Offbeat Beasts: Giant Shark Bowl Ooze – D&D Monsters With A Unique Twist
Written by the Goblins on November 4, 2018
Editor’s note: This is part of a series exploring cool, weird, or just plain interesting Dungeons and Dragons monsters from both Wizards of the Coast and third-party publishers such as Kobold Press.
Name: Giant Shark Bowl Ooze
Source: Creature Codex, Published 2018 by Kobold Press, MSRP $49.99
What it does: This thing rolls around in dungeons with a shark inside it. There’s also some treasure (such as one would find in a fishtank decoration) placed there to distract adventurers and prevent them from plumbing further into the depths of whatever dungeon in which they were unfortunate enough to encounter this hilarious beast.
It has a multi-attack — one is a bite because shark and the other is a pseudopod because ooze. It also has a wide latitude for engulf people and things and dealing a lot of damage when it does so.
Artist’s conception of an artist’s conception of a Giant Shark Bowl Ooze. It’s basically a fish tank that can roll around dungeons, bite you and whip at you with a pseudopod.
Why it’s cool: According to legend, this roving ball of ooze and shark was created with some mentally addled lich wanted to distract adventurers from his phylactery and thought this… thing, with its visible treasure would be a tempting target that either would kill them or make them thing they’ve won once they defeated it and took the treasure.
Granted I’m not a legendary undead creature, but I’d love to know what was going through this lich’s head to get him to the point of “I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT WILL DO THE TRICK! A SHARK TRAPPED IN A BALL OF OOZE!” It’s Lich Doctor Evil.
Giant Shark Bowl Ooze has an immunity to lightning damage, which is so not fair. You think if something’s made of liquid it’s going to be vulnerable to lightning. But not only is it immune to lightning damage, it actually receives a buff from a lightning attack and deals an extra 1d4 damage for one minute.
Also of note, the ooze and the shark inside it are symbiotically linked and act as one creature so there’s no way you can take out the ooze and let the shark suffocate.
When to use it: Let’s be real here. You’re not going to have a lot of opportunities to use this guy that will feel natural in a campaign that’s serious in tone. So, to me, that means it’s time to lean in to the silliness.
My gut reaction to how I’d use this? I’d create some bizarre Mad Mage-type Daedalus dungeon built around the idea that this weird shark ooze is lurking inside it and the party can win a great reward if they’re able to defeat it. The owner of the maze is confident that they’ll lose because no one has been able to defeat it in all these years — it’s a very lucrative business for this guy.
Or maybe an aquarium in a large city is taken over by wizard or lich or wizard lich who creates the monster to serve her and protect her new lair (the aquarium). There’s no way to do this seriously, so don’t even try. But feel free to try and change my mind.
