Mudman

Called dweomerlings, mudmen arise where enchanted runoff, even a stream eroding some magical ruin, collects and dries, concentrating magic in the muck. Roused, each is a stocky 4-foot figure of brown to tar-black mud with four thick fingers per hand and eyes like pits of shadow, its legs hidden in the pool. They neither speak nor communicate.

Dormant, mudmen lie spread across the pool floor feeding on magic, immune to every weapon, magical or not. Damaging spells still work, but the whole group counts as one creature and the damage is split evenly, fractions dropped. When anyone enters, they sense it at once, spend a round gathering, and attack the next. Standing mudmen can be hurt by magical weapons.

Each throws mud while advancing at full speed; targets count as AC 10, adjusted for Dexterity, and each hit hardens and cuts movement by 1. Within 10 feet the mudman flings itself bodily. On a hit the mudman is destroyed and its target loses 4 points of movement; on a miss it needs a round to re-form. At movement 0 the victim is stuck and suffocating, taking 1-8 per round and dying after five straight rounds unless someone clears its nose and mouth, which takes a round. Lost movement returns at 1 per five rounds. Mudmen never chase beyond the pool, since their senses stop at its edge.

Spells that harm living things affect them (flame strike, magic missile, cause light wounds, fireball and the like), and dispel magic or dig hits them like a fireball of the caster's level. Any mudman caught by transmute mud to rock dies, no save allowed. Poison and mind-affecting magic such as charm, hold and sleep do nothing.

Mudmen know only rest and killing intruders. Their pools, 20 to 200 feet across, are often near waterfalls.

Unnatural and outside any food web, mudmen have no natural enemies. They slowly absorb flesh, wood and bone for whatever magic remains, so they hold treasure only if someone carrying it attacked within the past month. No use for their mud is recorded, though wizards surely would not ignore its magic.