzed victims are engulfed and take 2d4 damage per round until removed); −3 to opponents' surprise rolls (transparency); immune to electricity; immune to mind-affecting effects, polymorph, paralysis; cold-based attacks slow (as slow spell) on failed save; never checks morale Morale: — · XP: 2,000 · Treasure: None (internal: metal, stone objects only — organic matter is digested)
A gelatinous cube is almost invisible. The slight prismatic distortion at its leading edge is visible in direct torch light if the observer is specifically looking for it; otherwise the cube occupies a corridor in the same way air does, until something walks into it. The cube is exactly as wide as most dungeon corridors and approximately as tall; it moves along them steadily, consuming everything organic it passes over. Bones, metal, and stone accumulate inside it and are visible as floating shapes in the interior.
The oldest cubes in long-isolated dungeons are archaeological records. The objects suspended inside them mark centuries of prior occupation: corroded coins from defunct currencies, equipment styles long out of use, personal items whose owners have been dead since before the current calendar. A gelatinous cube encountered in the deep levels of a Second Era vault has been traversing the same corridors for over five hundred years. It has no awareness of this.
In combat, the cube's transparency is the primary danger — the −3 penalty to surprise rolls reflects how consistently it catches parties unaware. Its touch is anesthetic, which is why victims do not immediately realize what is happening: the paralysis sets in before the pain does, and a paralyzed person is engulfed and digested at 2d4 damage per round. Electricity does not damage the cube. Cold-based attacks slow it on a failed save, which is useful for creating distance. Other physical attacks work normally.
OCHRE JELLY
[Continued above — no duplicate needed.]
BLACK PUDDING
Frequency: Uncommon | Appearing: 1d4 | Organization: Solitary Intelligence: 0 (mindless) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Small to Large (1–2.5 m diameter)
AC 14 · Move 20 m · HD 10 (45 hp) · AB +9 Attack: Touch 3d8 Fort 10 / Reflex 11 / Will 10 Special: Immune to acid, cold, poison; electricity and physical blows cause division into smaller puddings (each retains full damage potential per HD, and each can further divide); metal corrosion (chain corrodes to uselessness in 1 round, plate in 2; enchantment delays 1 round per bonus; metal weapons that strike corrode identically); never checks morale Morale: — · XP: 7,000 · Treasure: None
A black pudding is an amorphous mass of black slime between one and two and a half meters in diameter, depending on how much it has eaten. It moves faster than most oozes — faster than a cautious person would expect — and it corrodes metal. The combination is what makes it substantially more dangerous than the other formless creatures in this chapter.
Black puddings feed on plant and animal matter, living and dead, and have no particular preference between the two. They are found underground wherever organic matter is plentiful: the lower levels of occupied dungeons, near food storage in inhabited structures, occasionally in sewer networks below large cities. When a black pudding reaches a sufficient size, it divides into multiple smaller puddings, which then feed independently until they reach the same threshold. Left undisturbed in a sufficiently rich environment, a single pudding can become a colony.
The pudding's response to physical damage is the same as the ochre jelly's response to electricity: it divides. A sword strike, a bludgeon blow, or an electrical attack produces smaller puddings rather than destroying the original. There is no minimum size — a pudding divided often enough produces things barely larger than a fist, each retaining the full capacity to corrode metal and deal damage. Fire is the reliable approach; acid, cold, and poison are ineffective. The practical advice is to use a torch before a blade, identify how many targets have been created before engaging, and keep a count.
BROWN PUDDING
Frequency: Uncommon | Appearing: 1d4 | Organization: Solitary Intelligence: 0 (mindless) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Small to Large (1–2.5 m diameter)
AC 15 · Move 20 m · HD 11 (50 hp) · AB +11 Attack: Touch 5d4 Fort 10 / Reflex 11 / Will 10 Special: Immune to acid, cold, poison; electricity and physical blows cause division; wood and leather corrosion (leather armor dissolves in 1 round regardless of enchantment; wooden weapons that strike dissolve in 1 round regardless of enchantment); cannot dissolve metal; never checks morale Morale: — · XP: 8,000 · Treasure: None
The brown pudding is the black pudding's less famous counterpart, found more often in marshes, swamps, and the water-saturated lower levels of structures built near standing water. Where the black pudding corrodes metal, the brown pudding dissolves wood and leather — which matters less to a heavily armored party and considerably more to one relying on leather armor, wooden shields, or bows.
