A Murderoid is an enormous creature native to wildspace in the Spelljammer campaign setting.[1]
Overview[]
Murderoids, so named because of their aggressive and evil nature, are perhaps the largest denizens of space. These living asteroids are fierce rock creatures that possess their own gravity and atmosphere and move about systems in search of food.[1]
Description[]
Murderoids are living asteroids with coarse, rock-like skin that is several feet thick and ranges in color from dark brown to dark gray. Their sensory organs, similar in function to eyes and ears, appear as craters and small hills. Most adult murderoids are 100 miles long (size B), or longer (size C), and their weight ranges from billions to trillions of tons. They often possess their own gravity and atmosphere, which can be up to 4 miles thick. Murderoids are fierce predators that move through wildspace in search of food, and will attack any creature smaller than themselves.
They do not speak, but are able to communicate their emotions to other murderoids by changing the color of their skin. Lighter shades represent satisfaction and pleasure. darker shades represent hunger and anger.[1]
Combat[]
Murderoids can sense living creatures up to 60,000 miles away. They are ambush predators who lure living creatures to land on their rock-like bodies. Once a creature is standing on its surface, the murderoid uses its spell-like abilities and physical attacks to prevent the creature from leaving.
All murderoid have the following spell-like abilities which can they can use three times a day: grease, dig, hallucinatory terrain, stone shape, and earthquake. A murderoid's spell-like effects are only effective within its air envelope and upon its surface.
Murderoids use their hallucinatory terrain ability to make their surfaces resemble a paradise. Once they have lured in a spelljammer ship or creature, and they have landed, the murderoid will use its stone shape ability to encase the ship or creature to prevent it from escaping. The murderoid will often use its grease or dig abilities to knock smaller creatures off their feet, or earthquake to damage the ship. After its initial assault, a murderoid will open up a mouth on its surface and physically attack its victims. A murderoid can create up to three "mouths" within a single square-mile, and up to 12 "mouths" over its entire surface. If a "mouth" is destroyed, it takes 30 minutes to regenerate.
Murderoids are immune to earthquake spells. However, a move earth spell immobilises a square-mile area of the creature for up to 6 minutes, while a stone to flesh spell will immobilise a square-mile area for up to 40 minutes.[1]
Society[]
Murderoids live to eat and continuously hunt for food. They consider all living things smaller than themselves fair game. They have no established territory, forever wandering wildspace in search of food.
Murderoids are solitary creatures; only in extremely rare circumstances will a group of murderoids be encountered. These groups usually consist of juvenile murderoids, each of which will be less than 50 miles long. From an early age, murderoids learn that status is important, and is measured by the number of ships a murderoid has collected. While the bulk of a captured ship is consumed, a murderoid usually leaves a section of the ship on its surface to display to any passing murderoids. The oldest murderoids usually have the most trophies. Sometimes a trophy will have a distress beacon on board, including flashing lights or magical items that transmit energy, and unfortunate spacefarers have been known to respond to the beacon, only to discover that they have been lured to their doom.
Murderoids mate once every 50 years, resulting in a single egg being laid on a small asteroid. Once the infant murderoid hatches, it consumes the asteroid, effectively taking its place – much to the chagrin of spacefarers who thought the small celestial body was a lifeless rock. An infant murderoid can only generate three "mouths" over its entire body, and matures into an adult over 5 years. Murderoids can live to be about 6,000 years old, generally growing at a rate of one mile in diameter for every 100 years.
A murderoids' favorite prey include kindori and radiant dragons, while their natural enemies are spacefaring dwarves.[1]
Uses[]
Certain races have been known to hunt infant murderoids, hoping to charm the creatures for their own malign purposes.
The skin of a murderoid can be used as a spell component for stone shape and hallucinatory terrain spells.[1]
Notable Murderoids[]
- The Maw was an adult mureroid which served as a hidden base for the neogi leadership in Clusterspace.[2]
Appendix[]
External Links[]
- Murderoid article at the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition Wiki, a wiki for official Dungeons & Dragons content from 2nd edition AD&D.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Jean Rabe, MC7 Monstrous Compendium Spelljammer Appendix, 1990, (TSR Inc.), Murderoid entry
- ↑ Sam Witt, The Astromundi Cluster, The Astrogator's Guide, 1993, (TSR Inc.), Celestial Features section, The Astromundi Cluster chapter, page 15