Everyman Minis: Mutative Mucks

This Everyman Mini clocks in at 11 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 6 pages of SRD, leaving us with 3 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

So, on the introductory page, we have something I really like – notes on harvesting mutating much, i.e. creature remnants. I don’t know why, but the notion of using parts of magical creatures to supplement your magical effects has always appealed to me immensely. (As an aside: Playground Adventures’ Creatures Components Vol. I is THE resource for that sort of thing…) Each muck yields 3 doses, plus one dose per size category above Small. Heal or Survival may be used as a substitute for Craft (alchemy). The item is properly codified – Monster Blood Tonic. When you consume it, you’re affected by the mutative muck’s subtype’s consume ability for 1 minute. If you drink a second tonic within 24 hours, the effects become permanent, and 1d20 hours later, something goes horribly wrong, subject to GM’s approval. Yep, whip out your mutation tables, ladies and gentlemen! J Some ideas are btw. provided. Nice one!

Mutative Muck, as a baseline, is depicted as a CR 5 ooze, and whenever it takes damage, it regenerates 5 hit points and gains a growth point. When the ooze consumes a creature that’s been dead no more than an hour, it gains a growth point, if it’s of the same size as the muck or smaller, 2 points if the target creature consumed is larger. Eating a creature takes a full-round action, and every time, these guys get 5 growth points, they get the giant creature simple template, up to a maximum of Gargantuan. When a muck doesn’t get growth points, its size reverts at the rate of one template per day. Capable of massive suction, striking these with a weapon can disarm you, and whenever th muck hits a target with a slam attack, the target must save or be affected by one of 6 effects from the mutative muck’s weirdification table. As hinted at before, consuming these mucks has mutative properties.

So that is the base-chassis of the creature. There are no less than 5 different mutative muck subtypes included, all with their own consume-effects and weirdification tables. Two of these tie in with Everyman Gaming’s phenomenal Microsized Adventures – gigantifying grimes and microsizing mires can modify the creature’s size – and the weirdification effects? They’re awesome! The Gigantifying Grime’s table, for example, include having the head swell to an impossible size, making the target count as one size category larger for purposes when you need to squeeze. What about thickening and elongating, which imposes a penalty to AC and the sickened condition. What about having arms shrink to the size of stubs? Yeah, these are fun. When you encounter a polymorphic pollution, you risk having your head transform into that of an animal or vermin – with the corresponding Intelligence! And yep, you can end up being mindless! You could also potentially lose a pair of locomotive limbs!

Regression Wretch makes you younger, and can feeblemind you, turn you into an infant, etc. – while withering wretch is the other side of the coin, potentially aging you! And yeah, this, obviously, can be used in conjunction with the age-modifying rules from Childhood Adventures, but, it works perfectly fine without access to that book.

Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch on a formal and rules-language level. Layout adheres to the series’ two-column full-color standard, and the pdf has two nice artworks in full color. The pdf has no bookmarks, but needs none at this length.

Matt Morris delivers something genuinely fun here: These mucks go one step beyond what you usually see in creatures, not by power, but by narrative potential. In fact, they reminded me of why I really enjoy some of the far-out OSR-books, and why I go through the hassle of converting as much material as I do. You see, there are a couple of supplements out there, which, in tone, and rules, just jumpstart your imagination – and the mutative mucks are just that. The growth engine alone can allow you to make the classic “Blob from outer space/Wizard’s lab”-storylines; add to that their properties, and you have reasons for PCs to seek them out. Heck, add the unique effects of the subtypes of muck, and you have a plethora of cool adventure hooks just waiting to happen. This is a cool premium-critter pdf, well worth 5 stars + seal of approval.

You can get these evocative, amazing mucks here on OBS!

Missed the by now legendary Microsized Adventures? You can find it here on OBS!

The similarly popular Childhood Adventures book can be found here on OBS!

Finally, if you’re like me and love the idea of magic sourced from vanquished foes, you can get the amazing Creature Components Vol. I here on OBS!

Endzeitgeist out.

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