Sunless Sea - Create an Enemy!

Sunless Sea
1

Evening Zailors.[li]

Just a fun little thing, take a moment to create an enemy you would like to eventually fill with lead on the High zees :D. You could use the form below, or just belt it out.

============== Enemy ===============
Name:
Description (Brief description of creature’s appearence?):
Location (Where can I find it?):
Health Points:

Loot / Rewards / Options:

Enemy Behavior (describe how your enemy will behave in combat.):

EXAMPLE

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

Name: Parabola Sea Serpent


Description: A snake that floats between the world of waking and dreams, a Parabola Sea Serpent can be identified by their shimmering dark pink flesh and flashing Virric Eyes. Longer than an Albino Moray, yet thinner, this creature skulks the dark zee waters looking to eat the waking passions of sailors.


Location: Found near the waters of Irem, where the line between the world of waking and dreams is at its blurriest.


Health Points: 375

Loot / Reward(s) / Options:
Two Options are Available to Player Upon Killing and sailing to the remains.


Option (1): Butcher it - &quotIs it’s flesh even real?&quot
Standard (With Every Kill): Hunting Trophy (1), Strange Catch (1 - 2)
Rare (When Fortune Smiles): Hunting Trophy (1), Strange Catch (1 - 2), Parabola Linen (1)

Option (2): Dissect it - &quotOh what secrets it may hold!&quot — Mirrors Challenge: 80 ; For 100% Success
Upon Success: Fragments (30 - 50), Hunting Trophy
Upon Failure: +10 Terror, 1 x Tale of Terror!!

Enemy Behavior:
Charge – 20 Damage – Cool down: 6 seconds – Stagger Amount: 1.5 seconds.
- In which, the serpent will swim viciously for the player’s boat in order to ram it. The serpent will initiate a charge from long range and has an impressive charge range, watch out!

Phase -- Reposition Skill -- Cool down: 10 seconds -- Stagger Amount: N/A
	- When under heavy fire, the serpent will glow white very briefly before teleporting to a random location near the player's 			flank. Keep on your toes and swing the boat around to bring those buggers back into the light for maximum DPS!

Virric Glare -- 5 Damage -- Cool Down: 5 seconds -- Stagger Amount: 3 seconds.
	- At close range the serpent will periodically send out an intense glare of virric light from it's eyes. The blast expands in a 		short cone in front of it to hit the players boat (Think: Head on.) The glare isn't that damaging but it's main function is 			being a disruptor for the player's firing solutions and could potentially put a player into a stun lock if player does nothing.

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

just one example for you :D, I turn it over to you, go nuts, have fun and let the imagination run wild. Cheers!

2

Name: Korean Spammers
Description: Mutable; changes every time they’re, uhh… killed.
Location: Failbetter Games Community Forum
Health Points: 1 – Respawns immediately upon death.

Loot / Rewards / Options:
Two Options are Available to Player Upon Killing and sailing to the remains:


Option (1): Inspect the corpse – &quotHey, cap’n, let’s poke it wit’ a stick!&quot
Reward: Decrease Terror by 1.

Option (2): Listen to their death-rattle – &quotJoooin Usss!&quot
(Challenge – Requires Korean Language 1; 100% at Korean Language 2.)
Reward: Terror is now 100 – you’ve gone completely insane!

Edit: Can has spelling.
edited by The Zealous Zee-Captain on 2/24/2015

3

Ooooh! Fun!

============== Enemy - Ship ===============

Name: The Tiger’s Claw Corvettes

Description: A modified London Corvette. A bit sleeker in the front, and a bit wider in the tail, with an extended narrower section at the very back. Think an arrow-head. It has three small smoke stacks in a row rather than one big one. Painted black and orange in tiger stripe patterns.

The big point is that these are independent bounty hunter ships that will hunt the player down on a contract if they anger the wrong person, generally working in pairs but if the bounty gets high enough, in larger groups.

Location: Anywhere. They exhibit unique behavior though. Once the player has gained the &quotMenace: Bounty on your Head&quot, and it’s companion &quotYou Are Being Hunted&quot quality, these bounty hunters (who are in the employ of the Pirate-King) gain a chance to spawn just off screen after a player leaves aport.

