Gunpowder Ooze

Gunpowder oozes are explosive gunpowder given life. By necessity, crafters of explosives and firearms are a careful lot, but even the best safety habits can be thwarted by greed, distraction, or carelessness. The release of toxic byproducts from gunsmithing would be an environmental problem anywhere, but when volatile runoff seeps into the Mana Wastes, it can interact with wild magic, causing a living, explosive nightmare.

A gunpowder ooze is a pockmarked, charcoal gray mass that slithers across the blighted verge between Alkenstar and the Mana Wastes with the sound of sizzles and sudden pops. It pursues and consumes any sort of organic matter, firing bullet-like projectiles to bring down prey. The ooze instinctively avoids fire, so travelers forced to camp in known gunpowder ooze territory often light bonfires despite the danger of advertising their presence to the Mana Wastes' other residents. Suggestions that local populations of oozes be weaponized, periodically put forward by unwise Alkenstari and Mana Waste tacticians, are uniformly shot down by cooler heads; those who attempt to proceed anyway usually meet explosive ends.