Sea Monkeys

Sea Monkey: Init +3; Atk trident +2 melee (1d8) or bite +0 melee (1d3-1); Crit III/d6; AC 13; HD 1d6; MV 30’, swim 60’; Act 1d20; SP amphibious, confer water breathing, brine shrimp swarm; SV Fort +1, Ref +4, Will +0; AL N

Some people sell brine shrimp and call them “sea monkeys”, but the real sea monkeys are amphibious egg-laying humanoids who swarm out of their undersea castles to capture treasure, slaves, and food. Through some unknown process, sea monkeys can confer the ability to breathe water on other creatures, and the few slaves who have escaped them can attest to this fact. If not renewed every 1d3 days, this ability ceases to function, and the slave drowns…making them completely at the mercy of their captors.

Sea monkeys can also summon a swarm of brine shrimp in a 20’ radius once per day. This does no damage, but offers concealment and a +2 bonus to AC within the swarm…except against sea monkeys, who can see right through it as though it were not there. Some sages have speculated that the three antennae growing from their heads provides a form of telepathic connection solely focused on brine shrimp.

Sea monkeys are, indeed, intelligent, frolicsome, and love to play games with each other as well as those they capture. If eager to please, it is only to please themselves. While it is true that sea monkeys love attention, it is not the kind of attention most creatures would wish to give them, and they have seldom brought smiles or laughter to anything less cruel than they are.

Sea Monk

Sea Monk: Init +2; Atk tentacle slap +4 melee (1d6) or harmful spell (see below); Crit M/d10; AC 16; HD 4d8; MV swim 20’; Act 1d20; SP heal 2/day, harmful spell 3/day; SV Fort +4, Ref +1, Will +4; AL N

Their red scales acting as armored cassocks, these strange beings of the northern seas are sometimes found along coastlands in shallow waters, where they rise from the water to make impassioned sermons about Pelagia and other sea deities, about giving thanks for the ocean’s abundance, and about making sacrifices in blood and riches for successful voyages or bountiful fishing. A full 8 feet in height, a preaching sea monk is an awe-inspiring spectacle!

Twice per day, a sea monk may heal all creatures within a 30’ radius of 2d6 hp damage, affecting only those beings who have made a meaningful sacrifice to the sea or the oceanic gods within the last month (including the sea monk itself).

Sea monks are not generally hostile, but if pressed they can defend themselves. In addition to slapping foes with their short, but rough-scaled, tentacles, a sea monk can cast a harmful spell three times each day. When a sea monk uses this ability, roll 1d7 and consult the table below:

1. Briny water fills one target’s lungs within 30’, causing 1d6 Stamina damage (DC 12 Fort for half).

2. Red scale sprout all over all foes within 60’, impeding movement enough to cause 1d3 Agility damage. There is no save, but victims gain +1 AC from the scales until they fall away when the Agility damage is healed.

3. A trident of solidified sea water strikes at a target within 60’ (1d8 damage, DC 16 Reflex save negates).

4. 1d4 masses of phantasmal spiny starfish launch at foes within 30’, doing 1d3 damage each round until a DC 14 Will save succeeds. These masses can be used to target separate foes, but two or more can also be used against the same foe to increase damage. When more than one mass targets the same victim, a single successful save negates all masses affecting that creature.

5. A wave rises and smashes down on all foes within 30’, doing 1d3 damage and requiring a DC 12 Reflex save to avoid being knocked over. Allies are miraculously untouched.

6. As blood turns to sea water, one target within 60’ takes 1d6 damage (DC 13 Fort for half).

7. One target within 120’, to which the sea monk has line of sight, takes 1d3 damage and must succeed on a DC 7 Will save or transform into sea water, dying instantly.

Grellican

This comes to you thanks to Reddit user timplausible from their comment on this post.

Illustration by Noble Hardesty

Grellican: Init +3; Atk Tentacle +2 melee (1d2 plus grab and stuff) or beak +0 melee (1d4 plus swallow); AC 12; HD 2d8; MV fly 40’; Act 5d20; SP grab and stuff, swallow, bill pouch, death throes; SV Fort +2, Ref +3, Will +3; AL C.

Swarming around piers of sardonyx and quays of porphyry in the Dreamlands, these creatures sometimes pass into the waking world at twilight when the borders are thin. What they consume in the Dreamlands is a mystery, but once within the waking world their appetites cannot be appeased.

A grellican is a creature similar to a grell or a grell-ba-tross, and is found along seacoasts during twilight hours and early morning, when the borders between Dream and Reality are thin. A grellican looks like a giant brown-white brain, some two feet in diameter, with birdlike wings, a pelican-like bill, and four long dangling tentacles.

Each tentacle can grab its target unless they succeed in an opposed Strength check (vs. +2), and the victim is automatically stuffed into the grellican’s bill pouch the next round unless it somehow escapes. Each tentacle has 2 hp; these do not count against the creature’s normal hit points, and a severed tentacle regenerates in 1d3 days. Blunt weapons cannot be used to sever tentacles. A victim can also use an action die to force another opposed Strength check, escaping if successful.

