The Catalytic Critter Cauldron

A guide to making critters from slurry

Hello

This guide is a way for an alchemist character to set up a cauldron that converts wands to intelligent creatures. This is a process any character can follow, without necessarily being high-level or investing in skill points. The actual mixing and loading of materials can optionally be left to a character's trustworthy servant.

This document describes the cauldron setup and mixing process, and then also the critters that come out of it.

Basic Part Definitions

Catalysts: Parts of the cauldron apparatus. Each can be reused from one synthesis to another, except the wand, which gets destroyed entirely.
Slurry: Ingredients placed in the pot that are mixed and possibly heated. The creature will emerge from the slurry, either simply out of the slime, or out of a colored smoke.; The mass of slurry is solidified or vaporized to create the critter. The slurry may have potions or destroyed magic items added to it, which causes special effects.
Flame: An external heat or specific temperature may be necessary for certain results.

Cauldron Catalysts

Coffin: The entire cauldron setup has to be inside some kind of coffin. It can be a pine box, or finely-carved and velveteen-lined. The entire apparatus can be inside a metal sarcophagus, or anything suitable for a burial. If the alchemist is going to use a fire under the cauldron, they will have to take measures for fireproofing and smoke venting.
Net: A net has to be placed underneath the pot. It can be made of a variety of materials (for instance, lace, spiderweb, or steel cables).; The net's catching ability is a factor in the final creature. For instance, a reaction catalyzed by a miniature mithril net may make a creature who exceeds at only one specific, simple task and no others. A large twine fishing net may make a critter that is somewhat capable of a broad set of challenges, but doesn't really excel at any one thing.
Wing: A wing must lay under the cauldron and within the coffin as well. If the wing came from a natural animal, the wing donor's activity cycle will influence the resulting critter being nocturnal or diurnal.; The wing being fresh, dried, pickled, or rotten will change the strength and thews of the critter.; The wing can also be artificial, or made of yarn, or could even be a person's arm. A component of the wing's alchemical strength is its ability to push around and glide in fluids. (Air counts as a fluid).
Wand: A wand must also lay under the cauldron. Creating one creature will use every charge in the wand. The creature's creation is committed when the alchemist destroys the wand in a special rite.; The nature of the wand (flowers, fire, healing, whatever) influences the creature in various ways.; An empty or unenchanted wand will produce normal livestock, usually one that is small, easily confused, and prone to dying mysteriously.; An unfinished branch will create a doll made of junk. GM's can write or fetch their own d100 table of junk items.
Pot: Some kind of big clunky pot for holding the slurry and stirring it easily.

If the wing is much "stronger" than the net, the creature will be rebellious and fickle. If the net is much stronger than the wing, the creature will be possessive and obsessive.

Furthermore, a ladle, oar, tongs, and so forth may be necessary for manipulating the slurry.

Flame Fuel

Hotter-burning fuels may be necessary for an even mixture. A hot-burning fuel will increase the critter's fire-influence.

The following list is a lil sample of fuels and their burning temperatures (don't really take my word for it).

Wood: 840F
Peat: 1600F
Charcoal: 2100F
Plutonium or some kind of genie-based equivalent: 3100F

Fires around 2500F could melt an iron pot.

An external flame is not always necessary. Some ingredients will create heat on their own through chemical reactions. Furthermore, a "cold fusion" could make a critter who is more icy or fungal.

Slurry

Liquids: Some example liquids for making the creature are blood, liquor, crude oil, and turpentine. The alchemist could also use milk or water,
Dusts: Bone and mineral dusts can be made with a quern or sledgehammer, or an abyssal hurdy-gurdy.
Solids: Examples of solids that can be tossed into the creature slurry are short swords, vulture eggs, and big rocks.

Slurry has an "intensity of presence" for every dosha, and is basically measured as separate elemental slurries by weight.

The number of pounds of like-elemental slurry to increase the resulting creature's element-ranks follows the experience point table (first 5 levels printed here for convenience).

Pounds of elemental slurry already in the pot may accumulate for the next elemental rank.

Total elemental rank	Pounds of like element in cauldron
1	400
2	1200
3	2200
4	3400
5	4850

If you want a creature with three ranks of a single dosha (rock): You need 2200lbs of rock-material.
If you want a creature with one rank of fire, one rank of moon, and one rank of rock:: You need 400 lbs of fire-material, 1200 lbs of moon-material, and 2200lbs of rock-material. (3800lbs of mixed slurry).

