So, here we are, back again for another serving of 2 more dangerous creatures based on sound. In fact, these are potentially even deadlier than last time’s offerings, the Humming Bee and Hissing Wyrm.

First up, there’s the Whisper Willow, the perfect place to catch a quiet nap between adventures. Or not.

And then there’s the outright mean Tunnel Shrieker, from which other species should run, shrieking!

Doesn’t this look restful and relaxing, the perfect place to pause in the heat of day and just chill out for a bit, maybe take a little nap…?
Maybe not. Image by ? Mabel Amber, who will one day from Pixabay

The Whisper Willow

The Whisper Willow is visually indistinguishable from a normal weeping willow. That’s because it’s an animal that invades a real willow via the roots, and consumes the tree internally while replacing it’s key anatomical details with its own.

They are, therefore, obviously found on leafy riverbanks and the like.

The relationship is not quite as one-sided as it sounds; during the transition period, which can take decades depending on the size of the tree, the Whisper Willow releases additional nutrients into the tree system to ensure that it has an excellent leafy canopy and scope for luxurious growth. It skirts a fine line between parasitic and symbiotic roles for the host tree, but eventually the takeover will be complete, and the Whisper Willow fully mature..

Other trees and plants around the willow will eventually begin to wither and die, as those additional nutrients have to come from somewhere.

As a result, the Whisper Willow is the leafiest protection from the heat of the day going around, the perfect place to drop anchor and catch some Z’s. Which is just what it wants.

The Intrusion

As a passing creature of animal or better sentience sleeps beneath it’s shady canopy, the Whisper Willow releases a small part of itself, a tendril that detaches from the host and crawls onto the victim.

When it encounters an entrance that leads to the brain – usually the nose or ears, occasionally the mouth or eyes – it invades the body of the sleeper, and makes itself at home.

A few days later, and the Tendril becomes somewhat symbiotic, as the Whisper Willow pulls a very similar trick on the animal host. The changes are subtle, but profound.

The benefits of a Whisper Tendril – to the host

For every character level the animal host has (or equivalent), they gain an extra HP of natural healing per week, distributed as evenly throughout the week as possible.

For every character level the animal host has (or equivalent), once a week, one hour’s sleep is so restful that it counts as two, again distributed as evenly through the week as possible.

EG: if a creature had 7HD or 7 levels, one hour every night would count as an extra hour’s sleep – and GOOD sleep, no tossing and turning – and each day, they would naturally heal an extra HP.

If a creature had 4 HD or 4 levels, it would be every 2nd night, plus one other occasion during the week.

If a creature had 14 levels or HD, it gets two extra points of healing a day (effectively, low-level regeneration) and 2 hours of sleep count as four – every night.

The secondary benefits are that the animal host feels better rested, more energetic, healthier and more able. Minor scratches and ailments heal more quickly, and this confers a glow of health that is worth +1 CHAR for every 5 levels that the character has earned since occupancy began.

Many also report that their dreams seem both more pleasant and more vivid on such occasions.

The whispering begins

The idle thoughts of the host soon begin to wend in unpleasant directions, however, as though a voice were whispering thoughts of paranoia, jealousy, and envy within their mind.

    Initial Consequences

    Behavioral changes will be small, at first. The host has to gain as many levels as it already possessed at the time of Tendril ‘acquisition’ before they will do more than aggravate existing envy, brooding, and other dark moods.

    Deepening disturbance

    When that threshold is reached, once a week, the GM can force a particular train of thought or choice of actions upon the character. if caught, the character will be unable to explain himself save in the simplest terms – “I wanted it”, “I thought [X] was going to steal it,”, etc. Most occurrences will be trivial – consuming someone else’s serving of food as well as your own, for example. But the whispers are only just beginning to take root.

    Each additional level or HD gained by the animal host thereafter adds one to the number of occasions per week that ‘something’ gets into the head of the character.

    Holding onto sanity, one day at a time

    Furthermore, the character can make a WILL save to ignore these temptations and desires – the DC is 1 plus 1 for each level gained since ‘acquisition’ took place, so it’s not a difficult check.

    But each time you succeed, you make the next check 1 DC harder.