Likewise, if the grellican makes a successful bill attack against a target, the target much succeed in a DC 7 Reflex save or be swallowed and deposited into the grellican’s bill pouch. No matter how many creatures are stuffed into a grellican’s pouch, or how large they are, the pouch never appears larger than then of a pelican from outside.

A grellican’s bill can open to nightmarish dimensions, allowing the creature to force creatures as large as a cow into its bill pouch. The bill pouch itself is an extra-dimensional space which confines and slowly dissolves its victims at a rate of 1d3 hp per turn. A character within the bill pouch can attack it with a bladed weapon, with a -2d penalty to attack rolls and damage (AC 16), but the damage they do does not count against the grellican’s total hit points. Should they succeed in causing 8 hp damage in a single attack, a rent is created and everything in the grellican’s pouch is sucked into a dreamworld. If you backed the Painted Wastelands kickstarter and ordered the DCC Conversion Guide, this is an excellent chance to use it!

Otherwise, when a grellican is reduced to 0 hp, it begins to dissolve into dreamstuff and is fully gone in 1d6+1 rounds. One creature per round can be rescued from the grellican’s bill pouch per round while this is happening, should anyone think to do so. Those still within the bill pouch may be deposited into some distant Dreamland with a successful Luck check. The judge may allow some special quest to recover those who fail. Otherwise, they are forever lost.

Grell-Ba-Tross

 

Illustration by Noble Hardesty

Grell-Ba-Tross: Init +2; Atk Tentacle +2 melee (1d2 plus venom) or beak +0 melee (1d8) or screech; AC 14; HD 3d8; MV fly 30’; Act 7d20; SP Blindsense 120’, venom (1d3 temporary Agility damage, Fort DC 5 negates), screech (30’ radius, DC 8 Will or lose next action), tentacle vulnerability, afraid of cats; SV Fort +3, Ref +2, Will +3; AL C.

These smaller cousins of the grell lurk under wharves and in seaside sewers, scavenging fish guts and rats to sustain themselves unless some unlucky sailor, vagrant, or sewer-jack should encounter them. Ship’s cats and the strays which are found around the same places are singularly immune to the grell-ba-tross’s hunger; indeed, although the monster makes nocturnal forays along the docks and in the shallows, it is never seen in the presence of a cat. Some old sea dogs claim that the sudden appearance of a cat has saved them from a grisly fate. According to these ancient mariners, grell-ba-tross will even be so bold as to come aboard harbored ships on moonless nights, but flee from the sight of even a peg-legged cat, even though an easy meal was otherwise in their slimy grasp.  

The grell-ba-tross looks much like its cousin, the grell, but it is only three feet in diameter, with a large beak resembling that of an albatross, and only six tentacles long and strong enough to attack. Its tentacles exude a mild paralytic venom that causes 1d3 points of temporary Agility damage unless a DC 5 Fort save succeeds. This damage heals at the rate of 1 point per minute, starting 1 turn after it first affects a victim. Each tentacle has 3 hp; these do not count against the creature’s normal hit points, and a severed tentacle regenerates in 1d3 days. Blunt weapons cannot be used to sever tentacles.

A grell-ba-tross which forgoes a beak attack can also shriek – a powerful sonic and psionic attack which forces all creatures within a 30’ radius to make a DC 12 Fort save or lose their next action. Creatures with multiple action dice lose only their largest action die, and may still act using any additional action dice.

The venom sacs in a grell-ba-tross’s tentacles can yield 1d3 usable doses of venom with a successful Handle Poison check, and each of the six large tentacles (severed or not) can be milked of this numbing agent. This thin venom can be used as a contact poison, but if there is a way to further distill or strengthen it, it has yet to be discovered.

The true value in grell-ba-tross is in the meat of its tentacles, which is variable in flavor and can sometimes yield a high price from epicures and wealthy trenchermen. Untested grell-ba-tross tentacles can be sold for 1d6 sp each, but the potential value is higher if the seller samples a portion themselves. Even then, a buyer will wish to ascertain the flavor of a given tentacle before purchase.

1 in 20 grell-ba-tross have poisonous tentacles (1d6 damage plus DC 16 Fort or additional 2d8 damage and an additional DC 16 Fort or death). For non-poisonous tentacles, roll 1d6 and consult below:

1. You are what you eat, and this grell-ba-tross had a steady diet of garbage. Worthless.

2. Rather rubbery and gamey, but there is a lot of meat here. Worth 2d4 cp per tentacle.

3. What flavor is it? It’s bloody albatross flavored! Worth 3d10 cp per tentacle.

4. Tastes a bit like chicken. Worth 1d6 sp per tentacle.

5. Fine grainy texture and the taste of well-aged marinated beef. Worth 1d6 gp per tentacle.

6. Ambrosia steeped in nectar! These magnificent tentacles are worth 3d20 gp each!

Note that all of any specific grell-ba-tross’s tentacles have the same flavor. And, yes, grilling up poisonous grell-ba-tross tentacles to feed to regents, enemies, and overbearing supervisors has been known to occur!