d20 Mongoose Publishing The Slayer's Guide to Kraken.pdf

ANDREW BOSWELL

The

Slayer’s Guide

Kraken

Andrew Boswell

Contents

Credits

2 Introduction

3 Kraken Physiology

7 Habitat

9 Kraken Society

13 Methods of Warfare

14 Roleplaying Kraken

18 Scenario Hooks and Ideas

20 Antangil

28 Kraken Reference List

31 D20 & OGL License

Editor

Daniel Bishop

Cover Art

Nathan Webb

Interior Illustrations

Gillian Pearce

Production Manager

Alexander Fennell

Proof-Reading

Ian Barstow

Open Game Content & Copyright Information

this work by any means without the written permission of the publisher is expressly forbidden. The Slayer’s Guide to Kraken is

presented under the Open Game and D20 Licences. See pages 31 for the text of these licences. All game mechanics and statistics

derivative of Open Game Content and the System Refernce Document are to be considered Open Gaming Content. All other

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INTRODUCTION

mystery. Even the so-called ‘common’

beasts that plague the intelligent races are in

some ways unknown despite efforts to probe their

secrets. Many become increasingly familiar to us as

we constantly ask of our friends and allies, and from

this information we piece together what we can.

However, there are some creatures that will forever

resist our attempts. Those that live beyond the

material world are, by definition, inexplicable:

anything we can learn is so otherworldly as to defy

interpretation. However, even here on this plane

there are creatures that we cannot hope to gather

much information on. Of these creatures, the kraken

stands in the forefront as the most mysterious.

The Slayer’s Guides

Each of the Slayer’s Guides deals with a specific

species that may have been neglected, or is in need

of attention to make them more ‘real’ for the hard-

pressed Games Master. The Slayer’s Guide to

Kraken presents, not a common foe that parties of all

sizes might encounter and best, but a monster that

only the very powerful would ever dream of

tackling. In this manual you will learn about their

mysterious origins, meet their god – the one true

Kraken, discover how they were cast out onto this

plane in shame, learn about their astounding

physiology and their perverse societies.

Kraken – False God

of the Deep

The kraken is a solitary beast of enormous power

and age. Formed in the elemental plane of water but

then cast out, each one is a demented, often insane,

representative of their own religion. They are the

unloved avatars of a god that rejected them. Now

they seek to found religions in their own name, or to

return to their home and wreak revenge.

These behemoths, which dwarf all except the largest

ships, dwell in the depths of the ocean with near-

unimaginable pressure bearing down on them. They

live for millennia, have the strength to drag whole

ships beneath the waves, and possess powers and

intellect that make them formidable foes. While no

kraken ever encountered has been passive or

friendly, neither have they been mindlessly

destructive or stupidly evil, though to our eyes it

may seem so. Their brain capacity likely exceeds

our own and they rule a domain so different from

ours that we cannot even begin to understand what

motivates them. Even the habitats of coastal marine

humanoids are so different from the ocean depths

that these creatures can only guess at the mind of the

kraken.

Encounters with a kraken, for no mortal would ever

wish to meet more than one, will seldom be to the

adventurer’s advantage. In the deep sea, the kraken

has all the advantages. On land, where a kraken may

have created slave or subject societies, that society

at large will resist assaults on their god. In the

elemental plane of water, where more of their kind

and indeed the patron deity of many non-humanoids

dwell, they assume even more awesome powers. A

kraken is not merely a monstrous foe – it is the core

around which an entire campaign may be based.

Yet even the darkest mystery may be solved by the

application of logic. This manual represents the

greatest gathering of information available

concerning these beasts of the deep. Great personal

expense, and no small investment by my patron, who

has an unfettered interest in preserving free trade on

the waves, has resulted in this: the first, most

authoritative guide to the kraken. Disregard it at

your peril, for herein lies everything that is currently

known about these beasts, and therefore it may well

contain the very instrument of your deliverance

when the titanic tentacles enclose your ship in the

dead of night…

Introduction

N early all monsters are shrouded in some

KRAKEN PHYSIOLOGY

which ‘only’ reach some 50 feet, are not

native to this plane. They share many of the

characteristics of those creatures, and this has led

many to suppose that they are a product of natural

evolution; however, the differences are quite

marked. First and foremost is their enormous size,

with kraken growing to be up to 200 feet long. Well

over half of this length is tentacles, of which they

have only eight, in comparison to the normal ten of

other squid. Nestled at the base of the tentacles is

the beak. Any unfortunate victim brought to the

beak has little chance of escaping intact as its size,

and the musculature powering it, is quite capable of

biting through the hull of a ship.

Their eyes are, quite simply, the largest of any living

creature, being over two feet in diameter, capable of

distinguishing colour and movement over long

distances even in the lightless environment of the

deep sea. Like the ordinary squid they are expert,

though comparatively slow, swimmers who, through

chemically controlled swim bladders, can descend to

remarkable depths. It is speculated that they alone,

of all the sea dwellers, can actually descend to the

ocean’s floor and return to the surface without

imploding or exploding respectively. Movement

and respiration are controlled in the same fashion as

ordinary squids; that is, by sucking water into spaces

around its head cavity and then expelling it out

again. This fans water through the paired gills, each

of which is easily as large as a rowing boat. There

are no free air compartments in its body which allow

it to withstand the compressive forces of the deep

sea without rupturing, though of course its size

diminishes as it moves further down in the water

column. Movement up through the sea from great

depths is undertaken slowly, not to avoid the bends

(they do not breathe air and thus have no nitrogen to

bubble), but to prevent the explosive expansion of

the tissue itself.

Critical Hits Against Kraken

When attacking a kraken, a critical hit may have the

additional effect of striking a specific location, such

as an eye or tentacle. Whenever a critical threat is

scored against a kraken, roll on the following table.