Each port you visit and get a port report from raises the &quotYou are being hunted quality&quot which makes a roll to see if they spawn in once you leave that port, until it succeeds. They’ll stay away from the west coastline in general, so gathering port reports from Whither, or Hunter’s Keep or anything on the Western side of the map incurs no success chance but other than that, they try to track you down and kill you. Destroying them lowers your &quotYou are being hunted&quot menace to zero, but raises the Bounty menace on you, so that the next time, more will show up.

If you’re pals with the Pirate-King you can negotiate with him to lower the bounty, or simply pay it off to remove it entirely.

Health Points: Standard Corvette hull - 200, per ship.

=====>

Loot / Rewards / Options: Upon sinking them you get at least 1 of either fuel or supplies, on a rare success, 1 of each.

On top of that you can find a cache of curiosities with a different loot drop list, generally in a equipment like flares, candles, strange catches, torpedo components or the occasional Rattus Faber Assistant who pledges loyalty you after saving them from their dreadful enslavement by the Catties that manned the vessels.

=====>

Enemy Behavior:

Stealth Attack! - They run with their lamps off and essentially try to fade into the background. Think of how your veils work on enemy AI, but reverse it. So they sneakily move up on the player until they get a firing solution, then open up with their deck gun and torpedo volleys in a sneak attack before going into standard engagement mode with their lamps on to get quicker firing solutions.

Pack Hunting - Since they work in pairs they tend to try to initially split off from each other and try to attack the player from two different sides at the same time. One will generally hang back at a distance while attacking, the other will try to get close and tail the player’s engine and stick to it.

Survival Instinct - If the player does 145 points of damage to them, they try to flee to the Isle of Cats and disengage. Each has at least one emergency boost to high-tail it out of there, and if they make it to Port Cavendish they can despawn (fade out) to safety and the menaces remain at their set amounts. If they get far enough away their stealth effect can trigger again, only to be revealed if you can turn your lamp on them.

Mines - When fleeing they can also drop mines that do 20-35 points of damage if the player hits one of them.

============== Enemy - Small Monster Swarm ===============

Name: Stubbleschool Swarm

Description: A swarm of juvenile Behemoustaches. They’re not particularly deadly individually at this age, but they can travel in these large schools and pose a surprising amount of danger due to their speed and the face that they can be tough to hit. At this age they’re more an orange-ish hue.

Location: Generally in warmer zones of the south. They’re natural prey for Blue Prophets. Definitely found in the Melting and Swallowing Isles, and near Visage.

Health Points: 105 (half of a Behemoustache)

=====>

Loot / Rewards / Options: Upon killing them they leave a large number of corpses. The player is given two options:

1 - The corpses can be gathered and smoked to gain 1-3 supplies and 0-2 Strange bait.

2 - Or, with a high pages challenge (very high - need at least 90 pages for a 50% chance) they can be drained and refined into a vat of Behemoustache Pheromone Oil.

This oil can then be combined with Torpedo parts to create the Pheromonpedo. This is a usable combat item that requires a torpedo tube, which can be launched at a target that causes a Behemoustache to spawn and attack them for 22 seconds, before it turns on the player.

=====>

Enemy Behavior:

Non-Aggressive - Unlike most enemies with the dive ability, Stubbleschool Swarms tend to stay &quotDived&quot and rarely attack. In fact, most of the time they’ll just follow along side or behind the player’s ship just a bit underwater before losing interest and heading back to their origin point where they circle around.

However, if the player shoots a strange catch at them, they will then surface and move in to attack the player. They have swarm behavior, so they should be VERY, fast, and attack with a lot of light, rapid hits that don’t do much damage.

Nibble the Deck - Occasionally they exhibit a special attack that causes the swarm to surround the ship on all sides as they nibble at the hull and jump onto the deck with a sort of Damage Over Time effect. When they do this, they can’t be hit. But afterward they go back to their underwater phase and need another strange catch to be brought to the surface.

Swarm Health - Like all swarms, they should do progressively less damage as their health drops and the swarm’s strength fades.

============== Enemy - Big Scary Zee-Monster! ===============

Name: The Decidedly Not Docile Blimeygan

Description: A gigantic, many tentacled Blemmigan of doom!

