THE BESTIARY

[echidna]

Bestiary: This is where I will place all of The Broodmother's creatures for individual approval, and explain the terms I will use for this.

Name of Creature: should be obvious! This is what she named the creature, and any nicknames people have given the species.

Class: Not all monsters are created equal. This is the type of monster - Monster, Symbiote, Spellbrood, etc.

Appearance: This is how the creature looks.

Job: A general rundown of what the creature does, what it excels at and perhaps how it meshes with other creatures in her employ. This is how it serves.

Temperment: While individuals have personalities, species have temperments - quirks and personalities distinct to the species.

Abilities: The strengths and abilities of the monster

Weaknesses: Some creatures have distinct weaknesses, like a werewolf's vulnerability to silver or a troll's hatred of fire. Others have more terrestrial vulnerabilities.

Name of Creature:
Class:
Appearance:
Job:
Temperment:
Abilities
Weakness:

[echidna]

Name of Creature: Opal Beetles
Class: Monster
Appearance: Opal beetles are painter turtle sized beetles with a heavy white, opalescent shell and a pair of smoothe, razor-mandibles with a chrome sheen. Flicking between those mandibles is a long tongue that can extend out to two feet, tipped with a poisonous barb. They are rarely encountered alone, more often appearing in swarms of six or more members.
Job: Opal beetles are excellent harassers with a tough shell and a bite that doesn't easily heal. One is a nuisance or a dangerous pest. A swarm of them is a deadly threat - the more there are in close proximity working together, the more intelligent each member is, operating in a hive mind.
Temperment: Opal beetles are pretty peaceful creatures, generally, and attack only when they are commanded or when they feel threatened. Otherwise, they're very subdued, gentle insects that feed on plant matter - wood, leaves, natural-fiber clothing, whatever.

Abilities:
Poisonous Bite: While it is not lethal to humans, wounds that Opal Beetles give don't coagulate and will keep bleeding until treated. The fact that their bite is a wide slashing wound with a deep pierce in the center to deliver its anticoagulant poison deep into the body makes their bite a thing to fear and respect.
Opal Hide: Their hide is quite durable and well rounded, not easily damaged by firearms or other ranged attacks (though they don't fare so well from a good ol' fashioned squishing!) This hide is, incidentally, quite beautiful and can be shelled from them to make lovely jewelry, bullet-resistant armor, or even weapons that create bleeding wounds.
Hivemind: When six or more are together, they get progressively more intelligent. Ten are about as smart as a small child. Thirty are about equal in intelligence to a human adult, and a hundred develop advanced intellect with metafaculties.
Metafaculties: When a hundred Opal Beeltes or more operate in a swarm, they gain brief insight into the future and the power to see the surface thoughts of a creature, plain as day. The more beetles past a hundred... the more powerul their metafaculties.
Flight: Opal Beetles fly quickly, about as fast as a sparrow.

Weakness:
-One opal beetle is about as smart as a bug. Which is to say, not too intelligent at all!
-Their belly is leather-tough only.
-A crack or break in their hide is the kiss of death - they will not survive it for long.
- Stepping on them kills them easily.

[Gizmo]

:3 Approved!

[echidna]

Name of Creature: Devourer
Class: Monster
Appearance: Devourers are vaugely humanoid, nine feet tall, and covered in a bristly coat of short black and tawny fur. They have a triangular skull, set with two jaws, one within and slightly smaller than the other, full of razor sharp teeth and capable of opening out to 180 degrees of its skull to let the creature consume larger prey whole. A six-foot long jet black tongue ordinarily curls in its jaws, and is used to assist in the feeding process.

They have between six and ten eyes, set on the sides of their muzzle and the top of their skull, giving them perfect 180 degree vision above and around (but not below or behind) their head, the beady orbs glowing yellow faintly with inner light, and see perfectly in any light, though they require a moment to adjust.

Their build is lithe and sinewy, with long arms and legs that lend it a terrible sort of agility found usually in a primate, each of its sleek limbs ending in terrible claws made for piercing and grasping - flesh or stone or metal, it doesn't matter. Behind them sweeps a long, lizardlike but prehensile tail that ends in a spine-covered club it uses to bludgeon, but also to fling spines at distances often exceeding sixty feet.

Job: Devourers are terrible predators with unending hunger, a lot of fangs, claws, and spines, and enough feverish strength and mobility to put it all easily to use.

