### Other Monsters and Denizens of the Beneath

You may come across some of these other fiendish foes elsewhere:

- The Rooted Empire

- Guards, or the Poppy Brigade
- Rattleserpents
- Adders
- Wubbas
- The Living Tar
- The Awakened Mud
- The Forbidden Gel
- Spiders
- Goblins
- Aumtlich
- Waterskippers and their nests
- The Seep

It is rumored that there are still worse foes in the Beneath, but none have returned to tell the tale.

You may also wish to read a more detailed description of the underlying mechanics of monster movement patterns

### Guards, or the Poppy Brigade

While the Empire and Beethro Budkin would disagree on many aspects of life, the universe and everything... there is one thing on which they would both at least partially agree. Namely, the use of a sword. A Really Big One, or otherwise.

The formation of the Guards of the Poppy Brigade predated the first Slayer by several years, and their tactics are substantially different. They are not grown in vats, but recruited from the uncounted number of Empire citizens, and trained in pathfinding tactics and the use of a sword, engaging in weekly mock battles with each other until they are proficient at fighting both sworded and unsworded beings. They still suffer from a tendency to always keep their sword pointed towards an enemy at the expense of moving, which ironically enough makes them easier to be flanked. They lack the acute self-preservation and caution instincts of a Slayer, and are untrained in hand-to-hand combat, making them weaker when fought one-on-one and helpless if they cannot use their sword. However, while there are only a few hundred Slayers at any one time, there are many thousands of Poppies, often allowing them to overwhelm their opponent with sheer numbers.

They fulfill a vital role in controlling the non-human denizens of the Empire, if a roach infestation or a goblin is out of control, then a squadron of Poppies are sent in to slice up the problem. When off-duty, some patrol ceaselessly, looking for trouble, but most just relax and rest.

The phenomenon of Poppies, the Dugandy Royal Guard and the ancient warriors of Tueno being so similar in both uniform, tactics and outlook is still under investigation, and has lead to the formation of a new but small department, lead by 1st Coincidence Investigator

### Rattleserpents

Blue serpents, also called "Rattleserpents" or derogatorily as "Rattlesnakes", are the most recent breed of serpent that has been discovered. They are almost identical to their red counterpart, but rattleserpents are weak at their tail instead of their head. In order to destroy a rattleserpent, an exterminator must hit the serpent's tail with their sword in order to shorten in. This means that a thirty foot (Six tile long) long snake will require an exterminator to hit the serpent's tail a total of five times in order to kill it. If a rattleserpent gets trapped in a dead end, then it remains stationary.

When first discovered, it was believed that breeds of serpents moved very randomly. Only recently has the Guild started to accept theories that claim there is a specific pattern to their movement that involve them changing directions after certain multiples of moves. This makes it much easier to predict a serpent's moves.

Diagonal movement by a delver was, at one point, critical in its sucessful removal from a dungeon, but Orthagonal Squares have recently put delvers on the same field as a snake. When that happens, the best thing to do is to try to stay the same amount of moves away from the serpent's head as possible as you try to lead it into a corner.

### Adders

The Empire created the green Adders after Serpents and Rattleserpents, when it transpired that both Rattleserpents and Serpents could essentially be rendered useless by being lured into dead ends. Luring an Adder into a completely sealed dead end will result in the delver not being able to dispose of the Adder, as the head is unreachable.

Unlike other serpents, Adders have enlarged heads which allow them to consume other monsters, with the exception of Rock Giants and all types of serpent. They grow one tile for each monster eaten. Adders will also eat the pile of boulders that is left when a Rock Golem or Giant is killed.

Unfortunately, this dramatic increase in size made the head a vulnerable area. With each stab to the head, the Adder will shrink one tile. There are other methods of killing them, however: they will explode if a bomb or Fegundo explosion affects their head; they can be dropped from bridges; and Adders will shrink like Serpents if trapped by their own bodies or that of another Adder.

### Wubbas

Wubbas are strange, strange creatures. They have no discernible eating habits, though it's surmised that they eat lichen and the occasional squashed corpse by ingesting it through their porous skin. There have been reports of them eating larger creatures, but usually this requires them to be in a mushy form beforehand. This is no problem for the wubbas - the outer portion of their body is soft and fluffy, rather like a marshmallow, but they have a harder core where presumably the internal organs are. That is, if the skin does not itself take care of some of the functions we normally associate with, say, the stomach or the spleen. If they spot a meal, the wubbas will rush to it, unless they can't actually get to it by going straight for it, in which case they normally just give up until they try again a few seconds later. They follow it around until they can get it in such a position where they can smush it. Or so it's thought by those who support the Porous Theory. It's possible they are just really, really bored and follow new things around like puppies in fits of excitement, evidenced by the excited little noises they make when a smitemaster tries to pierce the thick, bouncy skin. We may never know for sure.

