New Lovecraftian Monsters (Inspired by SCP)

[ArchiTeller]

I love the Lovecraftian theme of Vintage Story, it fits the game so well, but I'm really hoping to see other creatures besides the Drifter, locusts, and sawblade locust. I personally think it would be cool to see creatures with the lovecraftian horror vibe, but inspired by SCPs from SCP: Containment Breach. Some of the SCPs have really unique concepts that I think would fit the game perfectly. Here is a list of some examples.

Lamplock Crawler: A creature with a similar premise to SCP-173. This creature would only spawn once and only during heavy temporal storms. If you catch sight of this creature during the storm, you would have to keep looking at it during the storm otherwise it would kill you. Once the heavy temporal storm passes. The lamplock crawler would scream as it phases out of existence. This creature would look similar to siren head, walking on all fours with 2 foglights for eyes, looking into its eyes would cause it to lock onto you permanently meaning no matter what you do. There's no escaping.

Wired Stalker: A jumble of wires, with one goal. To kill you. Following a similar premise to SCP-096, it would stop at nothing to kill you. However, instead of by looking at it that instigates it, as your stability goes down, once it reaches around 25%, this creature would begin to appear, however it would start by phasing in and out of existence, only appearing for a quick moment before disappearing. Once you reach 0%, the creature would finally fully spawn in, still phasing in and out of existence, allowing it to walk through doors and walls. This jumble of wires would began to crawl its way towards you. It could climb walls, meaning you can't build a platform to hide from it. You can only run from it. If it gets its hand on you, it would begin to cover you with its wires, crushing you and pulling you into the ground below.

Let me know what you think of these creatures.

 

[Hal13]

Some points of critique and possibly improvement for the stalker.
You make it sound like a Minecraft enderman, but unkillable, unstoppable and slightly more rusty cables looking.
What do you think of making it some kind of floating amorphous form of cables, that popps in and out of existence as soon as a temporal storm begins, but never near the crosshair of any player able to see it. as it has no actual form you can't actually hurt it and it can just ignore blocks and float in straight lines.
Striking at it barehanded (weapons go right through without effect) might make it disappear until it reappears again, but only as long as you have temporal stability left and at the cost of 10% of your maximum, not actually reducing the maximum i think you get what i mean (oh and of course you had to look at it to hit, wouldn't recommend it when you aren't fleeing from it).
It could be in existence always for 10 seconds (when not forced out), and when it exists it floats around randomly until someone looked at it directly (crosshair points at hitbox).
The lower the temporal stability of the least stable player around, the shorter it doesn't exist at a time, starting at 10 seconds which a minimum of let's say one second, and the faster it moves, starting with 1 block / s but even at its fastest it's only slightly (10-20%) faster than a player sprinting, though as long as any player is in that storm, there is no way to outrun it completely as it blinks into existence near (always on the edge of the radius of drifter spawns in a storm) one of them each time it blinked out, preferably the player that provoked it.
reaching a player could just do little to no damage itself (maybe 1hp each time), but reduce stability to 0, preventing regenerating stability in any way and pulling the character towards the mantle with it's full speed, both last effects only until it blinks out of existence again, sure you could try to mine a block to not suffocate in the blocks but don't forget, at 0 stability near walls the player character seems to actively hit their head at it, damage and kill themself and don't forget the stalker will still be there too.
When the storm ends the stalker would not reappear after it disappears the next time, there'd be always only 1 stalker in a storm.

 

Why don't i like the crawler? And how to make it work better (imo)?
Easy, in a heavy temporal storm in worst case you won't be at your base, and would have dozens of drifters, mostly tier2+, and maybe a pack of wolves around you. not being able to even shift your view shortly without dying is just no fair gameplay (even the wheeping angels from Dr Who need to move, even though they are overwhelmingly fast, and even they don't actually kill you but teleport you to the past).
Maybe after first locking eyes, as long as you lock eyes the crawler is unable to move.
It could be about double as quick as a player character and only spawn rarely (about half or quarter as likely as nightmare drifters) at the zenith of any temporal storm.
When it reaches the offending player character and strikes them they get damaged and teleported a few blocks (onto a random block facing a random direction)?
Maybe the crawler could even have slightly more than 2 blocks reach?
Other than that it could just have the stats of a nightmare drifter.
It wouldn't kill you directly but prevent you from efficiently use a drifter trap, and when hit you will need a moment to orient what nearby drifters and the crawler(s) might use to get to you and strike you, no instant death but a downwards spiral and in my opinion more interesting as you'd at least have the feeling being able to prevent dying.
 