    Cures and Heals

    It must be emphasized that there is nothing wrong with the victim – their condition is a perfectly natural, normal, and healthy result of the benefits they continue to receive (plus the whispering of idle thoughts directly into their mind). It’s taken so long for anything to happen because those thoughts needed to take root within the mind being occupied. Hence Cure and Healing spells, potions, etc will have no impact on the presence or consequences of the Tendril (other than those specifically noted elsewhere).

    The tattered remnants

    By the time these events are occurring weekly, the character is prone to believing in all sorts of superstitions and paranoid fantasies. They are easily convinced of conspiracy theories by the slimmest of evidence and most specious arguments, and their WILL save DC adds to the DC of anyone trying to talk ‘sense’ to them.

    Indeed, should any ‘old companions’ make the attempt, they are more likely to be seen as part of whatever paranoid delusion the character suffers from. “I see it now, you’re a part of it! You’re all a part of it, plotting against me at every turn. How long has it been since your loyalties were bought and paid for by [insert random ‘enemy’ here]? Stay back, I don’t want to use violence —”

    At this point the character either becomes an NPC or the player can be brought ‘into the loop’ – they might have fun playing a total paranoid for a while!

The benefits of a Whisper Tendril – to the Whisper Willow

The Whisper Willow – not just the tendril, but the source life-form – feeds on the paranoid and dark thoughts of the animal host, and enjoys vicariously the benefits of their growth.

Every time the animal host gains a HD or character level, so does the Whisper Willow. Every time a magical healing of some sort is used upon the animal host, the Whisper Willow is also healed. Should the Whisper Willow be directly attacked, it can draw upon the HP of the host, who suffers an apparent heart attack or stroke, but that’s rare.

How many animal hosts?

This depends on two things: the height of the Tree-host, and the percentage takeover by the Whisper Willow.

Remember how the Whisper Willow was helping the tree-host grow tall, strong, and luxurious? Now the truth of the matter is revealed!

Multiply the height (in meters, or in yards) of the host tree by the percentage takeover by the Whisper Willow – 10%, 20%, and so on, +10% per HD gained – to get the effective height of the Whisper Willow within the tree.

  • At 1m or less, 0+1=1 animal host is possible.
  • At 1-2m, 1+2=3 animal hosts are possible.
  • At 2-3m, 3+3=6 animal hosts are possible.
  • At 3-4m, 6+4=10 animal hosts are possible.
  • At 4-5m – as tall as the biggest Weeping Willows normally get – 10+5=15 animal hosts.
  • But the extra nutrients from the Whisper Willow pushes these limits. At 5-6m, 15+6=21 animal hosts.
  • And, at 6-7m, 21+7=28 animal hosts. That’s about the absolute maximum – so far as anyone knows.

With 28 animal hosts, gaining 1-2 HD per week doesn’t seem all that extraordinary. In a good week, perhaps as many as 4 HD. Plus recoveries and magical healing cast on one or more of the animal hosts in the course of the week – Whisper Willows are extremely tough and resilient!

Even if a Willow never infests anyone with more than 4HD at the time, they can gain as many as 8-12HD from that host over time. Multiply that by 28 and you get 224-336HD!

Of course, such trees are exceptionally rare.

Reactions To Whisper Willows

Most Druids consider Whisper Willows to be amongst the most vile and disgusting things ever to see the light of day. The way the encourage the growth of their hosts, both vegetable and animal, purely for their own benefit, is viewed as Perverse. A few still regard them as a part of nature, to be protected and nurtured, regardless of the fact that this makes them pariahs to their peers..

It’s common for Elves to share in these opinions and attitudes, with certain exceptions.

Notably, Rangers tend to look upon the creatures as mostly beneficial, with some drawbacks – no better nor worse than having any other animal in existence, really.

Warlords are often seduced by the benefits; a few have even deliberately exposed elite troops to Whisper Willows (possibly cultivated for the purpose). This tends to make their armies superior to those of equal number without the ‘benefits’ of Whisper Willows, fueling success in conquest and battle. It tends to work fine until the ruler becomes convinced that the army are plotting to overthrow him (because some of them are) – and until the elite forces grow paranoid over the leadership of their ruler (at much the same time). Entire Kingdoms can collapse into ruin and dysfunction overnight when this occurs.

Other groups tend to have no consensus opinions.

Rumored Origins

There are some who believe that these outcomes point to origins somewhere in the Demon realms, creatures of Chaos which have either escaped or been set loose upon the Earth.

