New monster suggestions

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

How about a thread for suggesting new monsters (or animals or robots or whatever)? Apologies if there already is one; I had a bit of a look around and didn’t see one.

I had an idea for a possible new zombie pop into my head the other day:

Glowing Zombie

“A bloated human body, covered in bulging cysts that give off a putrid yellow glow. Bright, almost incandescent yellow slime dribbles from its mouth.”

… Or something along those lines. The basic idea is a zombie that forms something of a hazard at night, in that it gives off light - perhaps a few tiles radius around it - and can vomit glowing slime at the player like a boomer, to cause the player to give off light in the same way for a while, if hit. I envisioned it being a lot like a boomer, actually; behaving in the same way, and also exploding on death for another chance to hit the player with glowing slime. (Slime on the ground - from vomiting or exploding - could give off some light too.) Probably rarer than boomers though; about as common as zombie brutes?

For it to be still some kind of threat during the day, I suppose its slime could have a really strong smell - along the lines of the strong scent trait but stronger still - or it could aggro nearby zombies at a greater range (a bit like the original boomer bile in Left 4 Dead). Or maybe more usefully, its death explosion could be very loud; nearly as loud as a shrieker zombie. Or I guess there could be more out-there things like its slime reacting in sunlight to burn like acid.

As for representation… well, for RetroDays I envisioned it using the boomer tile, but being yellow. So in ASCII, maybe a yellow Z with a magenta background? I only play in tileset mode, so I can’t remember exactly what all the other zombies use in ASCII mode, off the top of my head.

Of course should anyone decide to make this a reality, use your own discretion for all these things. :slight_smile:

2

If we are suggestion monsters, how about a Suessikin. Don’t bother searching it, just a monster in a nightmare I had. It is dead silent, heavily furred, with very long arms (short range projectile attack?) and claws like swords. Its body is vaguely pear shaped, with a hammer like head ( neck, tubular head). Its legs are short and stumpy.

3

The proposed zombie sounds neat.

4

We’ve considered letting boomer vomit glow, yeah. Not sure on the lore explanation.

Someone was suggesting Irresponsibly in the bad-idea thread. I’m kinda partial to the Boomer Hulk, OH YEAH!

5

I’d like more tactically minded zombies. Glowing spit zombie would be one of them. A zombie that shoots pools like spitters except they slow you in them would be interesting. They might actually lead to a situation where you could be overrun without a good escape route if you’re not careful.

Also, I’d like to see more inter-dimensional monsters, especially multiples from the same dimension and more story on how their ecosystem works, like the triffids and fungals. More flavor-creatures too, like cold-adapted creatures in ice labs.

6

The Suessikin could be in an event like the amigra monsters.

7

Like a tar zombie? Would be even more fun if tar would be flammable. And stuck around (pun intended) so it’d be harvestable for use as fuel or for some sort of processing.

8

I like the OP. I’d love if it wouldn’t explode On death.
Make it butcherable. The “glowing goo” will be a crafting component for glowy goo lamp(2xglowing goo, 1xplastic bottle/glass bottle/glass jar). And the zombie can turned into a zlave for an eternal firefly buddy.

9


BRAINS!

10

heh, mabye we could get CHUDS as spawns in the sewer system. just to keep it varied down there.

11

Like a tar zombie? Would be even more fun if tar would be flammable. And stuck around (pun intended) so it’d be harvestable for use as fuel or for some sort of processing.[/quote]
My first thought was glue - it could work either way.

12

Like a tar zombie? Would be even more fun if tar would be flammable. And stuck around (pun intended) so it’d be harvestable for use as fuel or for some sort of processing.[/quote]
My first thought was glue - it could work either way.[/quote]
I don’t know. Glue could also be harvested, but I just don’t think that either tar or glue is a good option for a zombie. Mabye just a boomer with a serious gastrointestinal problem before zombiefaction would be stick instead of biley, but you never know with these things.

13

What, one of these?

