Pathing out Mutants and Mutating Wildlife Arcs

[pisskop]

As Zday falls into the past, the future of the Earth is in a balance. Not much we can do about it on the grand scale, and factions of both monster and NPC are in the future, but mutating wildlife is going start appearing, filling the gaping niches left by the old dead and zombified life.

Mutants will arise! They will be defined as ‘creatures based on natural Earthlife, but changed in various ways’. They will be mostly of the functional kind, better adapted to thrive in this new world. There will occassionally be a weird mutation, like a chimera-esqe critter. There will on rarer cases be slightly eldritch monsters, and in the worst areas there should be things both tough and Elderitch.

We have a few critter now; but I wanted to talk about what critters would arise in the gameworld after some time has passed. Zombies mostly finish their vanilla evolutions a year into the game, and that seems to be a distant enough place to see some changes. Wildlife may not have access to the science and technology to make serums, but they have radiation and other radical means of change.

[pisskop]

So With the basics out of the way, what creatures would fit into the world? There’s a fair amount of freedom in designing/suggesting monsters, and we can all discuss them to make unique and interesting creatures.

[pisskop]

For my own part, I want to suggest adding a variety of ants. Ive been over this before, but we have the standard ants with mundane properties now. They are seviceable, in that they are fodder and prolific and free food.

But as the apocolypse wears on I think I would like to see variations on the basic scheme take shape. Im proposing ant species, so that the 21 (!) default anthills per map don’t get old and stale and same-old.

Default Ants
Default ants are those in the game currently. They would see change, but largely rely upon their own physical traits to carry them through with numbers and armor and strength and et al.

-Default ants could gain specialized physical properties, such as jumping ants, and stronger bites and thicker natural armor
-Default ants presumably don’t waste time making fancy chemicals and powering fancy reactions so they can grow larger or be more populous.
-Default ants could experience the occassional radical mutation to help them, whereas the other species could be more streamlined.
-Default ants could keep company with non-ants in a ‘farming capacity’. Using these other species as food sources or harvesting their secretions or other symbiotic relationships.

Acidic ants
Its known that ants use chemicals and stings to attack in some cases. These ants carry these traits on in their larger forms, focusing on their alternative methods of damage to deal with foes.

-Acidic ants has the ability to use acid to attack. Most ants use short range attacks to do so, with some specializing in ranged combat.
-Acidic ants use a vemon to weaken their foe with stings.
-Acidic ants hunt individually and in small groups, with less foraging and more widespread predatory behaviors
-Acidic ants have to evolve from their old giant forms into this new threatening form.
-Acidic ants have a high metabolism, and thus are not as densely packed.
-Intolerant of outsiders in general whether an invader or a non-acidic-ant

Kwama
Because I want them. Kwama are a species of ants found in the Elder Scrolls series. They are exotic ants in Morrowwind, clunky and maggot-headed. They use stun-tactics and are more peaceful than other ants.

-Kwama feature smaller foragers who raise screeches to attract their soldiers to a site and stun prey.
-Kwama lack the large mandibles that other ants have. They instead use their clumsy digits and a hornlike protuberance to attack
-Kwama can hear
-Kwama soldiers are fast, and a small percentage of them can use electric attacks to paralyze a target at the detriment of nearby allies

[pisskop]

From this logic, I believe that bees are perhaps lacking.

Bees or Wasps both really.

They are good canidates for recieving Sludge attacks. Sludge is a rare-ish attack/trap that slows down the victim, but one that wasps would be more imaginable with and one that a hive-species like bees with an open-air home would utilize well. Bee-stings arent menat to tear thick human skin at normal sizes, but giant bees should have no issues. They simply are somewhat less aggressive/feared.

Wasps, being more lonesome creatures with predatory natures, could well use attacks like fire, or simply more dodge and tougher hides.

Most creatures would do well with simply more dodge and attack, though.

[pisskop]

There is no reason why we could have three variety of ‘dogs’ or ‘cats’, each with a mutation of some kind.

There is also impetus for animals to get either big and aggressive or fast enough to outrun zombies or small enough for zombies to leave alone.
Insects and other gianted critters cannot become rightful zombies, but they can have reason to fight the zombies. Either to rid themselves of the zombies or for territorial reasons or because they can find a way to digest the zombies or otherwise picking fights. Its not a given that they ignore zombies, though those that spend most their time around cities will want to find a way to avoid zombie fights.