Others find plenty of scope for Chaos in nature itself, and dismiss such claims as paranoia (now there’s irony for you!)

It has been suggested that some mad Wizard somewhere tried to create an amalgam of animal and plant, possessing the benefits of both. But Mad Wizards make such convenient scapegoats that others are inclined to dismiss any such suggestions.

One minor religious sect holds that they were intended as a way of unifying all life in spiritual perfection who were corrupted when mortals were expelled from Paradise, but no-one takes them very seriously.

Animal Host Protectiveness

Even when at their most befuddled, animal hosts remember that they experienced the most perfect rest of their lives beneath the eaves of the magnificent willow, way back when, though they often find it difficult to recall exactly where it was located. “Somewhere on the banks of the Danube, near one of those little countries they have out that way” is not very helpful, and anyone not infested has even less reason to consider the location at all memorable.

When the constant looking over their shoulders becomes wearying, many will seek out that comfort once again, and commit to spending their days beneath the heavenly branches in the company of like-minded others.

These provide an additional line of defense for the Whisper Willow – anyone seeking to attack the ‘Tree’ must get through it’s ‘guardians’. This, of course, plays completely into the induced paranoia of those guardians; no sort of deal will be acceptable, no compromise is possible – leave this place or die!!

Of course, this only occurs when the Willow has had long enough to fully mature, and to have maxed out its catalog of animal hosts. It’s possible that this is a natural way for the Willow to rid itself of hosts that no longer benefit it, creating a vacancy for other victims in the catalog.

Tracing The Link

There are those who suggest that, in order for the Willow to benefit from the growth and experiences of the animal host, there must be some connection between said host and the originating ‘Tree’.

Many such people then go out and look for such a connection, and frequently find it – a silvery thread through the Astral Plane that presumably links one to another.

Following such link-lines is extremely difficult and dangerous.

  • For one thing, the connection is so small and ephemeral that it is hard to even see.
  • For Another, it is entwined amongst thousands of other threads, many of a more robust and visible nature, so it’s easy to lose the trail.
  • A third consideration is that following such threads is like heading upwind in a dangerous part of the world – there are creatures out there who can and will stalk and hunt you without your even being aware of their presence (until it’s too late).
  • And, fourthly, the line itself retraces the physical passage of the animal host, through every dangerous place and deadly environment to which they have been, since. Should any of those places have repopulated with beings who can sense Astral Travelers and take action against them… say no more.

But it is possible and will lead you (eventually) to the exact Whisper Willow in question.

    Severing The Link

    It may be possible to sever the link without following it. No-one has ever documented a successful technique. What has been documented has been the impact on animal hosts when the link is severed: for every level gained since ‘acquisition’, they lose a point of INT, a point in CON, a point of WIS, and 1/2 a Hit Die (permanent losses all). They may lose their paranoia, but it is replaced with a state of confused befuddlement. The reason no technique is recorded is because the consequences are so horrific for the individual.

Attacking A Whisper Willow

This is never easy. It can’t be done from an Astral Plane, it needs to be done in material form. First, you need to get through any ring of Guardians (who will fight to the death to protect their ‘sanctuary’. Then you need to get through the wooden husk of the Willow – which can be several inches of aged and toughened wood, as tough as plate. Finally, you need to inflict enough harm on the creature within to either kill it or force it to withdraw. Given the number of HD one can possess, this is far from an easy task.

And the Willow itself is not without it’s own ability to respond. For every animal host it has the potential to attach itself (whether it has done so or not), it can control one of the willow’s vine-like branches as though it were a whip. It can attack one foe per meter (yard) of height at a time with these natural weapons. With the full combat bonuses associated with a creature of anything up to 336HD (but probably less)!

Part of its’ nature is still that of a Tree, however. It is somewhat vulnerable to fire.

Once about 25% damage has been inflicted by fire or electrical attacks, the timber begins to dry out, and thereafter fire attacks will do double damage. It’s not much, but it’s something.

On a critical success, you can even set the shell of the tree on fire, forcing some or all of the whip-like limbs to turn their attention to extinguishing the blazes, usually by trailing their tips through the river and then using the wet leaves to beat out the flames.

Should those limbs have been shortened by deliberate attack, this can lead to the blaze becoming uncontrollable, continuing to inflict X dice of damage per round, direct to the creature within – no saves.