Another Example

After arguing with the GM, an alchemist's player determines that 400 pounds of ash-filled water has presences of smoke (2/8), water (2/8), sulfur (2/8), and weaker bits of mud (1/8) and void (1/8). Thus it is a mixture composed of five slurries in these amounts:

smoke	100lbs
water	100lbs
sulfur	100lbs
mud	50lbs
void	50lbs

After adding 3 more buckets of ash-filled water to the cauldron, the 1600-lb mixed slurry has a composition like this:

smoke	400lbs
water	400lbs
sulfur	400lbs
mud	200lbs
void	200lbs

The creature will get one level (rolled randomly between smoke/water/sulfur) of water.
If the alchemist wants a second rank of water (two total "levels"), the cauldron will have to contain 1200lbs of water. They have to add another 800lbs of water-slurry to the already 1600-lb cauldron(total 2400 lbs).

The critter will sum 2 rolls on the 'water' row for its combat rose values, and will add +2d8p when it makes its speech-rank d100 roll.

If the alchemist wanted the critter's second elemental rank to be 'fungal', with no 'fungal' slurry in the cauldron yet, they would have to add a slurry to the cauldron containing 1200 lbs of "fungal" material. In addition to the 1600lbs of ash-water in the cauldron this would hold 2800lbs.
The mass of slurry in the cauldron does not get converted directly into the body of the resulting critter. A creature made from two tons of slurry will probably be gnome-sized.

The GM may rule that some materials "punch above their weight", for instance a 100lb hunk of permanently-frozen ice may count as 10000lbs of ice-element.

Furthermore, a character may be able to use the astrology skill to skew the critter's dosha to a certain element, by waiting a few weeks before setting off the ol' wand.

Slurrying potions and magic items

One way to add elemental ranks without very high weights is to add destroyed magic items or potions. Each destroyed-magic-item or draught of potion may add one or more elemental ranks on its own. Potions add one to the resulting creature's fire-influence; destroyed magic items add 3d6.

Besides the difficulty in getting potions and destroying magic items, there are a few additional snags to adding these special materials.

1. The cauldron must reach tungsten-melting temperature. This may melt the pot. The shit of a magical beast, such as a sphinx or demogorgon, should raise a flame to these temperatures.

2. The addition of special items will alert and irritate one or more monsters, who may be nearby or may be up to an 8-day hike away. The strength of the encounter is derived from the treasure table the magic ingredient came from. For instance, tossing in a potion of buoyancy from the level 4 special-items table will summon a level 4 hostile encounter. The monster group will march toward the site of the cauldron to destroy it. According to the Hacklopedia 2, a level four encounter would be something like three crawling claws or a werewolf. The GMG also has details for level-balanced encounters.

Apparatus influences

Flame

A flame over 2000*F will impart one "Fuel" rank to the critter, regardless of slurry.

Every thousand degrees F will add 1 to the critter's fire-influence.

Wing and net

Besides being a "law"/"chaos" skew, the presence of a particular wing or net may effectively multiply the weight of cauldron contents. For instance, the wing of a penguin or a walrus's flipper may multiply the effective weight of water & ice by 1d8p, for purposes of critter synthesis.

A magic wing, like an entire gruffon wing, or an ensorcelled hang-glider, may multiply the presence of magic items chucked in the cauldron, making one potion count as four or more.

The GM may rule that a super-robust net decreases fire-influence by 1 or more. A strong net could also increase the critter's grasp-rank.

Coffin

The coffin, being iron or wood, could influence 'botanical', 'fungal', 'ice', 'mud', or 'earth' ranks, depending on whether the coffin has been used. If the catalytic coffin had been buried with someone quite violent, it could impart fire-influence. Other burial vessels, like a stone sarcophagus, could have differing final effects on the critter.

Using an entire tomb or labyrinth as the "coffin", or saying, "the entire world is a coffin", is a bit of a stretch.

Wand

Besides the effects mentioned at the beginning, there's also these:

Remaining Wand Charges	Speech	Grasp	Size	Mobility	Fire-nature
0-19	-d20	-1	-1	+0	+1
20-30	-d10	+0	+0	+0	+0
30-57	+d10p	+0	+1	+0	+0
58-81	+d100	+1	+1	+1	+0
81-91	+2d6p	+2	+0	+2	+1
92+	+3d6p	+3	-1	+3	+2

Nature of the Wand

The wand's effect, or type, will have some influence on the produced critter. It could add a free rank in multiple appropriate elements and impart other factors. A wand's inner magics may grant knowledge to the critter made from it.