Brown puddings divide in response to physical blows and electricity, exactly as black puddings do. They are somewhat tougher — more hit points, slightly higher AC — and their touch damage, while comparable to the black pudding's, is applied through a mechanism that digests organic matter faster than any rot. Leather armor struck by a brown pudding is useless within a single round, enchantment notwithstanding. The most reliable approach is fire. Metal weapons are safe to use and will not corrode; everything else is at risk.
PART III — MADE THINGS
Golems are made, not born. They have no will, no hunger, no morale to check; they execute the instructions of their creators until those instructions are completed, the golem is destroyed, or the creator countermands the order. A golem set to guard a vault will guard it until the vault is destroyed or a creator with authority over it says otherwise. The most ancient golems still active in the Known World are obeying instructions given by people dead for centuries. Whether this makes them more or less dangerous than golems with living creators is a question that depends entirely on what the instructions say.
Golem creation requires magical knowledge concentrated in the Magic Bloc — Solara, Alvengaard, and Messalya maintain the most developed traditions of golem-craft, each with distinct construction philosophies. The Church of Tar'amaan considers golem creation a corruption of the natural order by definition: animated matter is animated matter, whether or not it was ever alive. This has not prevented the Magic Bloc from deploying golems in contexts that create operational problems for the Church, which has noted the theological inconsistency with the thoroughness of an institution that has been losing this argument for two hundred years.
A golem is immune to all mind-affecting effects, poison, and disease. It cannot be reasoned with or deceived — there is no mind to deceive. Unless an entry specifies otherwise, a golem requires a magical weapon to hit. All golems have Morale 20 and never check.
WOOD GOLEM
Frequency: Very Rare | Appearing: 1 | Organization: Solitary Intelligence: 0 (mindless) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Large (3 m tall)
AC 14 · Move 20 m · HD 8 (36 hp) · AB +7 Attack: 2 slams 2d8 Fort 12 / Reflex 13 / Will 12 Special: Immune to mind-affecting effects, poison, disease; immune to spells cast by creatures of fewer than 4 HD; fire vulnerability; −2 to opponents' surprise rolls in wooded surroundings (camouflage); non-magical weapons can hit; morale never checked Morale: 20 · XP: 2,000 · Treasure: None
The wood golem is the cheapest and least impressive member of this category — rough branches and trunks lashed together, or a single large piece of timber shaped into a vaguely humanoid form. Most are not particularly convincing at close range, but in wooded surroundings, in poor light, or at distance, they pass well enough to impose a surprise penalty on those approaching them. They are used as inexpensive perimeter guards by mages who cannot afford stone, or as a first line deployed ahead of more expensive constructs.
They can be hit by non-magical weapons, which distinguishes them from every other golem in this chapter and makes them accessible threats at lower levels. They are still large, strong, and willing to absorb damage without complaint. Their vulnerability to fire is substantial — a torch-sized flame damages them, burning oil damages them more, and magical fire is particularly effective. In a forest environment, a burning wood golem is a fire hazard for everything around it.
In combat, they attack twice per round with their bulk, and their immunity to spells from casters of fewer than 4 Hit Dice or levels means that low-level arcane support cannot contribute magically. They follow orders to the letter, attacking designated targets in the most direct way available, which makes them predictable once a party has established what the instruction was.
FLESH GOLEM
Frequency: Very Rare | Appearing: 1 | Organization: Solitary Intelligence: 0 (mindless) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Large (2+ m tall)
AC 11 · Move 25 m · HD 9 (40 hp) · AB +9 Attack: 2 slams 2d8 Fort 12 / Reflex 13 / Will 12 Special: Immune to mind-affecting effects, poison, disease; immune to all spells except fire (slows 2d6 rounds) and cold (slows 2d6 rounds); electrical attacks heal 1 point per damage die rather than damaging; magical weapon needed to hit; uncontrolled on 1% cumulative chance per combat round (attacks all creatures; resets after combat; creator may attempt to regain control at 10% per round within 18 m line of sight); morale never checked Morale: 20 · XP: 5,000 · Treasure: None
A flesh golem is assembled from corpse components — the strongest legs from one body, the largest arms from another, the torso from a third — stitched together and animated by processes that produce something technically not undead and not alive. The smell of the thing varies by how much care went into preservation. Most smell like what they are. The Church of Tar'amaan objects to flesh golems on the same grounds it objects to all golem creation, and additionally objects to their use of what it considers sacred material; the distinction between a flesh golem and an animated corpse is real but theological, and the Church has argued it would rather not make it in the presence of a congregation.
