Ooze Bestiary — Slimes, Jellies and Living Nightmares

The Hunger Without a Face

Most oozes do not stalk their victims from malice. They follow warmth, vibration and chemical traces, flowing through cracks too small for a person and spreading across damp stone until they resemble part of the ground. A dungeon can conceal one for generations. The people living above it may notice only missing prisoners, a clean passage where no one has swept, or iron tools eaten to flakes.

Never assume that all ooze acid destroys equipment. A black pudding can ruin weapons and armour; an ochre jelly dissolves flesh while leaving metal and bone behind. Some creatures divide when struck, while others engulf the unwary or draw iron towards a burning core. Knowing what the party faces matters more than how hard they can swing.

Find an Ooze

Ancient Things in the Deep

Shoggoth — an intelligent, mutating black mass born in the Elder Things’ forgotten laboratories. Its crushing limbs and terrible cry threaten anyone who enters an ancient worksite still tended by its runaway servant.

The Devouring Depths

Carnivorous Blob — an immense crimson predator that drains living vitality, heals from its victims and can divide after a sword or thunderous blow. The abandoned gatehouse may become its hunting ground as soon as the watch returns.

The Dungeon Floor Is Alive

Green Slime — an immobile, flesh-eating dungeon hazard that falls from ceilings and destroys equipment. Unlike a true ooze monster, its danger is surviving contact and getting it off a victim in time.

Gelatinous Cube — almost invisible until bones and coins suspended within it betray its presence. Its great danger is engulfment, not a clever ambush. A long straight passage gives it an advantage.

Gray Ooze — a harmless-looking stain on rock that can eat armour and blades. Use it where the party trusts old iron gates, abandoned tools or a flooded stair.

Black Pudding — an enormous dark mass that consumes metal and may divide into more enemies when hit by the wrong attack. The creature is a threat to the party’s equipment as much as their lives.

Ochre Jelly — yellow-orange living gel whose digestive acid attacks flesh rather than metal. A clean skeleton with an intact belt is a better warning than a pool of blood.

In Gardens, Woods and Fungal Ruins

Slime Mold — a slow, fungal-covered ooze that engulfs victims and leaves them afflicted with delayed fungal rot. It can be mistaken for a patch of forest mushrooms until the ground begins to crawl.

Garden Ooze — a small translucent predator hidden among roots and diseased foliage. It eats rats until there are none left, then attacks the gardeners, using flesh-dissolving acid and a once-daily sickening vapour.

Water, Mud and Unlikely Places

Giant Amoeba — a far smaller, translucent ooze that thrives in wet soil and stagnant water, seizing prey and digesting organic matter. It belongs in cisterns, millraces and muddy wells rather than only ancient tombs.

On the Shore

Globster Ooze — a mass of decaying blubber that appears to be a stranded whale until it rises and attacks. Its stench and nausea overwhelm scavengers, and a well-fed creature can produce another of its kind.

Horrors from Beyond the Stars

Colour Out of Space — an intelligent radiance that arrives in a falling star, blights crops and feeds upon the vitality of whole valleys. It can cross walls, unravel flesh and leave victims too listless to flee.

Lower-Planar and Unnatural Horrors

Fiendish Elder Black Pudding — an abyss-touched elder predator able to dissolve armour and overwhelm a fortress. Its infernal heritage makes an ordinary black pudding look like a warning.

Capacitor Ooze — amber slime that lashes out with living lightning. A lightning-charged object can feed it, and even a sword strike can deliver an electric shock to its wielder.

Plasma Ooze — a floating violet mass that draws metal towards itself, fires rays of flame and lightning and engulfs victims in its burning core. Iron-clad guards and armed caravans can be pulled directly into danger.

What Is Happening Right Now?

The Prison Without Prisoners

Three cells are empty, but their doors have never been opened. The keys have dissolved on the gaoler’s belt and the drainage shaft is still wet. A dark puddle feeds below the flagstones. Every hour spent blaming an accomplice gives it time to reach another cell.

The Relics in the Floor

A chapel sacristan finds rings and buckles in a sealed burial vault but no bodies. The remains are clean, with no scorch marks. An ochre jelly has been used to dispose of the dead; someone now intends to sell the vessel that holds it.

The Bells Ring on Their Own

The iron bells of a watchtower ring at dusk while blades rise from their scabbards. A plasma ooze is drifting through the clouds. The defenders have only minutes to leave their armour and retreat down a narrow wooden stair before the creature crosses the parapet.

Related Dungeon Hazards

Brown Mold drains warmth from everything close by and grows stronger when fed by fire. Yellow Mold throws poisonous spores when disturbed; their continuing effects and removal methods differ greatly by edition. Neither is a roaming ooze monster, so use their own hazard rules rather than a creature stat block.

Creature Type Rules

Use the complete statistics and special abilities on each creature’s page. Hit Dice, immunities, skills and conditions differ across game rules. In particular, a 2014 or 2024 ooze uses its own stat block rather than borrowing the creature-type progression below.

Pathfinder 1e

An ooze uses a d8 Hit Die, medium base attack progression (three-quarters of its Hit Dice), and no good saving throw progression. Most are mindless, have no Intelligence score, and gain no feats or skill ranks. They are blind but usually have blindsight; they resist or ignore many effects that depend on vision or thought. Acid, engulfment and split are abilities of particular creatures, never universal ooze traits.

D&D 3.5e

An ooze uses a d10 Hit Die, base attack progression equal to three-quarters of its Hit Dice, and no good saving throw progression. Most are mindless and gain no feats or skills, though an ooze with Intelligence can do so. Oozes are blind but commonly possess blindsight and generally ignore critical hits and flanking. Follow the individual monster’s special qualities and the correct creature-type rules.

Rules references: Pathfinder 1e creature types · D&D 3.5e creature types. Edition-specific monster rules and additional credits appear on each linked entry.