Saturday, June 13, 2009

Grognard's Grimoire: Shoggoth

Shoggoth

Armor Class: 6

Hit Dice: 12
Attacks: Pseudopods (3d8)
Saving Throw: F7
Special: Immunities, Regenerates
Move: 10
Challenge Level: 15/2900 XP

Nightmarish congeries of self-luminous protoplasmic bubbles, forming temporary eyes and pseudopods as necessary, shoggoths are eons-old creations of the Eld, using them both as servants and as the raw material from which they fashioned many other aberrant servitors. Fortunately, these original shoggoths -- true horrors! -- are rare, most of them having been destroyed during the turmoil that ended the Eldritch dominion over the world. The Thulians in their latter days followed in the footsteps of the Eld and created their own shoggoths and it's these creatures this entry describes. Eldritch shoggoths are vastly more powerful and would have correspondingly more impressive statistics.

Shoggoths, though amorphous, generally cover a 15-foot diameter circle and can attack opponents from any direction. Attacks that roll 4 higher than the needed number (or double the number required to hit) result in the shoggoth's enveloping its target and drawing it into its body, where it will be wholly digested in 12 rounds. Fire and electrical-based attacks do only half damage to shoggoths, as do all non-magical weapons of any sort. Shoggoths regenerate 2 hit points per round and this regeneration stops only with the creature's death; nothing else will impede it.

8 comments:

  1. Best shoggoth art evar.

    Also, one of the pics I think of when I want to get into the imaginative groove of Carcosa.

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  2. Speaking of great art, Erol Otus's Cthulhu work is fabulous.

    And who doesn't love a shoggoth?

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  3. Shoggys? Sooooo cool

    re: the engulf effect. Is there any way of escaping this? or is the poor glomphed target simply a dead man?

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  4. Hee! I love Shoggoths.
    Maybe I'm just weird, but I even think they're sort of cute (in a grotesque way).

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  6. Otus + Lovecraft = awesomeness

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  7. Erol Otus, you mad, magnificent bastard! :)

    His art for the Cthulhu Mythos really shaped how I think of several of those critters, including especially the Shoggoth.

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  8. i came to discover lovecraft via erol's art. awesome, awesome stuff! he imbued those creatures with a terrible friendliness! almost makes you want to go up and pet one, until you discover it's too, too, late... ;-)

    i think i'll throw a shoggoth at my party soon...

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