Location: Where else? Myceligaea

Health Points: 600. With a slow, steady regeneration over time as the fungal growth repairs itself.

=====>

Loot / Rewards / Options: Upon the Blimeygan’s defeat the player can harvest the corpse. It requires success of a large Mirrors challenge to succeed though.

Failure results in collecting an Uttershroom spore, and cutting up the body for a bunch of supplies, 3 - 6 in amount.

Success nets you a Giant Blemmigan Beak and 4 - 9 Supplies as you get a lot more out of the big mushroom.

The Giant Blemmigan Beak can be used as an Auxilliary item. It changes the sound of your ships horn to a loud Blemmigan callout. If you do this near an island with Blemmigans on it, you’ll hear a callback Blemmigan song. There are a few different songs. One does nothing, but sounds nice. One raises terror by 15. The last lowers terror by 5.

=====>

Enemy Behavior:

Tentacle Strikes - It moves very slowly, but it’s REALLY big and its tentacles have a lot of reach. The closer you get, the more tentacles can strike your ship in succession.

Blimeygan Beak - If it gets really close, it can initiate a special attack the grabs your ship, pulls it in and it takes a big ol’bite out of it for 100 hull damage. Normal tentacle hits do 30-40 hull damage.

Blemmigan Barrage - If you stay out range of the Blimeygan’s tentacles (which is basically on the border where forward weapons can hit, but your deck guns can’t) it will try it’s ranged attack - launching large numbers of Blemmigan spores at your ship. These do minimal hull damage, but cause your ship to be slowed by one degree. At two hits, your ship cannot move anymore, and the player undergoes a storylet.

Dealing with the Blemmigan Barrage - The storylet is of your crew desperately trying to peel the blemmigan spores off your ships sides and engines. This is a hearts challenge. If the player succeeds, they successfully dislodge the Blemmigans and the ship can get moving, but only at 1 degree of throttle. If there is a rare success, they dislodge all of the Blemmigans and the ship can move freely.

If they fail, a bunch of the Blemmigan Spores hatch into Hostile Blemmigans, leading to a second storylet.

In this Storylet, the player faces an Irons challenge to defeat the swarm of hostile Blemmigans on the deck of the ship. Success means the Blemmigans are killed with minimal lost crew (1-2), and the player goes back to the removal storylet. Rare success means no crew die in the process. Failure means the fight continues on and the crew is pushed back with slight losses (1-2) and more terror (+4 per dead crew). Rare failure means the crew suffers a major defeat and has to try again, losing 2-4 Crew and getting +5 terror for each crewman lost.

Hidden Enemy - Obviously, this would be a boss encounter. A hidden one, that only enters the world if the player kills enough Blemmigans in the game, either by dumping them overboard or in the random encounter where they discover them on islands. Kill at least 100 Blemmigans (with 20 per island encounter combat) and it will spawn the Blimeygan near the Uttershroom.

The player can only permanently remove the threat of the Blimeygan by seeding Blemmigans to almost every port in the game, and getting their &quotPropagation Blemmigans&quot counter up to 21 before recieving a unique option to calm the Blimeygan at the Uttershroom.

===================================================================]

Yeah . . . that was fun!
edited by MisterGone on 2/24/2015
edited by MisterGone on 2/28/2015

4

I like it! I always felt like the Albino Mores (though interesting in their own right) just didn’t satisfy the need to see some good old-fashioned sea-serpents in the game. The old artwork in the game had a picture of a Serpent’s eye in some of the storylets, and Fallen London itself often shows a tentacled monster at WolfStack Docks, but I’d love to see them in the game.

[li]

5

[quote=SouthSea Rutherby][quote=Klubhouse]

Name: Parabola Sea Serpent


Description: A snake that floats between the world of waking and dreams, a Parabola Sea Serpent can be identified by their shimmering dark pink flesh and flashing Virric Eyes. Longer than an Albino Moray, yet thinner, this creature skulks the dark zee waters looking to eat the waking passions of sailors.