Killing The Willow

With luck, persistence, and a great deal of effort, a Whispering Willow can be killed. This immediately causes all whispering and other benefits of hosting a Tendril to stop, and prevents any worsening of the side-effects of such hosting.

Recovery is another matter. While the suggestibility may ease after suitable reeducation and appropriate eye-opening experiences, full rehabilitation is beyond the abilities of most creatures and cultures.

It is possible that an advanced culture with inherent psionic abilities could perform such a restoration – the Illithid being one such possibility – but securing their cooperation and being confident that your trust in them will not be violated is another matter.

A full ‘Wish” can undo any one aspect of the consequences, but not all of them at once. You could banish the paranoia, for example, but not the penetration of envy and personal desire. You could restore those with a second, but still leave untouched the damage to the critical thinking faculties of the individual. A third spell can restore those, leaving the affection for the condition and its source untouched – remembering that, to the sufferers, their delusions and paranoia seem to be ‘clarity of thought’ and ‘personal insight’.

Killing the tree is only the beginning of the rehabilitation process, and much of it will face determined opposition from the tree’s victim. Ultimately, they liked, to at least some degree, what was happening to them, and you took it away in an act of cruelty – meant well, but still harmful in the short term (from the sufferer’s point of view). Even getting cooperation sufficient to prevent an immediate on-sight attack is an achievement.

If all you’ve done is kill the tree, then you have restored hope and prevented further manipulation into deterioration. It’s not nothing, but it’s only the beginning.

Whisper Willow Reproduction

One thing that can make these tasks a little easier is the asexual reproduction method of the Whisper Willows – they literally have to give up a HD which then attaches itself to an independent root that burrows away in search of a new Willow to inhabit.

Most of these HP are fruitlessly lost. A new host must be located a reasonable distance from the parent tree so as not to ‘steal’ it’s nutrients, and the ‘root’ has only the most primitive of senses to serve it – it can sense water, and land, and stay within a certain distance from the first, and it ‘knows’ when it has found a suitable location – but it might have to wander a long time to find one.

And it doesn’t have all that long to do so. Many other underground and burrowing creatures can be encountered, and most of them will look upon the root as being a delicacy.

The act of spreading more of its kind around is a constant drain on the HD of the parent. At best, one in eight such attempts will yield success, and it can easily be substantially less – a primary factor being the number of Weeping Willows in the vicinity. Is this a confined pocket of the plants, or are they plentiful along this river bank?

Once again, it’s not much – but when it comes to Whispering Willows, you take everything you can get.

This comparatively small thumbnail doesn’t really do the full image justice. Check out the full 3536×2357 magnificence at or download it from the image link that follows: Image by Chil Vera from Pixabay

The Tunnel Shrieker

This might seem to jump around a little at first, but it will all come together in the end.

Tunnel Shriekers are one of the more naturally-resilient species out there. No-one’s quite sure if they are plant, animal, or something else altogether, but given their preferred habitats, it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference.

If the air is tainted or naturally noxious, and the temperature is insanely hot, Tunnel Shriekers feel right at home.

Geothermal Gradient

Have you ever heard of the Geothermal Gradient? As you go deeper into the earth, the temperature rises. As a rough rule of thumb, it’s +25-30°C for every km of depth underground (+72-87°F per mile), but there are any number of exceptions, both on the higher end and the lower end.

(The effects of weather, the Sun, and season only reach a depth of roughly 10–20 m (33–66 ft). So this is caused by internal heat sources).

While the temperatures a mile or two down may be on the cold side for Tunnel Shriekers, there are a few who seem to like the cold (just as some people like the snow while others don’t), and it’s from these radical examples that the creatures(?) get their name..

In reality, though, they prefer their habitats to be a lot nastier. They are at home in Lava Tubes, around Geothermal Vents, near the lava pools of active Volcanoes, and in certain locations on the elemental plane of Fire (if your game universe has such).

Ultrasonic Machining

Let’s try another one. Have you ever heard of Ultrasonic Machining, or an Ultrasonic Cutter? These use sound – defined in this case as high-frequency low-amplitude vibrations – to precision-cut materials. They are widely used in the textiles industry as well as having surgical applications and can be used to cut steel and other harder materials as well – generally, of course, each application will use slightly different designs!