The flesh golem's AC is low relative to other golems of its power — stitched flesh takes damage more easily than stone or iron. It compensates with speed and attack frequency. Fire and cold do not damage it; they slow it for 2d6 rounds, as slow. Electricity does not damage it either; it heals the golem at 1 point per die of damage the attack would normally deal. Magic generally does nothing. Magical weapons are required to harm it.
The flesh golem has a structural instability that distinguishes it from more reliable constructs: each round of combat, a 1% cumulative chance exists that the binding between the golem and its creator fails. A golem that breaks free attacks everything in range indiscriminately, including its creator. This chance resets to zero after each combat. A creator within 18 meters and in line of sight may attempt to regain control, with a 10% chance per round. Most golem-crafters treat this as an acceptable risk; the rare operator whose flesh golem breaks free in a confined space has usually revised that assessment.
CLAY GOLEM
Frequency: Very Rare | Appearing: 1 | Organization: Solitary Intelligence: 0 (mindless) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Large (2.5 m tall)
AC 13 · Move 20 m · HD 11 (49 hp) · AB +11 Attack: Slam 3d10 Fort 10 / Reflex 11 / Will 10 Special: Immune to mind-affecting effects, poison, disease; immune to slashing and piercing weapons; immune to most spells (move earth inflicts 3d12 and flings 35 m; earthquake prevents movement 1 round and inflicts 5d10; disintegrate slows 1d6 rounds and inflicts 1d12); magical blunt weapons required to hit; Haste (once per combat after 1 round; self-cast; lasts 3 rounds); Unhealing Wounds (damage from clay golem attacks does not heal normally; only Heal cast by a 17th level or higher priest restores it); binding failure (1% cumulative per combat round; on failure, attacks all creatures indiscriminately; never reset — once failed, cannot be reestablished) Morale: 20 · XP: 8,000 · Treasure: None
A clay golem is sculpted from a solid mass of clay — some are rough-hewn into a barely humanoid shape, others are detailed enough to be considered art. The quality of the sculpting has no bearing on the creature's effectiveness. What matters is the clay itself, which is unclean in the theological sense: the earth used in the construction carries something in it that prevents the wounds it inflicts from healing through normal means. Only the most powerful priestly healing magic can restore clay-golem damage. The reason for this is not agreed upon, though the scholars who have studied it note that certain clay compositions near the Dead Lands produce this effect consistently, which implies a connection to the Darkness that the Chroniclers are aware of and have not explained.
Clay golems can only be struck by magical blunt weapons — slashing and piercing attacks simply compress and reform the clay. Their Haste is self-cast once per combat after they have been in melee for at least one round; it lasts three rounds and makes them substantially more dangerous during that window. Spell interactions with clay golems are unusual: move earth flings them 35 meters and deals 3d12; earthquake pins and damages; disintegrate slows rather than destroying.
The clay golem's binding is the most unstable among golems: once the 1% per round cumulative failure triggers, the golem cannot be recontrolled. A creator whose clay golem breaks free does not get it back. This has limited the deployment of clay golems to operators with sufficient magical resources to destroy one if it becomes necessary, which is not a limitation that the sort of person building clay golems typically finds inconvenient.
STONE GOLEM
Frequency: Very Rare | Appearing: 1 | Organization: Solitary Intelligence: 0 (mindless) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Large (2.7+ m tall)
AC 15 · Move 20 m · HD 14 (63 hp) · AB +13 Attack: Slam 3d8 Fort 9 / Reflex 10 / Will 9 Special: Immune to mind-affecting effects, poison, disease; immune to virtually all spells (transmute rock to mud slows 2d6 rounds; stone to flesh removes immunity for 1 round; transmute mud to rock heals all damage); +2 or better magical weapon needed to hit; Slow (once every other round; targets one creature within 3 m; as slow spell); morale never checked Morale: 20 · XP: 10,000 · Treasure: None
Stone golems are the standard against which other constructs are measured in most academic treatments of golem-craft: strong, durable, resistant to almost everything, and requiring only the quality of instruction rather than constant maintenance. A well-made stone golem lasts indefinitely. Several are known to be functional in the Known World that predate the Third Era, guarding structures whose builders died before the current calendar began. Their standing orders remain in effect. This is either the highest proof of the craft's value or its most troubling implication, depending on what the orders were.
