Mutated Wildlife

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

So I sat down recently, and collected myself. I flipped through some conversations here and I looked at what Ive made myself and what the lore is and the monsters alrady present.

Weve had some talk about mutations on NPCs, and Ive mentioned a desire to see mutating wildlife, both in the form of degeneration and eldritch and in the path of specializations. The wolf that becomes a more ferocious hunter. The swimming lizardbeast. The large bear, destroying the enviornment and consuming zombie flesh with relative immunity. The mighty moose, growing its antlers in ways that it could never in pre apocolytic world.

Ive most recently gone through the mutants already in the game. Theres the giant insects, which in all honesty are tame for mutants. They just got bigger, and no complications occured as a result of not having lungs or brains or metabolism requirements. Theres the fish, which have gotten larger and much more aggressive as a means of saving their own lives. Theres the mutated abominations, vaguely implied to have been human but so malformed that they are not. Sludge walkers are perhaps the least human of them, with jabberwocks in second. Twisted bodies are completely human.

So, knowing that the human player and NPCs can beneficially mutate, and that ‘giantified’ invertabretes have a limited capacity to mutate, I ask what about those large enough to mutate, those hunted by the zombies and blobs. What mutations would they recieve?

Bears, cats, birds, cougars, mammels and avians in general. Already largened fish would presumably continue down their path, particularly as somehow hammerhead sharks wormed their way into rivers. And whiel some mutations are glorious to behold, some drastically alter behavior, or even speed up evolutionary paths.

I was in part curious about ideas for evolving/mutating larger critters, both into abberations and into evolved animals. Think the differences in human mutation categories; why cant animals share some similar evolutions as they gain radiation or as they recieved the glory of the blob?

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Ants could have acid spit.

Big mammals will probably stay relatively boring - more armor, more damage, more speed. Like the generic D&D dire animals.
The most creative non-AI-related mammal attack I could think of right now would be a charge attack.

Birds will have it tough since big birds just can’t fly. So we will still have the small birds that won’t attack stuff.
Ostriches from zoos would probably not survive long enough to mutate, so if we want runner birds, those would have to evolve from large fliers instead.
Mad ravens going all manhack on stuff could work.

Getting too creative with fish won’t work until water becomes 3D.

Some spiders could shoot webs, like GCS.

Realistically, most animals wouldn’t become bigger and stronger, but just small enough to be below the zombification threshold (to avoid getting mauled by zeds) and timid.

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Mostly on board with coolthulu’s response, though I dont see much of a reason to limit mutations to “realistic” since it’s presumably blob-driven.
Lizards gaining chamelon ability. Other animals gaining other preternatural hiding abilities. E.g. invisible when they haven’t moved.
Tougher skin and/or armor penetration for large animals (“just” a number tweak sure, but ignoring small arms fire and being able to damage players in power armor is pretty compelling).
Extreme speed.