You can even buy Ultrasonic Cutters direct from Amazon.

So this is not a radical new invention, it’s been around for a while.

But Wait – Kinetic Motion Of Particles?

Unless I am misremembering my high school chemistry, though, the kinetic energy of particles of a substance is also known as its temperature.

This Wikipedia page will tell you everything you need to know about the subject, and more.

Okay, it’s generally applicable only to gasses, but the general principle of a direct relationship should hold, regardless of the physical state of the material in question.

And, sure enough, one of the applications for sonic cutting is welding, which would seem to back up this line of thinking, at least enough for game purposes.

Resonant Frequency

So far as I can tell, none of this bears any relation to the concept of material objects having a “resonant frequency” or “natural frequency”, defined as the frequency at which a system oscillates in the absence of any driving force.

If a force of some kind induces an oscillation at that frequency, it’s amplitude compounds. This can have impacts on structures – the most famous example being the Tacoma Narrows Bridge – though, when Mythbusters set out to test the concept that an army marching in unison could induce such a calamity, the results were initially inconclusive. A revisit of the myth later in the season established that the principle was sound but improbable.

Here’s a GIF of the bridge’s oscillation in slow motion:

And here’s one that shows what it was like on the bridge itself

Unsurprisingly, the bridge was not designed to stand up to this kind of punishment and eventually collapsed – though it lasted a lot longer than I would have expected! I’m sure most of you will have seen this iconic footage before.

Later, Mythbusters expanded the subject to look at an “earthquake machine” designed by Nikola Tesla that used the same principles of harmonic motion. The results were negative – although they produced a vibration that was enough to make the hosts nervous, and that could be noticed “hundreds of feet away”, actually getting to the exact right frequency was too delicate a job, or so it seemed. Something similar was observed when the team were attempting to break crystal glasses with just the human voice – it wasn’t good enough to be 99.99% of the resonant frequency, it had to be a precise match.

See:

Anyway, to get back on point: As I said, it doesn’t appear to be related to Ultrasonic Cutting at all, but why let that stop me from conflating the ideas?

Back to the Tunnel Shriekers

Tunnel Shriekers are naturally attuned to projecting Ultrasonic sound waves that can create spectacular effects in metals and other crystalline structures.

They have two primary attack weapons:

    Precision Scalpel

    This peels off a section of armor – literally cutting it off, without harming the flesh and bone beneath. Of course, removing a section of metal also makes it likely that anything attached to the rest of the mail by that section will also come away.

    The Precision Scalpel is (comparatively) slow. It can be used to remove 0.707 square inches of plate or other solid armor per HD of Shrieker in a turn. (In practice, it’s easier to say 1 square inch per 2 turns).

    Avoiding The Math

    Okay, let’s be honest: there are two ways of working this – an easy way and a hard way.

    The hard way is to estimate the radius of the affected piece of armor – I’ve picked a forearm part as my example – ignoring the fact that it might not be perfectly round, and calculate an “exact” number.

    The easy way is to count roughly how many inches around the affected part there are just going “1, 2, 3, 4,” and so on, add something for the fact that your arms are probably not as big and burly as the typical armor-wearing PC, add one for the fact that the armor won’t be skin-tight, add another for margin of error, and call it a number.

    So: I count 5″, (maybe 5 1/2,) around the thickest part of my forearm. I’m no longshoreman so let’s double that to 11, add one (the 1/2 inch is already the margin of error) and call it 12 square inches, and move on. If I halve the length of the cylindrical section, I can cut that down to 6 square inches. So a 6HD Shrieker could do that in 2 rounds, a 12HD Shrieker could do it in a single round.

    Easy.

    If the material is not solid plate, this rate is halved (because the material has a little more give) – that includes cloth and bone armor as well as chain and leather, by the way.

    The number of inches in two rounds that the Shrieker can cut through is, conveniently enough, also the range of this attack.

    The Liquefication Attack

    To use this attack, the Shrieker has to successfully “Hit” the target (well, duh!)

    Every point by which the succeed is counted and if the total is equal to, or greater than, the armor bonus (including magic) then a whole section of the armor simply drips off the body of the wearer, liquefied, and doing 1/2d6 per point of armor bonus..

    If the Shrieker doesn’t get enough points to get through the armor, it inflicts a single point of damage per point of success, plus 1d6 heat damage (the armor gets hot).

