Fiend Factory 5E. White Dwarf Issue 35: The Spidron

 Issue 35 The Spidron

 

This month there’s another mini-scenario, called Lord of Kaanu, whereby the adventurers must solve the mystery of the strange behaviour of the inhabitants of the village/town Kaanu.

In fact, most of the scenario is based around the actions of the Spidron, the set-piece villain of the adventure, taken from the 70s TV series The Tomorrow People. The other three creatures in this edition are a mix of vermin that hang around the spidron’s lair.

The Beggar-Louse (by Alan Heaven “and friends”, whoever they may be) is an insect creature that gets its name from the “begging” posture it makes when threatened. They’ve got an acid spittle attack, and lay their eggs on corpses. And, that’s about it, really. A tougher sand version, a fire-resistant marsh version, and a giant version all exist. More of a flavour monster than anything.

Dark Bats, by Christopher Kirk, are kind of superceded by the darkmantle in modern editions – they “excrete” darkness so that, over a matter of years, their lairs gain the properties of progressively moe powerful variants of darkness spells. Again, more of a flavour monster really.

 

Finally, the Undead Rats, by PM Rhodes, come in skeleton and zombie versions, which thanks to templating are now pretty easy to do – see all of the various versions of The Lazy GM: Dungeon Beasts for examples. A nice touch with these is that they cause fear in normal rats.

Noticeable by their absence in this edition are Phil Masters and Roger E Moore, or indeed any of the other less regular but reliable contributors, such as Barney Sloane or Daniel Collerton. Possibly why most of the entries are quite workmanlike and lack that little sparkle of imagination.

Nothing wrong with workmanlike, though, and besides even the most mundane of creatures can be made memorable by the setting for the encounter, so all of the above are eminently useable, especially for low-level parties.

And so, I went with the Spidron, by John R Gordon (himself a repeat contributor, and his previous entries, the Creeper and the Brain Sucker, have both appeared in previous Fiend Factory “mini-scenarios” – the first un-named one with the temple in the swamp, and the later Black Manse.)

 

The first consideration when converting this creature was its type. I decided on an ooze rather than, say, an aberration, as I rather like the idea of a rare intelligent ooze creature. We get the Intelligence statistic (Genius) but no others. Since this is more of a puppeteer than a combat beast, I gave it mediocre physical stats and slightly better than average Wisdom and Charisma. I also doubled the Hit Dice to make it more 5^th Edition compatible.

The damage immunities and resistances were pretty straightforward, although I made the slow effect a bit shorter, again to bring it more in line with typical 5^th Edition mechanics.

The spidron has telepathy and ESP, which I’ve translated to the telepathy “language”, and an at-will detect thoughts as per a doppelganger.

Finally, I gave it psychic damage for its touch, which seems in keeping with the original version that “weakens the nervous system”.

That’s really it for the spidron creature – much of the abilities stem from its accoutrements, the spidron cabinet and the spidrone drug. The cabinet I gave the physical properties of a medium fragile object, the spidrone drug is a bit like Burnt Uther of 3^rd Edition; I see it as being more of a background feature used on NPCs than a weapon against PCs, but perhaps a more horror/mystery/roleplay heavy spidron scenario could involve a bit of cat-and-mouse. 

Spidron

Medium ooze, neutral evil

Armour Class 10 Hit Points 45 (10d8) Speed 30 ft.

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA 10 (+0) 10 (+0) 10 (+0) 18 (+4) 12 (+1) 14 (+2)

Proficiency Bonus +2 Damage Immunity cold Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing and slashing from nonmagical attacks Condition Immunities blinded, deafened, charmed , exhaustion, grappled, paralysed, petrified, poisoned, prone, restrained Senses blindsight 60 ft., passive Perception 10

Languages all (telepathy 120 ft.)

Challenge 4 (1,100 XP)

Alternate Form. The spidron can use its bonus action to assume its liquid form. In liquid form it has a speed of 5 feet per round, and is immune to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage. It must spend one hour in its cabinet to return to humanoid form. Cold Susceptibility. If the spidron takes cold damage, it is not damaged but is slowed until the end of its next turn. Detect Thoughts. The spidron can detect thoughts, as the spell, at will. ACTIONS

Draining Touch. Melee Spell Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 9 (2d8) psychic damage. If this reduces a living creature to 0 hit points, the creature is not dying but falls into a cataleptic state for 24 hours, during which time it cannot it awakened by natural means. If the creature awakens from the cataleptic state it does so with 1 hit point.

Spidron Cabinet. The spidron’s cabinet is a silver and glass box, about 3 feet by 3 feet by 6 feet. I has AC 13, 10 hit points, and the spidron is usually very careful to conceal it. The cabinet can hold up to 3 charges. If the spidron spends one hour in the cabinet and expends one charge, it can maintain its humanoid shape for up to 72 hours.

If a living humanoid is placed in the cabinet, the creature is drained of all life-force, and cannot be brought back to life via resurrection or less powerful magic. This act restores one charge to the cabinet, and produces 1d6 doses of spidrone.

Spidrone. This is an odourless blue-grey powder created by draining life from a humanoid creature in the spidron cabinet. If burnt, it produces a cloud of purple smoke that covers a cube roughly 10 feet per side for every dose burnt. Any creature that inhales this smoke must make a DC 13 Wisdom saving throw or enter a sluggish, suggestible state where it will obey commands given telepathically by the spidron. A creature in this state is incapable of independent action, and is only able to perfom simple, menial, tasks. The creature can make a new saving throw every 24 hours to break free from the effects, which will wear off after 72 hours in any event, unless the creature is subjected to spidrone smoke again before this period ends.