Smaller animals could easily be a thing, and Id love for theives ala kobold or keas from DF to be a thing. perhaps not ‘like’ them but its a simple enough metaphor. Make a critter behavior such that they mess around with stuff, maybe even horde it.

[Croooow]

Make Monstrosities that are like the clowns from Dwarf Fortress. Random assemblages of animal parts all mashed together, and their attacks would be derived from the body parts they have. Heh.

[MrQwerty]

Perhaps some mutated forms of farm animals? They were left alone with no humans to take care of them so the only way for them to survive would be to rely on the power of BLOB!
They don’t need to be agressive or super-ugly or anything - they would just kind of revert to their undomesticated forms - pigs might turn into something resembling a boar, cattle will turn into something similar to Aurochs(long-dead species of wild cattle), etc.
The actually wild wildlife should get fungal forms(i am not sure if all of them have such forms), late-game netherium forms, some mid-game “weird mutant forms” and (as a mod) antrophomorphic forms.
The “weird mutant forms” would be things like double headed bears, eight legged moose(Sleipmoose?), giant wolves with three rows of teeth, etc.
The anthrophomorphic forms would be near-late game and should be something that can be easily turned on and off. Basically it would be something like werewolves, who occasionally say weird sentences(kind of like mi-go, just less inteligent - “me hunt now.”, “hungry… smell blood.”) and are implied to be caused by a combination of blob-mutations, netherworld influence and accidentaly drinking mutagen polluted water or eating mutated limbs/fetuses.
The netherium forms would be very rare abominations, maybe only spawning in some new location(eldritch forests filled with such creatures?) and wouldn’t have much in common with their previous forms - unfortunately, i don’t have enough imagination right now to come up with anything that doesn’t sound stupid.

Also, about insects - i think that insects might at some point become something similar to fungi/triffids - hive minds focused at expanding their dominion and bringing everything under their rule.

[Wally-kun]

The animals and insects that mutate and change would be parts of the environment, and not real factions in their own right. They can gather intelligence, surely, but I don’t think any pig or even ant civilizations are going to pop up over the course of a few years, even with the blob’s influence.

Speaking of which, more intelligent instances of animals wouldn’t be an unusual kind of mutant, but there would have to be a line drawn somewhere. Cats with human hands and feet and unnatural climbing abilities and two rows of razor fangs that tends to eviscerate random wildlife, dogs with a head covered in eyes that never stop watching you and lunge at noises, squirrels with oversized heads that attack with chisel-like fangs in swarms…maybe some smaller varieties of the rat king? Some sort of construct of rats that don’t, y’know, make you a rat person. Swarms of rats that break apart into hostile individual rats when you “kill” them.

Oversized bats that bleed you and go passive by cleaning a tile of blood? That’d be fun. Flesh-eating murder pigs? Moose with a crocodile-like snout and an appetite to match? Spiders with bulbous heads that physically launch their fangs out of their head fast enough to pierce kevlar? Horse-sized land wasps with a build like a centaur and charge you like a cavalry line?

The options are tantalizing and freaky.

[Logrin]

If we’re being lore friendly with the idea of mutated wildlife we could focus our ideas through a few scenarios:

1. Maybe the scientists didn’t -begin- with human trials
2. Maybe the experiments initially required ‘live’ donor matter from animals
3. Perhaps the long term effects of mutagen exposure were being observed in animals etc etc.

Any of the above would allow for the following “How to Mutant” method:

1. Take animal
2. Take an existing mutation tree
3. Mix em’

For instance, Dog+Cephalopod = Whelkhound; or Dog+Cattle = Bulldog

It would get particularly dangerous if say…Bear+Insect = Bugbear or Bear+Avian = Owlbear…

[MrQwerty]

[quote=“Logrin, post:9, topic:11613”]If we’re being lore friendly with the idea of mutated wildlife we could focus our ideas through a few scenarios:

1. Maybe the scientists didn’t -begin- with human trials
2. Maybe the experiments initially required ‘live’ donor matter from animals
3. Perhaps the long term effects of mutagen exposure were being observed in animals etc etc.

Any of the above would allow for the following “How to Mutant” method:

1. Take animal
2. Take an existing mutation tree
3. Mix em’

For instance, Dog+Cephalopod = Whelkhound; or Dog+Cattle = Bulldog

It would get particularly dangerous if say…Bear+Insect = Bugbear or Bear+Avian = Owlbear…[/quote]
This mixing of animals and current mutation trees reminded me of a proverb “When a bird shits on you - thank god that he didn’t give wings to cows.”… Bullpigeon anyone?

