Hey there my name is AJ Pickett and I make videos about roleplaying games, I upload twice
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Today we are delving into a question that was brought up, after we learned about the
elder god Ghaunaduar (GON-ah-dowr) and the fact that, according to myth and legend, he
lashed out with his mind in a fit of rage and drove countless species of the largest
of slimes and other crawling creatures, many of which contained an alien intelligence,
insane.
Before that moment, many conversed with each other in a gibbering and bestial language,
but after Ghaunaduars rebuke, only a few species managed to maintain their mental faculties,
the Oblex, various shapeshifters and the Ghaunadan.
In their ooze form, ghaunadans are a lurid green color and ripple across any surface
in a mass of writhing pseudopods.
They have blindsight out to 30 feet and are resistant to any bludgeoning damage, plus
they have immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, being polymorphed or stunned.
Their bodies have a paralytic slime coating their surface and can lash out with two pseudopods
each round, The victim must make a Constitution save (DC 15) or be paralyzed for 2d6×10 minutes,
they get another saving throw at the start of each round, if they make the saving throw
they are not immune to further attacks with the paralytic slime.
When cut in combat, the Ghaunadan body appears to bleed green slime and the flesh inside
the wound is also many different shades of translucent green.
They also have the ability to absorb a weapon attack and then solidify their body around
the weapon in an opposed dexterity contest.
If the Ghaunadan wins, they get to keep the weapon.
This is very much what the liquid metal terminator robot did, and in a similar fashion, Ghaunadans
can sneak into just about anywhere, flattened out and sneaking along any surface.
They are not subject to critical hits, and can't be flanked by opponents.
These immunities apply in both humanoid and ooze form.
In the Underdark a Ghaunadan can easily feed on subterrainian creatures and their amorphous
form is ideal for getting around the in natural cave networks and also the dizzying amount
of dungeons to be found, they are masters of relic hunting.
Their most impressive ability though is shapeshifting into a humanoid.
They do this so well, that it is important to first describe them as an ooze, because
that is what they are, it is the form they feel most natural in, they think like an ooze,
they feed and reproduce like one.
They can also shift into a humanoid form once per day.
Spending up to 15 hours in the humanoid form at a time.
Each humanoid form is unique to the individual ghaunadan.
Regardless, the form is always a pleasant or attractive one.
Ghaunadans prefer to wear clothing of copper, amber, flame-orange, lavender and plum, which
are also the colors favoured by clerics of Ghaunadaur.
In their humanoid form, ghaunadans can charm people simply by looking into their eyes,
producing an effect similar to the friends spell that lasts as long as the ghaunadan
remains in sight and in their humanoid form.
Characters who meet the ghaunadan’s gaze must make a Wisdom save (DC 15).
Those who fail this saving throw regard the ghaunadan as if its Charisma were 2d4 points
higher.
This ability is useless in combat, but allows the ghaunadan to make excellent use of its
Charisma-based skills.
They can charm and take out a town guard, steal the guards uniform, breastplate, shield
and spear, they can maintain the cover of their humanoid form, even lashing out with
a couple of paralytic pseudopods while humanoid, but they relax, hunt and feed in ooze form,
staying humanoid for long periods of time is taxing on them.
They keep their numbers low, small family groups in areas where small game is rich,
or individuals subsisting on the outskirts, who make a great trade as fur trappers and
information traders.
Smuggling is also a great trade for a Ghaunadan who take to the spelljammer setting like ducks
take to water.
Like humanoids keep pets (which the Ghaunadan's find delicious and very convenient) the slime
people keep other, non-intelligent slimes and oozes around as their pets, and tools.
Ghaunadans know the nature of slimes and oozes so well, they can predict how they are going
to behave in any situation and can easily lead them around.
Your average Ghaunadan has a vile, malicious kind of intelligence.
Despite their humanoid illusion, these creatures are alien monsters.
Their deeper thoughts revolve around their worship of Ghaunadaur, god of oozes, slimes,
and jellies.
They usually speak Undercommon and Abyssal, those who travel the surface world also learn
the common tongue.
