Erupting Slime

[zuljita]

Any thoughts on why they don't just take over any region they exist in? They are fairly hard to kill, do solid damage at range and can multiply any time they kill something.

Where should they live and what keeps them from spreading?

[Kromm]

While hard to kill with an axe or a Fireball spell, they're not especially hard to do in with large-area injury. A big fire comes readily to mind: Move 1 is pathetic, so even ordinary villagers can just torch an area and watch the fire do 1d-1 per second to all the slimes, who won't be able to escape readily. (In fact, "Kill it with fire!" is probably the general response of ordinary folks to any monster, because it's basically free and good against most low/no-Move Diffuse baddies, incinerates spider webs, and keeps trolls and vampires from coming back.)

The lack of corpses will limit reproduction, too. In a world with zombies and necromancers, nobody leaves those just sitting around. Cremation is likely standard – and even if not, these slimes have no special tunneling ability to help them get at dead people six feet deep.

Finally, it's up to the GM what prey these slimes seek. "Anything that moves" is a fun description but essentially color. Slimes that stalk specific prey are even more affected by a lack of suitable corpses.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Kromm

The lack of corpses will limit reproduction, too.

In a world with zombies and necromancers, nobody leaves those just sitting around.

Presumably the slimes generate their own corpses. This isn't a huge problem if they can only reproduce on human corpses, but if they can reproduce on animals an infestation would be rather hard to control.

[Kromm]

All of which said, "Where do they live?" is a valid question. It's quite possible they live only in areas cut off from the world by desert, rock, lava, or whatever. Within those isolates, they've turned everything alive into slime – although that still leaves anything with Immunity to Poison unscathed, as their attack is purely toxic (a lot of things have Immunity to Poison . . . it's among the most common of monster traits). With IQ 0, they won't be inventively seeking new territories, and might even be confined by especially twisty tunnels.

[zuljita]

by your reckoning what is the definition of a corpse to an erupting slime?

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by zuljita

by your reckoning what is the definition of a corpse to an erupting slime?

I think it's most fun if that changes from slime to slime. Humanoids are a given, or why should adventurers care? Still . . .

Perhaps IQ 6+ is required, as the slimes consume brains and convert the body as a side effect.

Also, as slimes are SM 0, they won't be engulfing SM +1 and +2 cattle, work animals, boars, large carnivores, etc. Whether engulfing SM -1 or smaller corpses will suffice is an open question. Perhaps SM 0 is the sweet spot.

There could be other filters besides, as this is fantasy. Maybe slimes made by engulfing human corpses can only engulf and convert other humans, and so on for elves, trolls, and whatnot. But at IQ 0 – and relying on Vibration Sense to hunt – this won't stop them from pelting everything that moves, convertible or not.

[martinl]

In my mental model, a lot of stuff that would destroy all of nature if it got out of the dungeon is either inhibited by Druidic Sanctity/Nature's Strength, or dependent on some sort of Dungeon Sanctity that PCs are not specifically aware of. Keeps it in places like dungeons, haunted ruins, and wizard's labs.

"Dungeon Sanctity" is actually a pretty useful concept in general, if you are willing to run with it (but is otherwise a derail so I'll stop here).

[zuljita]

Originally Posted by martinl

"Dungeon Sanctity" is actually a pretty useful concept in general, if you are willing to run with it (but is otherwise a derail so I'll stop here).

I'd actually like to hear you expand on this, either in this thread or elsewhere.

[Kromm]

A lot of monsters would indeed destroy all of nature if they weren't contained by something. The default "something" amounts to the whim of The Powers That Be – gods, Mother Nature, great spirits, demon lords, Things Man Was Not Meant To Know, etc. – as embodied by the GM. This is fantasy, and just as it empowers impossible creatures, it can keep them in check.

Of course, heroes are supposed to be an element in this homeostasis. The core idea is that only they encounter most monsters on the regular, so only they have to worry about the effects of the monsters winning. When villages are endangered, heroes are called in long before the continent is turned into Slimeville.

The above two statements taken together might help explain why The Powers That Be put up with resurrection . . .

But anyway, it's safe to assume that anything that can devastate a village, town, city, principality, kingdom, empire, or world – or that's capable of genocide, or even unmaking Creation – is so rare and so confined to Bad Places Only Heroes Go that "What can this thing do to adventurers?" is a far more salient question than "What can this thing do to the setting?" While "ecology of monsters" articles are fun, they're kind of nonsense in a world that has interventionist deities and master warriors who can defeat armies.

[martinl]

Originally Posted by zuljita

I'd actually like to hear you expand on this, either in this thread or elsewhere.

Well, it's your thread. Idea originally came up in GURPS DF in the context of GEBS theory, here:

Dungeon Sanctity Noodling

While Peter's idea of giving everything in the dungeon a higher purpose dependant on the dungeon level it was on is definitely one to keep in your back pocket, the original idea of "there is just some supernatural force that makes dungeons happen" needs no specific mechanics and just Explains. So. Much.