That is not dead which can eternal lie…

Like I keep saying, Earth Delta is not dead, just pining for the fjords… the fjords filled with deadly killer mutant pine trees that fire explosive laser pinecones!!!! Hmmm… explosive pinecones… I like that… anyway, here’s the first Level 16 monster for Earth Delta, the Oilslick Wastespawn!

(In case anyone’s wondering, and I know you’re not, one of the distractions I’ve been dealing with has been my oft-mentioned but rarely-detailed Stellar Warriors. I should post about that…)

Wastespawn 

The wretched ruins of the Ancestor’s excess have left behind vast regions tainted with terrible toxins, not to mention awful alliteration. Various systems, including nanobots and genetically engineered bacteria, were usually dispatched to clean up and process such areas, but, during the time leading up to the Cataclysm, wars were fought by sabotaging and reprogramming such things, trying to turn the cleaners into killers. The mix of confused programming and reprogramming, and the passage of time, caused the ecosystems of cleaning bots, waste-eating bacteria, and offensive counter-programs to use the raw material of the wastes to form ever more complex beings, fast-forward evolution using the tools at hand. These creatures are now called wastespawn, and they live wherever the Ancestor’s offal is densely concentrated. They generally possess only fragments of intelligence, pseudo-minds composed of badly mangled bits of semi-aware code, but they are motivated by a strong hatred of an unknown enemy, which they assume to be any creature which enters their realm.

Some groups, especially rubblers and ratmen, have found ways to tame or herd wastespawn. The Annihiliation Army is known to sometimes capture them, contain them, and unleash them on strongholds as terror weapons ahead of their own invasions.

Oilslick wastespawn are barely more than animals, possessing only rudimentary self-awareness. They dwell deep in pools and seas of industrial wastes, primarily, of course, oil, which still had many uses in manufacturing and industry, even though, by the time of the Ancestors, it had lost much of its utility as a primary power source. (There were also many stockpiles of it, sometimes locked away for centuries, against some future shortage.) Oilslick wastespawn are basically symbiotic colonies that combine thick, contaminated, oil and highly-mutated oil-eating bacteria, which now function to convert other substances into oil. The oilslick will arise from the pool as a vaguely tentacle-shaped wave or whip of oil, and moves on its own by flowing forward and then drawing itself up. If it senses that its enemies are using any kind of fire or heat weapons, including lasers, a primitive and malicious instinct will cause it to not use its flowing slick power until it is ablaze, and then it will engulf its foes in its burning mass.

 Design Notes

As with most great things, this started with something I saw in a Jack Kirby comic,

but by the time it hit the page, it had very little to do with the inspiration beyond the idea of “oil slick as monster”. Because I’m a lazy-ass bastard, and I’d rather beat one semi-original idea to death than actually come up with more than one idea at a time, I realized that while an oil slick monster was cool, coming up with a whole bunch of monsters based on “animated waste and junk” was even cooler, and by “even cooler”, I mean, “would require very little mental effort to find viable concepts to fill a variety of roles”. So there will probably be more wastespawn in the future.

This one has lower hit points than average, because it’s such a bitch to hurt, and, if you attack it in its native environment, it has a very powerful “retreat and rest” mechanic. Lurkers are supposed to be frustrating as hell and require some thinking to beat. Setting it on fire is a wonderfully double edged laser sword, because while it takes some damage, it also becomes much deadlier, especially if it’s saved up its encounter power for just such a contingency. The ongoing damage from the flames is low because of the other effects the basic slam attack already imposes; without them, the ongoing damage would be 10. The increased forced movement effect isn’t especially useful to the oilslick itself, since it has no powers that do that, but pair it with a controller or a brute/soldier type that relies on push effects, and you’ve got a good game of PC pinball going. I like that it’s an interesting synergy mechanic and a logical effect of what the creature is and what it does. Likewise, the notations on how its powers affect flying creatures are there because I dislike that 4e either encourages you to ignore all logic and apply the rules as written, or makes the assumption the DM will issue rules calls as needed. I’d rather empower the DM by telling him up-front what the game-effect power is modeling (an oil slick) and give him some advice on the most common type of conflict or question which will arise, namely, “Why can’t I fly over it?” The answers, as you see, are “If you’re flying and covered with oil, it goops you up and you fall, but, if you’re flying over an oil slick on the ground, no, it’s not difficult terrain for you.” (Difficult Terrain is a perfect example of “90% is not enough” when it comes to rules. By this I mean, it’s obvious that the 4e designers looked at 3.5s myriad of terrain types and conditions and said, “Look. 90% of the time, all we want is ‘This terrain slows you down’, and it doesn’t matter if it’s slick ice or brambles or deep sand or a high wind.” The problem is that for all of those, there’s different possible countermeasures — can a fire spell melt the ice, or a fire elemental ignore it? A nimble elf can shift on brambles, but what could does being nimble do against a powerful headwind or heavy gravity or a ‘zone of slowness’? The DM is constantly forced to either apply the rules as written, even if they make no sense, or get into pointless arguments over whether or not the rules apply, because the effects-based design of 4e offers little guidance when it comes to interpreting the source of the effect, and this, in turn, causes loss of immersion. This, in turn, is also why I pointed out some of the uses of sand or other “gritty” material, because it’s the sort of thing clever players will want to try, and should be able to, without the DM having to be forced to choose between something like “Uhm, OK, the handful of sand completely blots up the man-sized living oil slick” or “No, there’s no effect, why should sand hurt it?” With the provided guidelines, the DM ought to be able to cover most common variations and have an expected “baseline effectiveness” to work from.

Gameworld wise, I like the idea of a “wolfpack” of these things arising out of a small “sea” of oil at the bottom of a ruined factory, or of a Stronghold using one or two as “moat monsters”. The “overuse” of “quotes” in my “writing” can be strongly attributed to the aforementioned Mr. Kirby.