They require magical weapons of +2 enchantment or better to hit — standard magical weapons leave them unharmed. They are immune to virtually all spells with three specific exceptions: transmute rock to mud slows them for 2d6 rounds; stone to flesh strips their immunity to weapons and spells for one round (enough time for a well-prepared party to do substantial damage); transmute mud to rock, cast after the previous spell, restores them to full hit points. Opponents with access to both spells can exploit the cycle. Most opponents do not have access to both spells.
The stone golem's active combat ability is a slow effect it can apply every other round to any target within 3 meters. There is no warning, no windup, and no particular tell. It uses this as part of its attack sequence rather than in lieu of it.
IRON GOLEM
Frequency: Very Rare | Appearing: 1 | Organization: Solitary Intelligence: 0 (mindless) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Large (3.5 m tall)
AC 17 · Move 20 m · HD 18 (81 hp) · AB +17 Attack: Slam 4d10 Fort 9 / Reflex 10 / Will 9 Special: Immune to mind-affecting effects, poison, disease; immune to virtually all spells (electrical attacks slow 3 rounds; fire-based attacks heal 1 point per damage die); +3 or better magical weapon needed to hit; Poison Gas Breath (10-cube zone directly in front; as cloudkill cast at 18th level; on engagement and every 7 rounds thereafter while in combat; Reflex 9 or affected); morale never checked Morale: 20 · XP: 15,000 · Treasure: None
An iron golem is approximately 3.5 meters of shaped metal with the combat profile of a small siege engine. Its attack bonus of +17 means it hits almost everything it swings at. Its AC of 17 means the reverse is not true without purpose-built magical weaponry. At minimum +3 enchantment to affect it at all. Electrical attacks do not damage it; they slow it for 3 rounds. Fire-based attacks heal it.
The poison gas breath is what most parties do not account for. At engagement — the moment the golem enters combat — and every seven rounds thereafter, it breathes a cloud equivalent to a cloudkill cast by an 18th-level mage into the 3-meter cube directly ahead of it. The cloud lasts one round and dissipates; the timing is reliable, which allows positioning, but only for parties who know to expect it. The golem does not breathe in the sense of requiring respiration. The gas is a mechanical function.
Iron golems are rare not because they are difficult to commission — any sufficiently resourced organization can commission one — but because the investment is substantial and the deployment requires some confidence that the orders will remain relevant for the duration of the golem's operational life. A golem set to guard a treasury vault will guard it after the treasury has been emptied, the vault sealed, and the institution that ordered its construction dissolved. This is not a failure mode specific to iron golems. It applies to all golems. Iron golems simply live long enough that it becomes a statistical certainty.
PART IV — THINGS THAT SHOULD NOT BE
The creatures in this section do not belong to the Known World in the way that wolves or goblins belong to it. Three of them are either native to other planes or the product of something that warped the boundary between what exists and what does not; one is an intelligence so alien in structure that categorizing it alongside other living things feels like a category error. They are found underground because the underground is where the world keeps what it cannot explain.
This section is not sorted by threat level. The otyugh will kill an unprepared party through disease three weeks after the encounter. The gazer will destroy a prepared party in the encounter itself. The correct response to any of them is the same: understand what you are looking at before you decide what to do about it.
GAZER
Frequency: Very Rare | Appearing: 1 | Organization: Solitary Intelligence: Exceptional (17–18) | Alignment: Lawful Evil | Size: Man-sized (1.5 m diameter)
AC 18 · Move fly 9 m (MC 1) · HD 7 (32 hp) · AB +9 (bite); varies (eyes) Attack: Bite 2d8; up to 1d4–1d8 eye rays per round (see below) Fort 13 / Reflex 15 / Will 14 Special: Anti-Magic Cone (central eye; 40 m long × 50 m wide; continuously active, deactivatable at will; suppresses all magic within cone); 10 smaller eyes (each a distinct spell-like effect; number usable per round depends on angle of targets — see below); smaller eyes individually targetable (each 1d8+4 hp; damage does not count toward killing the gazer; regenerate in one week); central eye targetable (3d8 hp; damage does not count toward killing the gazer); Hatred of All Others (never retreats, never negotiates in good faith) Morale: 18 · XP: 9,000 · Treasure: E, I
A gazer is a floating sphere of approximately 1.5 meters, its surface covered in mouths and eyes. One large central eye dominates its front face; ten smaller eyes extend on fleshy stalks around the body. It has no limbs and moves by some means that produces no visible propulsion. The mouths are functional — the bite attack uses one — and the eyes are all functional, each with a distinct effect. The whole arrangement is oriented in no fixed direction; the gazer rotates freely, bringing different eyes and mouths to bear as the situation requires.
