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D20 System Rules & Content Copyright 2000 Wizards of theCoast, Inc.; Authors Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, SkipWilliams, based on original material by Dave Arneson and E.Gary Gygax.
“Blood Vessel,” an excerpt from En Route II: By Land or By Sea,Copyright 2003, Trident, Inc. d/b/a Atlas Games; Author KeithBaker.
En Route II: By Land or By SeaNow available!
The sequel to our fan-favorite short adventure anthologyis finally here! On the road to your next adventure, take thetime to visit one of these exciting encounters featuring dark
magic, dirty tricks, and supernatural bunnies. Plus: the sequelto Keith Baker’s bovine horror tale “Hellcow.”
To get your copy of “En Route II: By Land or By Sea,” visit your local retailer.Print out this sheet and take it with you for ordering purposes.
Summary: The party encounters a ship that isa duplicate of their own vessel. This mysteryship is actually an enormous mimic, crewed byimmature doppelgangers that are honing theirshapechanging skills.
Background“There’s a vessel dead ahead, captain,” thelookout called. Curious, Sera pulled out herspyglass and peered through it. What she sawsent a shiver down her spine. She grabbedKrogar’s arm. “Look at that ship,” she said in aquavering voice.
Krogar complied, and grunted. “What? So it’sthe same make as our vessel.” Sera shook herhead. “Look again. The sails, the flags … it isour vessel. And there on the foredeck … I swearI saw myself standing next to you!”
Krogar cursed and brought up the spyglass fora second look.
Doppelgangers are infamous creatures — sinis-ter shapeshifters who use their supernaturalpowers to infiltrate humanoid society, or selltheir skills as spies and assassins. But where dothey come from? How does a doppelgangerlearn the art of deception? This encounteroffers one possible explanation. On an oceanvoyage, the party encounters a ship that is amirror image of their own, complete with anidentical crew. The people on the mirror shipare just as confused as the player characters …
or so it seems. In truth, the crew are youngdoppelgangers (called doppelkinder) trying tolearn the basic skills they need to survive ontheir own. And the ship itself is a biologicalorganism — a floating nursery known as ablood vessel.
There are scholars who believe that the dop-pelganger and the mimic are different stages inthe lifecycle of a single creature — ashapeshifter might begin life as a mobilehumanoid, but eventually settle down and losethe ability to assume the form of humanoidcreatures. While most mimics are the size oflarge chests, these sages claim that a mimiccould eventually grow to such a tremendoussize that it could assume the form of a building.In point of fact, these vast creatures prefer todisguise themselves as ships; on the open seas,it is easier to avoid unwanted contact withhumanoids. These enormous mimics are calledblood vessels.
Blood vessels are living nests; they spawn dop-pelkinder from their own mass, provide physi-cal shelter for their children, and guide thesehalf-grown doppelgangers as they master theirnatural talents. Using its telepathic abilities, ablood vessel will locate groups of humanoidsand scan their thoughts, seeking opportunitiesto challenge its children. A blood vessel helps itsdoppelkinder prepare for an encounter, andprovides them with telepathic advice through-out any sort of confrontation. A blood vesselwill only reveal its true nature if its children areseriously threatened; in such an event, theseemingly inanimate structure flows into life,striking out with pseudopods or swatting at itsenemy with its masts.
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BY KEITH BAKER• ILLUSTRATED BY GREY THORNBERRY
Blood Vessel
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Doppelkinder, then, are immature, inexperi-enced doppelgangers. A doppelkinder possessesthe ability to change its shape, but it still needsto master the finer points of subterfuge and dis-guise. It fights in the same manner as a full-grown doppelganger, but it is physically weakerand its f lesh is not as tough as that of an adult.Typically, doppelkinder will travel in groups,seeking safety in numbers as they hone theirskills; they are either accompanied by an expe-rienced doppelganger, or remain in the pres-ence of a blood vessel. A doppelkinder troupemay assume the form of a merchant caravan, atraveling circus, a band of actors, or even a mil-itary patrol. They attempt to avoid conflict,instead using encounters with humanoids asopportunities to practice the art of subterfuge.
