Nuclear Ooze

I finished the first draft of my gloghack, Nuclear Ooze! Finished is a strong word, I guess. I looked through it again after I published the pdf, and noticed a bunch of wonking formatting, weird choices, and wording issues that I can't be bothered to go back through right now. Next time, I'll fix it.

It's primarily frankensteined together from Arnold K's original rules, Skerple's Rat on a Stick, Meandering Banter's Die Trying, and Cratered Land's Mimics and Miscreants, although there are a lot of influences (read: things I've mercilessly stolen and ripped from other games).

>>Get Nuclear Ooze Here<<

Tell me what you think, especially if you use it!

Here's a bonus race, because I haven't posted any actual gameplay related stuff in a while.


Dunkleostans
Bipedal jungle fish-people. Long, single-finned tails and stubby legs like newt's limbs. The tail is thick with corded muscle, wide as two human thighs. Their heads are large and covered in thick plates of bone; two beady eyes stare out pugnaciously above a wide mouth lined with two razor-sharp ridges of bone, able to shear straight through a spear's haft.

They are unwieldy on land; they propel themselves through the water with powerful motions of that huge tail and catch prey like riversquid and the bastard dolphins that move in the silty water. A bonefish kraal is made of padded, clay-thick mud, woven with water reeds and bamboo beneath the surface. They sleep in the mud, gills gently moving and bubbling through the surface.

Despite their fearsome appearance, they are quite friendly with traders and other denizens of the Hundred Rivers Valley. They usually choose to remain in conclaves with other bonefish families, although a few of their number go to Larothe or any of the other Lake Cities to make a life in the newly-burgeoning modern, industrialized world.

Perk: Your head always is considered armored. +1 AC or AP or whatever system you use, ignore most head wounds.
Downside: You must return to the water (or at least a wet bank of mud) to sleep every night, or you'll start to suffocate.
Stat Reroll: Strength

Lunar Vampires

The Moon is dead, but there is life on and in it. Deep under the surface where the polyp-trees stretch their paralyzed branches and release reified madness in mercury drops to the sky, beneath the caverns and hollows made when the ground shifted and made room for lunar slugs and beetle-bears, there are deposits of a strange, hard material like ceramic but somehow more pliable. This is where the dead lie, the terrible secrets of eons past that have been buried under ash and layers of strange decay.

The deposits, if you were to exhume them (and exhuming them is what it would be, for you would be digging up tombs and coffins), would be ovoid, like squashed spheres of white plastic. Sometimes they'd have crushed and bent articulated legs. There are doorways and openings. They are huge, a few more than a mile across. You'd see the tracks they dig through the strata as they so slowly gravitate towards each others, at a geological pace. They grow into each other like mitosis in reverse. Inside, they are dark, deactivated, fractal, and incomprehensible. They each served myriad purposes, once.

This is the main arena of dungeon-delving on the Moon. Or at least the most ripe for plunder; a latticeman doesn't have much to offer adventurers than a pile of slimy spacesuits and some rotted bones. But the vampire catacombs are jam-packed: filled with strange equipment, surgical labs, esoteric weapons, and of course, vampires.

Lunar vampires aren't stereotypical eastern European counts. In fact, they look like slightly-shriveled, dead versions of your friends. Sometimes literally. There's a 25% chance that one of the vampires you fight or interact with is a doppelganger of someone you know. There's a 1% chance it looks like you. They actually come from a different version or timeline of the Moon and Earth. It doesn't really matter; they're stuck here now, just like you. They look utterly human externally, but they wear strange elastic jumpsuits, and arcane bits of machinery cover them occasionally. They look like extras from a 60s-70s scifi television show, and their tombs are built to match, all formica and plastic and curves.

Their bones are black carbon, scintillating with strange elements. Their blood is thick and greenish, more like sap than blood. It carries the vampiric germ; anyone who drinks it, or is fed it, or is injected with it in one of the ancient surgical machines will become a thrall-vampire in 1 week, unless their blood is cleansed before that. Vampires have blunt, human teeth. Biting does the same damage as a human does, unless they use tongue. Their tongues are coated in microscopic saw teeth that rip flesh with horrifying ease, and they use these terrible appendages like sponges to soak up blood. They are inhumanly strong, and magnificently hard to kill. Vampire wars were once fought with vibroblades and sonic canons that could disassemble you at a molecular level.