They are solitary because they hate each other. The intensity of this hatred is equivalent to what they feel for every other living thing, which is the maximum possible. A gazer encountered in a dungeon context is almost certainly in its lair, surrounded by whatever arrangements it has made to control the dungeon's other inhabitants, and it has been planning for intrusions since the last one. Some gazers build networks of indirect influence — informants, charmed agents, creatures they have coerced into service — that extend into settlements above. The Chroniclers have documented three separate instances of what appeared to be normal human intelligence operations that proved, on investigation, to trace back to a gazer operating from deep underground. In each case, the gazer's actual goal was opaque. In each case, the Chroniclers decided not to pursue the investigation further. They have not published their reasoning.
Combat: The central eye produces an anti-magic cone 40 meters long and 50 meters wide at its far extent. All magic within this cone is suppressed — spells cannot be cast, magical items do not function, ongoing magical effects end. The gazer deactivates this cone only when it wants to use its own eye effects. The smaller eyes each cast a different spell-like effect at will; the number that can target a given position depends on the angle the targets present to the gazer:
| Target angle | Eyes available |
|---|---|
| Within 90° | 1d4 |
| Within 180° | 1d6 |
| Within 270° | 1d8 |
| All sides | All 10 |
The ten eye effects:
- Cause Serious Wounds — 45 m range
- Charm Monster — Will save (target 14) negates
- Charm Person — Will save (target 14) negates
- Death Spell — single target, 35 m range; Will save (target 14) negates
- Disintegrate — 18 m range; Fort save (target 13) negates
- Fear — Will save (target 14) negates; affected creatures flee for 5d4 rounds
- Flesh to Stone — 25 m range; Fort save (target 13) negates
- Sleep — single target; Will save (target 14) negates
- Slow — single target; Reflex save (target 15) negates
- Telekinesis — 115 kg maximum weight; Will save (target 14) for creatures
The gazer's central eye and each smaller eye can be targeted separately. The central eye has 3d8 hit points; the smaller eyes have 1d8+4 hit points each. Damage dealt to them does not count toward the gazer's total hit points and does not kill it, but destroying a smaller eye removes its effect until the eye regenerates — approximately one week. The gazer's strategy in any engagement is to keep the anti-magic cone between itself and spellcasters, redirect the cone to allow its own eye effects when advantageous, and use charm effects to eliminate the party's tactical coherence before dealing with survivors. It rarely opens with its bite. The bite is for things that have gotten close enough to be personal.
TUNNEL LURK
Frequency: Rare | Appearing: 1d4 | Organization: Solitary Intelligence: Average (8–10) | Alignment: Chaotic Evil | Size: Large (2.4 m tall)
AC 18 · Move 20 m / burrow 20 m (solid stone: 3 m) · HD 8+8 (44 hp) · AB +9 Attack: 2 claws 3d4, bite 1d10 Fort 12 / Reflex 13 / Will 12 Special: Confusing Gaze (as confusion spell; Will 12 or affected); Ambush (−5 to opponents' surprise rolls when the Lurk attacks from concealment); Burrowing (through soft earth at full rate; through solid stone at 3 m); Cave-in (while burrowing, 25% chance per round to trigger a collapse; the Lurk digs clear afterward); Escape (will flee by burrowing rather than fight to the death unless cornered) Morale: 13 · XP: 4,000 · Treasure: G
A tunnel lurk has the body of something massive and ape-shaped, covered in plates of chitinous shell the color of deep rock. Its head is that of a four-eyed beetle, with compound eyes that scatter dim light and mandibles capable of serious damage. Each limb ends in claws built for digging through stone. It moves quietly for something its size — the chitinous shell dampens the sound of its movement in narrow tunnels, and its preference for attacking from ambush means the first indication of its presence is often the first claw.