Once the slurry is in the pot and the wand is broken

figure out how many of what elemental "dosha" the critter is going to have

This is summed up by poundage of elemental slurries in the cauldron. They can possibly be multiplied by catalysts in the apparatus.
Ranks can also be added by potions and destroyed magic items.

for every rank in every dosha, sum up the critter's combat-rose, and its modifiers to 'secondary values'
sum up the critter's size
roll the critter's hit points based on its hit dice and modifiers
roll d100 + modifiers for the critter's speech rating
sum up the critter's grasp-rank
sum up the critter's mobility-rank
roll d100 + modifiers for the critter's leg-category
roll the critter's body-composition
if the critter has a carapace roll its description
roll xtras if the critter gets any
roll the critter's spell repertoire (if any) based on its fire-influence

Critter properties

Dosha

The critter's fundamental elements have an influence on its personality. Each rank in an element also dictates rolls on six petals of the critter's combat rose.

Dosha-name	Probable-Personality	Attack	Defense	DR	Natural-Weapon-Rank	Reach	ToP
Sun	Diligent and solicitous.	+d10p	+0	+0	+0	+1	+1
Stars	Caustic; meddling or at least nosy. Secretive.	+1	+d4p	+1	+1	+0	+0
Moon	Reserved and manipulative.	+0	+d4p	+d4p	+0	+0	-1
Fire	Ambitious and prone to overcommitting.	+2d6p	-d4	+0	+1	+1	-1
Smoke	Blusterous, reckless, and obvious.	+2d6p	-d4p	+1	+1	+1	-1
Ember	Outgoing and flippant.	+d6	+1	+0	+0	+1	-1
Water	Patient. Gets overinvolved. Changes things out of boredom.	+1	+0	+d4	+1	+0	+0
Ice	Confident and poised; miserly and humorless.	+d6p	+0	+1	+1	+0	+0
Wind	Flighty, alert, ever-ready. Loves to motivate or at least agitate others.	+d4	+d4	+0	+0	+1	-1
Botanical	Laid-back. Does not mince words. Has a long and detailed memory.	+0	+0	+1	+1	+0	+d4p
Fungal	Curious about a broad range of interests. Noncommittal and a great liar.	+1	+0	+1	+0	+d4	+d4
Sulfurus	Fastidious and overscrupulous.	+2d4p	-d4	+0	+0	+d4	-1
Fuel	Earnest and generous. Pedantic.	+d4p	-d4	+0	+1	+1	+0
Iron	Very determined. Never gives up. Sore loser.	+d6	-d4	+2	+2	+0	+1
Gold	Pliant and garrulous. A pygmalion and a pollyanna.	+1	+0	+0	+0	+1	+1
Mud	Ponderous, sluggish, stout and staunch	+0	+0	+2	+1	+0	+1
Rock	Hard-hearted and clamoring. Ornery and difficult to persuade.	+0	-d4p	+d6p	+1	+0	+0
Gem	Sober, pensive, and slow to forgive.	+d6p	-d4p	+0	+0	+1	-1
Earth	Shady, shifty, and scheming. Antagonistic.	+d6p	-d4	+0	+0	+0	+1
Void	All elements in equal harmony, or, an excess of nothingness.	+0	+0	+0	+0	+1	+1

Additional element-rank influences
Dosha Name	Fire-influence	Size	Speech	Grasp	Mobility	HP	Legs Roll	Xtras
Sun	+1	+d2-1	+d10p	+1	+1	+12	+d20	None
Stars	+1	+d2-1	+0	+0	+1	+12	+d12	Roll once (per lifetime)
Moon	+0	+d2-1	+d10p	+1	+1	+8	-d20	Roll once (per lifetime)
Fire	+2	+0	+0	-1	+1	-4	-d20	None
Smoke	+1	+d2-1	+d12	+0	+1	+0	+0	None
Ember	+1	+0	+d6p	+0	+0	-2	-d10	None
Water	-1	+0	+d8p	+1	-1	+4	+d6p	None
Ice	-1	+0	-d8p	+1	-1	+0	-d20	None
Wind	+0	+0	+d20p	-1	+1	+0	+d4p	None
Botanical	+0	+0	+d20p	+0	-1	+10	-d20	None
Fungal	+0	+d2-1	+d10p	+0	-1	+10	-d20	None
Sulfurus	+1	+0	+0	+0	+0	+0	+0	None
Fuel	+1	+0	+d6	+0	+0	-6	+0	None
Iron	+0	+0	-d8p	+1	-1	+12	-d20	None
Gold	+0	+0	+d20p	+0	+0	+4	+0	None
Mud	-1	+0	+d10	+1	-1	+4	-d20	None
Rock	+0	+0	+0	+0	-1	+7	-d20	None
Gem	+1	-1	+d10p	-1	-1	-4	-d20	Roll once (per lifetime)
Earth	+0	+d2-1	+d6p	+1	-1	+9	-d20	None
Void	-1	-1	-d10p	+0	+0	+0	+0	None

If the creature's DR is over 4, it has a "carapace". If the DR is over 12, it's made of "subtle matter" like a ghost.

