Scavenger Slime

ECOLOGY

Environment any
Organization solitary, pair, or work crew (3–10)

Scavenger slimes are lumps of protoplasm measuring about 6 feet across. Though mindless, they have an intuitive understanding of order and technological systems, allowing them to patch or repair nearly anything they encounter, though rarely into a form as reliable or attractive as it may have once been. Actually using these items is often beyond them— an ooze might rebuild a hovercar, but have no idea how to operate it, unable to even grasp its purpose. Similarly, an ooze might repair a datapad, yet have no concept what the sights and sounds it displays are attempting to communicate. The sole exception to this principle is weapons: through whatever mechanism, scavenger slimes long ago gained the ability to direct and trigger the weapons they rebuild, instinctively understanding what they’re for and how to use them in their own defense, treating them like specially adapted limbs.

The key to a scavenger slime’s survival mechanisms is the dense resin it secretes, which it uses to bind pieces together or form rudimentary tools on its pseudopods. Scavenger slimes can even vary the conductivity of this resin, allowing them to patch and repair technology. This ability contributes to the scavenger slime’s most iconic feature: durable, snaillike shells each creature fashions from whatever trash it encounters. How these mindless creatures select and shape the components of their shells remains a mystery, but each supports a sophisticated and uniquely evolved life-support system that protects the ooze from vacuum. Most scavenger slimes also incorporate various kitbashed weapons into their shells, making them formidable opponents to even well-equipped adventurers.

Scavenger oozes are the bane of adventurers and treasure hunters exploring ancient ruins and abandoned space stations.

Heavily armored and armed, they defend garbage heaps and treasure troves with ferocity, and whatever priceless technology they uncover is quickly disassembled and glued into their shells or incorporated into new weapons.

Their hundreds of eggs—each barely the size of a grain of rice—cling to clothing and boots, allowing them to easily spread to new environments or even starships, where they quietly grow in dark crevices, causing random system failures until the young slimes begin tearing into ship’s vital components. Despite the danger scavenger slimes pose, some creatures find them endlessly delightful. Gremlins find kinship in their destructive nature, while space goblins share the slimes’ habitats and gift for rebuilding technology. Some pirate crews have also learned to seed long-haul freighters with scavenger slime eggs, then follow from a safe distance until the oozes shut down their victims’ defenses.

While the vast majority of scavenger slimes tear down and rebuild technology, a small variant population exists that instead tears down organic beings to “maintain” them.

These rare gene-scavenger slimes construct semi-living shells from bones, hide, and organs of whatever creatures they encounter, incorporating strange special abilities from various aliens and monsters. These advanced scavenger slimes demonstrate a far wider range of special abilities than their technologically inclined kin, and they engage trespassers with horrifying enthusiasm, dragging living victims away to break down—sometimes while still conscious—into new parts for their macabre armor.

Scavenger Slime Grenades: The scavenger slime’s sticky resin can be used as makeshift stickybomb grenades. A slain scavenger slime, when properly harvested in treated glass vessels, yields up to 20 item levels’ worth of stickybomb grenades—so 2 stickybomb grenades III (each level 10), or 5 stickybomb grenades II (each level 4), and so on. Harvesting the slime in this manner requires a DC 28 Engineering or Life Science check—success means you acquire all the desired stickybombs, while failure deals 2d10+13 bludgeoning damage to you as the slime revitalizes just long enough to attack you. This check can be attempted only once per scavenger slime corpse.

Slime-Patch Systems: While most spacefarers know better than to try and harness scavenger slimes’ technology, given the obvious dangers involved, the oozes’ ability to quickly adapt and repair systems has made them surprisingly useful tools for those starship engineers daring enough to employ them. Slime-patch systems can be installed in any starship for 8 Build Points, with no expansion bay or PCU cost. When a ship with slime-patch systems acquires a critical damage condition, the slime-patch system automatically turns on, spraying the damaged systems with scavenger slime material almost like a fire-sprinkler system.

The slime, which is chemically treated to die within moments of its unexpected freedom, automatically begins repairing the system, reducing the number of engineering actions required to patch the critical damage condition by 1 (minimum 1).