Location: Found near the waters of Irem, where the line between the world of waking and dreams is at its blurriest.
[/quote]

I like it! I always felt like the Albino Mores (though interesting in their own right) just didn’t satisfy the need to see some good old-fashioned sea-serpents in the game. The old artwork in the game had a picture of a Serpent’s eye in some of the storylets, and Fallen London itself often shows a tentacled monster at WolfStack Docks, but I’d love to see them in the game.

[li][/quote]

[/li][li]Thank you. I’ve read quite a few posts talking about how the enemy AI is considered Simple, so I feel that it’s important that any new enemies that get added to Sunless Sea have some way of &quotWorking Around&quot The current combat strategies that are popular.[/li][li]
[/li][li]and to the other people who’ve made monsters, thank you! It must help the dev team quite a bit when they can get a glimpse at what the players and consumers think are cool and can make content with a greater understanding because of it :)[/li][li]

6

Name: Wax Bat Swarms
Description: Thought to be curses in physical form, nothing remains after an attack.
Location: Rarely anywhere.
Health Points: 30

Loot / Rewards / Options: If you can kill it before it hits you. You can watch it disperse for a few fragments. Or try and scoop them up for candles with terror.

Enemy Behavior: Instantly aggressive attack if light is turned on when it sees you. Ignores you if light is off or attacked.
If it lands an attack, the creature is destroyed and renders your light inoperable for a minute/ or you use a supply to scrape their mass off the light/ or you dock and clean.

7

Combat in Sunless Sea is too boring and 1 dimensional. In these suggestions I tried to make use of all mechanics while maintaining enough of a balance with difficulty that a player can learn to defeat these hard enemies.

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


Name: Tentacled Sea Beast
Description: The spawn of nightmares. It is a beating heart surrounded by tentacles.
Location: Kingeater’s Castle, frequently (more than one can spawn at a time)
Health Points: 700

Loot: Pass a pages check for a searing enigma, a hunting trophy, and An Unprepossessing Mass.

Behavior: It is always submerged unless attacking, OR you have used a strange catch, in which case it will surface for 10 seconds, unmoving while it eats the catch. It will seek to get behind you for three seconds, then melee attack. Then, it will move backwards, ranged attack twice, and repeat. If this happens five times and you are not dead, it will run away.

Attacks:

  1. A straight up rush. It surfaces when it is attacking like this. 80 damage if it hits.

  2. Ranged Attack: A glob of ink dealing 30~50 damage and slowing your ship. It surfaces while attacking.

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


Name: A school of Uncaged Sharks
Description: Four uncaged sharks
Location: The Chelonate
Health Points: 800 (Each shark has 200 hp, but the reward will not spawn until the last shark is dead)

Loot: Four hunting trophies, and four separate ( An Unprepossessing Mass ) OR repair your hull by 20.

Behavior:

First stage: One shark will always try to ram you from behind. Two others will always try to move to your immediate right and left, submerged. The final shark will always try to cut you off, also submerged… Every ten seconds they will try to ram you. If you kill the ramming shark first, another shark will take up it’s position, starting from the left shark going counterclockwise. If you throw a strange catch, the closest shark will reveal itself and not move for ten seconds while it is devouring the strange catch.

Second Stage: Once two sharks are dead, the remaining two will stop their encircling behavior and instead simply start taking turns ramming you. If you kill another shark, the last shark will attempt to flee.

Note: I based these guys on pac-man, but gave them a zee-twist. See if you can spot the similarities.

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



Name: The Sun Crab
Description: A gigantic shining crab twice the size of an elder crab
Location: Aestival, Lesley’s Harbour. It will not move more than a major tile away from this location (Note: This enemy will not respawn)
Health Points: 1500 ( see behavior notes)

Loot: 15 supplies, a hunting trophy, a captivating treasure, 200 fragments, and an achievement.

Behavior: The Sun Crab is a unique enemy in that it has a healing mechanic. It will refuse to move until you have lowered it to 1000 hp. Then it will submerge itself and bath itself in a healing glow for 50 hp a second until it has completely healed itself, at which point it will surface again.