They are believed to be solitary, gathering only briefly to mate, but sages who have spent time in active mine complexes suspect the evidence for this is incomplete. Tunnel lurks have their own language — conveyed through combinations of mandible clicks and subsonic vibrations — and their behaviors in separate locations show too much consistency to be purely instinctive. The Vithurian Mining Company has lost three survey teams in the past decade to coordinated Lurk activity in the deepest shafts. The Chroniclers have filed a report. The Mining Company has filed a counterclaim that the Chroniclers' methodology was faulty. The teams remain unaccounted for.
In combat, a tunnel lurk has already planned the approach before committing to it. It waits, it watches, it identifies the most isolated or distracted target, and it strikes from the position that closes the gap fastest. The confusing gaze — a direct, sustained look from its four compound eyes — functions as a confusion spell, and the lurk uses this to disrupt group coordination before the claws engage. When the fight turns against it, it retreats by burrowing, using the 25% cave-in chance deliberately if the tunnel geometry makes it useful. A cornered lurk fights without the escape option and is more dangerous for it; this situation is relatively rare because tunnel lurks are unlikely to allow themselves to be cornered.
OTYUGH
Frequency: Uncommon | Appearing: 1 | Organization: Solitary Intelligence: Low to Average (5–10) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Large (1.8–2.1 m diameter)
AC 17 · Move 20 m · HD 6 (27 hp) · AB +5 Attack: 2 tentacles 1d8 each + Grab, bite 1d4+1 Fort 13 / Reflex 15 / Will 14 Special: Disease (bite; 90% chance of contracting filth fever; see below); Grab (on tentacle hit; held targets take 2d2 damage per round from being slammed against surfaces; Str check — force doors — to escape; Str 18 or higher escapes automatically in 1 round; otyugh gains +2 to bite rolls against grabbed targets); Never Surprised (keen multi-directional senses); Crude Telepathy (can communicate rudimentary intentions to other creatures; cannot be used to form complex agreements) Morale: 14 · XP: 975 · Treasure: None
An otyugh has three pillar-like legs supporting a round, bloated body covered in pale flesh usually obscured by the material it lives in. From the body extend three appendages: two thick tentacles lined with thorny spikes, used for grabbing and slamming, and one thinner stalk bearing three upward-facing eyes. The jaw is below the eye-stalk, lined with sharp teeth. The whole arrangement is built for something that lives in filth and eats whatever accumulates around it.
They are scavengers by preference — feeding on refuse, carrion, and organic waste — and they prefer this to active hunting. An otyugh that is adequately fed will not attack a creature that does not approach its immediate zone; one that is hungry will. Some dungeon-keepers have exploited this: offer the otyugh a reliable food supply and it will treat the area around its feeding spot as territory to defend. The arrangement works tolerably well until the food supply is interrupted, at which point the otyugh renegotiates unilaterally. Its crude telepathy allows it to communicate something on the order of food, go away, or warning — not complex enough for contracts, but enough for experienced dungeon operators to know when one is indicating a state change.
The otyugh's lasting danger is disease, not damage. A party that defeats one in straightforward combat and takes a bite from one of its tentacles has a 90% chance per bite of contracting filth fever — a debilitating infection that, without treatment, progresses over several days into something that removes the affected character from active usefulness for weeks. The otyugh itself is never surprised: its sensory arrangement covers too many angles. In combat, it grabs with a tentacle and slams the grabbed target against the floor or walls while biting; releasing a grabbed target requires a Strength check comparable to forcing a door.
Filth Fever: Contracted on a failed save after an otyugh bite (Fort 13). Onset 1d3 days after exposure. Symptoms: 1d4 Strength and Constitution loss per day until treated. A Cure Disease spell ends it immediately; natural recovery requires 1d3 weeks of bed rest after exposure ends, with Constitution loss returning at 1 point per day of rest.