Groups of ghaunadans can be found in areas where foes of Ghaunadaur, including all the
other drow deities and most other deities associated with Underdark races are active.
Several ghaunadans lair in Undermountain, the vast dungeon beneath Waterdeep, where
they keep a watchful vigil over the temple of Eilistraee (near the subterranean city
of Skullport).
Recently, rumours have surfaced that ghaunadans in human guise may be operating in Waterdeep
itself.
Ghaunadans, for the most part, have remained loyal to Ghaunadaur, as they have been for
hundreds of thousands of years, they are one of the truly ancient species who have lairs
and lost temples, artifacts, sacred sites and deeply hidden locations where they gather,
along with others of ooze kind, that are simply inaccessible by any creatures who are not
capable of assuming ooze form for long periods of time... try reaching a lair three miles
beyond the deep Underdark, which can be reached only via small cracks in solid rock and the
occasional flooded chamber and cavern full of poisonous gases.
Not that there is much to take away from their hidden temple cities in the deep aside from
a profoundly disturbing mental and physical experience.
I'm sure some obsessed wizard has tried to find these places, having probed the alien
mind of a Ghaunadan and discovered their existence.
But Ghaunadans don't tend to rely heavily on physical devices, artifacts and monuments,
they carve out strange chambers using acid to break down rock, and in these twisted,
convoluted structures, gather to merge their bodies and minds, babbling a telepathic chorus
which has the same effects on a non-ooze as the noise produced by a gibbering mouther,
but then again, squeezing through a few miles of cracks in hot rock so far from the sun,
I'd argue one would have to already be crazy to do that, and what sort of long term effect
would staying polymorphed into ooze form that long have on a humanoid brain?
Spellcasters have very high intelligence scores and with high intellect often comes with plenty
of other issues, throw in polymorphing and dealing with strange dimensions and telepathy
and so on, its a wonder any wizards maintain their sanity.
In the wizarding business, sanity is overrated anyway.
Ghaunadaur is a god that plays havoc with our definitions of divine entities and the
line between primordial and greater god is very blurred for the Elder Eye, that which
lurks, the lord of slime, greater god of abominations, the ancient one, in fact, Ghaunadaur is many
things that are normally their own different category, so, he is a greater god who is also
a primordial, he is a distinct entity but also an aspect of a greater being, he is connected
to juiblex and a host of other gods and elder evils and primordial beings because they were
all created by and from a greater god that is now removed from reality, locked away and
where possible, kept the most forbidden of secrets.
To delve too deeply into the lore of Ghaunadaur is an invitation to insanity and the most
severe and horrific punishment by some of the multiverses most powerful beings.
The lore is so well protected, one can become a special kind of undead or aberration just
by researching it the wrong way and alerting one of the powers which punishes such behaviour,
or by stumbling into a curse tied into the very information itself.
A fate as a Nothic or an Allip awaits many who travel down the rabbit hole of lore, their
obsession often ruining the lives of everyone who knows and cares for them.
I've talked about why cults and forbidden lore are relatively commonplace in D&D high
fantasy worlds.
Where people can see wizards and clerics casting wondrous spells, giving them huge personal
and political power, they want the same for themselves, but the path to faith or arcane
study is a long, difficult and often very restricted one, not open to anyone with simple
ambition for personal power, and that is where devils and demons and strange powers and warlocks
and forbidden knowledge written by corrupt civilisations of the ancient times come in.
All too often, adventurers have to deal with some horrific monster who was once a simple
homesteader who turned to the easy path to power offered by some voice speaking to him
from a weird crystal he found in a cave nearby, but only after his livestock were stolen,
his children attacked and yet another bad winter where they ran out of food and had
to turn to banditry just to survive.
The path to easy power is certainly one that Ghaunadaur has seeded into the D&D worlds
quite heavily and the consequences for falling into his traps usually leads to disaster.