Wubbas get their name from a common childhood toy that looks just like them - a big white blob. These are everywhere because they can be specially molded, put together with love, and sold for hundreds to a family with more money than sense. Or a poor parent can just grab a pillowcase, stuff it with something cuddly, sew it up into a vaguely oval shape and present to thankful child.

### The Living Tar

The Living Tar is one of the most intimidating sights seen in the Beneath. It's not hard to see why. Not because it has a very thick outer skin, held together by a very strong form of surface tension (indeed, unless it's stabbed on a flat part where you can get a sword in far enough, it won't even break). Not because it can grow up and over walls, covering them completely in blue goop (the only way to uncover them being to plough into it). Not because it forms rubbery, stable globules of tar that block up vital passageways that won't be broken by the strongest thrust. Not even because it can split into completely separate, sentient, savage entities called tar babies when there isn't enough surface tension left to hold solid chunks of tar together. It's because everything the tar does, even when it only looks like a slightly transparent glob that just visibly pulses like an infernal blood vein, seems to be infused with malice.

What's worse - sometimes a Tar Mother, which only ever appears as a pair of bulging eyes glaring out of their lair, will reside deep within the tar. She isn't content until the entire cavern is covered with tar and her babies. Occasionally she will close her eyes, concentrate, and will the tar to grow outwards. She can even coax tar that's been separated from the main body to grow until it rejoins the rest of the tar.

### The Awakened Mud

Just like the Living Tar, the Awakened Mud is a sticky creation of the Rooted Empire. A couple of years ago, the 583rd Tar Technician, in sudden inspiration, created it. As soon as that happened, he became the 1st Mud Coordinator, and managed to sway several of his friends to become Mud Coordinators as well. This substance caused the tar monopoly to be broken, as architects now have a choice of substances. The mud team is also a younger and more dynamic group of people, and they have helped make the reddish substance much more popular than anyone could have expected.

Awakened Mud is very similar to tar in many ways, but opposite in the most important of them. Rather than being vulnerable at the sides, Mud can only be cut at its corners, and is protected on the edges of it. If you are on the outside of mud, this means that it is impossible to have a slab of mud that is uncuttable. If you are on the inside, you must be extremely cautious, as it can be very easy to end up in a box of mud with no way out.

A Mud Mother performs the exact task as a Tar Mother. Every thirty turns, the Mud Mother will cause all of the mud in a room to expand by one square. If mud is unable to continue a form of at least two squares wide and two squares long, Mud Babies will be formed. Mud Babies use the same logic as roaches do.

Stable mud itself, for the most part, is a breeze. As long as you are on the outside of it, there is practically no way to have an uncuttable piece of mud. In order to be able to escape from a mass of Mud, a delver must make sure that he has at least one side of free space or wall that he is able to escape to. As soon as a delver is encased in mud, it will be impossible to escape.

### The Forbidden Gel

Long ago, the Rooted Empire engineered live gel, a substance similar to the Living Tar. At some point, though, the gel was considered to be too dangerous, and the Empire's powerful Tar Authority didn't want competition, so they forbade the use of it.

Much later on though, the gel started appearing again. Several accounts have suggested that not only has the Empire started using gel again, but some on the surface have as well.

This green substance is much stickier and more viscous than its tar and mud counterparts, and because of that, it is only cuttable on its inside corners. Additionally, gel has two unique major differences from tar and mud, as a result of its high viscosity. The first major difference is that its babies, being extra sticky, follow the movement logic of wubbas and rock golems, unlike tar and mud babies, which use roach logic. The other major difference is that gel mothers, with their ability to expand their influence hindered by the gel's increased tension, can only expand masses of gel they're contained in, as opposed to tar and mud mothers, which grow all tar or mud in the room.

### Spiders

If anything could be said to be the evidence of a malevolent mind at work in the dungeons, it would be spiders. Spiders appeared twenty or so years ago, almost out of nowhere (figuratively and in actuality). They just so happened to not be the traditional dark colors of the smaller, aboveground spiders, but instead a strange shade of blue that exactly matched the color of a popular style of floor tiling. This rendered spiders almost invisible on that flooring. Smitemasters learned to stare real hard to catch glimpses of the spiders when their red, beady eyes were visible. But no more.