They once created a race of Renfields out of conquered people, enslaved on their millenia-long conquest of the universe. The DNA slurried and combined and restructured, extruded and recombined with more and more victims. Slowly creating the space ghouls that now wander these white, darkened corridors, maintaining the slow workings of their kidnapper-masters. Renfields are diminutive, like hunched men. Their translucent flesh displays their glasslike bones and pumping lymph. (The vampires removed the Renfields' need for blood so as to not eat their own slaves.) Renfields won't harm adventurers, prefering to lure them into traps or their sleeping masters.

***

Vibroblade
Extremely sharp. Does 1d8+1 damage. Has 50 charges in its tenebrovoltaic battery. Using one charge activates the vibration motor, causing an additional 1d8 of damage, sawing through limbs like butter and leaving heavily bleeding, ragged stumps.

Molecular Disassembly Canon
A mass of tubes and wires with a series of Nixie tube-like glass bells underneath, filled with Sonic Ooze. Must be fed blood weekly, or the ooze dies. Firing it causes an electric shock to agitate the oozes, which send out a metasonic vibration through the tubes. Does d12 damage, exploding on a 1 or 12.

***

Lunar Vampire
HD 3 ATK 12 DEF as leather MV 16’, 6’ fly once per day Tongue 2d6 Bite or Weapon 1d6/1d6 Save 8 Int 10, 15 if recently fed Morale 4
Emaciated, near-feral, and weak. Shadows of the dread cosmic vampires they once spawned from. Crave blood all the time, made mad by their hunger. Must be decapitated, have their hearts ripped out or staked, or be burned. Want to eat flesh and regain their opulence.
Vampiric: Regains 1d4 hp whenever it drinks blood.

Rose-Devil
HD 2 ATK 14 DEF as leather MV 18’ Thorns 1d6 Tendrils 1d6/1d6 Save 8 Int 16 Morale 3
Ancient vampires whose flesh has finally dissolved away from hunger. Bendy and thorned. Heads look like skulls made of wicker mixed with rose blossoms. They bathe in blood to grow back flesh. Can only be burned, or utterly dismembered. Want to become whole again.
Regeneration: When bled on, gain 1 hp.

Renfield
HD 1 ATK 10 DEF unarmored MV 12' Bite 1d4 Save 6 Int 8 Morale 6
Translucent, jellylike. Born from vats in the cellships, reconstituted collected biomass. They eat flesh too, but don't hunt; they'll eat whatever's left after their masters finish. Want to faithfully serve the vampires.
Translucent: Advantage on stealth rolls while in dim light or darkness.

The Golemist (GLOG Class)

In the rain-soaked city of Ischaim, cloistered scholars and rabbis perform sacred rites and incantations over holy simulacra of men, designed to impart life and stewardship into these guardians of the faithful. You are not a holy man, or one of the faithful. The secrets of golemistry were leaked to the arcane public, losing the trappings of religion in the process. Now golemistry is utilized by most major countries, and wandering golemists fill secretive clubs and barrooms with hulking clay bodies, glimmering in the firelight.

This class was inspired by a lot, notably Judah Low from Iron Council and the State Alchemists of FMA. I wanted something like a summoner class that drew upon their surroundings for quick minion creation in combat. It’s kinda like a spellcaster if they only had one spell that got more specific as they levelled up. I’m not sure it’ll work, since I haven’t really tested it, but it was fun to write. Maybe in time, after some testing, I’ll give it another writeup and spruce it up (but probably not).

I wrote it as a competition with Spwack over in the OSR discord. Check out his Golemist class (I have no doubt his actually works) and his other stuff, it’s all very good and weird. I've never written a GLOG class before, so this was a really fun way of getting into things!

Mikoláš Aleš

Golemist

Starting Equipment: Notebook, dagger, set of brushes and inks, roll on your favorite random item list.

Perk: You can block out any external stimuli that would cause you to lose concentration on your work.

Downside: Any HP you use to create a golem can’t be regenerated by any means until that golem is dismissed.

