Ooze

The Ooze is a type of slime only found in the ruined city of Beckenfell, in Olbrecht.

## Background

### History

The curse of Malchoir knew no limits to its cruelty and malice. Once the capital of Olbrecht, Beckenfell was a city that featured a complex system of canals along with its streets, which were used for transport and trade. Located in the center of a large lake, the stone city sat elevated above the water, a testament to the kingdom's skill in architecture. Beckenfell served as both the capital of Olbrecht as well as its cultural and trade center for centuries until the transformative calamity was laid by the god of sorcery, and its citezens were met with a gruesome fate; melted down and turned into a single slimy green mass, this collective Ooze eventually sank into the famous canals of Beckenfell, replacing its water. The gelatinous mass has an insatiable appetite, and rarely gets to feed.

### Characteristics and Weaknesses

The gates to the abandoned city are locked, so the Ooze remains in a static sleep most of the time. It resembles scummy, stagnant water as it sits motionless in the canals and sewers of Beckenfell, and uses this camouflage to lure unsuspecting birds close enough to grab at it with sticky tendrils and be consumed. On the rare occasion that the Ooze encounters a humanoid, it will act more patiently to secure its meal. This suggests an underlying intellect in the mass of collective consciousnesses, though its behavior can sometimes contradict this. Despite its convincing camouflage, if looked at long enough it's easy to tell there is something off about it; when the Ooze is confident enough that it can successfully grab its prey, it lurches upward in a lunging form, and when angered, its surface bubbles and turns red. Its massive pool of a body is acidic, and can dissolve flesh in mere seconds. This makes touching it very dangerous, and fighting it with weapons is an ill-advised idea. The sheer scale of this mass of slime also makes defeating it not an option either, though it is vulnerable to certain magic which can slow it down. Fire magic can burn and evaporate parts of the collective Ooze, though this releases noxious fumes into the air. Cold magic is the better option of the two, as it can freeze portions of it solid, granting valuable time to escape. Ooze's body is acidic enough to melt skin, but not bone. This means if one were to peer through its slightly opaque surface, they would see piles upon piles of countless bones, both from the original civilians that became the Ooze in the first place, and from their many victims.

### Impact

The lake that Beckenfell once sat on is now dried up, and the sewers are entirely open, making them the only way to enter the city. Few ever go near the dried up lake basin however, as the singular pool of living Ooze that fills the channels of the ruined city are known to nearby civilizations and travelers. Intrepid adventurers who desire to recover one of the city's many artifacts for profit typically never return, as they aren't fully aware of the dangers that lie just beyond the entrance tunnels outside the overgrown walls. The innocuous appearance of the Ooze insures that only the paranoid will suspect anything of it.