A FamiliarSightThis encounter can occur any time that theparty is traveling at sea. They may have bookedpassage on a large ship, or they may be sailingin a vessel of their own. The lookout spots aship on the horizon, headed directly for theparty’s vessel. As the ship closes, observers willnotice a few odd things about the approachingvessel.
1The precise range at which characterscan observe the vessel will vary
depending on whether they are using spy-glasses or observing with the naked eye.
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Regardless, when the ship is close enough tobe seen, a successful Spot check (DC 10) willreveal that it is an exact duplicate of theparty’s ship. If an observer makes the roll by5 points, he notices that there are the samenumber of people on the deck of the strangevessel as there are on the character’s ship;and if he makes the roll by 10 points, he isable to see that the people on deck are exactduplicates of the crew of the party’s vessel,and that they are almost perfectly mimick-ing the actions of the crew.
If all of the characters fail the Spot check,this information will become apparent asthe strange vessel draws closer; the Spotcheck is only required to notice these detailswhile the ship is still far away.
The duplicate ship is headed directly towardsthe party’s boat. As it gets closer, the PCs seetheir counterparts on the other ship watchingthem with a mixture of curiosity and trepida-tion. The crew of the party’s ship may ask theadventurers how to handle this strange situa-tion — but the mirror ship shows no signs ofhostility. Instead, as the ship closes the dupli-cate crew signals a desire to talk, using sema-phore, a flag of truce, or another form of navalcommunication common to the region. If theparty chooses to attack the approaching ship,refer to the statistics later in this encounter. Ifthe PCs choose to ignore it, the mirror ship willfollow and overtake them; the blood vessel hasfins beneath the waterline that supplement itssails. As soon as the vessels are close enough,the doppelkinder counterpart of the mostcharismatic member of the party will call outfrom the deck of the duplicate ship: “Who areyou? Where did you come from?”
Talk to the MirrorThe goal of the doppelkinder is to get the partyto stop and talk with them. They have no hos-tile intentions; they are practicing imperson-
ation, and want to see how long they can main-tain their rather unlikely disguise. They willfeign complete astonishment; they seem to beas puzzled about the situation as the playercharacters.
The spokesman for the doppelkinder (again,choose the counterpart of the PC most likely toassume such a role) asks the party to set anchoruntil they can sort things out; he is willing tocontinue the conversation by shouting, but sug-gests that the parties meet on smaller boatsbetween the two main ships, or that they senda group over to the PCs’ ship. They will notallow anyone to come aboard their ship; theblood vessel looks good from a distance, butlike a mimic, its disguise cannot hold up to aclose physical examination. The doppelkindersend the duplicates of the party as their repre-sentatives; they are more than willing to leaveall weapons and armor on their vessel, and willask the player characters to do the same.
When the two groups eventually come face toface, the doppelkinder leader introduces hiscomrades and explains the nature of their jour-ney. As it turns out, the doppelkinder claim tobe traveling to the same destination as the play-er characters, and for exactly the same reason!
1The blood vessel acquired informationabout the goals of the party as it
approached their ship, using its Mind Probeability (see its stats below). Throughout theencounter, it will continue to read thethoughts of party members; it relays anyimportant information to the doppelkinderusing its telepathic abilities.
If the PCs reveal that they are traveling to thesame destination, the doppelkinder act highlysuspicious. “But you were traveling in thewrong direction,” the leader says. “Who areyou really? Is this some sort of trap?”
The goal of this encounter is to make the play-ers question what’s actually going on. The dop-
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pelkinder have no interest in getting aboard theparty’s ship. They are willing to lay down theirweapons to talk. They seem to know all aboutthe reason the party is traveling. Has the partyslipped into some alternate reality? Is this somesort of temporal echo? Or is it some sort ofelaborate prank?
