Brand New OSR Monster - The Rip Floater For Your Old School Campaigns

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!

Rip Floater(Neshligeer)
Frequency: Rare

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

1. The Rip Floaters have an organ that is able to grant a cosmic awareness to those who consume it. 
2. Rip Floaters are actually the true children of the Gods & favored by those gods who would bless their children and worshipers sacred knowledge. 
3. 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. 
4. Rip Floater brains contain the secret to thousands of vaults of lost knowledge. 
5. There are seven arch Rip Floaters whose power is equal to the cosmic gods of knowledge. 
6. 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