[spoiler] { "type" : "MONSTER", "id" : "mon_chud", "name": "C.H.U.D.", "species":"MUTANT", "default_faction":"mutant", "symbol":"@", "color":"white", "size":"MEDIUM", "material":"flesh", "diff":8, "aggression":30, "morale":30, "speed":110, "melee_skill":6, "melee_dice":1, "melee_dice_sides":6, "melee_cut":0, "dodge":3, "armor_bash":0, "armor_cut":0, "vision_day":40, "death_drops": { "subtype": "collection", "groups": [ [ "subway", 40 ], [ "sewer", 20 ], [ "trash", 5 ], [ "bedroom", 1 ], [ "dresser", 5 ], [ "ammo", 18 ] ] }, "luminance":0, "hp":60, "death_function":"NORMAL", "description":"The C.H.U.D. or Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller. A human being turned pale and mad from years of underground isolation.", "flags":["SEES", "HEARS", "WARM", "BASHES", "GROUP_BASH", "HUMAN", "BONES"] }, [/spoiler]

14

What, one of these?

[spoiler] { "type" : "MONSTER", "id" : "mon_chud", "name": "C.H.U.D.", "species":"MUTANT", "default_faction":"mutant", "symbol":"@", "color":"white", "size":"MEDIUM", "material":"flesh", "diff":8, "aggression":30, "morale":30, "speed":110, "melee_skill":6, "melee_dice":1, "melee_dice_sides":6, "melee_cut":0, "dodge":3, "armor_bash":0, "armor_cut":0, "vision_day":40, "death_drops": { "subtype": "collection", "groups": [ [ "subway", 40 ], [ "sewer", 20 ], [ "trash", 5 ], [ "bedroom", 1 ], [ "dresser", 5 ], [ "ammo", 18 ] ] }, "luminance":0, "hp":60, "death_function":"NORMAL", "description":"The C.H.U.D. or Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller. A human being turned pale and mad from years of underground isolation.", "flags":["SEES", "HEARS", "WARM", "BASHES", "GROUP_BASH", "HUMAN", "BONES"] }, [/spoiler][/quote]
wait, did we already have those? Awesome! And if we didn’t, we do now.

15

An enemy that teleports and creates hallucinations of itself. That’s gotta fuck with you. Especially if they spawn in packs…

16

Goo that can pick up and use stuff like guns and blades. Danger, danger!

17

I’d love to see monsters that are, instead of threats, irritants.

Bear with me, I know that sounds moronic.

Ethereal Flincher: A tiny creature, cloaked in shadow. It will stay still for hours at a time, unless it’s dark or shadowed. When it moves, the player gets a perception check to spot it, and searching manually can help you find it as well, if you suspect one is there. The Flincher won’t attack you, unless seriously pressed into a corner, and even then, it does minimal damage, even in swarms. Instead, it waits until you’re sleeping or out of sight, slips in, grabs a single item that you’ve handled recently, and slips out, never to be seen again. (Targeting items of perceived “value”). If the capacity is there, perhaps there could be ‘nests’ on the map (not showing up as anything other than forest tiles, so tracking and searching is important), where all your stolen loot is stashed.

The Street Sweeper: When night falls, the robots come out… to CLEAN. Making a fair amount of noise, and trailing zombie hoards behind it, the Sweeper is a bulky robot that prowls around sidewalks and streets, mopping up blood, putting out fires, and refining lost goods for disposal at the recycling bin of the local public works facility. They’re armored, but stupid, and if you can get them following a trail of spray paint, you can lead them through a series of traps designed to crack them open for their sweet cargo of batteries, ready-to-go rags, and zombie meat.

The Gardner: The trees be attackin! Or, well, defending. The trees are actually mostly just trees. But sometimes, a single goo-infested tree will gain just enough mobility to have the presence of mind to try to preserve its leafy brothers. Gardners will harvest fruit in a mimicry of human farmers, plant trees and flowers, and set a series of mostly-non-lethal but irritating natural traps to deter any interlopers from their small patch of Eden. Finding one can net you some valuable chemical compounds if you can butcher it, but first you’ll have to spot the forest for the trees, and get through the random string of shallow pits, snares, acorn catapults, and resin globs.

18

Flincher or filcher?

19

It’d be rad if there were a particularly dangerous, horde-based enemy that walked around blindly, until you made a noise, at which point they’d descend on you and like, eat your skin or something.

20

I went with flincher because, while they do steal things, they are also terrified of everything. Also, I didn’t want to just rip off the D&D monster.

As to the hoard enemies attracted to sound; those are giant ants.