Saturday, October 11, 2014

PLAIN STRIDER


Number Appearing: 1-4
Size: Twenty to forty feet tall
Armor: Tough chitinous shell on lower extremities, tentacles and exposed brain soft and squishy, 100% proof against acid, ooze attack
Resilience: Attacks on legs like chopping down good sized tree, brains and soft bits more vulnerable
Intelligence: High but utterly unconcerned with the affairs of lesser beings
Communication: Emits rhythmic ululations, mostly subtle derivations of popular Plain Strider songs 
Disposition: Smug superiority of creature that sits atop the food chain
Violence: Tentacles seize prey, deliver to huge parrot-like beak concealed in lower body cavity, stuns prey with sonic attack (the Song of Hunting), smash or kick with feet
Enemies: None as such, but regards anything human size or smaller as prey
Aims: Hunt and feed, composition/performance of songs
Peculiarities: 
- Apex predator of the Great Lichen Plain, an improbably vast cavern of broken rocky terrain covered with unique variety of growths, teeming with oozes, slimes, puddings and jellies
- Hunts puddings and oozes primarily, but always willing to try something novel
- Communicates via humpback whale-like songs when necessary, mostly sings to express itself as artistic exploration of its nature and place in the cosmos, individuals in constant competition for place in the Plain Strider Top Ten
- Quickly stomp out any non-Striders who attempt one of their songs
Treasure: Beaks sought after by Underworld sentients as raw material for building projects/giant-size armor, sometimes fashioned into the hulls of vessels meant to navigate the Black Ooze River

4 comments:

  1. These guys are so post-apocalypse it hurts.

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  2. Oh, man. And to think I wanted to go to the Great LIchen Plain. Catastrophe averted. Suck on unchecked chaos clouds, you pompous striders.

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  3. Why aren't the crows, buzzards and other carrion birds pecking the brains out of these monstrosities?

    ;)

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  4. I suppose the carrion birds could try that. A little extra protein for the striders.

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