    The attack works by finding the ‘resonant frequency” of that piece of armor, so each successive round that the Shrieker attempts this, it gets a +1 bonus to ‘tune in’ to the correct pitch of shriek. Eventually, it will get through.

    This attack has a range of 1″ for every 2 HD of Shrieker.

    Still, this doesn’t sound so terrible, right?

    On a critical hit, something nastier happens – the Shrieker happens to land on the correct frequency for one of the bones (or equivalent) that keeps a limb functional. This immediately liquefies, doing 2d6 damage, and becomes useless until Healed. And no half-measures on that healing – this is beyond a “Cure Moderate Wounds”.

    Technically, bones can’t melt. Bone consists of cells and proteins that bind other materials together; those binding agents fall apart at ‘relatively’ low temperatures. What’s left is called ‘bone ash’ (technical name: mostly Hydroyapatite) and yes, it can melt under high pressures at 1381°C. Without those high pressures, it starts to break down at a temperature of about 1200°C. So the bones don’t technically melt under a Shrieker’s critical hit; they disintegrate, leaving the limb (arm, shoulder, hand, foot, knee, thigh) a floppy bag of flesh.

    This does triple the normal damage, and obviously makes the limb useless – it can’t support weight or pick something up or hold something..

    But the fun doesn’t stop there…

Primary Defense

Aside from being fairly tough (they have to be to survive in this sort of environment), a Shrieker’s primary defense is a sort of cut-rate anti-magic field. Attackers don’t get their magic bonuses to hit, and their armor doesn’t get any magical bonus with which to protect the wearer (it still helps the armor keep itself intact however, which is why it’s described as a cut-rate version).

Any rings of free movement or other forms of environmental protection stop working.

The victim is suddenly breathing red-hot noxious gas, without protection, and/or standing in molten lava, without protection, or worse yet, swimming in the stuff.

I’m preparing to move, and so have already packed away the game supplement that I would normally refer to at this point to determine the consequences (“Sandstorm”) but they can’t be very good for the victim.

But note that this cut-rate anti-magic field is fully utilized blocking the bonuses and effects of armor and weapons; such rings and cloaks and boots and whatever, if beneath the mail, are not affected UNTIL the Shrieker succeeds with a Liquefication attack, or cuts away the armor protecting that particular piece of the body.

As primary defenses go, it’s good but far from perfect.

Of course, if you are using the Tunnel Shriekers in a sci-fi campaign, they don’t have magical rings of protection, making the primary attack of the Tunnel Shrieker all the more dangerous!

Secondary Defenses

There are other creatures who like these sort of environments, and they like Shriekers – very much, because the Shriekers give them a huge advantage over intruders. It’s not unheard of for Salamanders, etc, to cultivate Shriekers; there may be as many as 12 of them emplaced around the entrance to one of their strongholds.

Such creatures form an extremely adequate secondary line of defense for the Shrieker.

Primary Vulnerability

As should be surprising to absolutely no-one, Cold is the greatest weakness of a Shrieker. The environment gives them a certain resilience even in the face of such attacks – until the attack does more dice of damage than the Shrieker has HD, they take 1/2 damage – but the moment that threshold is crossed, they take double damage.

What’s more, the cold damage persists – if your primary attack does 8d6, then the following round, the Shrieker will take 4d6, then 2d6, and finally 1d6 – all from that initial attack. (Round in the Shrieker’s favor; if the primary attack did 7d6, the next round it would be 3d6, then 1d6).

Intelligence?

Um, no. Shriekers are completely non-sentient, relying on natural instincts. Those instincts are not triggered by creatures who fit the environment, but will trigger upon encountering those who are merely protected from the environment.

Analogous Life-forms and appearance

Tunnel Shriekers aren’t common in Dungeons and underground lairs, but there’s so much more activity in such spaces that an adventurer is far more likely to encounter one in such places than elsewhere, where they are truly dangerous.

The closest analogues would be traditional Shriekers (listed under “Fungus” in the 3.5 Monster Manual, and not listed at all in the Pathfinder equivalent books so far as I could tell). Does that mean that the Tunnel Shrieker is some sort of Dire Shrieker, and also a fungus? That’s up to the GM!