Ghaunadaur never gets tired of watching giant monsters rampaging through cities, consuming
vast amounts of victims as they do so, he also greatly enjoys watching mutant predators
hunt and kill innocent people and creatures, so you can be sure that the path to power
he offers is going to have some very fast and real benefits, but these will inevitably
lead to some ritual of summoning, or personal transformation or means of communing with
a higher power that sees that person releasing a trapped demon, or turning into a hideous
beast or becoming the pawn of an elder evil that possesses or mutates the person and steps
into the D&D world through that living host.
Ghaunadaur likes to put that chaos into his evil, he doesn't care what the consequences
are, he just wants to watch the freak show that is the end result, he doesn't care who
gains power and what they do with it, he just waits patiently for that power to corrupt
and destroy.
Because it always does, it always has and it always will.
Worshippers come and go, he enjoys the additional power that comes with them, but also, he hates
being restricted and controlled by their faith, so, he is one god that is not going to hesitate
to destroy his own faithful, as we saw Ghaunadaur do when his offer to take alliance with the
goddess Lolth was rejected by the demon queen of spiders and the Drow elves.
Despite tearing the intellect out of almost all of his slime and ooze worshippers, many
remained, the Ghaunadan are found thinly populating the world of Toril, but if you add together
the small populations across all the worlds and all the dimensions of the multiverse,
and the amount of time these small groups have been around, the potential for Ghaunadaur
to spring back to greater god status at any time becomes more and more obvious... he is
basically in a period of low activity, of low interest in the world of Toril, his attention
may be concentrated on other worlds in the multiverse, or he might be strengthening another
aspect, as a demon lord, to take over a layer of the abyss, who knows?
The Ghaunadan are devoted to him at any rate, ready and willing to do anything, no matter
how weird or how perplexing, because they have survived and they are 100% certain that
Ghaunadaur will always be around, that the eternal nature of their god lends them some
racial immortality as well.
With their own personal lack of defined form, their perception of individuality is different
from the fixed forms and fixed boundaries of the Humanoids.
They gather together and meld into a big soupy mess in their worship of the Elder Eye, in
a way, they become part of his body and mind, they lose themselves in the ecstasy of this
obscene amorphous orgy.
Ghaunadans may be able to move freely in humanoid society, they may put on the perfect act of
being a humanoid, with the same sort of values and such, they can have personality, a sense
of humour, goals and ideals they seem to be most committed to.
But beneath that skin deep disguise, they are predatory globs of ooze, willingly, happily
devoted to a source of terrible and ancient evil, who at any moment, can switch off that
feigned role they have taken in humanoid society and give anything and everything they have,
including their life, at the beck and call of Ghaunadaur and often enough, also at the
beck and call of Juiblex and a few other powers that tend to share their master's true voice.
The voice of Tharizdun.
So are the Ghaunadans aware they are really the pawns of Tharizdun and that their efforts
to uncover, restore and exalt forgotten shrines and relics in his honour is just part of the
commandments all devotees of the Chained God must follow?
Perhaps they are, they are certainly only too happy to siphon power from any sources
they can to feedback into their god, as doing so also gives them great personal power and
enjoyment, and like the fell powers that spawned them, they really do enjoy ruing and razing
cities, undermining and sowing chaos into civilizations and patiently infiltrating bastions
of order and law so they can destroy them from within, revealing their true nature to
the profound horror of those who thought they were their allies... they dig it, that's some
grade-A evil genius stuff and they crave that sort of thing like its the drug of choice,
its the only show worth watching in town.
If you are looking for the perfect mid-level completely unredeemably evil bad guy for your
campaign, you don't need to look much further than the Ghaunadan, team them up with other
shapeshifters to build something of a secret society or a secret war going on between the
shapeshifters and the amorphs, neither of which are a very good group but they sure
hate each other, there are limitless seeds for adventure and lots of side quests and
main plot elements that can be introduced to your world setting and campaign very easily.
Just keep in mind, it is one thing to put evil stuff into your game and it is always
very tempting to dial it up to eleven, but it is a different experience to have to deal
with that in character, your imagination immersed into the game world, so be sure to check in
with your players before you start throwing in orphanages run by evil Ghaundans who grind
the kids up and feed them to oozes in the basement.