In order to force The Sun Crab to surface you must launch torpedoes at it (torpedoes should be a skillshot, in my opinion, just code it as a special case of shark). The Sun Crab will then surface and use a scream (10 damage, 5 terror) calling down an unmoving circle of light at your current location (think glorious dreadnought). If you are still in the circle of light after 10 seconds, it explodes and you take 80 damage. This will repeat itself, however, in this stage of the fight, it will still refuse to move.

Once The Sun Crab hits 500 HP, it will attempt to heal again. You must force it to surface by launching two torpedoes at it. This time, The Sun Crab will start chasing after you, with the speed of Mt. Nomad, and attempt to ram you every 5 seconds, disrupting your firing solutions. The optimal strategy would be to use an aft weapon, however, you can just stand and deliver, if you have enough hull and irons.

At any point in this fight if you flee past the tile boundary, it will return to Lesley’s Harbour and submerge/heal itself.
===================

Name: The Fog Fluke
Description: A larger than normal lorn fluke. It appears when there is fog.
Location: There is a 5% chance when a fog spawns and you are in it, the Fog Fluke will also spawn.
Health Points: 600

Loot: As normal

Behavior: Normal Lorn Fluke behavior, however, it will not attempt to chase you past the fog. The difficulty of this enemy lies in it’s unexpected arrival and the fog hampering your gunners.

===================
edited by nameless on 2/25/2015

8

OK, I get that Korean Spammers joke entry now.

But I got another one!

======================================]

Name: Creep Kelp

Description: A large mass of floating, jet black kelp, with a central knot that expands into a a circle of floating vegetable matter.

Location: Various, but tends toward the &quotdarker&quot seas where it can blend in, so not in the north where there’s a little more light near the icebergs, and not near any coastline.

Health Points: 330

Behavior: Creep Kelp mostly just floats near where it spawns, slowly moving in any given direction. It’s very difficult to see, blending in with the darkness of the zee. Even shining a light on it doesn’t help much to spot it.

=====>

Attacks:

Stealth Creep - Shining your lamp on it doesn’t auto initiate combat. Because this monsters is more of a &quotSpider’s Web&quot type of beast. Instead, light causes the kelp to grow rapidly in every direction from its central origin, trying to ensnare any ship it can while the kelp slowly floats in the direction of the light source. It’s only if the player’s ship IS ensnared that combat auto initiates. The player can still still manually target the beast by clicking on the center of the mass, but this is only if they manage to spot it before they’re ensnared.

Ensnarement - Once in the mass of growing kelp, movement is affected by a strong pull similar to when you wander into a vortex, as the extended kelp growth retracts toward its center, and the central knot in the origin point of the Creep Kelp mass unfolds into a large, writhing plant mouth.

Feeding - Your ship doesn’t take damage while in the pull of the kelp, but if it does reach the center it takes a very heavy hit - 50 damage. This can be an opening though as for a couple seconds you won’t be affected by the ensnarement effect and can move out of it.

You can prematurely end the ensnarement by firing a strange catch into the mouth of the Creep Kelp mass if you need to break away. And you can always target the mass’ &quotmouth&quot while it’s exposed. However, when no ship is ensnared, the mouth is protected and cannot be targeted.

=====>

Strategy/Weaknesses: The trick to the creature is to counter-intuitively keep your lamp off. All of the Creep Kelp Mass’ movement and growth speed is doubled when it is exposed to light. Also counter-intuitively, the kelp is resistant to flensing weapons, but weak to torpedoes, as it doesn’t have blood or a strong muscle structure for the flensing weapons to pierce, but torpedoes are effective at blowing the mass apart.

=====>

Loot: After dispatching the central core of the kelp mass, the player is faced with a choice upon harvesting. Either:

1 - They can gather up the kelp growth to boil in soup, but the crew won’t like it. This nets you 2-6 supplies, with 2x the terror for any supplies you gain.

OR

    • Dig in the central mass for the remains of prior victims. This nets either an outlandish artefact from a prior ship’s hold (an ancient Khanate sword) or 1-4 Drowning Pearls and a random amount of unrepossessd mass.

=========================================================]

Anyway, I really like this thread, so I kind of want to keep it alive and see what else folks come up with! Everyone’s had some real fun ideas so far!
edited by MisterGone on 2/28/2015

9

(Not joking)

Name: Giant Red Leech

Description: Sometimes swims out of the Darkgryphon Straits.