Attributes

Fire-influence

Fire is a completely special phenomenon whose workings and powers are a mystery. Fire is more than an alchemical element and its presence has to do with particle movement and the life of the universe. A creature with strong fire influence will tend to draw the ire of the ambitous, and will always be sorta eating itself alive. A fire-influenced creature will try to destroy traditions and scheme for power even in its sleep. Extremely fire-influenced creatures are physically frail and quite mean-spirited.

High fire-influence makes a creature have less legs, less capability of speech, and be less healthy. It does impart spellcaster ability, as long as the creature has the verbal aptitude. Most creatures cast bookless and don't have the arcane trascription talent. Possessing the arcane lore skill is also unusual.

A critter recieves the casting ability of a wizard, equal to its fire-influence rank. The specific spells are rolled randomly from the spell lists, one spell per level.

Fire-influence rank	Effect on critter (cumulative)
1	Attack -d4
2	Speech -d20
3	Leg-rank -d20
4	-1 DR (minimum zero)
5	-1 grasp rank
6	Defense -d4
7	-1 natural-weapon-damage rank
8	+1 body-composition rank
9	+1 mobility-rank
10	Natural fire beam weapon every 60s. +d6p (ignores DR)
(repeat as necessary)

Sense-perceptions

Sight: Critters are normally not completely blind at the time of their creation, though this can happen. The vision of many void creatures can be described as variances of white.
Taste: Critters have something like a nerve that lets them taste what's going on in the atmosphere, only pertaining to their own elements.
Touch: Fuel, ice, and ember have the strongest kinesthetic sense and reaction speed. Moon may possess a bit of finesse as well. The majority of critters are maladroit, possess poor reflexes, and have a rueful vertical leap.
Smell: Most critters are anosmic. The usual exceptions are genomes with notable botanical or wind presence.
Hearing: Wind and water types may have hypersensitive hearing. It's common for other types to be hard of hearing to various degrees. It's rare for a critter to be completely deaf.

Size

Rank	Rough Size	HP	Physical Dmg Addend
1	Chihuahua	+5	-4
2	Rottweiler	+10	-3
3	Man	+15	-2
4	Horse	+25	+2
5	Hut	+35	+5
6	House	+50	+10
7	Hill	+200	+20
8	Mountain	+2000	+38

Speech rating

01-49	Can only grunt.
50-74	Can communicate concrete concepts in one language.
75-89	Can communicate abstract or complex concepts.
90-98	Can speak multiple languages.
99	Can additionally transceive radio waves.
00	Can communicate telepathically.

Grasp Rank

0	Has no special joints for holding things; may still have prehensile limbs.
1	Has claws that fold in one direction, sometimes suitable for brachiation.
2	Has opposable thumbs.
3	Has manipulation digits with pliant and locking tendons.
4	Has fine manipulators with manifold vacuum-like surface tension.

Movement and mobility

slower than dwarf
dwarf speed
human speed
dog speed
can glide
horse speed
can travel from one shadow to another
can fly and hover
can phase through solid matter
can teleport

Critter Hit Points

The critter gets the HP from its size category, plus a number of hit dice (d8's) equal to its total element ranks.

Natural Weapon Damage Ranks

1d3 -1
(d4p-2) + (d4p-2)
d6p
2d4p
d4p+d6p
2d6p
2d8p
2d10p
[size rating] d10p

Body Composition

1	Floral
2	Slimy
3	Smooth-skinned
4	Furred
5	Scaled
6	Liquid Metal

Chompers

Duckbill.
Primate mouth.
Mandibles.
Gator snout.
Thick jaws.
Fishmouth.
Sucker mouth.
Wide beak.
Tusks.
Elephant Snout.
Rodent Teeth.
Thin beak.

Carapace

Chitin-like
Bone
Quill
Scaly
Hide
Bark
Metallic
Shell

Legs

≤ 10	Slug- or serpent-like body
11	Four tentacles
12	Eight tentacles
13-14	Quadruped
15-16	Biped
17	Six-legged
18	Eight-legged
19	Fourteen-legged
≥ 20	1d30p-legged

Xtras

1d4 Horns
Tail
Hooves
Stinger

Other things should be a factor in the attitude and composition of the cauldron critter. Most of them aren't really predictable.

Faq

i created a critter born with negative hit points: It explodes immediately. 1d6 of fire damage per hit die of the critter. Diameter is 5' per hit die of the critter.