The party crawled along the cold, dead grey hallways of the alien tomb. Sullen Moc Ta 'the Decedent One' watched the warriors with concern. 'Fascinating' was all his parchment like thick lips whispered looking at the Neshligeer carvings that covered every inch of the giant alien tomb.
'Would please stop saying that?' Volo Draxen the warrior from Cor asked. You'll alert every damn thing within a hundred yards of here. The sound carries in these old tombs old friend.
And that's when the screaming started in back of them from Rus The Executor's position.
'Seems as if he was executed', was all the wizard managed before the second of the Rip Floaters came down.
Then on Que the screaming & electrical sparks started!
No Appearing:1d4
Armor Class: 4
Move:30'
Hit Dice: 4+1
% in Lair:10%
Treasure Type: G
No of Attacks:2
Damage: 1-4 & 1d12 (special)
Special Attacks: Gaze of Confusion,
Decapitation Attack, Chain Lightning, Planeshift (Ethereal/Astral)
Special Defenses: Immune to all
electrical type attacks
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Animal to Very (See
below)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Size Large: 12 foot sphere but capable
of shrinking down to a 6 inch fleshy ball.
Psionic Abilities: Nil
Attack/Defense Modes:Nil
Level/XP Value: 4/830
Rip Floaters (Neshligeer) are a
notoriously malevolent species created over twelve thousand years ago
by a long dead alien intelligence from human genetic material &
cuttle fish genes. They resemble a gas filled bag of alien organs
partially encased within a segmented carapace. Their inner,
highly-magnetic nervous tissues use the magnetic planes & poles
of planets to float or hover, as well as to manipulate levers, push
buttons, and even operate complex machinery when their intelligence
will allow it.
The intelligence of a Rip Floater waxes
and wanes over the course of 1d6 months, ranging from insanely
hostile beasts who attack without thinking, to hyper-intellectual
beings with a fondness for alien poetry, forbidden mythology, and
passion for learning. This will fade after 1d6 months by which time
the rip floater must find more victims or its intelligence will begin
to fade back down to a savage animal like state. It is for this
reason that Rip Floaters seek out suitable victims to take their
brains either to stave off their seeming inevitable intellectual
decline or to regain their mental greatness.
Rip Floaters possess the innate ability
to cast a Confusion spell up to three times per day upon any being
within a twenty foot radius. The victim must make a save vs spells
saving throw or be subject to a jarring and cosmic revelation; a
massive influx of sanity-rending revelations of the true nature of
the universe of their place within the cosmic landscape. On a failed
Save the victim can do nothing but stand frozen to the spot as the
cosmic revelations pour into their minds and souls. The Rip Floater
will then hover over the victim and extrude a mouth-appendage
equipped with hundreds of sharp teeth and attempt to decapitate its
victim, striking for 1d12 points of acidic damage. Once they have
latched onto a victim, the Rip Floater continues to roll to
hit—anything below a natural 18 yields normal damage, while a roll
of 18 or 19 results in double damage and a natural 20 means that they
have successfully decapitated their victim. Should the victim’s
head be absorbed, the flesh is stripped away by these powerful acids
and the brain absorbed into the creature, rendering the victim
impossible to revive or recover except through Regeneration, Divine
Intervention or a Wish spell.
Anyone attempting to attack the Rip
Floater during the decapitation process will be subject to painful
nerve-rending electrical attacks. When it has absorbed more than two
human or near-human heads the monster will begin to use Chain
Lighting attacks up to four times per day, within a 40 foot radius.
Rip Floaters are capable of shrinking
their body down to fleshy balls roughly six inches in diameter,
allowing them to maneuver through tight spaces when so desired.
They also have the innate ability to go
out of phase by entering the ethereal or astral plane up to three
times per day, but prefer to reserve such excursions for reproduction
liaisons or sorcerous training which most only engage in six to eight
times in their lives.
Rip Floaters have been
encountered within various alien ruins and weird dungeons on harsh
desert worlds and the frozen moons of high-yield energy gas giants.
They also show up disturbingly often around wrecked space ships. They
seem utterly fascinated by abandoned space hulks, ruined habitats,
and crashed starcraft in particular.
The Nelashtil believe the Rip Floaters
to be a decadent off-shoot of their species, but there are those who
hold that the Nelashtil are actually mutants descended from the Rip
Floaters, possibly as the result of even more gene-meddling by one or
more of the Greater Powers.
These creatures have been known to
trade victims for forbidden pieces of sorcerous lore or alien poetry
of the highest caliber. They are particularly fond of absorbing the
heads of bards, priests, and wizardly scoundrels who have broken the
taboos of their societies.
Rip Floaters love to blend into wizard
guilds and various clerical institutions through florid letter
writing and extensive social camouflage with the use of
correspondence. They have also been known to use victims whose minds
are reprogrammed through delicate magnetic surgery to act as the
floater's agents in such places.
It has been speculated among certain
alien necromancers and necrotic wizards that Rip Floaters have had
their souls trapped inside their eternally living flesh as a sort of
living Hell by some long dead race. This may be behind the rumor that
these things cannot be resurrected by any of the normal methods.
There are rumors of Rip Floaters
keeping twenty or more librarians prisoner in order to use them as
living computers after the monsters have reprogrammed their victim's
minds to serve them. The poor fools become storage units for alien
poetry, forbidden texts, odd sexual & biological texts, and
anything else the Rip Floater finds “interesting.”
1d6 Rip Floaters Rumors Table
- The Rip Floaters have an organ that is able to grant a cosmic awareness to those who consume it.
- Rip Floaters are actually the true children of the Gods & favored by those gods who would bless their children and worshipers sacred knowledge.
- They are the true children of Hell and damnation, all trace of them must be oblierated from the universe lest the demon god's knowledge escape into the universe.
- Rip Floater brains contain the secret to thousands of vaults of lost knowledge.
- There are seven arch Rip Floaters whose power is equal to the cosmic gods of knowledge.
- Rip Floaters loath humans & seek out places of treasure to consume more of the knowledge of the race to better understand their enemies!
'Art copyright 2017 Garrisonjames. Used by permission..'
Rip Floater@ copyright & trade mark Dark Corner Productions 2017