1There are a number of skill checks thatcould be relevant in this conversation:
• A successful Intuit Direction check(DC 15) allows a character to deter-mine that her ship is headed in thecorrect direction to reach their desti-nation. The doppelkinder will claimthat the party’s maps make no sense.“What are you talking about? TheGap of Gales is to the west, straighttowards the setting sun. You’re head-ing for Grayhaven … we just camefrom there after overthrowing BaronThorkk.” Of course, the doppelkinderdo not have maps to back up their sto-ries — although the blood vessel mightbe able to secrete false maps from itsown mass.
• Each party member should make aSpot check to penetrate the disguisesof the doppelkinder. The difficulty is35, increased to 39 if the doppelkinderis reading the thoughts of the charac-ter. However, a character gets a +6 to+8 circumstance bonus to her rollbased on her familiarity with her fel-low adventurers, and a +10 circum-stance bonus to penetrate the disguiseof the doppelkinder that has assumedher form. If a PC makes the Spotcheck, she notices some sort of incon-sistency. The cleric’s holy symbol is thewrong color. The barbarian has toomany teeth on his necklace. Thedwarf’s front tooth is made of silverinstead of gold. The bard is humming— but she never hums! This will give
the party material for further investi-gation, but will not immediately revealwhat’s going on.
• The doppelkinder use Bluff on a regu-lar basis. Whenever a doppelkindermakes a particularly extreme claim,PCs can oppose it with Sense Motivechecks. If a character made his initialSpot check and noticed somethingodd, he gets a +4 circumstance bonusto his Sense Motive checks.
• After a minute of conversation, a char-acter can make a Sense Motive check(DC 25). If successful, the characterrealizes that the doppelkinder are,basically, lacking any motives. (Theconversation is driven by informationthe doppelkinder are picking upthrough Detect Thoughts and MindProbe; they don’t actually care aboutthe topic of conversation.) The PC getsthe sense that they are actors readinglines from a script.
• The doppelkinder have little experi-ence dealing with real humans. A suc-cessful Intimidate check (DC 19) willunnerve the speaker; he’ll say that hedoesn’t know what the party is up to,but he has no intention of beingcaught in a trap. With that, the dop-pelkinder will attempt to retreat totheir vessel.
• Detect thoughts is relatively ineffectiveagainst the doppelkinder. They them-selves are scanning the minds of theparty, and are trained to keep theirsurface thoughts on topic. Discern liesand zone of truth will work normally,but if the doppelkinder become awareof the spell (via Detect Thoughts) theywill do their best to speak literal truth— though careful questioning preventsthis sort of prevarication. Mind probe
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or true seeing are both fully effective.Other divination spells may revealholes in a doppelkinder’s disguise;spells that detect alignment will revealthe neutral nature of the doppelkinderas opposed to the actual alignments ofthe party members, for instance.
• Finally, the doppelkinder don’t actual-ly possess any of the equipment ownedby the PCs. They can create facsimilesof these items, but their “magic items”will not possess powers or auras; sodetect magic or identify will give thegame away.
CR 10; SZ G (aberration); HP 20d8+140 (190hp); Init +0; Spd 10 ft., swim 60 ft.; AC 17 (–4size, +11 natural); Atk melee +27/+22/+17(2d8+18, slam), or ranged +15/+10/+5 (2d8,natural arbalest); Face 20 ft. x 50 ft.; Reach15 ft.; SA Engulf, Mind Probe; SQ BodyWeaponry, Darkvision 60 ft., Image Bank,Immunities, Shapeshift, Telepathy; AL N; SVFort +13, Ref +6, Will +16; Str 35, Dex 10,Con 25, Int 15, Wis 14, Cha 14
Feats: Alertness, Endurance, Iron Will, SkillFocus (Disguise), Spell Focus (Divination)
Aberration: Aberrations have Darkvisionwith a range of 60 feet.
Body Weaponry (Ex):A blood vessel canform weapons from its body. Its basic attackis to lash out with a powerful pseudopod,which can strike with sufficient force to shat-ter the hull of a ship. If it is close to its target,it can disguise this attack as a battering ramor similar weapon. It can also form anarbalest-like weapon to attack its targets atrange. This attack has a range increment of160 feet, but because it is using its own bodyas ammunition the vessel loses 1 hit point for
every shot it fires. While the vessel can makethree attacks per round, it must concentrateentirely on ranged attacks or melee, and socannot mix the two.
