A gelatinous cube is a fictional monster originally created for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. It is an ooze of mindless, gelatinous matter in the shape of a cube that slides from one place to another, absorbing everything in its path. Because of its obviously fantastic, non-realistic nature, the gelatinous cube is one of the most well-known monsters created especially for role-playing games. Although it is based upon famous fictional monsters (especially the movie The Blob), it exists primarily as a role-playing game monster, and not a monster taken from outside sources (such as many mythological monsters including the minotaur and dryad) and adapted to a role-playing setting. The Three Graces, here in a painting by Sandro Botticelli, were the goddesses of charm, beauty, nature, human creativity and fertility in Greek mythology. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... For other uses, see Dungeons & Dragons (disambiguation). ... A role-playing game (RPG) is a type of game in which players assume the roles of characters and collaboratively create narratives. ... In the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, Ooze is a type of creature, or creature type. This category includes such monsters as the gelatinous cube, slimes, jellies, deadly puddings, and similar mindless, amorphous blobs. ... A cube [1] (or regular hexahedron) is a three-dimensional Platonic solid composed of six square faces, facets or sides, with three meeting at each vertex. ... Fantasy fiction tends to draw upon a common set of creatures that are easily recognizable to fans of the fantastic genre and have some pre-determined traits. ... For other meanings of this term, see Blob The Blob is an independently made American science-fiction film from 1958. ... // The word mythology (Greek: μυθολογία, from μυθος mythos, a story or legend, and λογος logos, an account or speech) literally means the (oral) retelling of myths – stories that a particular culture believes to be true and that use supernatural events or characters to explain the nature of the universe and humanity. ... Minotaur at the Greek pavilion at Expo 88 In Greek mythology, the Minotaur (Greek: Μινόταυρος) was a creature that was part man and part bull. ... The Dryad by Evelyn De Morgan Dryads are female tree spirits in Greek mythology. ...

Despite its popularity (or perhaps because of it), the gelatinous cube is also widely known as one of the sillier role-playing monsters. It is something of a commentary on the ubiquity of treasure-laden dungeons in the Dungeons & Dragons universe, as the cube is a creature specifically adapted to a dungeon ecosystem. 10 feet to the side, it travels through standard 10-foot by 10-foot dungeon corridors, cleaning up debris and redistributing treasure by excreting indigestible metal items.

Because of the cube's transparency, it may be mistaken for another monster or even not seen at all until it is very close.

At least one website has commented on the odd nature of the gelatinous cube, stating that 'few things are as embarrassing as being consumed by a giant, roaming Knox Blox' (in reference to a popular recipe made from Knox brand gelatin).

It has been widely theorized, but never proven, that the gelatinous cube was created when a dungeon master went to grab a miniature for a wandering monster, and instead grabbed a large six-sided die, before hastily improvising a rationale for it. In the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, the Dungeon Master (abbreviated as DM) is a selected player who describes the game to the other players. ...

Gelatinous cubes in other media

In Castle of the Winds, a monster of this type was called a Gelatinous Glob. It was never described as being cube shaped, but its icon (right) had a distinct, cubic outline. Image File history File links The icon for the Gelatinous Glob monster in Castle of the Winds (now public domain). ... Castle of the Winds (CotW) is a tile-based Roguelike RPG to run under Windows 3. ...

In the Star Trek original series episode 'The Devil in the Dark', there was a similar, blob-like creature called a Horta which melted paths through solid rock. Star Trek is an American science-fiction franchise spanning six unique television series and ten feature films, in addition to hundreds of novels, computer and video games, fan stories, and other works of fiction. ... The Devil in the Dark is a first season episode Star Trek: The Original Series which first aired on March 9, 1967. ... Kirk faces off the Horta in The Devil in the Dark. In the fictional universe of Star Trek, the Horta are a silicon-based species, introduced in the original series episode The Devil in the Dark. An intelligent species indigenous to the planet Janus IV, the Horta can comfortably live...

The film Wayne's World mentions a similar creature, a video game character known as Xantar, who "eats warriors in a medieval village", particularly susceptible to the fighting prowess of the village chieftan. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

Also, in the virtual pet game Psypets, the gelatinous Cube is one of the many Monsters your pet can defeat.

On the Neopets website, jelly blobs were used in the Lost Desert and Altador plots. These were named later as "Gelatinous Non-Cubes". Screenshot of the Neopets homepage viewed with Internet Explorer Neopets is an online virtual pet simulation game. ...

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. [1] Bob the Angry Flower is a comic strip that tells the story of an easily angered anthropomorphic flower named Bob and his interactions with the world, often in search of either global domination or love. ...

References

• Greenwood, Ed. "Ecology of the Gelatinous Cube, The" Dragon Magazine #124 (TSR, 1987).
• Notley, S : "Coffee with Sinistar" P. 138 Leftover Books, 1999.