XORN
Frequency: Very Rare | Appearing: 1d4 | Organization: Solitary Intelligence: Average (8–10) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Man-sized (1.5 m tall)
AC 22 · Move 30 m / burrow 30 m · HD 7+7 (39 hp) · AB +7 Attack: 3 claws 1d3, bite 4d6 Fort 13 / Reflex 15 / Will 14 Special: Camouflage (−5 to opponents' surprise rolls in rocky surroundings; stony hide blends with stone surfaces); Pass Through Stone (at will; can remain inside stone for 1d3 rounds; phase door spell cast while inside stone kills instantly); Cold and fire immunity; Electrical resistance (no damage on successful Reflex save; half damage on failed save); Half damage from edged (slashing) weapons; Spell vulnerabilities: move earth flings 9 m and stuns 1 round; stone to flesh or rock to mud reduces AC to 12 for 1 round; pass wall inflicts 1d10+10 damage; transmute mud to rock — if cast after stone to flesh, Xorn takes no damage but is encased until broken free; Phase door kills if cast while Xorn is inside stone Morale: 16 · XP: 9,000 · Treasure: O, P, Q×5, X, Y
A xorn is radially symmetrical: a barrel-shaped body on three legs, three arms spaced equally around the midsection, three eyes at the same height as the arms, and a single large mouth on top of the body where a head would be on a bilateral creature. The skin is rough and stony. There is no obvious front or back. It can see in all horizontal directions simultaneously and attack targets at any point around it. This is functional rather than threatening — the xorn is built for an environment where the relevant dimension is not forward-backward but through-the-rock.
Xorn are native to the Plane of Earth and arrive on the prime material through summoning, almost always against their preference. Once here and unable to return, they descend as far as available stone allows and begin feeding — pure mineral matter, the denser the better, with gemstones treated as something between a delicacy and an obsession. A xorn carrying seventeen rubies would rather die protecting them than surrender them, because they are dinner, not treasure. Parties carrying significant gem collections should understand this before moving through areas where xorn have been reported. The xorn does not distinguish between gems in a pack and gems set into a ring; it wants the material and it will attempt to take it.
Their AC of 22 reflects a hide that is genuinely stony rather than merely tough — edged weapons find little purchase and deal half damage; bludgeoning and piercing weapons work normally. They pass through solid rock at will, emerging and submerging as needed, which makes them extraordinarily difficult to corner. Their camouflage in rocky surroundings is passive rather than active: the stony skin reads as stone until the xorn moves, at which point the surprise penalty has already applied. The specific spell interactions documented in the Special entry represent the accumulated knowledge of scholars who have survived encounters with them, which is a smaller population than those who have studied the subject.
Near the Vithurian Mines and in the mineral-rich ground around the Dead Lands, xorn are found with a frequency that suggests either regular summoning or something about the local geology that draws them. The obsidian concentrations that mark the Dead Lands' perimeter appear to be particularly attractive. Whether this is because obsidian is nutritionally notable to xorn, or because the same conditions that produce obsidian produce an accessible boundary with the Plane of Earth, is not established. The Chroniclers' notes on the subject are marked as restricted access.
PART V — INSTRUMENTS WITHOUT MASTERS
The constructs in Part III share one property with every golem ever made: somewhere, either living or dead, a mind gave the instruction the golem follows. Destroy the golem and the instruction ends; find the creator and there is sometimes another way. What is catalogued here does not have that property. The minds that configured these things are gone — three thousand years gone — and the instructions remain. The mechanism executes without knowledge of anything that has changed, without capacity to revise what it was told, without any awareness that the world it operates in no longer exists in the form its builders knew. There is no creator to find. There is no instruction that has not already been given.
Both types described here are encountered only in Eymanarann, below the Dead Lands ice — in the transit tunnels and sealed interior chambers that the tunnels connect. They are not made of stone, clay, iron, or flesh. The grey material they are built from is smooth, cold, and seamless in ways no Third Era smith can replicate and most Third Era smiths have no vocabulary to describe. They were not made by the people who study the Eymanarynn. They were made by the Eymanarynn themselves, and they have been running since.