To control its movement, the kraken has a large

water jet that sits below the axis of the tentacles

projecting out from the hood of the head. This is a

very dexterous organ and can direct the flow of

water in any direction, allowing the kraken to move

freely. The fastest motion is attained when the jet is

directed straight backwards (towards the creature’s

tentacles), which is what most people would expect.

Critical Hit Location (roll 1d20)

1 Left Eye

2 Right Eye

3-10 Tentacle

11+ Body

In addition to causing normal damage, any hit to an

eye that causes 10 or more points of damage blinds

that eye and will cause the kraken to disengage and

flee. Kraken position themselves when attacking, so

that their eyes are either below the surface of the

water, or as far away as possible from the action. Any

blow dealing 25 or more points of damage to a

tentacle will sever it. If three or more tentacles are

severed the beast will similarly flee.

Kraken eggs are laid in open waters. They are

buoyancy-neutral and float at about the 2,000-foot

mark. Each egg is laid from a batch of roughly two-

dozen, with at least a mile or two separating it from

its nearest sibling. They are approximately four feet

long and distinctly oval, with only the enormity of

the sea protecting them from predators, such as giant

squid. After only thirteen or fourteen days the eggs

hatch out into giant squid, differing from their

natural cousins only in that they have eight

tentacles, like their parents. However, from the

moment of their birth they behave in exactly the

same way as their giant-sized relatives. Perhaps the

only interesting thing about the offspring of the

kraken is that they instinctively recognise genuine

kraken, becoming docile and submissive in their

presence. It has been speculated that some form of

communication may be taking place and we suspect

If injured in this way, the kraken will recover from its

wounds at a rate of five hit points a month, with eyes

or tentacles growing back over the appropriate

period. Even if the damage is magically healed, a

new tentacle will still take five months to fully grow

back, unless specific regenerative magic, such as a

regenerate spell, or a ring of regeneration is used.

Kraken

Physiology

T he kraken, distinct from ordinary giant squid,

KRAKEN PHYSIOLOGY

that the offspring treat their elders with a religious

awe but the truth is, we simply do not know.

consider the ink from an octopus to be a spicy

delicacy: doubly so for kraken ink, though it would

probably have to be the scarcest and most expensive

of all the spices. Scarcer still is the ink that comes

from the bioluminescent kraken. These beasts can

squirt out a cloud of luminous ink in the same

quantities as the more common black ink. At

shallower depths this appears as a milky substance

and is less effective as a screen. At greater depths,

where black ink is similarly less effective, it creates a

dazzling cloud that shocks darkness-acclimatised

eyes and easily allows the escape of the producer. In

both cases the ink is a valued component in magical

scribing. Good money is paid the world over for

genuine kraken ink of high purity and

concentration.

Kraken Offspring

For all kraken offspring born in the material world

use the giant squid presented in Core Rulebook III ,

with the exception that they have only eight

tentacle rake attacks.

Bodily products useful to apothecaries such as the

pen, ink, chromatophore cells, nerve fibres and skin

are still valuable, but attract only half the value

described later in this chapter, and are only half as

effective.

Internally they have a single rigid structure: the so-

called ‘pen’, which runs the length of the head and is

consequently up to 65 feet in length. It is primarily

a shell-like material and is used to give some

rigidity as well as to anchor the musculature.

Though rarely acquired, shipwrights prize this

structure for its length, strength and workability. It

can be cut and sawn to any shape required, and is

occasionally seen in magnificent elven ships in the

form of spars and sometimes even full masts.

Kraken Ink

At depths of less than 400 feet, the luminous ink

cloud provides only one-half concealment, and

creatures within the cloud suffer the effects of dense

fog. At depths greater than 400 feet, the luminous

cloud is fully effective, providing the full benefits as

detailed in Core Rulebook III . Conversely, at depths

greater than 400 feet, the black ink cloud of normal

kraken is only half as effective, as detailed above.

Externally, most are covered with what are known as

chromatophores. These are pigmented cells that can

change colour on command and, while less

expressive than those of the cuttlefish, are fully

capable of transmitting a wide range of emotional

information and putting on a magnificent show. A

rare few are covered instead with cells that are

bioluminescent, meaning that they glow from an

internal source under the complete control of the

kraken. In the upper depths of the sea where light

can penetrate, these rare beasts have the typical

uninteresting squid-like colouration. However, at

the greater depths where there is no natural light,

they are every bit as spectacular and expressive as

their coloured counterparts. This colour control can

be changed or cycled many times a second allowing

complex patterns to be created. Clearly it is part of a

language, presumably for communicating with

others of its kind as well as other squid. This

language has never been successfully translated.

A kraken does not have eyelids and does not sleep

in any way that we would understand. However,

every few days it falls into a torpor, floating at a

steady depth or wallowing on the surface. This

torpor lasts only a few hours, and is a kind of

meditative trance: once alerted to any threats nearby

the beast regains full mental faculties instantly.

Torpor

During torpor the kraken loses its Alertness feat, and

it’s Spot and Listen checks are reduced to +7. There

is a 20% chance that any encountered, stationery

kraken will be in a state of torpor.

Kraken Alchemical

Reagents

The kraken is a mythical beast, and a great many of

its body parts are sought after by alchemists,

apothecaries and other experimenters in the magical

arts. The following is a list of these components,

their uses and the values that they might command

to the right buyer.

Like the octopus, the kraken can expel a large

quantity of ink from glands within the hood of its

head. This is to provide a cover screen to allow

escape if a combat is going poorly or to deter

predators. Chemically the ink has a number of

elements that are specifically distasteful to fish, but

it is not poisonous. In fact, many sea-going cultures

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