Blithering Slobs
This is the first in another regular series, as if the appallingly weak spoonerism wasn't something of a clue. Blithering Slobs is another article devoted to monsters, although while Shifty Nits introduces new monsters into your campaign, this column looks at existing monsters in depth. Readers are advised that this article isn't actually very funny. Sometimes I like to write a straightforward gaming thing.
The first type of monsters this column will cover is a particular favourite of mine: the aberration. As a class of creatures they appear to have very little in common with each other. While outsiders are all natives of other planes, and vermin are invertebrates of no intelligence, aberrations run the gamut from the stupid to the terrifyingly intelligent and from the curious to the shockingly grotesque.
However, there are certain factors that they have in common. The term ‘aberration’ in its most literal sense means ‘a deviation from what is normal or expected’ and herein lies the factor possessed by all aberrations; each of them differs from convention to such an extent that they cannot readily be placed into other categories.
In many campaigns the purpose they play is to disgust or scare the characters. Some of them, such as aboleths act as masterminds, surrounded by webs of mind-controlled minions, while the rest seem to act merely as high-level arrow fodder. Part of this could be attributed to the fact that the ‘aberration’ monster group is a fairly recent invention. Before then, all the creatures of that ilk were merely strange looking and dangerous in combat. It’s time to put a stop to that and show how monsters can be truly monstrous. Without further ado, let's turn our attention to one of the newer monsters on the block; the grick.
Profuse, grovelling thanks to Kurasu Soratobu for finding errors and suggesting revisions.
Gricks
Gricks are one of the worst kinds of pest faced by low-level adventurers. While not particularly strong, their rubbery hides deflect most weapons, meaning they are either feared or, later on, regarded as oversized vermin with precious little treasure. It would seem that no adventurer who brags about killing gricks could ever expect a saga to be sung about him.
They are creatures worthy of closer attention, however. They used to be exclusively subterranean monsters, but lately they have come to the surface in search of new prey. The food is good there, and as a consequence mankind is just beginning to realise how dangerous they can be. They may not be the as obviously malicious as drow, but their menace cannot be doubted. The dwarves at least appreciate their threat. In their cities beneath the mountains mothers scare their children into obedience with stories about how gricks drag naughty young dwarves away and eat them.
Physiology
Fully-grown gricks average between five and six feet long, although the largest carcasses brought back by hunting parties have measured as much as nine feet in length. Being invertebrates, they are able to contort their sinuous bodies into a variety of positions, and move by a combination of snake-like slithering or by inching along like caterpillars or worms. Their tentacles make ideal climbing limbs, and are also used to propel them along the floor, much like a cripple would use crutches.
Gricks are carnivores. They are not particularly fussy about what they eat, as long as it is meat. They do not care if their food has been dead for days, either – the easier the meal the better they like it. While they are not large creatures, they are still stronger than the average man and are quite capable of pulling heavy loads. A typical grick is able to drag an ogre carcass away without too much trouble
Gricks have many features in common with molluscs and worms. In the eyes of a lot of unimaginative scholars, this is considered sufficient grounds for classifying the grick as an aberration. Anything that looks that unpleasant, they claim, must be an aberration. Admittedly this is a very predictable reaction since humans find the majority of aberrations disgusting. Its is long and worm-like, composed mainly of muscle a rubbery hide. They have an internal cartilaginous support system that is easily compressed, allowing them to squeeze into confined spaces without too much trouble. This ability allows them to hunt smaller prey if nothing larger is available, giving them the option of pursuing them into their burrows and lairs.
Their tentacles are much like those of squids, although gricks have more of them – four, compared to the squid’s two. These appendages bear dozens of suction cups, each containing a tooth, making them ideal weapons when hunting; a tentacle rake from a grick is effective as a well-placed thrust from a dagger. These teeth also enable gricks to grip almost any surface, making them expert climbers and allowing them to haul prey back to their lair without risk of dropping them. In fact, gricks are so similar to squids in so many respects that sages classify them as molluscs themselves. This has galled some philosophers who claim that the term ‘aberration’ should only be applied to monsters that completely defy classification of any kind. However, such thinkers are in a minority, given the ease with which such amphibians as aboleths fall into the aberrant category.
Reproduction
All recorded grick corpses appear to be genderless, possessing no readily discernible sex organs. How they breed is a mystery to the majority of sages, although anecdotal evidence exists concerning an adventurer who brought a live grick back to the surface as a pet, only to find it produced young within five months. Those who choose to believe this suspect that they are capable of asexual reproduction.
Such thinkers are in fact quite close to the truth . Gricks reproduce by budding, the buds resembling warts on their backs, growing there for two weeks before detaching. This occurs three or four times per year in an arbitrary fashion, without any seasonal pattern or specific ritual. However, all gricks are hermaphrodite rather than male or female. They fertilise externally, and are capable of preserving spores indefinitely against the contingency of being separated from potential mates.
Stealth
The similarity between gricks and the molluscs of the sea is reinforced by the fact that they all have the ability to change their skin pigmentation to a limited extent. Stealth is one thing at which gricks excel. Their bodies tend to have a variety of colours – greys, very dark greens, browns and so on. Sages suspect that gricks are developing a form of advanced chameleon power; learning to hide themselves by changing their coloration gradually. If this is the case, then this capability is likely to improve in the future, since they are in the midst of finding new habitats on the surface. At the moment, though, they seem to be best at hiding in rocky areas.