You Will Not Find Its Like Elsewhere, Sir!

Some news before the meat of the post:

Review

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It's gorgeous, it's thought-provoking, it contains some of the most interesting and strange dungeon rooms ever published...Maze of the Blue Medusa is a masterpiece and will likely be held up as the new gold standard of megadungeon book design, both for its excellent writing and its hyperfunctional layout

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Another review

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I feel as someone who is a part of this community and a game designer to acknowledge the importance of this thing.  You should know it, and the rest of us, too....Blue Medusa goes way, way beyond Deep Carbon and Pleasant Land.  

"

A question from a perplexed soul that readers might help answer:

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 ...how on earth is a party of 4 level 5 characters supposed to survive this?!

"

Now, on to a D&D widget:

Unusual Animals Available in the Market Today...

(in a big city, d4-1 of these will be available on any given day, in a small town, d4-3)

Roll d20

1, Lucky Chicken--This chicken is lucky. Survives danger like it has 12 hit points. 5gp.

2, Riding Goat--Trained by goblins, dyed with purple spots. Does an extra +1 damage on a gore or a bite (otherwise as wardog) but if you run into any goblins and they make a check they might get it to respond to their commands. 20gp.

3, Escape Goat--If a goat should slay a troll, it inherits the victim's regeneration abilities. This is one such individual--it regenerates at d4hp per round. 200gp.

4, Sexy Hawk--God you look good with that hawk on your shoulder. +2 charisma when attempting seduction. 60gp.

5, One-eyed Hawk--First it's a bargain second it's secretly mega-obedient, like collie obedient. (-2 Wisdom/Perception checks). 20gp.

6, Marbling horse--Or at least that's what the idiots here call it. It's actually half-zebra (thus: a zorse or zebroid)--tawny with thin black stripes. As medium warhorse, just more interesting -400gp.

7, Squealing mule--Shrieks bloody fucking murder whenever anyone comes near it with drawn steel. Probably useful if adventurers park it outside a camp or dungeon--complete pain for anyone else. Cheap-- 10gp

8, Adolescent panther--Not in any sense trained. At all. 4hd. 450gp. 475 with cage.

9, Messenger pigeon--Pretty good at its job. 10gp.

10, Truffle pig--Finds truffles! Never go hungry! Ok, kind of: truffles are low on nutritional value but make rations tastier. Assume a week's rations last 20

5 longer per truffle found. 20gp

11, Riding boar--Trained by dwarves, fur spiked with lard. . Does an extra +1 damage on a bite (otherwise as wardog) but if you run into any dwarves and they make a check they might get it to respond to their commands. 20gp.

12, Paranoid songbird--Sings pretty much only when unfamiliar creatures are nearby. Unlike the squealing mule, the intruder is unlikely to realize the bird is acting as an alarm. 10gp.

13, Canary--great for detecting poison gas. 1gp.

14, Oddspotted newt--this rare, tiny, small, fragile, brightly-colored species survives by immediately crawling into the darkest narrowest place it can find. Good for finding hidden seams in the architecture. 400gp.

15, Eastern leopard-cat--merchant selling it just thinks it's a fancy domestic cat left by sailors from Yoon-Suin. Which it is. However, it also has literally nine lives. Well, eight. It used one getting here. 10gp.

16. Frog prince--Appears to be simply a fascinating, indigo-patterned frog, medium-sized. Unbeknownst to the merchant it is frog royalty--other frogs, toads, bullywugs, blindheims, slaads and batrachians of all kinds will defer to it and pay it homage. 8gp.

17. Thrusting pheasant--Trained to peck and chase anything smaller than itself. Does no damage but irritating enough to grant advantage to anyone else attacking the same target. Allegedly bred for fairy-catching. 10gp.

18. Blue-sided viper--1 hp, save or take 2d20. Not trained or trainable. Handle with care. 300gp.

19. Amusing bunny--overweight and dalmatian-spotted, it loves to gambol, hop and romp. Anyone possessed of such a bunny will be at advantage to charisma checks of the sort where a basically decent person tries to determine if you yourself are a decent person. 5gp.

20. Literal skillmonkey--likely a variety of capuchin, it has either pick locks (1-2) or pick pockets (3-4) as a 3rd level thief focusing on those skills in whatever system, Dex 17 for these purposes. 125gp.