If a blood vessel strikes another ship, the tar-get must make a Fortitude save (DC 12) toavoid a breach. A breached ship will begin tosink. The length of time it will take for thecrippled vessel to sink is determined by thesize of the ship: a galley or warship will lastone hour, a sailing ship or longship will lastfor thirty minutes, a keelboat will last twentyminutes, and a rowboat will only last for fiveminutes. Each successive breach will cut theremaining time in half. Crewmen can tem-porarily mend a breach with a Profession(sailor) check (DC 20), but this will only stopthe clock from running; if the ship isbreached again, the damage will pick upwhere it left off. The ideal solution is themake whole spell, which will repair all dam-age and restore the ship to its original condi-tion.
Engulf (Ex): It’s possible that a characterwill voluntarily wander inside a blood vessel— going below decks on a ship, or inside onethat has taken the form of a house. This is anextremely dangerous place to be, should thevessel decide to shift its internal geometry and
1 New Creature: Blood Vessel
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1 New Creature: Blood Vessel (Continued)crush the people inside. Shifting form on thisscale takes time; if a character within the ves-sel can make a Reflex save (DC 15), he getsone full action to try to get out of the vessel.Once the crushing starts, victims trappedwithin will take 2d8+12 points of damageevery round. A victim trapped inside mustmake a successful grapple check to take anyaction. If the check is made, the character canmove one foot for every point he made thecheck by, literally clawing his way out of thedepths of the vessel. It takes the vessel a fullaction to begin to crush those within it, butafter the attack has been initiated it does nottake any effort to maintain.
Image Bank (Su): If a blood vessel success-fully probes a humanoid mind, it may take astandard action to record a perfect image ofthe target’s appearance and mannerisms.Using a second standard action, it may trans-mit a stored image to any willing dopple-ganger or doppelkinder within 1000 feet. Thetarget immediately adjusts to the new form,using the Disguise skill of the blood vesselinstead of its own. At any time, a vessel canstore two images for every point ofIntelligence it possesses.
Immunities (Ex): Blood vessels are immuneto sleep and charm effects, and to any form ofacid damage.
Mind Probe (Su): A blood vessel possessespowerful psychic abilities and is aware of allminds in its immediate vicinity. It can sensethe presence of intelligent creatures as if usingthe spell detect thoughts; if it focuses on a sin-gle mind, it can duplicate the effects of mindprobe. Both effects are treated as if cast by a20th level psion (save DC 16), and have arange of 1000 feet.
Shapeshift (Ex): A blood vessel can alter itsexternal appearance to that of any object ofgargantuan size — a boat, a house, or a stonewall, for example. A blood vessel can onlyalter the texture of its body to a limiteddegree, and someone who examines it closelycan notice this irregularity by making a Spotor Search check opposed by the vessel’sDisguise skill. While it cannot duplicate theshapes of living creatures, a blood vessel canextrude fins for speedy aquatic movement. Itis less mobile on land; it can create wheels orstubby legs, but it generally oozes along like aslug.
Telepathy (Su): Blood vessels can telepathi-cally communicate with any creature within1000 feet that has a language.
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The doppelkinder draw out the encounterfor as long as possible. They will want tocompare past adventures with the party,using Detect Thoughts and Mind Probe topick up information about the party’sexploits and work it into their own stories.This is an opportunity to suggest alternatedirections that party could take in the future
— “Well, we just returned the jade elephantto princess Sharina. What? How could younot realize it belonged to her?” These storiescould be perfectly valid, based on deduc-tions that the blood vessel has made afteranalyzing the thoughts of the adventurers,or they could be unwise suggestions
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designed to get the party in even more trou-ble if they follow up on them.
The doppelkinder expect to be exposed; theyare still learning their trade, and the challengeis to see how far they can push things. If theparty confronts them with proof of the decep-tion, or the doppelkinder detect a dangerouslevel of hostility, the leader of the delegationwill smile at his counterpart. “Well, it was funwhile it lasted,” he says. Then, as one, the dop-pelkinder spring into action.