For every Golemist template you have, gain +2 HP

A: Dismissal, Animate Lesser Golem

B: Understanding, Animate Common Golem

C: Usurp Command, Esoteric Material

D: Efficiency, Animate Greater Golem

To create a golem, you touch an object and invest a portion of your body and soul, in the form of HP. Each golem type has different HP requirements from you. I.e., you cut yourself for 1 HP and invest it into making a lesser golem. That golem has 1 HP, and you can’t regain that 1 HP until the golem is dismissed. Golems are brought to life by an arcane word inscribed in blood on their bodies somewhere. If this word is marred or erased, the golem is destroyed.

You start off being able to make clay or mud golems.

Universal Studios

Dismissal

You can instantly dismiss any golems you control with a thought, rendering them insensate matter once more. Greater golems get a save, while rogue golems have to be manually erased.

Animate Minor Golem

Spend 1 HP per golem HP to imbue a material or conglomerate of material with a portion of soul and the semblance of life. They can only follow simple commands (“Go for their legs”, “Protect this doorway”). Lesser golems are smaller than a human. Each HP you spend is one golem HP.

Understanding

You study something at a fundamental level, and gain an insight to it unrivalled in the field. Takes 1 hour of uninterrupted extrospection (30 minutes with proper equipment like a 10 gp microscope) on a solid you can examine with your tools and hands. Save vs. forgetting what you learned while you sleep, after three successes the knowledge is permanent. While you understand something, you have advantage on identifying it in other materials, and you know the best ways to kill or neutralize it. You can also create golems out of that material from now on, and golems made of that material go rogue 5% less.

Animate Common Golem

Cost 2 HP per golem HD. Your golems can be bigger (human to ogre sized), and more complex. They follow fairly complex or sequential commands.

Usurp Command

If you meet another golemist on your road, kill him and take his golems. You can impose your will over other constructs. Their controller gets a contest (or the golem does do, if it’s controller is dead). On a fail, take 1d6 psychic damage, and all your currently active golems are dismissed.

Esoteric Understanding

Your golems are stranger, utterly unique. You can use your gift of understanding on even stranger or more complicated things, like radium, air, ideas, or anti-matter. Up to GM discretion. Normal material understanding no longer needs a save vs. forgetting. Reduces all rogue chances by 5%. Stacks with understanding.

Efficiency

You bypass the Golem-Master Bond problem, allowing you to regain half the HP you invest when you create any golem. The HP is still drained, but you can regain half (rounded down) while the golem is still active.

Animate Greater Golem

Invest 3 HP per greater golem HD. These creations are thinking, sapient. Act as a hireling that is utterly devoted to you. See below on greater golem building.

Saddleback. Allows the golem to be ridden like a horse or riding lizard or whatever creature you want. Moves like an elephant. Costs 3 HP during creation.

Gun Barrel. Your golem can shoot cannon balls for 4d6 damage on a hit. Costs 6 HP, and you need a cannon on hand (or enough raw material to make one, I guess.)

Many-Legged. Your golem has more than two legs, possibly far too many. It cannot be knocked over. Costs 3 HP.

Amorphous. The whole thing is made of wet clay, living flesh, protoplasm, or other gooey substance. It can be cut in half and survive, and eventually reconstitute itself. Costs 6 HP.

Shell. The golem is hollow, with a space inside for you, the creator. Basically a mech suit, gives you the physical stats of the golem and AC like plate. Costs 6 HP.

Bladed. Covered in metal teeth, shards of glass, actual swords, sharpened bits of bone, planes of refined entropy. Does 2d6 damage on contact, really good at grappling. Costs 3 HP.

Keith Thompson

Rogue Golems

Creating a golem is a difficult undertaking. The more complex the mind, the more likely the golem is to break free of your mental restraints and act on its own initiative. This is known as “going rogue”. Whenever you create a golem and the first time you ask it to put itself in harm’s way for you, roll 1d100.

Lesser golems: 10% chance of going rogue

Common golems: 20% chance of going rogue

Greater golems: 45% chance of going rogue

Keith Thompson, again

A Few Example Golems

Here are some golems statted up so you can see what they do and how to model them in your games.

