Hag Eye Ooze

Part of my mandate here at TDB is to make you fall a little in love with each and every Bestiary monster.  But certain monsters can be hard to drum up enthusiasm for—oozes in particular.  Once you start getting oozes made of gunpowder that splurt out flaming gobs of themselves, you start to feel like you’ve hit the limit for what oozes can be.

Not so with the hag eye ooze, though—because the hag eye ooze is a brilliant idea.  I mean, of course not all hags are going to trust their sisters or their minions with their precious hag eye stones.  What if they lost it?  What if they’re slain?  That’s a lot of trust to dole out.  Why not instead spend a little extra time in the hag eye enchantment process cooking up a minion goopy minion to bear the artifact?  Especially one that’s instinctively shy and stealthy in the bargain.  That’s the best use for an enchanted cauldron since boiling children and raising armies of the undead, right?

Remnants of a tribe of sprites beg the Big Folk for help.  A slimy monstrosity has been tormenting them, oozing into their homes and devouring them no matter how many times they relocate.  Now reduced to half their number, the fey seek salvation—and answers.  The culprit is a hag eye ooze under the control of a malicious green hag.  She has been consolidating power throughout her dismal wood; tormenting the sprites was just an enjoyable sideshow.

Adventurers make an enemy of a hag in wintertime.  The next time they are camped out of doors, the hag sends her cold-immune ooze through the snow to douse the adventurers’ campfire—with its flame-resistant body, if necessary—so that they either freeze to death outright or are softened up for the local bugbears.

Slirrup was an ordinary hag eye ooze—until the day the alchemist it had been set to spy upon spotted it instead.   The slimy creature found itself forced into a bottle and experimented upon for months.  Eventually, Slirrup’s creator tracked down the alchemist, slaying him. Her wayward ooze, however, was forever changed by the experience, the experiments having gifted it with physical power and a crude intelligence (per the Advanced simple template).   Slirrup still follows its mistress’s commands, but is restless and resentful in the manner of a neglected pet.

—Pathfinder Adventure Path #72 86–87 & Pathfinder Bestiary 5 140

PAP #72 also features the coven ooze, which is what happens when a hag eye ooze eats its dead mistresses.   (Answer: It grows to Large size, gains rudimentary intelligence, and generally becomes a flesh-absorbing monstrosity.  Good times!)