Temperment: Newborn, they are ravenous and evil tempered silent predators, with no thought on their mind greater than eating until they are satisfied. When they eat their fill for the first time, however, they gain clarity and a measure of human intellect, and seek to never get that hungry ever again. They get roughly as intelligent as a human. While their intelligence is human, their minds are not human, remaining largely instinctual, they are capable of deliberate speech and complicated (though sluggish) reasoning and logic, though some develop the spark of creativity and develop specialized skills.
Interestingly, they often select a piece of clothing and make it their own, and wear it always from then on. When they do eat their fill, they become Devourers

Abilities:
Vicious combat: When provoked, you would do well for yourself never to underestimate a Devourer. They're truly vicious and unrelenting opponents with great skill and agility.

Tough Hide: It takes more than a pistol or knife to do any good against devourers. All you'll succeed in doing is piss them off...

Spines: With a flick of their tail, Devourers can fling barrages of foot-long spines with an archer's accuracy. A Devourer can drive a spine at thirty feet into a steel plate, and embed it halfway in, if not all the way through.

Devour: A Devourer can swallow a human-sized creature whole with no difficulty in the least. The interior of the Devourer is at least as tough as its exterior - it takes a lot to get through that hide, and the prey is constantly being sprayed with acid and crushed around by powerful muscular movements.

Vomit: A devourer's gastric juices are strong enough to corrode flesh and bone, and weaken iron or steel greatly. An intelligent one can projectile-fire its own gastric acids, and anything left inside, as a deadly spray at ten to twenty feet.

Ultravision: It can see in the dark, see in daylight, and see 180 degrees around and above its head.

===============================

Weakness: While they are fearsome creatures, they are not without weaknesses.

Piercing weapons are your best bet - Spears, arrows, bolts, rapiers, these things drive through their hide far easier than bullets or blades.

Sudden changes of lighting can disorient them and mess with their sight - A flashbang grenade, suddenly turning on (or off) lights, etc can mess with them.

Attack from behind - they can't see there.

They are terrestrial creatures with many of the same vulnerabilities other living things share - the eyes, the solar plexus, the temples, etc.

[Gizmo]

Approve-inated! C:

[echidna]

Name of Creature: Vivern

Class: Monster

Appearance: With an armored main body as big as a VW Beetle and a carapace to put most light tanks to shame, it says a lot that the creature is mostly legs. Vivems are built like a cross between a gigantic wolfspider and scorpion, with two dominant forelegs a bit longer than the others and an armored tail sporting a distinctive pair of spinnerettes capable of launching webbing-coated stingers like crossbow bolts at prey. A Vivem's forelimbs are bladed, the chitin arranged in a deliberate shape that brings words like razorblades, perhaps katana, to mind, situated around the creature's head so it may pull prey to its mouth easily. Its mandibles drip with a syrupy orange, flammable liquid, and while its hide is normally a tan color, it is often ash-blasted and jet black.

Job: It lurks! It leaps! It breaths fucking FIRE! Its the Vivem, kids, and its here to eat your parents! These tanklike spider-monsters are surprisingly stealthy predators of the night... at least until they blast something with napalm, screaming and hissing at their prey. Their role in their mother's service is simple: Shock and Awe.

Temperment: They're cunning, patient, and observant predators, preferring to strike from unexpected angles and fight when they have the advantage. They aren't aggressive by nature, but they fight to the death when provoked. It wouldn't be much of a stretch of imagination to think of the creature spouting foul language as it fights, screetching and hissing as it does.
One would think that something as vicious and foul-tempered as this wouldn't be a very social animal. "Social" isn't the word I'd use, but they don't fight each other, at least, and are capable of hunting in packs. My, isn't that a scary thought... All this considered, they like candy... especially thick, gooey kinds that stick to stuff, like bubblegum or taffee.

Abilities:
Fire Breath and Resistance: Its body produces a natural napalm with a syrupy consistency that it can form up and spit as flaming globules, expel in a flaming spray. They are resistant to fire's touch - its not particularly uncomfortable for them to wade through open flames.

Armored hide: It takes a lot to piece that shell... A lot as in, armor piercing rounds in caliburs larger than what most people can legally use or explosives.

Web Bolts: Its stinger can fire footlong barbs with impressive range and accuracy, connecting the barb with the spider again through a rope of spidersilk it then uses to drag its prey back, or as a kind of grappling hook. Embedded in something solid, like, say, steel, it can support its own weight easily.

Burning bite: In their mouth are some really, really hot fangs they use to ignite their fire breath. Avoid, if at all possible - it will cut through metal like a hot knife through butter, and flesh that much easier.

