Lifeforms · Constructed · Any
The Starspawn
“The Armored Avenger is dead!" "Look at him! He looks like hamburger, but his admantium armor is untouched! What could have done that?”
Quest entry
Quest - Monstrous Monsters
Monster. The word itself connotes something wrong or evil. Natural, freak of nature, nurtured by a mad alchymist or simply the last of its kind. These creatures must be unique and... well, monsters! Producing physical or… Open the quest
Full quest brief
Monster.
The word itself connotes something wrong or evil. Natural, freak of nature, nurtured by a mad alchymist or simply the last of its kind. These creatures must be unique and... well, monsters!
Producing physical or mental fear by either its appearance or its actions. Mutants, mythical beasts, humans, flora, fauna, anything goes. Lets expand the boundaries and our established notions of what monsters are and can be!
Check under your bed before turning of the light!
History:
The Starspawn were made at the heights of the Fourth Intergalactic Empire, as Imperial assassins. It was a construct, a robotic f'ire-and-forget' assassin programmed to track down it's target, kill it, and then self-destruct. It was highly intelligent, able to follow the most twisted of trails to find the target. One day, one of the Starspawn decided it didn't want to kill the target. This was totally unacceptable to the Imperial programmers and they came up with an elegant solution. They separated the stalker from the assassin. Now they had a highly intelligent construct that, as the stalker, could track down the target and, when it was found, the assassin, an emotionless, murderous killer, took over. Then the Starspawn self-destructed as planned. They were pleased, and the Starspawn worked as planned for hundreds of years.
But everything decays, including Intergalactic Empires. The Fourth broke up into treason, betrayal and regicide. The Emperor fled into the depths of space, and the victorious Ministers who created the new Empire sent a Starspawn after him. It, too, worked as planned. It found the Emperor, and the assassin took over. When the deed was done and the Emperor lay breathing his last, the assassin retreated into the shadows, and the stalker looked at what had been done. He had killed his God!
At that moment, the elegant programming that had split his mind disintegrated. He Had Killed His God! Stalker and Assassin both knew the awful, unbearable truth, and the truth nearly destroyed them both. Much of his peripheral data was lost, the navigational data, the historical data, but he still knew who they were. But his God had given him one last command. As the Emperor breathed his last, he said, “Kill them all.”
The Starspawn sat for untold times, pondering the message.
Kill them all. But who? All living things? That couldn't be, for his God had been living.
He had been sent to kill his God by those who wanted to kill. That must be it. He had been told to kill all those who wanted to kill. He would succeed. Since his navigational data had been reduced to meaningless garbage, he simply picked a star ahead of him and engaged the drive.
Description:
It's primary ability is it's Time Mastery, which affect his attack, his movement and his defenses.
Its claws, while not very powerful, have almost no way to be defended against. Armor and other defenses are simply bypassed. It's victims look like they have been slashed to death by hundreds of sharp but not very deep razor cuts. It will cut up a lot of heros, but takes a lot of cuts to be fatal.
It's Timeslip is a teleport that can only go where it could have traveled to by normal means, such as walking. It is, to our senses, instantaneous. It can be traced by opened or smashed down doors and such but it is hard to corner him.
It's Timesiphon is it's ability to siphon off three-fourths of all attacks against it into alternate realities. Likewise, all missile weapons, including lasers and bullets, have a 75% chance of also vanishing into an alternate reality. Originally, when it was meant to go against one target, then self-destruct, it didn't matter but now that he takes on repeated targets, there is always a chance of being slammed by an attack that was already over, or hadn't happened yet. That is best handled by GM decision to give the heros a breathing space during a fight as the Starspawn suddenly takes off to recover from the 'phantom' attack.
It locates it's target by telepathy, scanning to identify the capacity to kill that is his reason to kill. It can regenerate, healing itself slowly. It has about twice the reaction time of a human, which means that it can make two attacks to a human's one. Still not enough to handle a whole group of heros, but it helps.
