ENTITY 01: DIMENSIONAL TRASH ANOMALY

This year, I'm going to try to make 1 blog post a week. Most posts will be monsters or elements for a pre-apocalypse setting I'm working on called NO-ONE GETS OUT ALIVE. Here is the first monster.

A small government research facility on the east coast has been experimenting with new methods of compressing 4th dimensional space. Boxes that are bigger on the inside, that sort of thing. This promises to open up exciting new opportunities in landfill storage. These hypothetically infinite spaces could store a hypothetically infinite amount of trash, allowing humanity to continue exponentially generating garbage in peace and comfort. 

Unfortunately the department was disbanded due to budget cuts and something inevitably went wrong with the machine. Now the country is plagued by hyper-dense 4th dimensional trash shamblers that lurk in the alleyways and absorb everything they touch. From the outside they appear as jittering mounds of lumbering garbage that glitches and intersects itself at impossible angles. Each one looks different, depending on what type of waste it's been feeding on. In the center, you can see what looks like a miniature black hole. 

The shamblers are programmed to detect Trash Producing Entities and will attempt to grab you on sight. Anyone unlucky enough to make contact will be sucked through into the infinite cosmos of the trash dimension. 

The trash dimension is a glittering star-filled expanse where landfill slowly spirals like the milky way. Strangely beautiful. From your perspective you see the dark violet outline of endless junk stretch to the horizon, with a swirling purple nebula haze in the sky above. The pinpricks of light in the sky seem like stars at first glance. They're actually ultra-compressed, self-perpetuating tire fires. 

There are rumours that the people lost to the trash dimension have built their own mad max-style civilization, surviving off the refuse for years. It is said they worship the serpentine Trash Queens that twist through the depths of the landfill rivers, and that these queens hold the secret to returning home. But if this is true, no-one has ever escaped to tell of it.

ENTITY 01: DIMENSIONAL TRASH ANOMALY

Danger: High.

Number Appearing: 1-2. 

AC: 16. HD: 5.
Speed: 1/2 unencumbered human. Double that speed when it's walking on trash. 

ATTACKS: 

The trash shambler gets 2 of the following attacks per round. 

• Grab +5. You are sucked in and embedded in the shambler's juddering form. Make a DC 15 agility save each round after you are grabbed. If you fail 2 saves, you are sucked through into the trash dimension. 
  
  The shambler gains +1 AC for each being it has grabbed. If you miss an attack against the shambler, you must deal damage to one of the beings it has grabbed. 
  
  
• Disgorge. The gravitational forces holding the trash anomaly in place begin to fail and the shambler unintentionally spews out an impossible volume of trash at high speed. 2d6 damage to everyone in a cone, half damage on save. The Shambler loses 1 hit dice of HP. Everything in the cone is coated in ancient detritus.
  
  
• Suction. The anomaly sucks in all trash and trash-like objects nearby. This may include weapons and items the PC's are carrying - make a DC 10 strength save to hold onto them. It gets +1 HP for each object sucked in.
  
  These objects will become embedded in the shambler, tantalisingly within reach of the PC's.

BEHAVIOR:

The Shambler is easily distracted by trash. You can escape it by throwing away items, then running while it's distracted. It will focus on the areas with the most refuse (even if that means ignoring the PC's). 

Every time you deal damage to the Trash Anomaly, it scatters garbage nearby. Whenever it's on garbage, it moves twice as fast and has advantage to grab. It automatically hoovers up anything it moves through, but has to use the Suction ability to get anything out of reach.

 

When a Trash Anomaly reaches 0 HP, it convulses for a brief time, then explodes. The contents of the Trash Dimension is vomited up all over the nearby area. Everything in the blast radius must take 2d6 damage (half on save). Any PC's or items that were sucked into the trash dimension will be vomited back up. The walls, floor and ceiling will be embedded with the strange treasures of the trash dimension - mysterious items and artifacts from aeons long lost to man.