So, I was recently talking with a friend who also plays D&D, and somehow I got to thinking on how to make a gelatinous cube more interesting when I came up with the following idea.
For some reason or another, there is a sentient, self aware gelatinous cube of extremely large size that instead of being killed or attacked, was given an offer it couldn't possibly refuse. The capitol city of a nation hired it to become a fixture in the central cistern in it's sewer system, to the point that all the sewage in the city flows through it eventually and gets purified into drinking water. In exchange the cube gets a nice salary, plenty of room to grow and live for possibly thousands of years (as long as the city exists basically), and an unlimited supply of "organic material" to eat.
Now, the city the cube lives in eventually over hundreds of years acquired a bizarre reputation for having a much higher rate of solved murders than anywhere in the kingdom, to the point that the local thugs, criminals, and assassins have an almost superstitious dread of the place. Some of these criminal organizations have launched investigations to try and find out what is the source of this success, to no luck.
This is because instead of the police (which is what all the criminals have been focusing on), the cube is hired and listed under the cities maintenance department, which in itself is buried under hundreds of years of red tape, bureaucratic expansion and just enough silliness in general to make it almost impossible to find. The higher case solve rate is because the cube has become so massive over the hundreds of years it's lived in the cistern, it's body has literally expanded and squished into tentacle like filaments that reach to the river. This lets it watch anyone who dumps a body there, or in the sewer, at which point it protects the body from damage and calls its superiors.
What are some crazy, but cool ideas you've had Veeky Forums?
And mine as well. Ooooh i have an idea to add. What if that city with a single ooze underneath attracts the attention of (obviously pretty insane) Cultists of Juiblex that want to release the ooze on the world? Also there is a reason for oozes to be sentient and self-aware...if they are close enough or specificly chosen by Juiblex...See where this could be going?
Luis Robinson
You made this thread just to brag, didn't you?
Jordan Perry
The Cube could just have swallowed a Headband of Intelligence +6 at some point.
Hunter Clark
>gelatinous cube refuse disposal and P.I.
This not only works but it provides retrospective continuity on why gelatinouse cubes like to live in sewers and dungeons.
Christian Bell
Even better if the ooze is having none of it. Cultists show up only for the ooze to call the guards on them, or just eat them. If it's smart enough to make this deal in the first place, It's probably smart enough to know what happens to the creatures that cultists unleash.
Hudson Phillips
Isn't Juiblex mega evil? This jello mold sounds like an alright, reasonable sort of person.
Liam Cox
Haven't a few official modules done beneficial (non-intelligent) sewer oozes and otyghs? It's not that far of a jump to have an intelligent ooze that benefits the city even further, sure.
Luis Thompson
Why say Juiblex instead of Ghaunadaur?
A brief history of oozes: >oozes lived happily. They had ooze houses, ooze jobs, and slimegirl ooze wives. >Ghaunadaur, the god of slimes had a thing for Lolth, spider goddess of the Drow. >After his confession was turned down and gooey heart broken, Ghaunadaur took sapience from all his oozes. >worshippers = power, so ghaunadaur essentually doomed his people to be thoughtless monsters while permanently weakening himself. >All this because of heartbreak >In an effort to get more followers, Ghaunadaur took a page from tge book of Lolth and got in on all that demon worship in the abyss. >And thus came Juiblex, Ghaunadaur's avatar and Demon Lord.
It's been a while since I read up on this, but my story is at least 80% accurate.
But yeah, is Ghaunadaur still just an ancient, lost god in the eyes of the populous?
Cameron Smith
Oh yea, of all the shit in the 665 levels of the abyss, Juiblex could be the most Chaotic evil of them all. His only goal is the consuming and utter destruction of anything and everything that is not an Ooze. He cares about cultists or worships of him about as much as you care about flies landing on your hand.
Thats why any cultist of Juiblex is an insane motherfucker. But that dosent mean they cant summon something fierce trough the usage of human sacrifice and shit, thats without the fact that almost every cultist is a pretty dangerous fellow.
Anthony Murphy
Well uh...I never heard of Ghaunadaur. For all I knew juiblex is the ultimate, uncontested god of ooze and oozes only. Also he has the capacity of making oozes close to him sentient and smarter. As far as i checked Ghaunadaur can't do that.
Zachary Sullivan
I'd post my own ideas, but I honestly can't top that. Most of my ideas are pretty simple
>a cosmology that consists of one earthlike planet and a moon, both of them are inhabitable and contain intelligent life that are aware of eachother's existence, but no one remembers how to bridge the gap. >one of them is standard dark fantasy populated by humans, orks, and a dying dwarf civilization, the other is high-fantasy land filled with fae, elves, gnomes, dragons and all that shit.