Health: 500

Attacks/Behavior: engorge – attaches to the ship and kills crew. Ram – hull damage.

Loot: 1) 5 supplies + 10 terror (blood!) (possible peckish menace) 2) 1 strange catch + possibility of skull / tomb colonist / something else. Requires hearts to dissect (it’s icky).

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

Name: Giant Squid

Description: These zee beasts feed in the depths but are sometimes drawn to the surface

Health 400/600/800/1200 (old/veteran/ancient/mythic)

Attacks/Behavior: appears when there is blood on the surface of the zee. Attacks with arms (vs. crew) or head/beak (vs. hull). Attracted to light – will stay within the light and follow the light (which is a vulnerability) (also allows player to evade the squid by turning off light and running away)

Rewards should vary widely and even depend upon different stats but should scale with the level of the squid.

→ would like to be able to save a tramp steamer from a squid and get a reward from the admiral.

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

would like to be able to form a corporation for inheritance

would like to be able to store a spare ship in London after buying an expensive dock

would like to be able to invest in land businesses (jewelry, fishmonger, hotel?)

would like to be able to have friendly interactions with other ships
edited by lexiconical on 3/2/2015

10

[quote=lexiconical]

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

would like to be able to form a corporation for inheritance

would like to be able to store a spare ship in London after buying an expensive dock

would like to be able to invest in land businesses (jewelry, fishmonger, hotel?)

would like to be able to have friendly interactions with other ships
edited by lexiconical on 3/2/2015[/quote]

Man, both those are nice!

But I especially agree with all four of those &quotwould like to&quot ideas.

I was thinking today that the Ambition to gain a fortune was really under-developed, and it would make a lot of sense if, instead of needed 30,000 Echoes for retirement, you needed to invest in some sort of corporation, and then help it (through various stories and quests) to become successful and sustainable.

Especially if there were a few options (or the options were different depending on your starting past) as to the type of corporation you could invest in, and work toward making successful.

Because right now, that ambition amounts to - Attain 41,000 Echoes (30k for retirement, 10k for the mansion, 1k for the Townhouse before the mansion), which is a bit dull, especially compared to the &quotFind your father’s bones&quot ambition.

11

I am very happy to hear all these replies. :) thanks to all who have contributed their ideas and heres for many more to come. got another idea to munch on.[li]

============== Enemy ===============
Name: Grief Keeper


Description (Brief description of creature’s appearence?): High Above, Skittering along the webs that criss-cross the savior’s rocks, sorrow spiders peer down at barnacle’d ships that steam under their glistening threads. The Grief Keeper is a large sorrow spider with a silvery sheen and bright orange markings to it’s carapace coupled with four bright yellow eyes. Listen for the quiet click of their leg joints before they descend upon your crew’s eyes.

Location (Where can I find it?): Among the Webs that cross between the islands of Savior’s rock is where you can find this creature. This Zee-Monster is unique in that they can only move among the web that stretches between the islands. Acting like a living road blocks for the player.

Health Points: 400

Loot / Rewards / Options:
Two Options are Available to Player Upon Killing and sailing to the remains.

Option (1): Disentangle it - &quotThe carcass sits in the center of a mass of silk… Are those Skulls?&quot
Standard (With Every Kill): Spider-Silk (1-2), Lamentable Relic (2), 2x Terror
Rare (When Fortune Smiles): Hunting Trophy (1), Spider-Silk (2-3), Lamentable Relic (2)

Option (2): Dissect it - &quotIt’s leg is still twitching and black smoke is billowing up where it’s venom meets with the Zee&quot — Mirrors Challenge: 90 ; For 100% Success
Upon Success: Fragments (50 - 75), Hunting Trophy (2), The venom can be repurposed into a salve, Healing one wound from the player.
Upon Failure: +15 Terror, 1 Wound, 5 Hull Damage (&quotThe Venom eats through your shirt and hull!&quot)



Enemy Behavior (describe how your enemy will behave in combat.):

Venom Sling – 10 Damage (initial) – Cool down: 10 seconds – Status Effect: Poison!

