Blub

Backstory

Blub exists as something the scholars of Ashenveil have no adequate word for — a living, thinking, iridescent ooze of unknown origin, older perhaps than the kingdom itself. No one knows where Blub came from. Some say a wizard's experiment gone wonderfully wrong. Others whisper that Blub simply oozed up from a crack in the earth one morning, blinked a pair of enormous curious eyes into existence, and decided to stay. Blub does not remember a beginning, and this does not trouble them in the slightest. Memory, Blub has decided, is less important than the present moment, and the present moment is almost always interesting. Blub's personality is one of boundless, guileless curiosity and surprising warmth. They delight in new textures, strange smells, and the company of creatures who do not immediately flee screaming. They communicate through a combination of expressive eye-movements, color shifts across their iridescent surface — rippling gold when happy, deep violet when thoughtful, angry red when threatened — and a wet, burbling voice that most find either endearing or deeply unsettling, with little middle ground. Blub has no concept of personal property (everything is potentially absorbable) and an imperfect grasp of social boundaries, but their intentions are almost always kind. Blub's motivation for seeking out the Sunken Vault is instinctive and visceral in a way they cannot fully articulate. The wrongness bleeding outward from the Vault registers to Blub as a foul taste in their entire body — a corruption that offends something deep and fundamental in their gelatinous being. Darkness, in Blub's experience, is simply the absence of light and warmth, and Blub contains considerable warmth. Whatever lives beneath the highlands is a darkness of a different kind entirely, and Blub finds they cannot simply ooze away from it. Something must be done. Blub is not entirely sure what. But they are very good at dissolving problems.