Its greatest vulnerability, other than simply being dogpiled by a bunch of heros, is through its own conscience. If it can be brought to wonder if simply having the capacity to kill is not what his God meant, he will back off, defending himself only while he thinks this through. If heros can roleplay this, they may be able to stop him without killing him.
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- Memory Moths by Dossta Same quest
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Seems like it is missing a lot. More of a grocery list of attributes for an almost impossible to defeat foe. It seems out of context without any back story that allows the creation and its extreme powers to make sense.
Can I take it back and work on it some more?
You can always make changes. I will revote if it is improved.
I have issues with this. First off, there is nothing to differentiate this from every other invincible robot assassin. Except that it is telepathic. And can teleport. And regenerate. And can manipulate the fabric of the universe to stop damage. And can create illusions. And is twice as fast as a human. And can climb on walls. And has magical senses (I thought this was Sci-Fi?) And has a "not very powerful" claw attack that can nonetheless pass through armor as though it were nothing. And supposedly has "time" powers that don't actually have anything to do with time. And is defective, causing it to "kill all fleshies", basically.
So basically, this is a "Robot Sue".
Now, you could do something interesting with this. Maybe its defective, so it has developed intelligence and a conscience, but still is compelled to murder. Since it can shunt damage into alternate versions of itself (that's how I'm reading that anyways), why doesn't it take random damage from other universes itself? These would at least make this a little bit interesting. Also, remove some abilities. Like, a lot of them.
Welcome to the citadel. You've got some pretty good subs already; just keep working to keep things unique and original.
Update: This was a rather early monster in my GMing career. All I remember is that the players all ganged up on it and managed to kill it despite it being powerful (one against many is not good odds even when the one is very powerful). I'll see if I can come up with some backstory and such, meanwhile, if anyone has any good ideas, I'd be delighted to hear them.
sverigesson: who or what is a Robot Sue?
Sorry, I coined the phrase myself. A 'Mary Sue' is a character who is just too perfect, and that makes them annoying. So this is a robot Mary Sue, or a Robot Sue.
A Mary Sue is a fictional character that are overly idealized and owerpowered, lacking noteworthy flaws, and primarily functioning as a wish-fulfillment fantasy for the author or reader. Male Mary Sues are often dubbed 'Gary Stu' or similar names. Yours was a robot, thus the nickname 'Robot Sue'.
You beat me to it;)
Sverigesson summed it up nicely, this is unfortunately just not good enough. But do not fret! All is not lost, you have built a foundation here that you can expand. Sverigessons advice are very good, making it defective is a nice option, and you could also provide it with mental tools that are beyond human comprehension. Thus it will have goals that are beyond us and conflict with our.comprehension of morality, this could add the the spookiness. Since it is supposed to be a monster, make it scary and remember not to overpower it.
Update: Is this any better?
In a word...
Hell hell hell yes yes yes! You have taken something mediocre and barely worth reading and turned it into something that really makes me ponder. The new backstory is excellent, and I love how you took its 'damage reduction' ability and included the chance for a little DM fiat to help or hinder the heroes.
It's still not perfect, but it is definitely a worthy addition to the Citadel now. Well done.
I like it. I saw the original, and this is a huge improvement. Sverigesson summed up both the original and the update very nicely. I really like the 'Phantom Attack' idea, very usable for any creature that exists in multiple times or realities at once. Good work, I hope sveri and mike get around to updating their votes.
Very good - I like it :)
One comment - having double human reaction time is bad, not good :)
Oops! I mean half, uh, yeah, half human reaction time. Yeah, that's what I said. Of course it was!
Revoting.
Vote updated. It looks much better;)
Well, I like the back-story - though the telepathy thing takes a lot away from the possibilities. What if it had to resort to human senses to find out the murderous scum? Stalking, observing, judging, analyzing, before deciding to move away or in for the kill.
It could even improve its effectivity by instructing others to follow its path, a cult leader of sorts, or the founder of a philosophy...
Lots of potential, but much of it untapped.