Lifeforms · Fauna · Forest/ Jungle
Voracious Slug
Nothing like a slug to clean up a mess...
Full Description
A huge, (usually) yellow-green slug nearly 1 foot in length with an absolutely voracious appetite.
Additional Information
The voracious slug is a creature that results from a normal garden slug having a diet nearly exclusively of the remains of enchanted plant material. The magical diet infuses the slug with its power, increasing it's size and providing odd magical effects. They are capable of eating their own weight in organic material daily.
The slugs are generally inoffensive - one can kill them easily. To someone unconscious or paralyzed, they are a deadly threat as they will attempt to devour such victims.
Another factor are strange magical mutations they have acquired as a result of their diet. Some of these render individual slugs more dangerous, or simply strange. One can generate their abilities on the accompanying table, or create your own.
Magical Mutations
1 - Slug's mucus is poisonous, with highly variable contact poison effect.
2 - Slug flickers in and out of invisibility.
3 - Has chameleon ability.
4 - Explodes if slain.
5 - Dissolves into ooze (temporarily) if attacked. Will reform later.
6 - Can spit mucus up to 10' away. Might be poisonous, caustic, nausea-inducing, or extremely sticky.
7 - Has the ability to transform into a swarm of tiny slugs if disturbed.
8 - Has electric shock touch. Slime trail will conduct this charge.
9 - Sprouts dragonfly wings and flies.
10 - When threatened, enlarges to 10' in length. Woah!
11 - Randomly shifts form when excited to different small-sized creatures.
12 - Can teleport short distances.
13 - Can engulf objects twice it's size (Familiars watch out!)
14 - Splits into two smaller slugs if damaged. New slugs retain this ability.
15 - Mucus is acidic. Leaves smoking slime trail.
16 - Bursts into a mass of mucus if slain. Mucus is poisonous, caustic, nausea-inducing, or extremely sticky.
17 - Capable of speech, but dreadfully stupid.
18 - Capable of speech and sounds very intelligent. However it is as stupid as normal slugs and its words are polysyllablic word salad.
19 - Slug moves much faster then normal
20 - Roll twice on this table.
As an odd, magical creature, they are rarely encountered. Depending on magical properties, they could have a variety of uses. If they were to escape the magical gardens that spawned them, their offspring would not possess the magic attributes of their parents, due to the dependance on the magic foliage.
The slugs themselves are not very palatable as food, but their corpses retain sufficient magical energy to serve as minor manna batteries. This effect is short lived and dead slugs lose this residual enchantment after a couple of days.
Plot Ideas
Being the results of exposure to a diet of magical plant matter, these creatures should be rather rare. Similar occurances could happen at other sources of magic - chaos rifts, powerful artifacts or the like. The presence of these critters may be used as a sign that something interesting is nearby.
They could make a rather odd familiar for a mage, one which was okay with mucus.
The slugs could be 'farmed' and harvested for use as manna batteries, though the magic required to sustain the plants themselves would require enough magic to make the exercise inefficent. Perhaps at the site of a natural Chaos rift...
For reference, I HATE slugs...
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This is really odd, but I like it. In my world, mages carry around gems which they use to refuel their mana. In yours, they carry around slugs...
*fan of valadaar's tables* :)
plot hooks 2 and 3 are quite nifty, and stir the imagination.
Ewwwww. Slugs make a nasty pop when you step on them. The thought of taking out the garbage one misty morning and suddenly being tossed on my head because the slug I stepped on just became 10 feet long made me laugh. I'll not step on them for another reason now...
Now this is a funny one! A sweet little idea that just makes you go 'Huh?'. I like it.
Ha! Giant mutating slugs? Now that's roleplaying.
Random thought: Seeing as most slugs also eat carrion, including their own dead, could one of these slugs not eat it's fallen brethren, gaining their abilities and becoming some sort of uber-slug? I certainly hope so.
This is a great creature entry with definite in-game potential.
Love that idea! :)
Gotta love slugs. And magical mutation tables. And CyrrusWind's idea.
19 scares me. A slug's only weakness is its lack of speed. :p