Weakness:
Spiderhide: A pierced hide is debilitating to a spiderlike creature, since internal body pressure is what helps it to move and use its spinnerettes so well. Breaches in that pressure are sealed quickly by movements of flesh, but such damage weakens the creature. At a certain amount of such harm, the creature becomes unable to hold itself up.

Immolate: When killed, Vivems go up in flames, or even violently explode. Aim for the mouth! When damaged in the mouth, the fluids can leak together, they can't use their fire breath or they will probably explode.

[Gizmo]

Approooooved~!

[echidna]

Name of Creature: Ravener Warden
Class: Evolved Creature
Appearance: Raveners, newly "Awakened" from their Devourer origins don't actually change very much - they do, however, pick up a piece of identifying personal property which they make their own - often a hat. Over time, however, they advance beyond the parameters of their creation in unexpected ways. Each is an individual, each at least as smart as a human, give or take. They remain unable to harm or defy their mother, but are fully sapient and self aware, doing as they please unless instructed to do otherwise, without resentment. Their eyes change, focus, dilate and open so their catlike slitted pupils can be clearly seen. They, over time, develop masculine traits from their genderless base - and modesty soon follows. This could mean clothing - it isn't tested yet.

Job: Raveners are not as vicious as devourers by default - they lack that aweful, unending hunger. They are, however, intelligent. In fact, in some cases, very very intelligent. They can conciously strengthen themselves, learn, and use devices, tools, and implements, just like any human being.

Temperment: Varies.

Abilities: As Devourers, but intelligent.

Weakness: Again, they are still the same 'species'

[Liquid Snake]

That looks decently approval worthy.

Approved.

[echidna]

Name of Creature: Ragewing

Class: Monster

Appearance: Ragewings, in many respects, look a lot like Devourers do - they have that same shape of skull and configuration of the face (though they have horns and a slightly thicker skull than a devourer, not able to open their maws quite so wide) and build (though Ragewings do tend to be a bit bigger, all around). The prime, most visible difference lies in a sturdy, massive pair of wings, the films between the alar phalanges glistening with a deadly, sharp, almost metallic sheen. Their tails, like Devourers, are barbed at the end, but theirs are barbed up to the base of the tail and a little beyond, and split over time into several whiplike extensions that bristle with spines. Ragewings are not black like their earthbound counterparts - they have vivid colorations, unique to each one in pattern and appearance that distinguishes them from one another, in reds, greens, blues, all sharp and clear. Some have smoky, splotching patterns, some have zig-zagging stripes and so on.

Job: Ragewings are fighters, like devourers, but their domain is in the air. They serve their mother as air superiority - they are agile enough that they can, midair, stop, hover, and fly backward, and are capable of reaching speeds of a prop engine airplane. They were intended to act as air support & transport creatures - one can carry a devourer or ravener, and two or three can manage a Vivem, between them.

Temperment: Devourers are hungry things - Ragewings are, too, but devourers are quiet hunters that stalk and observe keenly in silence. Ragewings screech and howl at things they may eat, their cry distinct to their species - a wailing, weeping, mournful sound that seems to have an effect upon the creature it is directed at. When they eat their fill, they become sapient like Devourers and their nature changes somewhat, but Ragewings tend to be closer to humans when they evolve in this way.

Abilities:

Talons: Scything claws on their fore and hindlimbs, intended for gripping first, and slashing second. If they link around something, they don't cut, but used as weapons, they are nasty slashing weapons, not intended for climbing as a Devourer's are.

Screech: Their distinctive hunting cry is so piercing and mournful that it jars the mind and pains the ears, having an effect upon the intended target likened to the sonic portion of a flashbang grenade. Being prepared for it - covering your ears - helps to avoid it getting the advantage right off.

Breath Weapon: Ragewings can't eat as much or as big a prey as a Devourer can, but their stomach acid is stronger, and they can expel it in a corrosive, billowing black mist without harming themselves or each other. It dissolves flesh from bone with wicked ease and corrodes metal. It is heavy and not thin enough to be accidentally inhaled, so shortly after being expelled it condenses and becomes a short-lived puddle that evaporates away quickly.

Barbs: Their split, barbed tails serve a dual purpose - gives them aerial agility, and a ranged weapon. They can fire volleys of spines, several at once, with deadly accuracy over a long range. Spines go through armor, even at extreme long ranges, like hot knives through butter - when they leave the body, they exude a strong acid that corrodes and weakens materials, letting these projectile barbs act as anti-material weaponry.

