Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Gelbore

"Can he be restored, or has ...this... gone too far?"

"Restored? No. Look at him. Barely a face, his skin is mostly liquid, his bones are beginning to bend. No. He's been using the Hard Candy for too long, in too large a dose, like a greedy sweet-pig. I can stitch him a new skin. It'd only be a temporary fix, really. I have some good wormhide on-hand. But that'd be a bit of bother. He's practically a Gelbore now."

"Gelbore?"

"Bone-thieves. Wicked, misshapen wretches like the boy here, their flesh is reduced to a gelatinous mess, but for some reason they don't entirely deliquesce, at least not right away. They slither around catacombs and ossuaries trying to scavenge bones. They eat bones. Absorb them, really. It forestalls the inevitable. Damned pains in the ass. They've ruined any number of shrines, churches or reliquaries and only the Bone Guard ever really do anything about them. It's no life for this one. Kinder if you killed him."


Gelbore (Bone-Thieves)
No. Enc.: 1d4
Alignment: chaotic
Movement: 30' (10')
Armor Class: 7
Hit Dice: 2
Attacks: 2
Damage: 1d4/1d4
Save: F1
Morale: 4

Squishy, flabby cowards with literally no backbone, the Gelbore slink and slubber about in the dim, dark regions where they seek out bones to scavenge. They are not very adept at getting bones from prey that actively resist their clumsy, sloppy attacks, so they desecrate shrines, plunder ossuaries, feed on the chained-skeletons confined beneath certain sanctuaries, and have been known to devour saintly relics. Any bone is as good as another to them--as long as it isn't too much trouble for them to get at it.

Once they were as human as anyone else. But they became addicted to Hard Candy. Their daily intake exceeded the recommended limits, often by a wide margin. In short order they began to undergo a transformation, not the full-on Vile Transformation that comes from abusing the White Powder, but instead their flesh and bones melt and reform into a gelatinous mass that exudes a bitter-smelling, bone-dissolving fluid that they leave behind them like a snail as they wriggle and writhe their way along dark passages and cemetery tunnels. Some say they are lucky to have escaped the vile transformation most victims of White Powder derivatives go through. But once they finally die, their grotesque bodies melt away into Loathsome Masses, so it wasn't much of a reprieve from the inevitable after all.

Butchers sometimes keep one or more Gelbores confined to a pit in order to dispose of bones they can't otherwise trade to someone else for whatever reasons.

There are several different bounties and rewards posted for anyone who can conclusively prove that they have destroyed a Gelbore, however transporting or harboring a live Gelbore is a capital offense, so it can be something of a challenge to collect on any of these offers...that said, the Todtenhilzig will always be pleased to receive word of the whereabouts of a Gelbore, but few, if any, want much to do with such despicable creatures. No one is quite sure what the nasty little people actually do with the Gelbores they capture...and it's probably not a good idea to ask...



Source: The Gelbore were mentioned in passing by Hedrard in Bujilli, Episode 23.

2 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. And they're a real nuisance down among the ancient ossuaries and catacombs...

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