There were many complaints by smitemasters, excavators, and building crews. Dungeon owners themselves were sick of hearing complaints when prospective smitemasters learned they had used the infamous Palace style in their dungeon. Needless to say, they were also and a little concerned that they themselves might be killed without warning while touring their dungeon. In time, the Architect's Association officially recalled the style. That would have been the end for the spiders. They're none too bright and on every other type of floor they could have been spotted a mile off, if it hadn't been observed that spiders have, somehow, recently learned to change their skin color at will. This, it is believed, is no mere mutation.

### Goblins

Goblins are one of the few denizens of the Beneath that are smart enough to match wits with intruders from above. They're cunning, wily, and even speak a vague approximation of the aboveground language. Their society is a rudimentary, tribal culture that exists in pockets of the Beneath, usually at the lower, safer levels of dungeons. Goblins having occasional contact with humans have assimilated the more materialistic values of the abovegrounders. Sometimes they dabble in making small wooden ornaments with varying degrees of skill. This, however, grates at the soul, and often they'll just give up and mug passers-by instead. Those rare goblins who are integrated into human society, having learned not to attack people and get taken out into the streets and killed, usually take menial jobs. Thankfully, they enjoy the simplicity and directness of the work as opposed to the politicking and bickering that accompanies more cerebral endeavors humans undertake, and for the most part they are treated kindly.

Isolated groups of goblins usually work quite differently. While very simple and sometimes brutal, their society is surprisingly advanced, with complex belief systems. These are usually eroded by their first contact with humans. When they attack, they tend to go for the back, believing that honor takes a second place to staying alive.

### Aumtlich

Rumors of unknown monsters are common in any society that sets great store on daring deeds done. Most can simply dismissed as 'The roach that got away;' but the most experienced smitemasters know that there is a grain of truth in every rumor. Some of these ancient rumors describe a species that exists in the deepest dungeons - one with a burning hatred of all people, a burning hunger for slaughter, and a burning gaze that instills a petrifying fear into everything it sees. It is believed that these gaunt beasts have been extinct for many generations, if they exist at all. Other people claim that they still live, lurking under the beds of naughty children who refuse to finish their leaf juice.

Recently, the journal of the noted dungeon-fauna-documentary producer Jaato Scrikely was discovered, which gives some weight to this rumor. Though badly burned, the last few pages were barely legible. The last recorded entry ends with: "The citizens called this area 'The Aumtlich Training Grounds.' There are thin beasts that are working on focusing their gaze into a steady, firey gaze. I mustn't let them see me; some of what they looked upon was starting to smoulder! Though I wonder, what is the proper plural form? Aumtlich? Aumtliches? Aumtlichen - Hah, that sounds like some kind of plant. Wait, did I say that out loud? They're turning towards me, and aren't looking happy. I should get" -

The rest of the entry is badly burned and beyond recognition. Many Smitemasters hope this journal is fake made in poor taste, as no such creatures have been seen. Almost all Smitemasters, though, have taken to checking under their beds each evening - just to be safe.

### Waterskippers and their nests

Waterskippers are carnivorous animals, occuring naturally throughout the Eighth. Recently, the Rooted Empire has engineered Waterskippers to live underground, and has employed them to defend their tunnels. When Onsuary floods strike dungeons, the Empire uses the underground lakes to insert waterskippers.

After reaching maturity, two Waterskippers will make a nest on the water, scavenging branches from nearby areas and solidifying them into rough piles with their saliva. After the nest is finished and a brief mating dance is performed, the female occupies the nest and begins to spawn offspring at a prodigious rate, three times faster than the roach queen, itself no slouch in this department. The offspring immediately begin to look for food, seeking any nearby prey. Waterskippers do not leave the water as a rule but will leap onto land to attack. The Waterskippers' unwary prey can easily become overwhelmed by the sheer number of attacking beasts.

### The Seep

To call these creatures "Simple vapors living inside of walls" makes them seem less deadly then they actually are. Although the Empire has just recently been successful in developing a prototype and are only testing them in selective dungeons, they have already created panic and fright inside of the Guild's halls. Before their existance, a Smitemaster could always feel a bit safer when his back was at the wall. Now, they have to watch out for their presense, lest they become a victim to the poisonous gas that they are.

Seep are able to travel on both walls and doors. If a door is opened while seep are on it, then they will die. They can also be removed by a strike with a standard issue sword. Although the creature's contents are complicated, the actual movement is very simple. In fact, they move almost exactly the same as a standard dungeon roach, meaning they will always come directly towards you. The difference between the two is that while a roach will prefer to move vertical if given a choice, a seep will choose which ever one will bring it closer to you. The only problem is getting them to reach the edge of a wall or a door so, like roaches and most other dungeon creatures, you will have to be careful where you lead seep to.

And in case you wondered, seep is used for both singular and plural useage. In other words, you could have a seep in the room, or you could have many seep in the room.

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