You need the consent of the players before you go grinding up orphans and if you think
you don't, then you are going to run into serious problems outside of the game, that
I can assure you.
Ghaunadaur, Juiblex and other powers being Aspects of Tharizdun that were more or less
cut off from him but maintained their existence even after Tharizdun was chained up, locked
away in whatever passes for the most secure prison imaginable in any campaign setting
you care to run, is very much one of the themes of this D&D lore channel, it is, however,
entirely optional, you don't have to include Tharizdun at all, nor does there have to be
any connection between Juiblex, Obox-ob, Ghaunadaur, the lady of pain, pale night and so on...
mine is just one way of creating a unified theory of the D&D Multiverse, it's not everyone's
cup of tea, and that is perfectly fine, but for those who like that sort of thing, the
Ghaunadans are a great link into all that and the horrors it all contains.
I am currently running a Kickstarter, link to that is down below and I very much need
your help to make sure it is a success.
If you enjoy watching my videos but are not a person who currently plays any D&D, please
post a link to my Kickstarter on your social media of choice, I am really struggling to
get the word out and that will be a tremendous help to me and those who choose to back the
project and want to see their awesome game gear delivered.
Remember, you only get charged for your pledge if the Kickstarter campaign reaches its funding
goal, which is quite high, but it's also only 2000 backers, which is not that unreasonable.
You don't have to order any products, you can back the project just as a sort of tip
for all the hours of D&D content, that is also hugely appreciated, and by doing that,
you can show your support on social media and get the word out in the process, so, win-win.
As for the products on offer, I have had a few questions about them.
The basic pledge includes a large, tough canvas bag that will fit a laptop, your D&D books,
your silicone game mat, plus a silicone character sheet and combat tracker, it also has a pocket
for dice and marker pens.
Yes, you can use pretty much any marker pen on the silicone mats, yes, they will just
wipe off with a good scrub from a damp cloth, however, avoid using red permanent marker
pens and do test out pens like that on a corner of the mat beforehand, to see if it leaves
a pigment stain.. so far testing has only shown an issue with red permanent marker pens,
and I got the stain down to being very faint, but over years of use, this can be a problem.
Yes, the mats can be used for any gaming system, the character sheet and combat tracker are
generic, they were not designed just for D&D, they can be used for all sorts of Role-playing
games.
You can also use the large game mat to replace any traditional board game playing area, and
I imagine in future, if things go very well, we might see wider uses for silicone mats,
such as the game surface for the Tilt 5 augmented reality glasses and wands.
I have had a few questions about shipping costs and such.
Shipping is a real calculation provided by the people in China who will be mailing all
the parcels out directly to the backers.
If there is too much shipping charged on the pledge, this will be refunded, particularly
in the case of backers adding extra-large silicone mats to their base pledge, it is
just to ensure that sufficient shipping funds are available, because as soon as the funding
goal is hit, we start manufacturing the bags and mats and start shipping them out to backers,
everything is ready to go, the factory is literally set up and standing by for our order.
So just to repeat and make that clear.. backers only get charged for the actual shipping cost,
any extra is refunded to the account they paid from, this will happen at the rewards
survey stage, when the project is fully funded.
I know there is a lot of people who have already decided to back the project who have never
backed a Kickstarter before, at present it is about 30% of you.
That is amazing and thank you, I am happy to answer any questions you have in the comments
below this video.
So, the best gaming surface you can get, good for a lifetime of play, also doubles as an
oven baking tray, can handle permanent marker pens, including fin tip marker pens.
Cheaper than anything you can get right now and far superior quality, helping to support
me, environmentally friendly product with minimal carbon cost, be the envy of your gaming
friends.
Alright, that's all from me, thanks for making it all the way to the end of the video, next
up we are taking a journey to the planes of Pandemonium due to popular request, thanks
to all who voted in the Community tab survey.
Until next time, check out my Spring store for other merch, wear your geek with pride,
as always, thanks for listening and I'll be back with more for you, very soon.