  • Once zero’d in on a players location, the Grief Keeper will spit out a glob of Venom. Upon contact with the Player’s ship, the ship will sustain 10 damage. The poison will stay in the area over a duration of 3 seconds, the zee-water taking on a nasty yellowish hue. If the player does not move, the poison will continually hit the player for 10 hull damage every .75 seconds.

Web Glob – Snare Skill – Cool down: 7 seconds – Status Effect: Ensnared for 3 seconds!

  • Combo’d with Venom Sling, web glob does no damage, but holds the player in place for the venom to seep into their hull.

Bare The Fangs! – 3-5 Crew Damage – Cool down: 4 seconds – Status Effect: IT’S EATING ME!!

  • Moving under the Grief Keepers web is a dangerous business. The Keeper will skitter over to your ship quite fast, throwing a glob of web at you to hold you in place. Once upon you, the Grief keeper will start to feast upon your crew. stoke the fires in your engine to pull out of their before too many of your brave sailors meet their end to the Grief Keepers intimidating mandibles.

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

Keep it up guys :D!

12

Had another idea. Every once in a while a goldfish (or silverfish) rises, dead, from one of the abysses. The fish is dead but valuable. Pirates congregate around it. The level and number of pirates should be keyed to the player’s ship, so that they are a challenge but not impossible to anyone. If one of the pirates gets the silver and gets back to Gaider’s Mourn, there will be a pirate frigate or pirate dreadnought at the Mourn.

If the player kills the pirates and gets the fish, the body can be sold for 500 echoes on the Mourn, 400 echoes in the Khanate, or 300 echoes in London – after a 30 echo tax at customs. Or given as a gift in the Khanate to the tiger or Taimen, but you lose a few favors with the one that you do not give it to.
edited by lexiconical on 3/14/2015

13

BTW, just fought about 20 rat barges. Submitted it as a bug report, but it might be a feature. It was interesting but the debris was creating a traffic jam and my guns found the targeting difficult.

It would be interesting to have a situation with multiple small boats, but if you add that, then you need an area of effect torpedo or cannon.

14

Name: Marauding Flotzam
Description: Wrecked ships, hauled cargo, carcasses. Debris is as common in the underzee as it is in the surface oceans. The difference is, that unterzee debris is willing to incorporate you and your ship.
Location: probably anywhere, but mostly near Polythreme I guess
Health Points: 200. Splits into two enemies with 50 HP when the original reaches 100 HP.

Loot / Rewards / Options

Haul it in, most of it still looks decent: It’s just flotzam, right? Look: there’s wood and steel, planks and tubes, labeled crates and tightly sealed barrels. It looks like the display at Mrs Plenty’s Shipsi- is there a funnel attached to that coffin?
Rewards 1~3 Supplies, 1~3 Fuel and A Cache of Curiosities (highly random value). Also gives you the ‘Questionable flotzam on board’ Quality which can lead to certain random events.

Leave it, don’t look back: Only gentle waves move the debris. You pat a zailor on the back and the tension of battle rushes from his body. He starts to lough. A cheer tones from the crow’s nest and spreads over the deck like a bouncing blemmigan. The flotzam is pacified. For now. Better leave while it’s still a victory.
Reduces Terror by 15.

Let it burn, better to be safe than sorry: Requires 1 Fuel. It takes some effort to get it started but after a while the debris burns in colours beyound description. You remain at a safe distance, standing at the rail with your crew, watching shapes come to life in the flames. A sweethearts smile, a mothers dress, the Wolfstack Docks, dancing swans, a sunset. Every zailor seems to see something different. You are mesmerized and don’t know how long you have stood at the rail gawking, when you realize a strange song. No, it’s laughter. No, crying… Screaming! The flames Scream! Literal human screams! You rally the crew and turn the ship around that already drifted dangerously close to the burning strip of zee.
Lose 1 Fuel. Gain 5 Terror, 1 Tale of Distant Shores, 1 Tale of Terror, 1 Zee-ztory and 1 Vision of the Surface.