Hudson Young
Juiblex IS Ghaunadaur, merely an avatar of Ghaunadaur, though. Ghaunadaur is greater, more powerful, more encompassing name.
Chase Sanders
Well shit. This changes my view of the world of badass D&D dieties to my very core. got some nice reading to do either way.
Joseph Torres
Isn't he Forgoten Realms only?
Robert Morales
I am always happy to spread the word of slimes. I hope you find a good read.
It's pretty interesting. I ran a Ghaunadaur temple as a dungeon once. They players (because why wouldn't they activate the ritual in an ancient, evil temple), summoned an aspect of Ghaunadaur that they then proceeded to fight off. It's a nice barter system, though. Sacrifice something on the altar - get sometging else you want of equal or lesser value from Ghaunadaur's attic of magical relics (and he does love living sacrifices more than his collection of magical items). They were *this* close to sacrificing a Drow NPC before the paladin decided he didn't want to fall.
Jordan Phillips
>All of this wrong Juiblex was originally a god who got his face torn off (hence faceless Lord) for emphasizing with Demonkind during that really important war with the Queen of Chaos and lost his divinity until he degenerated into Juiblex. This was retconned post Gary Gygax split however.
Ghuanadaur USES Juiblex as his avatar, as far as I remember, but this practice did stop after a while, and both are now separate entities entirely.
Ghuanadaur is the master of Ghaunadans, Slime people in the forgotten realms, and is one of the Oldest deities to date who has not changed, be subjhect to change or anything of the sort in universal events, in that ti retained it's chaotic personality since the birth of deities. Infact, If I recall, Ghaunadaur is literally the anti-Ao for lack of better word.
The guys dogma is literally batshit insane self-contradicting nonsense, and he often eats his own followers just because.
Juiblex is one of the most base of the Demon Lords in that it follows the will of the abyss to the letter, wanting nothing but wanton destruction, and was involved in the return Zargon the Destroyer on the material plane, because of the damage it would cause.
Don't know where this lolthxJuiblex shit came form, I know Ghaunadaur is a part of the commonly worshippedunderdark deities pantheons though.
Nicholas Gray
I believe so? I normally run a "any pantheon goes" kinda game when a player wants to be a cleric, so I don't keep the best track of things, but that sounds right.
Caleb Richardson
Nah, some universes have distinct variations that clash and conflict with one another, so there is often a divide.
For example, There are actually TWO BANES. The FR one, for example, is bound to the rules of portfolio adherance as are the other Faerunian deities, yet the other planes/matieral planes/Hollow Earth banes are not only different in dogma and practice, but have more flexibility in how they work.
Carson Davis
The "Juiblex was just an aspect of Ghaunadaur all along" is a relatively recent thing.
Hunter Lee
Aspects and avatars are two entirely different things.
Ghaunadaur used Juiblex as an avatar, which is like, an ambassador, willingly or unwillingly- an Outsiders Aspect is a carbon copy sent to do one's will in one's place with flimsier stats.
Camden Bailey
I mean, I'm not too on the up and up, but I'll cite my source so you can see what you can make of it. As I recall, in FR, it was revealed that he was just an aspect.
>In the Forgotten Realms, it eventually transpires that the Demon Lord Juiblex was in fact an aspect of Ghaunadaur all along, though the connection in "core" D&D never really gets a mention, but as far as chaotic entities of slime and evil go, they might as well be interchangeable.
I mean, that's a wiki & not a sourcebook, but there I don't have the time right now to track down a page number & settled to google for refreshing my memory.
Sebastian Ross
should be in the 3.5 and 2e editions of Forgotten realms deities and whatever faiths and pantheons?
Adam Anderson
Idea first appeared in BECMI expert set as a black pudding trash dissolver. An adventure hook was that the containment wall fell down during a storm and adventurers had to deal with the escaped pudding.
Chase Williams
What if the cultists are trying to corrupt the cube against its will? The most distant tips of its appendages (where the cultists struck) have turned a disturbing black. The blackness spreads through the cube like a tumor, granting its tendrils minds of their own.
Instead of preserving dead bodies to solve crimes, they consume them and produce wandering oozes creeping out from the sewers and into the city to sow chaos.
With the cube and city's help, the PCs destroy the cult, fight off the black oozes (until they assemble into the cube's evil twin) and finally remove the source of the corruption: tiny shards of a demon's crystallized essence, forcefully fed to various tendrils by the cultists.
Ethan Scott
Why stop there though? Why not make it into a gelatinous hypercube that exists in multiple cities in multiple dimensions?
Nicholas Morris
Is this every cubes' endgoal? To become loved instead of hated by the surface races?
Julian Phillips
>every time a gelatinous cube engulfs someone it's just trying to hug them >it doesn't understand that it's acidic and hurting them
