Uses for Surplus Plops

Question

As suggested in the linked question's answer, Plop are kept in jars and used as living waste disposal, then when they get too big, they are placed inside a pit. The trouble is, when Plop reach maximum size (about minivan size) they metamorphoses into Bloat Blobs, becoming capable of sexual reproduction. This means that each village pit has a breeding population. "But Alendyias, what will they eat in there?"

Well, it seems likely that villagers will put large waste products, like carcasses, in the pit for the Blobs (oversized Plop, or OP, as an alternate term), and that some people will use the pit instead of their own jar. If worse comes to worse, though, Bloat Blobs usually won't eat their Plop children (and yes, they can tell), but they have no qualms about eating other Blobs and/or their children.

This brings up a problem; what are medieval villagers going to do with all those Plop? Of course they could allow the Bloat Blobs no food and let them starve, but their Enchantment is Bloat; it can cause an object or creature to become bloated or oversized. This would result in earthen mounds inside the pit, which would eventually allow them to escape.

This same Enchantment makes slaying the Bloat Blobs unfeasible, as this would oversize the weapon used to kill them and potentially make said weapon unusable. Adventurers usually work for money, so they don't usually do this kind of work. Therefore, the townspeople have to deal with it, AKA find uses for these surplus Plops and Blobs.

So, taking in account these are medieval villagers, and that they need to do something with these things, how could they best be put to use?

Specs for Best Answer:

1. The best answer will take into account a Plop's strengths and abilities to determine how medieval villagers could best put them to use. Uses may include pitting them in battle against each other and having them patrol around crops or on the streets to eat monstrous vermin.

Please note that Plop are like octopi (mentally), so they can be trained. Otherwise, they are quite like slugs-slugs that eat almost everything.

Answer 1

The multiblob pit is its own solution.

/This means that each village pit has a breeding population. / / they have no qualms about eating other Blobs and/or their children/

In the wild, Blobs are fully aware that their own kind are cannibalistic. They get close enough to mate for a very short period, and even that period is risky for the smaller partner. Then they skedaddle. A litter of quickly disperses but usually not before some slower or smaller ones are consumed by siblings.

In the Village Blob Pit there is no getting away. New Plops, Blobs or anything else is summarily eaten by the ones already in the pit. Or one in the pit as it usually turns out, this largest Blob eating anything else introduced into the pit.

Occasionally there are two Blobs: usually a mother (having eaten her mate) and one daughter (it having eaten its siblings). This is not such a bad situation as added material is divided between the two, limiting the growth of either. Having two also prevents more accumulating: the mother will merrily eat any grandbabies that appear and the daughter will eat any halfsiblings that may come along. Occasionally the daughter might get big enough to eat her mother, and then it is back to one Blob for a while.

Regular reproduction and subsequent eating of progeny is a good way to limit Blob size - as opposed to stored resources, mobilization of those resources to produce offspring and then the consumption of those offspring lose energy to entropy along the way.

Answer 2

this would oversize the weapon used to kill them and potentially make said weapon unusable

Get some spears. Big ones. Plate the tips with something valuable... gold would be nice, but silver will do, in a pinch. Worth saving up for... consider this an investment.

Stab your oversized waste disposal things to death.

Oh no! Your spear covered in precious metals has grown to huge proportions! You've got big wooden poles suitable for making nice big homes and places of work and worship for free, loads of already-refined metal, for free, and enough silver (and eventually gold) to completely destroy any economic system that relied on them being scarce.

But hey, no more blobs, and that's what you really care about!

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Note that this extends to all sorts of materials... stone them to death with actual stones: instant quarry in your back garden. Stone them to death with masonry: renewable supply of huge stone blocks for your vanity building project needs. Stone them to death with coal, free fuel without the need for mining. Work out some way to catapult a dead cow onto them hard enough to kill... everyone gets steak this weekend.

This isn't quite the exploit to end all exploits, as not everything is easily weaponized, but it isn't that far off. Either a bloat gets big enough to end civilisation, or scarcity of resources is vastly lowered, destroying the local economy and taking existing social and political structures with it.