Enemy Behavior

Slow moving and no ram attack. Throws flying debris in a 360° angle with a range equaling forward weapons, dealing moderate damage to the hull and the crews morale. When reaching half life it submerges and splits into two smaller Floatzams with less HP and lower damage but slightly higher speed. Only after defeating both smaller Floatzams will you be able to recover any loot.[b]

[/b]Questionable flotzam on board random events

Living tow: Screams from the foredeck! A zailor is lying on the deck entangled in tow. For a moment it looks like he just fell tripped, but you quickly realize that the tow is choking him actively!
Tug of war! (Iron challenge)
Success: Several zailors enter the fray and after some minutes of wrestling everybody is exhausted, including the rope. One zailor does an exotic knot that leaves the rope enough rope to wiggle enticingly, but not enough to by danerous to anybody.
Gain 1 Outlandish Artifact.
Failure: A coiling nightmare whips and slashes over the deck. You circle it, but every attempt to free the zailor from this tight hempen prison ends in a beaten, terrified crewman. At some point the rope manages to slip between two zailors and pulls his prey with him into the zee. The screaming already stopped at this point. You doubt the zailor will end up with water in his lungs.
Gain 10 Terror. Loose 1 Crew.

A Stowaway?: You notice the crew avoiding a certain pile of supplies in the hold. You confront your first mate about it and after some ‘gentle encouragement’ he tells you that there is a crying, mumbling box resting on top of that pile. You give him a well deserved slap on the back of the head and go investigate the pile yourself. With a crowbar you open the box and tumble down the pile of supplies as a hulking shape rushes out of the box. A ragged person with a bag over his head is flailing his arms wildly as two zailors try to catch him.
Calm him. (Hearts Challenge)
Success: It takes an hour of careful explaining who you are and several packs of buiscits to convince the person, that you are not his enemy. After another hour of intense soothing you get enough information out of the ragged figure to get the basic picture staring with a nightly abduction leading to abductors in disagreement followed by an abandoned abductee and days, if not weeks in a box in a pile of flotzam. The next day the figure approaches you and asks you for passage to London. You will get payed of course.
Gain 1 Ragged Figure (can be delivered to London for 100 Echo or turned into a Prisoner at any time).
Failure: A crazy person running rampant on your ship with a bag over the head is not funny. Calming did not work, reasoning was futile, but shooting was unnessecary. You had no other choice but to throw the ragged figure in the brig. Your crew still feels uneasy with a mad person aboard. You can’t blame them.
Gain 10 Terror and 1 Prisoner.

15

Name: Rubbery Lump
Description: A giant fleshy lump. Approximately two to three times the size of a Lifeberg, the same shape, except fleshy and jiggly-looking. Flesh-colored.
Location: A few weaker versions hang around Mutton Isle. For the Real Thing, though, you have to head over to Irem, or Kingeater’s Castle, or basically the very far reaches of the zee, where a few of them stay.
Health Points: 100 for the weaker variants, 300 or 500 for the Elder Rubbery Lumps, depending on where you find them.

Loot / Rewards / Options:

BUTCHER IT: 10/20/40 Supplies and Unprepossessing Mass 15-30
EAT IT: 2/15/30 Supplies, Hunger Set to 0, Unprepossessing Mass of values lower than above 0-15
WHAT’S THIS?: 10/15 Supplies and Unprepossessing Mass 10-50 OR 5/10 Supplies and Captivating Treasure/5-10 Outlandish Artefacts

All of the above come with a Hunting Trophy. The last option only appears with Elder Rubbery Lumps.

Enemy Behavior (describe how your enemy will behave in combat.): Follows you somewhat slowly like Lifeberg, then charges towards you…like a Lifeberg. It is faster, though and instead of crashing into you, it engulfs you completely and passes through you. While engulfed, the ship only has -1 to 1 engine capacity, terror effect is increased by one level, and firing rate is decreased by one level (so basically as if you were caught in the Wax Wind or a blizzard from the North). When engulfing you, the Rubbery Lump slows down and does damage of about 7 or 17 Hull (depending on type of Lump) per second in two second increments. It takes about three seconds to pass through you if you do not move (the two second increments are if you move while it is engulfing you). Its attack takes about five to seven seconds to recharge and it will follow slowly in the meantime.

Well, I guess we know where they come from now. Technically, they ARE zee-monsters…of a sort.
edited by Marcus of the Mangrove College on 3/14/2015