What can be said is that they are a very dark gray (with a deep purplish tinge) in color, appear to have a slightly slimy texture but actually feel like rock to the touch (complete with craters and chips and other imperfections), but have a lighter, cream-colored underside. So they certainly resemble some variety of mushroom, especially those kinds with a sort of arrowhead cross-section.

When agitated, some of those “craters” open up to reveal themselves as mouths (1/2 d6 bite each if you’re silly enough to lay hands on one, and up to 1d6 mouths able to nibble at you at the same time), from which the Tunnel Shrieker emits its sonic attacks. The rocky ‘skin’, at the same time, is revealed to be more fibrous in nature, reshaping itself into a cone shape to direct the attacks of the mouths.

I start with a suitable image of mushrooms.
This one is by Jürgen from Pixabay.

…cut out the mushroom heads and stalks and reshape them to what I need…

…tweak the color and add some rocky texture to the heads (and note that when I saw the cream color on the stalks, it didn’t look right, so I made a last-second change)…

…add a little ‘sheen’ to make them more slimy…

…blur the more distant one just a little to give more depth to the image…

….cut out the green foreground and insert some lava that I just happened to have lying around….

….add a person for scale (widening the image with a copy of that green foreground and some generic background to make room)….

…a little cropping and final compositing tweaks, and hey presto! Tunnel Shriekers! A deliberately quick-and-dirty job because I only want to convey a rough impression; had I wanted to spend more time, I would have sourced a completely different foreground, would have found a character to insert and not just a silhouette, would have spent a lot more time finessing the Shriekers, etc.

Here’s the key take-away – they are larger slightly darker, slightly grayer versions of the traditional Shrieker, with a slightly different head-shape. When they exist in places no ordinary Shrieker could survive, it’s fairly clear what you’re dealing with; when you encounter a Tunnel Shrieker outside its normal habitat – say, in a dungeon corridor – it’s easy to mistake one for the other.

Reproduction

This is largely conjecture; the environment and life-form make investigation difficult and dangerous. So it may or may not be confirmed at some future point. But, the general belief at the moment is that the craters that don not shriek actually expel spores into the environment when the Shrieker is ready to reproduce. There are both male and female Shriekers, and it takes a spore from both to combine at a suitable foundation point for a new Shrieker to begin. They do not have ‘families’ as most creatures would understand the term; once spores are released, the ‘parent’ completely ignores them.

The likelihood of two spores meeting at a suitable position is uncertain but seems relatively low; the normal solution in nature is for large numbers of potential young to be released, most of which whither and die before ever becoming a whole entity.

Size

And so, to the critical question: How big can Tunnel Shriekers get?

Newly-colonized locations can have 6-12 Shriekers no larger than a human hand, too small to shriek; these can be cut at the base and relocated without harm to either party.

1-3 of these (usually centrally located within the colony) will grow a little larger than the rest and begin to absorb them into itself, prompting further growth. 6-12 “mini-shriekers” become up to three 1HD Tunnel Shriekers, which can grow to 4HD in size.

At that point, these Tunnel Shriekers begin to merge into a single individual Shrieker of 4-12 HD. They can grow wild up to about 18HD in size, maximum, but there have been reports that careful cultivation and exposure to certain rare compounds and minerals can add another 6HD to that total.

At that size, they are leaving human-size behind and circing on the smaller end of the Giant scale.

Only about 1 in 50 Shriekers will grow to 18HD.

One in 100 Shriekers of 10HD or more will exhibit a genetic abnormality, growing a second stalk and “head”. This reduces the size of each by 2HD but doubles the number of fully-independent attacks that can be mounted by each at a time. Should both happen to combine their attacks in kind and against a single target, treat them as one organism with an extra 4HD of ability.

The absolute maximum is therefore a two-headed Shrieker, each head of 22HD, possible only through careful cultivation. But you could be faced with eight or ten of these at the same time.

Where There’s Three Four…

….there are sure to be more (for example, I didn’t offer up any creatures inspired by echoes, or by the Doppler effect, both auditory phenomena of note).

Hopefully, this quintet goes some way to elevating the sonic foe in variety and representation, but it should only be a beginning. There are lots of noises in the world, and most of them could be turned into the focal point of a monster.

As GMs, we spend a lot of time thinking about visuals. Maybe it’s time we spent some time listening for our inspiration, for a change.


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