Gelatinous cube

A gelatinous cube is a fictional monster from the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. It is described as a ten-foot cube of transparent gelatinous ooze, which is able to absorb organic matter.

Creative origins

The gelatinous cube is an invention of Gary Gygax, and first appeared in the Monster Manual (1977),^[1] rather than being lifted from outside sources and adapted to a roleplaying setting, as were many mythological monsters like the minotaur and dryad.

Being a cube that is a perfect ten feet on each side, it is specifically and perfectly "adapted" to its native environment, the standard, 10-foot (3.0 m) by 10-foot (3.0 m) dungeon corridors which were ubiquitous in the earliest Dungeons & Dragons modules, particularly the randomly-generated ones created using the rules in the Dungeon Master's Guide.

Ecology

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A gelatinous cube looks like a transparent ooze of mindless, gelatinous matter in the shape of a cube. It slides through dungeon corridors, absorbing everything in its path, digesting everything organic and secreting non-digestible matter in its wake. Contact with its exterior can result in a paralyzing electric shock, after which the cube will proceed to slowly digest its stunned and helpless prey.

Reproduction is through a form of asexual 'budding', in which a smaller, stub cube is left behind in a side corridor to grow into a full-sized cube, although these stub cubes run the risk of being absorbed by their own parent on its next trip down the corridor. Scholars have determined that juvenile gelatinous cubes grow to fit their own natural environment, adapting their exterior proportions to the size of the corridors they most commonly sweep.

Gelatinous cubes typically live underground.

Alignment

Gelatinous cubes, being mindless, are always neutral.^{[citation needed]}

Publication history

Original Dungeons & Dragons

• Dungeons & Dragons "white box" set (1974),^[2]
• Greyhawk (1975), the first supplement to the "white box".^[3]

Dungeons & Dragons (Basic, Expert etc)

• Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set (1977, 1981, 1983).
• Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia (1991)^[4]

First edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

• Monster Manual (1977)^[5]
• Dragon #124 (August 1987), "The Ecology of the Gelatinous Cube".^[6]

Second edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

• Monstrous Compendium Volume One (1989).^[7]
• Monstrous Manual (1993), under the "ooze/slime/jelly" heading.^[8]

Third edition Dungeons & Dragons

• Monster Manual (2000), under the ooze entry.^[9]
• The 3.5 edition revised Monster Manual (2003), also under the ooze entry.

Fourth edition Dungeons & Dragons

• Monster Manual (2008), under the ooze entry.^[10]
• Monster Vault (2010), under the ooze entry.^[11]

In other media

• In Ultima I a gelatinous cube is commonly encountered in the dungeon levels.
• In Castle of the Winds there is a "gelatinous glob" creature whose sprite showed that the monster was cubical.
• In the virtual pet game Psypets, the gelatinous cube is one of the many monsters the player's pet can defeat.
• On the Neopets website, there are jelly blobs named "gelatinous non-cubes."
• Gelatinous cubes are one of the many types of monsters in NetHack and Ancient Domains of Mystery.
• The ASCII-based game Moria features a treasure rich gelatinous cube.
• On the Giga Pets handheld games, Gelatinous cubes are one of the many food items.
• In the massively multiplayer online game Dofus, the Jellies' Peninsula and Jellith Dimension are devoted to cube shaped Jelly monsters of various flavors and colors.
• In one episode of the absurdist comic Bob the Angry Flower the title character's marketing pitch is nearly ruined by a gelatinous cube which repeatedly yells "Cube!" as it attempts to consume him. After this episode the author Stephen Notley received a number of messages from D&D players who had incorporated cubes which yelled "Cube!" into their games.^[12]
• Gelatinous cubes occur in EverQuest and EverQuest II, both as monsters and house pets.
• In the 1992 movie Wayne's World, arcade owner Noah Vanderhoff talks about a fictional game in which a gelatinous cube consumes villagers.
• The Hordes of the Underdark expansion for Neverwinter Nights included an ambush by a gelatinous cube while in the Underdark.
• In the movie Futurama: Bender's Game, while playing D&D Dwight Conrad states that the gelatinous cube dies in horrible poverty.
• In the MMORPG RuneScape there are so-called "Jellies" modeled after Gelatinous Cubes, though they are only knee-high.
• Gelatinous cubes appear in the animated film Rocketmen Vs Robots.
• Adventure Time featured a gelatinous cube in the episode Dungeon. In the episode, Finn nearly gets stuck in said Gelatinous Cube while trying to obtain a key to a locked door shown within the creature. Several other Dungeons & Dragons monsters appear in the episode, such as a Displacer Beast, a Mimic, and a Construct.
• Minecraft added an ooze type enemy, known as slimes, that, due to the graphic style of the game are presented as cubes of different sizes.
• The Genesis mod for Slaves to Armok II adds a gelatinous cube that can be found underground and paralyzes nearby creatures.

Footnotes

1. ^ Monster Manual
2. ^ Gygax, Gary, and Dave Arneson. Dungeons & Dragons (3-Volume Set) (TSR, 1974)
3. ^ Gygax, Gary and Robert Kuntz. Supplement I: Greyhawk (TSR, 1975)
4. ^ Allston, Aaron, Steven E. Schend, Jon Pickens, and Dori Watry. Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia (TSR, 1991)
5. ^ Gygax, Gary. Monster Manual (TSR, 1977)
6. ^ Greenwood, Ed. "The Ecology of the Gelatinous Cube." Dragon Magazine #124 (TSR, 1987)
7. ^ Cook, David "Zeb", et al. Monstrous Compendium Volume One (TSR, 1989)
8. ^ Stewart, Doug, ed. Monstrous Manual (TSR, 1994)
9. ^ Williams, Skip, Jonathan Tweet, and Monte Cook. Monster Manual (Wizards of the Coast, 2000)
10. ^ Mearls, Mike, Stephen Schubert, and James Wyatt. Monster Manual (Wizards of the Coast, 2008)
11. ^ Thompson, Rodney, Bonner Logan, and Sernett, Matthew. Monster Vault (Wizards of the Coast, 2010)
12. ^ Notley, Stephen. "Everybody Loves Jello". http://www.angryflower.com/everyb.gif. Retrieved 2007-02-19. 

External links

• Statistics for Gelatinous Cube
• The gelatinous cube in Neverwinter Nights