Weaknesses: Ragewings are clumsy as hell on the ground, and tend to have unstable emotional states due to the twitching vat of rage ingrained into their very being. In addition to this, they are not the fastest fliers conceivable - they are bound by wings, which can be pierced, and only have a limited top speed. Its still a pretty decent top speed... but its nothing compared to a fighter jet, for example.

[Gizmo]

This seems kosher ^u^

[echidna]

Name of Creature: Bloodwing

Class: Evolved Creature ( A Bloodwing is one possible evolution for a mature Ragewing that has eaten its fill and had a steady supply of food to maintain satisfaction for a week's time - at which point the Ragewing becomes either a Bloodwing or a Zephyr)

Appearance: Bloodwings are mature Ragewings. They have grown in size and matured in mind and spirit. They are about 50-75% bigger than a normal Ragewing when mature, with wings that have given them their namesake - they turn into a bright shade of red, though their other, personal colorations do not change. A bloodwing's horns vary in shape from one to the next - some curl like a ram, some sweep gracefully backward, some stick up like devil horns, and any number of combinations, going a long way to give each personal identification. Unlike Raveners (mature males), Bloodwings don't wear clothing, but do collect and enjoy practical jewelry (horn rings, ear piercings, the like), but these have no meaning beyond simple appearance.

Job: Air superiority / bomber / transport. Bloodwings are bigger and a good deal more physically powerful than their adolescent stages. While not as aggressive as their lessers, they, like Raveners, are much, much more intelligent - on par with human intellect.

Temperment: Varies somewhat, but they tend to be very grouchy and sullen, prone to a serious disposition.

Abilities: As Ragewings, except...

Blood Fury: Instead of raging constantly, Bloodwings go into an eyes-glowing-red-frothing-at-the-mouth-frenzy when provoked into it. A raging Bloodwing is a terrible sight to behold, and being attacked by one is a waking nightmare. They descend into an instant Blood Fury when they hear fear or pain in the voice of their young. Think mama bear was bad? Her rage is kerosene. Mama Bloodwing's rage is rocket fuel.

Shriek!: A mature Bloodwing's distinctive scream can cause delerium and vertigo, in addition to the flashbang effect of a Ragewing's scream.

Transport: Bloodwings can carry a LOT of weight and stay airborn. They are nearly twice the size of a Ravener and can carry up to their own weight again in the air.

Spine Barrage: Their whip-tails have split many, many times by the time they are mature, and fire volleys of spines with a great deal of force.

Explosive Glob: In addition to breathing a corrosive mist like Ragewings, Bloodwings can spit black globs of slime that explode if they so choose, spraying sticky (but short lived) acid with explosive force.

Wingshield: A bloodwing's wings are not fragile - the reddening of the tissue in this manner isn't just pretty - its tough, too. All the better to protect her young.

Weakness: As Ragewings, but they're not quite so angry all the time. They're even more awkward on the ground, reduced to hopping and scurrying about. Because of their size, they have trouble reaching small areas. A Ragewing can easily outpace a helicopter and outmaneuver it, but, being bigger and heavier, a Bloodwing is less agile and a touch slower on the wing, making them a touch more vulnerable to more maneuverable fliers. They are grumpy, too! A ragewing is at least consistently unstable, but a Bloodwing is downright gruff - being sentient just makes it noticeable.

[echidna]

Name of Creature: Zephyr
Class: Evolved Creature (A Zephyr is one possible evolution for a mature Ragewing that has eaten its fill and had a steady supply of food to maintain satisfaction for a week's time - at which point the Ragewing becomes either a Bloodwing or a Zephyr)

Appearance: Zephyrs are matured, smaller in build than a Ragewing, but longer-bodied and lithe, with smoothe, back-sweeping horns that taper off into fine points. They look delicate, with white, lightly furred bodies and two pairs of bright blue wings, one extra set, slightly smaller but situated at the base of their hips just above their tail, used mostly for maneuverability, though they remain largely devourerlike in appearance - the likeness is unmistakable.

Job: Air Superiority/Scout - Zephyrs fly like the wind and own the sky - their agility in the air is impressive by any standard.

Temperament: Unlike Bloodwings, Zephyrs are more Ravenerlike in temperament - in other words, wildly varying.

Abilities: As Ragewings, except...

Squee!: Instead of acting like a flashbang, a Zephyr's cry can shatter glass and blow ear drums - it is SEARINGLY painful.