[pisskop]

I love the idea of mixing mutations, the problem being we cant currently simulate random mutations except by making then by hand. And thus we would need several kinds to simulate them.

I had a similar idea where a small proportion of a population would aquire mutations from any of the mutation trees.
Ambient radiation and radical natural selection would be believable enough in a world where a human can mutate under these same conditions.

Making the critters is simple enough if you use the base creature as a template.

[Logrin]

I had a similar idea where a small proportion of a population would aquire mutations from any of the mutation trees. Ambient radiation and radical natural selection would be believable enough in a world where a human can mutate under these same conditions.

That’s actually what I was trying to say. I’ll take a look at this ‘base creature template’ you speak of and see if I can think up any mutanimals

[Wally-kun]

Tentacle pigs.

It’s a regular pig, except its legs, tail, and eyes are all tentacles. It also wants to eat your flesh and destroy humanity. And can probably revive as a zombie pig.

[pisskop]

So now that Im all learnified in how do place effects, I can do that. For ants. And ant-acid. The creature kind, not the stomach meds.

What do? Combine wit acid-ants? Do the devs have an opinion on the proposed changes were I to begin altering the core game to meet the above suggestion?

[Chezzo]

Man, I wish you could give mutagen to your pet dogs. I would draw every single tile before the pr got merged.

Also, I wish you could ride horses. And mutate them.

[voskhod]

Boars. Definitely boars of some kind. Even regular boars can be dangerous and kill a person and they’re common throughout parts of east-coast America, so any mutated-version of boars will definitely be something worth looking to adding in the future.

[pisskop]

So wildlife.

First, a list of the selected wildlife I want to focus upon.

-dog
-wolf
-cat
-bobcat
-moose
-deer
-cougar
-bear
-coyote
-wcoyote
-blackrat
-sewerrat
-pig
-horse
-cow
-raven
-bat
-rabbit
-turkey
-weasal
-fox
-lemming

-chipmunk
-squirrel
-chicken
-raccoon
-opossom

And assuming that inverabrates and other ‘lower’ life is only partially affected by the blob, limiting their usefulness to the blob as meat and limiting their ability to ‘morph’.

Now, I do want ‘an optimal’ evolution for each, one that isn’t completely aloof from reality. And then I would want select numbers of mutations into a chaotic form or otherweise into abomination territory. And since each mon_id only supports 1 kind Id need a few per. w.e.

-dog (extinct (alive because dogfood item))
-wolf (zergling)
-cat (extinct (alive because dogfood item))
-bobcat (acidcat)
-moose (extinct)
-deer (minideer)
-cougar (Skittish small-game hunter)
-bear (megasloth)
-coyote (skittish smaller animal)
-wcoyote (small pack hunter/scavanger)
-blackrat (larger digging pack critter)
-sewerrat (humanoid)
-pig (pseudoboar)
-horse (strong rare fielddweller)
-cow (extinct)
-raven (large predator what flies)
-bat (swarms and groupmorale and aggo)
-rabbit (stays mostly same)
-turkey (make noise, larger)
-weasel (diggy predator)l
-fox (pikachu limited lightning)
-lemming (amphibious and more aggressive)

-chipmunk
-squirrel
-chicken
-raccoon
-opossom

[scorpion451]

• chipmunk (mostly harmless, but explode like a grenade/landmine when they die.)
• squirrel (speedy aggressive predator; think land piranha)
• opossum (snake like creature with muscular prehensile tail)
• Chicken (similar to the real-life version of the velociraptor- a small feathery whirlwind of teeth and claws)
• Raccoons (smart stealthy thieves. Wield knives/tools/firearms?)

[TheFlame52]

Opossums should pretend to be zombified.

[i2amroy]

So first thing first, there’s a bit of a “no-go” zone in terms of size things in relation to the blob. The specific cutoff is somewhere between the size of a dog and a cat and then doesn’t start up again until little insect size with only a few small exceptions like rats (this is the reason why you’ll see zombie dogs but not zombie birds/cats/squirrels). That said I don’t see any problems with having mutants in creatures that are not in that blob-reduced zone developing over time.

That said there’s nothing that says anything about them developing towards sentience or humanoid forms. If anything they’d be more likely to develop away from humanoid forms based on what they’ve been exposed to in the environment over time; the blob is a faction of chaos and change at the individual level, not order and sentience.