Best Left Buried: The Cook

Best Left Buried has quickly become one of my favorite dungeon crawlers for its quick conflict resolution and survival horror ethos which straddles the line between story games and the OSR (At least for this casual.) My favorite part are the Adaptations which are monster abilities that can also be taken and made into magic items or mutations for the PC's to use as well. This created a dynamic in my games where as the players grew more powerful they became more and more like the monsters they were trying to slay. Love it. 

Recently, I've been creating a mega-dungeon inspired by molds, vampires, and Resident Evil which while far from finished has given me more cause to experiment with these Adaptations. Though creating your own Adaptations is a painless process often I end up enjoying a simple reskin or reinterpretation of existing ones just as much. As a demonstration here is a big moldy monstrosity I made for the kitchen section of my dungeon.  

THE COOK

Theme: Taste. It tastes anything and everything can taste memories, perfumes, musk, and emotions, ideals, and pride. Will taste anything put in front of it. Wants things to taste "good". "Bad" tasting things repulse it and even hurt it.

Concept: A mass of tentacled hairs moist like tongues wearing chef's finery overseeing the large kitchens of the house and adding interlopers to the days recipes. Visual is based on the white hair-like strands of mold on extremely dry aged beef. Blind but can hear and feel with his tendrils to stumble towards foes. 

Look: A six armed mass of fibrous fungal musculature and white stalk-like hairs. Sallow boneless face shaped like a youthful young man. No eyes. Trundles through areas while licking everything with its hair-like tongues Devours trespassers and interlopers before vomiting digested remains into the nearest stew. Grows mushrooms on its back that it uses to poison enemies and season its dishes. Those it tenderizes with its mallet or flenses with its knives are instead left in the drying rack or placed in an oven. 

Omens

1 - The room is literally licked clean with a saliva sheen over every surface. 

2 - Mushroom spores dance around the room imparting a heady sweetness to the air.

3 - Plates of prepared food are set on a nearby surface. The setting is haphazard and without an eye for detail or color.  

4 - Critters and wet surfaces in the room are covered with thin white hair-like stalks. Smells of sulfur and rotten meat. 

5 - Guttural cursing and slamming pots are heard nearby. The walls shake with every intonation.

6 - A perfectly cleaned and dressed corpse has been dissected and left near other refuse. Its organs and choice cuts are missing while a host of white haired fungus rests within.

Moods

1. Exacting. 

2. Enraged. 

3. Cleaning. 

4. Contented. 

5. Patrolling. 

6. Preparing.


The Cook (Monster Statblock)

Armor - 8  Vigour - 32

BRAWN  WITS  WILL

     2            2          1

Gelatinous Grip, Devour, Weakness (Poison), Echosense, Hex-Spewer (As cloud of fungal spores.), Inevitable.

WEAPONS

Mouthing Tendrils (Throwing)

Tenderizer and Cutlery (Heavy)


Special Adaptations:

Get Over Here: Creatures restrained by Gelatinous Grip are pulled 1 zone closer to the Cook every turn.

Spore Sickness: Lose D3 Vigor when you roll a 1 while afflicted by Hex-Spewer. If you die, you bloom into a Spore Zombie which serves The Cook. 

Food Poisoning: If forced to eat cleaning products, spoiled food, or to ingest poison The Cook immediately takes 3d6 damage and is Stunned for 1 Round. Will not eat the same thing twice.


Spore Zombie (Monster Statblock)

Armor - 7 Vigour - 12/

BRAWN  WITS  WILL

      1            0         1      

Myopic, Echosense, Flurry of Claws   

WEAPONS

Deadly Claws (Hand)

Special Adaptations:

- Spore Cloud -

Choking spores cause creatures in the same zone as the Spore Zombie to make Observation checks and attack rolls Against The Odds.

In Conclusion

The monsters are meant to be used either together by way of spores creating more zombies or even the Spore Zombies acting as another warning that the Cook is nearby. I employed them as the remains of sorry interlopers who weren't good enough to be eaten. I'll be posting more Best Left Buried stuff as I experiment more with the system. Hoping to have at least a few sections of the dungeon ready before long. Thanks for reading.

P.S. If you'd like to try Best left Buried the free Zini Edition is on DriveThruRPG. I am not an affiliate and gain nothing from you clicking or not clicking. 


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