Jade Colossus
Colostrans are intelligent masses of coral that can move and swim, though slightly more stiffly than regular animals and fish. Normally they remain beneath water, but they can emerge and move about on land for periods of an hour or more before they must return to the sea. Colostrans vary in size, and the oldest ones are enormous, reaching dozens of feet or more in diameter. Their shapes can vary, too, but many adopt a body plan consisting of a central flattened core surrounded by three or more limbs. Over a period of several hours, a colostran can modify its shape to whatever its needs might be. Large ones can even split into separate smaller beings.
Colostrans are intelligent, but they don't have much need for tools, given their ability to adopt themselves to specific needs. In fact, some colostrans become specialized in specific tasks, including serving as structures like walls, cages, and (when many come together to cooperate) homes for other colostrans.
Colostrans have colonized portions of the ruin called Sunken Sagene.
Motive: Defense
Environment: In or near water, in groups of five or more
Health: 12
Damage Inflicted: Moderate wound (4 points)
Armor: 2
Movement: Short; short when swimming
Modifications: Speed tasks as level 2.
Combat: Colostrans can fire poisoned spines at a foe within short range, bash a foe with a weighty limb, or secrete a milky poison into the water to affect an area an immediate distance across. Spines and bashes inflict a moderate wound (4 points). Foes hit with a spine or who encounter the milky fluid must succeed on a difficulty 3 Might defense task, or they are dazed and the difficulty of all tasks is increased by one step.
After about a minute, a previously poisoned target can attempt another Might defense task to throw off the effect; however, on a failure, the victim is paralyzed for several minutes. Because this interferes with normal breathing even for underwater creatures, a victim might drown if they can’t throw off the paralyzation, though at this point, doing so requires succeeding on a difficulty 5 Might defense task.
Interaction: Colostrans are intelligent, but opening communication might be difficult. Really large colostrans, called Old Ones, usually lose interest in a colostran colony and move off to meditate. These are occasionally mistaken for normal corals. If a colostran colony is in trouble or in need of aid, they first ask the Old Ones for help or advice.
Old One: level 7; Armor 4; health 40
Use: A group of children collecting sea flowers from a coral bank nearby has gone missing. Some people assume they were drowned, but a fisher swears that the coral opened up and swallowed them.
GM Intrusion: The poisoned character becomes confused and tries to escape the area by running (or swimming) in a random direction for several rounds.