STILL
Frequency: Rare (Dead Lands tunnel systems only) | Appearing: 1d6 | Organization: Patrol circuit Intelligence: Non-sentient (programmatic) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Man-sized (1.8 m)
AC 17 · Move 25 m · HD 5+5 (27 hp) · AB +7 Attack: Strike 2d8 Fort 13 / Reflex 15 / Will — Special: Non-sentient; immune to charm, fear, hold person, sleep, all mind-affecting effects; not subject to clerical turning; non-magical weapons deal half damage; Resting State (indistinguishable from tunnel wall in any light; −6 to party surprise rolls when activating from rest); Patrol Circuit (responds only within a defined zone; returns to resting state if zone is vacated for 5 consecutive rounds); Vartran Response (activates against Vartran bloodlines at triple normal detection range; cannot be reset by zone exit — pursues until one party is destroyed); Obsidian Vulnerability (attacks made with unworked Dead Lands obsidian deal full damage, bypassing half-damage reduction) Morale: — · XP: 2,000 · Treasure: None
A still does not look like a creature. In resting state it is flush against the tunnel wall, its outline invisible, the grey of it indistinguishable from the grey of everything around it. The first indication of its existence is movement: a section of wall that detaches, orients, and comes toward the party. It does not snarl. It does not hesitate. It does nothing that could be interpreted as aggression in any recognizable sense. It responds. Something crossed a threshold it was configured to recognize, and the still's response to that crossing has not changed in three thousand years.
Its behavior is the behavior of a rule with no exceptions and no interpreter. It does not attack from hunger or hatred. It does not attack because it was commanded — its commander has been dead since before the current calendar began. It pursues intruders within a defined circuit that experienced guides can partially map by observing where the still stops and turns back toward its resting position. Exit the circuit and the still returns to the wall. Re-enter and it responds again, from the beginning, with the same protocols and the same results. Guides who note this with a specific quality of unease are noting what the design implies rather than anything the still communicates.
The still's response to Vartran bloodlines is a different category. Detection range triples. Zone exit does not reset the pursuit. The still continues until it has done what its instructions call for or it has been destroyed. Whether this represents a configured exception or a fault in a system running on degraded power, nobody currently alive knows. The Vartrans know the effect. They do not speculate about its cause.
Attacks made with raw, unworked Dead Lands obsidian damage the still as though the material were enchanted, bypassing the resilience that turns ordinary weapons aside. The Chroniclers have documented this in their restricted classification tier. They have not published what they believe it means.
KEEPER
Frequency: Very Rare (sealed interior chambers of the Dead Lands only) | Appearing: 1 | Organization: Station-bound Intelligence: Non-sentient (programmatic) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Large (2.4 m)
AC 19 · Move 15 m (station-bound; does not pursue beyond chamber) · HD 10+5 (50 hp) · AB +11 Attack: 2 strikes 2d10 Fort 11 / Reflex 12 / Will — Special: Non-sentient; immune to charm, fear, hold person, sleep, all mind-affecting effects; not subject to clerical turning; non-magical weapons deal half damage; magical weapons of less than +2 enchantment deal half damage; Directed Force (range 20 m; 3d8 damage; Reflex 12 or knocked prone; cannot be used in the same round as melee attacks; usable every other round); Chamber Lockdown (activates immediately on first response; seals all chamber exits — doors, hatches, passages — preventing entry and exit for 10 rounds unless the mechanism is defeated from inside); Vartran Response (as Still); Obsidian Vulnerability (as Still) Morale: — · XP: 7,000 · Treasure: None
Parties that penetrate past the transit tunnels into Eymanarann's sealed interior chambers have passed through the still's patrol zones and concluded that the outer approaches were the main obstacle. The keeper is found at the end of that reasoning.
It is larger than the still, built for a fixed position rather than a circuit, integrated into the chamber structure in a way that makes it impossible to identify at rest unless you are looking for a surface seam that is too even, too precise, too smooth where the surrounding material shows its age. Unlike the still, it does not wait for a threshold. A keeper activates the moment something living enters its chamber. It has been activating in standby cycles since the First Era ended and shows no evidence of degradation from the duration.
The directed force it generates has no visible beam, no light, no mechanism that expedition survivors can describe in terms that survive scrutiny. Something applies significant force at range, accurately, to whichever target the keeper has designated. The Chroniclers classify this as a non-magical ability. That classification raises questions their restricted documentation declines to address.
The chamber lockdown is the tactical element that has ended more expeditions than the keeper's combat capacity. It activates on the keeper's first response, before the party has assessed what they are dealing with, sealing every exit simultaneously. A party locked in with a keeper has ten rounds to defeat the locking mechanism from inside or destroy the keeper before the lockdown expires. Parties that are underequipped for the second option should begin working on the first immediately.
What the First Era placed in the rooms that required this level of protection is, by definition, something that warranted it. What that is varies by chamber, is rarely immediately legible to a Third Era eye, and is the reason expeditions accept the risk of proceeding past the tunnel approaches at all.