Scissor Golems. 2 HP. AC as rat. Tries to cut your tendons or stab your feet for 1d4 damage. MOV as rat. MORALE 20. Flock like piranha. They don’t do much damage if you’re wearing good boots, but god help you if you trip and fall.

Door Golem. 3 HD. AC as Plate. Can’t really attack, but will slam itself shut on your fingers if it has to, 1d4 damage. MOV 0. MORALE 20. Used as guardians, like sphinxes. If you answer the riddle correctly or know the secret password, the way is opened for you. Forgetful mages tend to include hints to their passcodes.

Clay Golem. 1 HD. AC as Leather. Pummels you with rock-like fists for 1d6 damage. MOV as human. MORALE 20. Stolid, dependable, unoriginal. Look for the secret word on its forehead or in its mouth. 

Ball-of-Flesh Golem. 2 HD. AC as unarmored human. Rolls over you, slashing at you with random appendages for 1d6 damage. 50% chance of trying to suffocate you and add you to its mass. MOV as horse. MORALE 20. When most people see a bunch of strewn bodies, they see carnage. You see raw material.

Oliphaunt Golem. 6 HD. AC as Plate. Hits like a fucking tank, tusk-blades do 1d8 slashing while the gun in place of its head shoots for 4d6 damage. MOV as elephant. MORALE 20. Not only is it huge and dangerous, it is cunning, and seeks only to aid its creator.

Artist unknown, from Goethe's Faust

What Your Golem Does When It Goes Rogue

1. Attacks everything in sight, including inanimate objects. 
2. Attacks only you, then leaves out the nearest exit.
3. Screams without lungs or vocal chords, then collapses back into whatever original matter it was constructed from.
4. Obeys your commands a millisecond slow, then sneaks away at its first opportunity.
5. Walks in a counterclockwise spiral until it hits an object, then reverses around it.
6. Begins eating everything it can fit in its mouth. If it doesn’t have a mouth, it just mashes the things on its face. The objects aren’t actually eaten; they’re still inside it, crushed and covered in clay.
7. Attacks everything but you.
8. Carries you to the next room/building/clearing/area then collapses.
9. Is entirely unresponsive.
10. Moves at one quarter of its normal rate; every attack is telegraphed so far in advance anyone can get out of their way.
11. Constantly emits noise/smoke/sparks, thwarting any attempts at stealth or polite conversation.
12. Walks backward, trips on everything.
13. Obeys only the most simple and direct orders. Like playing a text-based game. Even “Go through the door” will cause it to overheat and lock in place.
14. Whatever it wants. It is now an NPC. It remembers everything you’ve done to it, including while it was the base material.
15. Shadows your every move, obeys none of your commands.
16. Begins scratching every word and discernable noise it has heard on the wall/floor in dictation.
17. Does the literal opposite of all of your commands.
18. Uses whatever appendage is able to smash out its own word, crippling or killing itself.
19. Gets visibly hot, then explodes for 6d6 damage.
20. Transmutes to a new substance, then discorporates.

8 Strange Diseases, or Curses

Most scholars agree that curses and the myriad illnesses that plague humankind are one in the same, and that previous theories of predatory animals too small to see or vaporous miasmas are laughably inaccurate. A witch might curse you with a haunted reflection, or the common cold. Most cure disease spells, if pumped up with juice, will work on curses, although you have to know the effects of the curse inside and out to affect it, and that's generally hard to do, due to them not coming with instruction manuals.

That being said, here are 8 diseases that are fairly common and understood. Not to say that everyone knows how to prevent TVS, but a city doctor or priest can certainly be paid to help facilitate curing it.

1. Lobster-Dick. Your genitals become replaced with a lobster tail, complete with shell, tiny legs, and all the accoutrements. It's still functional. Gain a +1 bonus to save vs. groin attacks. If you have intercourse with someone (regardless of your sex or theirs) they become pregnant, and give birth to 1d6 lobster-men. Interestingly, this curse can be used on other body parts, but to less drastic effect (gaining a giant pincer is cool, and most adventurers can't write anyway).

How did you get it? Defiling the temple of a sea-god, or doing something truly reprehensible to a lobster. You fucking sicko.