1The doppelkinder have no interest inrisking their lives; they wish to escape
unharmed. They dive into the water, assum-ing the forms of sea elves as they fall; now
possessing gills, they swim down into thedepths in order to lose the party. The bloodvessel will begin to move away at high speed;a successful Spot check (DC 16) reveals thepresence of a vast f luke beneath the water-line, powering the motion of the ship. If thePCs give chase or engage the blood vesselwith spells or ranged weaponry, it will twistin an impossible f luid manner and dive, dis-appearing into the depths of the water.
When the doppelkinder transform as theyleap into the water, they assume their natur-al forms for a split second. So while theparty may not understand the motives ofthese creatures, they will realize that they
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1 New Creature: Doppelkinder (18)CR 2; SZ M (shapechanger); HP 2d8 (9 hp);Init +1 (Dex); Spd 30 ft.; AC 14 (+1 Dex, +3natural); Atk melee +1/+1 (1d4, slam), ormelee +1 (by weapon); Face 5 ft. x 5 ft.; Reach5 ft.; SA Detect Thoughts; SQ Alter Self,Darkvision 60 ft., Immunities; AL N; SV Fort+3, Ref +4, Will +4; Str 11, Dex 12, Con 11,Int 12, Wis 13, Cha 12
Alter Self (Su): As a standard action, a dop-pelkinder can assume the shape of any Smallor Medium-sized humanoid. This abilityworks like alter self cast by a 15th-level sorcer-er, but the doppelkinder can remain in a newform indefinitely.
Detect Thoughts (Su): A doppelkinder cancontinuously detect thoughts. This is identicalto the spell of the same name, as if cast by a
15th-level sorcerer (save DC 13), although therange is limited to 30 feet. It can suppress orresume this ability as a free action.
Immunities (Ex): A doppelkinder isimmune to sleep and charm effects.
Shapechanger: Shapechangers haveDarkvision with a range of 60 feet.
Skills: A doppelkinder receives a +4 racialbonus to Bluff and Disguise. When usingAlter Self, a doppelganger receives a +10 cir-cumstance bonus to Disguise checks. If it candetect the thoughts of an opponent, itreceives an additional +4 circumstance bonusto Bluff and Disguise checks.
Equipment: Armor and weaponry as pos-sessed by the character the doppelkinder isimpersonating
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were dealing with some form of doppel-ganger.
It is possible that the adventurers will manageto engage the doppelkinder before they canreach the water, or even board the blood vesselitself; statistics for these creatures are providedon page 10. The blood vessel contains anothertwelve doppelkinder in addition to those dis-guised as party members. These doppelkinderdisguise themselves as other members of theship’s crew; if the party’s vessel has a smallercrew, the additional doppelkinder simply hidebelow decks.
Loose EndsThis encounter is more of a distraction thananything else. The doppelkinder are not look-ing for a fight, and there is little to be gainedfrom battling them. But the experience mayprepare the party for a more importantencounter with doppelgangers in the future.Perhaps the party will encounter a land-based
blood vessel — an artificial inn that a group ofdoppelgangers are using as a base of opera-tions, for example. Or maybe the adventurerswill cross paths with a doppelganger later in acampaign, only to discover that the doppel-ganger was one of the doppelkinder theyencountered at sea. A doppelganger with asense of humor might lend the party a hand,mentioning “the valuable lessons you taughtme.”
On the other hand, if the party killed any of thedoppelkinder, a cadre of doppelgangers mighttrack them down in search of vengeance. If theblood vessel itself was destroyed, related dop-pelgangers would go to great lengths to avengethe fallen elder. Party members could beframed for heinous crimes. Friends or alliesmight be killed and replaced, turning againstthe party at the worst possible time. Loverscould be seduced by impossibly perfect para-mours. For a vessel-slayer, death is too quick;punishment will be slow and painful, as thedoppelgangers slowly strip everything awayfrom their victim.