why don't i like the combination as presented by you?
they make a too deadly pair. the crawler takes you the ability to kill drifters to stay in somewhat safe stability levels (and the critique above), you can't regenerate stability therefore it falls rather quickly, not only that but you can't even take a look around you to flee from the stalker, as breaking eyecontact with the crawler kills you. on the other side when the stalker pulls you into the ground, i'd guess just sinking through the blocks, you will break eyecontact with the crawler and die instead of getting suffocated in the blocks, there is no use fighting death as you'll die for sure, not even able to at least hurt the things that kill you a tiny bit.

Edited December 30, 2020 by Hal13

[ArchiTeller]

3 minutes ago, Hal13 said:

You bring up some great points. It would be a pain with them combined. I don't know why I thought of that. Maybe it would be better if only one crawler existed in certain ruins. And he would roam a specific maze like ruin. And you would have to search through the ruin in risk of running into him. He would never be allowed to leave the radius of the ruin, making him strictly only a threat if you were searching the ruin. They could be a ruin specific monster? And as for the stalker, I think the suggestions you brought out fit much better. I agree that it would be better if it did little damage, but rather sucked down your stability. That would definitely make it more fitting and unique.

 

[Hal13]

i don't think the crawler neither your nor my variant would make for a good ruin monster, especially for a maze.
I think about monsters of the rust world as of having at least animal levels of intellect and hunting down seraphs (player characters) or being relics from before the fall not minding anything until disturbed (by a seraph nearby) like locusts.

your variant would kill the player trying to back out of the ruin after seeing it, from player perspective way too risky to explore it, just keep going if you see the type of ruin, the stuff down there can't possibly be worth it and even if it was you could run across the crawler on your way out and lose everything.

my variant benefits from having space and/or other enemies around, it may be interesting as a maze encounter from the players perspective, especially if they are surprised by a new monster, but why would it be there in the first place? it would be at a disadvantage in a maze, sure it could have been left there as some kind of warden for something, but as it's killable and unable to move while directly looked at, a single one without any reinforcements and in a tight space wouldn't make for a real threat, as soon as the player knows what they are facing.
But if you want a variant for a maze make them the same size as a seraph, a hive mind (meaning they always know where each other is and therefore are able to pathfind to the player character without necessarily having a line of sight themself). put a few (the more the merrier but too many and the player will just stay at the entrance and create a death trap there as they will come to the player on their own) in the maze and make them to become hostile all together by hitting anything in the ruin, including the walls (imagine tunneling into the ruin without know what type it is).

Edited December 30, 2020 by Hal13

[ArchiTeller]

Good point. Now that you mention it, animal like monsters definitely feel more fitting. Maybe with the Lamplock Crawler, it would work better as a plant like creature made of wires with one large foglight. Getting within range of this creature (say 7 blocks), its lamp would lock onto you. It could have a similar premise to the Mesmer from Subnautica. It could basically hyponotize you and start to draw it towards you. If you get too close, its wires would start to damage you. And you wouldn't be able to look away from it. Well you could, but it would have to keep fighting its gaze by pulling your mouse away from it over and over again until you break it. (Looking into the foglight, would slowly damage you, taking 1hp every few seconds. But if you'd rather not bother fighting it, you could make special goggles from quartz and some other material. Or you could buy it from a trader who sells it. This could darken your vision slightly but allow you to look into its eyes with no risk whatsoever.

 

As for the stalker, I'm not sure.

Edited December 30, 2020 by Mr. Teller

[Hal13]

I'm not saying animal like monsters, only monsters that at least have these levels of intellect and a motivation/purpose.

That plant like variant might work good in confined spaces. And the goggles are a nice idea too, maybe it would need olivine?

[ArchiTeller]

Oh why did I forget about olivine? Olivine would be perfect. Green goggles would look cool as heck.

And my bad. I worded it wrong. I totally agree with having animal intellect. That's what I meant.

[link12313]

The second one acts a bit like the shadow beasts from don't starve.

[ArchiTeller]

I've only ever played Don't Starve once, and it was for like fifteen minutes. Can't believe I a similar idea as them