How do you cure it? You can't. Sorry.

2. Spell Syphilis. Your mind begins to slip, and your spell slots rot right out of your head. Eventually, you die, but in the meantime you go crazy and become a stereotypical "mad wizard". Your aura, if viewed through a shew-stone or a spell like second sight, looks like a ratty old cloak made of bacteria or fungus, and you look like a living corpse. Spell slots rot at rate of 1 per day, then you start taking Wisdom damage. At 0 you die.

How did you get it? Handling any strange wands, especially those found in a dungeon.

How do you cure it? It's incurable, but you can stave off the effects by passing it on to someone else, a la It Follows.

3. Excessive Sanguinity. You have too much blood! For the first few days after contracting this illness you feel fucking great, and gain +2 to Dexterity and Strength checks, but then it starts to hurt as your veins swell and fill, with no extra space to grow to. After nearly two weeks of excrutiating agony, you pop. In that time, any being that feeds on blood (vampires, blood mages, mosquitoes) within a five mile radius knows exactly where you are.

How did you get it? Eating too many blood oranges, coming into contact with any bodily fluid already infected.

How do you cure it? Drain your blood to keep it in equilibrium, forever.

4. Spontaneous Osteo-Liquefaction. Your bones turn to liquid, usually in stages. First, the teeth liquefy and trickle down the back of the throat. Save vs choking. Then the extremities, the fingers, toes, and fontanelle, and you stop being able to hold things. Finally the main structural bones turn to liquid and you can't stand, or move quickly at all. You become a slime, of sorts.

How did you get it? Ingest the flesh of an ooze. It's a bit like lycanthropy, but grosser.

How do you cure it? Drink a bunch of milk. Bathe in milk. Sacrifice a finger to the calcium gods.

5. Scabification. Your blood begins to harden in your veins. It's slow enough that you definitely feel it, though not exactly what it is exactly. Something like arthritis or old knees, but it can affect a person of any age. Suffer a -5 penalty to all Dexterity checks. Eventually, your entire body becomes a rough, coagulated sculpture.

How did you get it? Picked too many scabs, or you didn't offer fealty to the minor spirits of bloodlust as you pass a battlefield.

How do you cure it? Drink a tincture of ground leeches and heparin, once a day for a week. The medicine makes you feel weak; -3 to your Constitution score until you stop taking it, and your save vs. poison is reduced.


6. Loss of Ontological Cohesion. Somehow, you or your body was convinced that it isn't really a human body. Your organs and tissues forget their purpose, turning into leaves and flowers and tadpoles and threads. You drift apart, your mind unravelling as your body does. Occasionally, you can remember who your were with enough fortitude so as to hold your new body together (like living armor) but this is rare. All of your physical stats begin to decrease as your body fades, and unless you pass a Wisdom save every day, so too does your mind.

How did you get it? Encountered a memetic virus, and Outsider or god thought about you too hard, or you got drunk and started talking philosophy.

How do you cure it? It can't be reversed, but you can halt it by reading anatomy textbooks and remembering bits of your past life.


7. TVS. Aka Terminal Velocity Syndrome. Once thought to be a combination of a vestibular issue and osteogenesis imperfecta, sufferers of TVS are affected by gravity at an abnormal rate. Every movement is compounded enough to instantly reach terminal velocity; even a fall from a foot or two up can be fatal. A stumble deals 1d6 damage, and all fall damage is multiplied by 5. Your attacks are a lot heavier, though, and deal +2 damage.

How did you get it? Struck on the head by a Stygian apple, or bitten by a gravity goblin.

How do you cure it? Remain suspended in an antigravity field for an hour a day.


8. Teakettler Disease. Your internal body temperature is constantly rising, causing pain and pressure on your bones. If you ignore it long enough without releasing it (roughly every three hours), you take 1d6 exploding heat damage. When you release it, it issues from your mouth in a burst of steam and a piercing whistle that can be heard from far away. Your sleep is rough and unsteady, and you gain 1/2 the XP you normally would.

How did you get it? You didn't offer a weary guest the customary drink, or touched a dragon's scale without washing it in grain alcohol first.

How do you cure it? Consume a cumulative 9 pounds of ice.