Queen of the Winds: Zephyrs are amazing flyers. Some especially skilled ones can even get close to the sound barrier - though no zephyr could ever break it. Not only can they pump out some serious speed, but they dance circles around nearly anything in the air.

Strafespine: Rather than just fire them in single volleys, Zephyrs are coordinated enough to launch them in rapid succession, even while flying straight forward - the effect is something like a machine gun shooting foot-long acidic spikes. One of their favorite tricks is to flit around a target and spine them to death from as many directions as they can at once.

Spitfire: A Zephyr can't expel gouts of acid breath like their bigger sisters, but instead, their acid is stronger for its concentration, and sticks like glue for longer. They are of course immune to their own acid.

Weakness: Zephyrs are pretty, but not nearly so surly as their bigger sisters. They're better fliers, sure, but they're waif-fisted and worth very little in a melee.

[Jill Valentine]

All good in the neighborhood :B

[echidna]

Name of Creature: Green Aranomb
Class: Support Monster
Appearance: With a main body the size of a small car, and eight 'legs' that extend out to up to twenty feet in length, they pull themselves about on those vine-like appendages, each ending in broad, horned spades that allow them to grip. Their abdomen is like a great flower, the 'petals' tough and leathery, bright-grey green with mottled black splotches here, there, and everywhere on each one, inside and out. On the inside, there are multitudes of smaller tendrils, each fraying off into countless little glistening, translucent barbs, and some ending in smoothe crystalline structures (called Sympathetes), the head-most inner lining coated with that same crystal. When moving around, this flower is folded up into a tight little bud, quite dense, and its head is exposed - a spider-like thing with one large eyes and seven smaller, subservient ones. A spider mouth is in the center of its lower 'face', with four poisonous fangs positioned equidistant around this maw.

Job: Functioning as mobile triage centers, Green Aranombs are capable healers that help Eliza to use her powers - letting her amplify healing magics, alter existing creatures, and make creature types that were previously impossible.

Temperament: Aranombs are not capable warriors, and they are aware of that fact, despite animal intelligence. They are simple things - not sentient in any capacity, one of the first creatures she's made that are as such. They tend to be very gentle things, but will use very strong tendrils to grasp and paralyzing bites to subdue an attacker, if pressed.

Abilities:
Poison Bite: The four mandibles around their mouth have a paralyzing toxin that acts on the nervous system, rendering a person quite helpless (but otherwise unharmed, aside the punctures of the bite).

Climbing: Aranombs can use their broad, spine-tipped tentacles to pull themselves up sheer surfaces, across ceilings, you name it. Not... terribly quickly, mind... but hey, nobody's perfect.

Rooting: To accept a living passenger in their abdomen, they must first root down - pull their head into the rest of their body, and 'bloom', opening their blossoming abdomen. Rooted, they can support a LOT of weight and draw nutrients from their surroundings.

Blossom-Womb: Aranombs of any color share this ability - to support life. Their abdomen, when it opens up, can close around a living thing. The multitude of glassy-spine tipped tendrils touch over the skin, connect the creature to it and pull them into a stasis-like suspension. The environment is completely sterile- the Aranomb feeds on the microbes it finds on living things, and sees to every need of the creature ensconced within it. The link is not painful, but it is thorough - being forcibly removed from it can be tramatizing, for it links mind and body to the Brood, and so to the Broodmother herself.

Sympathetic Matrix Crystals: On the head-side inner lining of the blossom-womb, and on several heavier tendrils inside, Aranombs have the Sympathetes - matrix crystals sympathetic to healing magic and incidentally, Eliza's powers. Healing magic is its purpose - these crystals, exposed to that breed of magic, amplify and structure the effects, increasing their effectiveness by several factors, and allow Eliza to use her powers on living creatures in the Aranomb's support system while connected to her through the creature.

Weakness: Green Aranombs are complete, utter wusses. Seriously. They avoid any kind of conflict like molten rock. They don't have killer-impulses - and won't even kill a creature that attacks them, not on purpose anyway. Their inner recesses are QUITE sensitive, as well - they don't often survive the loss of one or two Sympathete tendrils, and stand a strong chance of instantly dying if a creature they are linked to is pulled from them - not to mention the serious health risks for the creature themselves. On top of all that, they're simple creatures of animal intelligence, vegetarian, and relatively helpless on their own, save their venom (which doesn't last terrible-long or work on something like a werewolf for more than a minute or two).