Ooze on the hill: Sludginn

You know how I talk about finding things you didn't know existed in the game a lot? The rare mob for this installment, Sludginn, is a good example of that.



The art of finding slimes in high places

I'm going to change up the format a bit and tell the story of how I found this creature first. Sludginn can be found in the Wetlands, more specifically just south of Menethil Harbor.



Now, I had of course studied wowhead for all the available information on the various rarespawns that can be found in the Wetlands, and had looked up Sludginn. I had never in all my years in WoW seen a rare mob slime there, and what was even more confusing was that the registered spawn points for it were in the murloc area just south of Menethil, right where you have a few quests to do.

I've been to this area many many times on many characters and never seen even a glimpse of a slime. Nevertheless, I began haunting the area whenever I visited the Wetlands, searching for the slime. Of course, slimes are uncharacterized creatures and cannot be tracked by a hunter. I spent a good amount of time doing this without ever seeing as much as a tendril of ooze.

I started to suspect that this was a rare mob with a very long spawn timer, or that I was extremely unfortunate with the times I visited and that it had been killed by someone else.

And then, one day... I saw it.

While flying.



I was flying... somewhere... from Ironforge. I can't even remember what I was originally doing. And then, as the griffon swooped down across the small hills on the shore south of Menethil, I saw it. Up on a small hill above the murloc area where I believed the slime would spawn, there it was. Of course, I immediately dropped what I was doing and headed back there. After a few moments of frantic searching, I discovered what I'd never noticed before.

At the rear end of the small valley just south of the wrecked ship, there's a small path which leads up onto a small hill overlooking the water. This is the only way to get up there from the Wetlands. And that's where Sludginn spawns. All that time I had been looking in the wrong spots, and never even bothered to try a /target because I was sure I would see it if it was there.

Live and learn.

So who or what is Sludginn? And what is its story?



Sludginn is a rarespawn ooze, one of a small "family" of five named oozes found throughout the old world. They are all named, and apart from Viscidus in Ahn'qiraj are the only named oozes in existence. Physically, Sludginn is the standard ooze. A deep blue coloration with a humanoid skull clearly visible through the translucent matter. I do like the ooze model, but the bottom part of it looks rather bad, and could probably do with a makeover to become a bit more fluid.



There's no lore for the oozes in the Wetlands, so I can only assume that Sludginn is a particularily vicious specimen named by the locals. Maybe it predates on the murlocs living nearby, eating both them and their refuse? Game-wise, Sludginn does not move from its small hill, only shifting back and forth slightly. It seems fairly content where it is.



While it has no lore or any special drops, Sludginn is just a fun discovery. Finding it so unexpectedly after a long time of fruitless searching was amazingly fun, and the kind of thing that motivates me to do these types of things.

Watch where you fly! There just might be an ooze nearby.

~Dragonshade