A Gossamer is a spacefaring jellyfish-like creature from the Spelljammer campaign setting.[1]
Overview[]
Gossamers are spacefaring creatures similar to terrestrial jellyfish. They travel in groups known as shoals, and usually drift among the rocks of asteroid fields and the junk of space sargassos, though they occasionally venture into open space. They scavenge leftover organic material, cleaning areas of detritus.[1]
Description[]
Gossamer resemble jellyfish, with umbrella-shaped bodies and trailing tentacles. Their soft bodies pulsate, providing them with propulsion through space. Their tentacles are armed with stinging cells and may be used to capture prey and defend against predators.
Gossamer shoals are notable for their beautiful color displays that communicate their mood. Contented gossamers are awash with waves of cool colors – green, blue and purple punctuated with bright flecks of yellow and orange. When danger threatens, waves of red and amber wash over the shoal from the point of contact. These displays lead some sages to theorize that gossamer shoals exhibit a form of group-mind.[1]
Combat[]
Like terrestrial jellyfish, standard gossamer have stinging tentacles which secret a nauseating paralytic poison. Gossamers only attack prey smaller than themselves: if the object of interest is larger than 1-foot in diameter, the shoal immediately shies away. Gossamer may accidentally collide with and sting larger creatures, or foolish crewmen may touch a dead gossamer that has landed on a ship's deck.[1]
Ecology[]
Most of a gossamer's body consists of empty space, and depends on weightlessness to maintain its structural integrity. If introduced into a gravity plane, the gossamer collapses under its own weight and dies. Air also renders the gossamer's body liquid. Dead gossamers collapse into viscous pools of evil-smelling fluid within 3 minutes. The resulting fluid is a solution of enzymes that are used by the gossamers in their stinging tentacles, and remain dangerous until they evaporate after 10 minutes.[1]
Gossamer noble[]
The so-called gossamer noble is in fact a colony of specialized life forms. The noble's umbrella-shaped body has enormous sacs that act as sails, allowing it to navigate through wildspace at spelljamming speeds (and can achieve an SR of 4). Cloudy currents and colorful lightning-like flashes fill its pearly, translucent body.
Hundreds of long, supple, hawser-like tentacles trail from the noble's base, and range in length from 50 to 500-feet. The tentacles are covered in wicked spikes that can dig into exposed flesh. A gossamer noble can use up to 20 of these tentacles in battle, paralyzing prey with their stinging tentacles, while their digestive enzymes inflict additional acid damage. These solitary predators prey on various spacefaring creatures (including small spelljamming ships) and are extremely dangerous. They are preyed upon by gammaroids and are their only natural enemies.[1]
Appendix[]
External Links[]
- Gossamer article at the Dungeons and Dragons Lore Wiki, a wiki for official Dungeons & Dragons content from every edition.
- Gossamer article at the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition Wiki, a wiki for official Dungeons & Dragons content from 2nd edition AD&D.