(no subject)

[sythyry]

A Digression on Monsters [timeless]

Several of you have asked about chromodons and nendrai. As a prelude to the next section, here's what I know about them off the top of my head. It may or may not be wholly accurate.

Both creatures are among the most fearsome monsters of the World Tree. Do not think that all our monsters are like this!

Chromodon

A chromodon is a pack of eight housecats, or housecattish things with big jaws of sharky teeth. Each pack is a single person, one mind split among eight bodies. Actually you don't usually see all eight bodies together -- they usually spread out for safety. "Spread out" might mean a thousand miles between bodies!

They're smart. Their bite is poisonous, I'm pretty sure.

Oh, and they have some magic too. Like, they can improvise spells comparable with my best spell or better, using any combination of arts at all (or at almost?). At the rate of three or four a second. It takes me eight or ten seconds to improvise one spell. And chromodons never run out of cley. And they do this coolly and collectedly and sensibly.

So fighting one of a chromodon's bodies is like fighting a small horde of pretty decent sorcerers, who are all casting spells intelligently.

Now suppose you win that fight -- you kill the one body. (Which is pretty hard, 'cause the chromodon can keep casting spells on it for a little after it's dead, and can teleport it around or heal it or stuff, I think.) Anyways, suppose you've killed the one body. There are still seven more bodies to deal with.

And those seven are very, very upset. 'cause a chromodon needs all eight bodies to reproduce.

You've just castrated but not otherwise inconvenienced a very powerful monster. The remaining 7/8ths, plus zir unhappy mate, and any other creatures that a very powerful monster might recruit as allies, are now on your tail. And you don't even know where they are, 'cause they're a few hundred miles away somewhere.

The best advice on dealing with chromodons: go a long long way away and outlive them. They only live forty years or so. Even non-Zi Ri do that.

Nendrai

Nendrai are worse.

They're big ugly lizardly sorts of people -- even the smaller varieties are the size of a large Gormoror up to a small horse, and the larger varieties are pretty big. They like getting things from primes. They have long lashy thin tails. Some of them have multiple heads, which is bad, or forked tails, which is far, far worse.

They're pretty scary just physically. They have ridiculous vitality -- a good warrior could stand being stabbed through the heart five times before dying, say. A small nendrai could probably handle ten times that. A big one could probably handle a hundred.

But the real danger is magic. They can improvise Mutoc spells -- spells of change -- at degrees of complexity ranging from "exceedingly good" (complexity 40! With my best spell being 20.) on up, and with power to match. They have only two restrictions: (1) no Healoc, and (2) the nendrai casts the spell on the target by touching the target with its tail. Like chromodons, their magic doesn't cost cley.

Which makes them really nasty enemies. There's an awful lot that you can do with a complexity-40 Mutoc-plus-anything-but-Healoc spell. Like ... You can turn a rainstorm into a rain of poisoned hail. You can turn an acorn into iron. You can turn a forest's acorns into darts and make the trees hurl them at your enemies. You can disguise a town as just about anything. You can teleport several people dozens of miles. You can graft a spell instantly. You can wholly transform someone's loyalties. You can turn a fire into a devastating, semi-controlled fire elemental. You can change the recent past, e.g., unscrewing-up a screwed-up attack. You can turn someone's armor into scorpions. You can turn someone's memories of their native language into scorpions too, I think, which renders them (1) stung about the head by insects, and (2) incapable of conveniently asking for help.

On second thought, that's maybe a bit more than complexity 40. 40 will turn a person to air, but turning a person to fire is 45. Turning a specific set of memories to living animals is more like complexity 60. Which is beyond the reach of many nendrai. Vaisessasilmin living by us is a member of the species N. magus, which Broon said was the kind that's good at magic. She might well be able to do it.

This does not please me greatly, having someone physically and emotionally capable of such... sitting at the bottom of the Verticals selling trinkets to farmers.

Comments

[galis.livejournal.com]

(OOC - I like that first monster, very unique idea! I tend to create bestiaries of strange beasts when I'm bored ^^)

[greenreaper.livejournal.com]

I find it surprising that beings of such might have not taken over the Tree already. Perhaps those gods who created them regret deeding the branches to you? After all, many artists in our world seek to erase their earlier work, deeming it unfitting for it to remain as a reminder of their younger, less skilled days . . .

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Both of those date to the earliest days, or before. And they're both the same god's creations (Gnarn's). They weren't as powerful at the beginning; they've been modified as we've gotten stronger.

And we're not so weak ourselves. A nendrai can cast a spell without cley -- well, so can I: this pen I built recently does that too, for one particular spell. A nendrai can cast a complexity-40 spell without pausing to invent it -- well, so most of the magic faculty at Vheshrame Academy can too, given six hours. We can build walls strong enough to keep nendrai and chromodons out of our cities -- or weapons enough to kill them, if it comes to that, though not cheaply or quickly. They don't have anything that matches enchantment or ritual magic. They just have lots and lots of spontaneous magic, child's magic.

Also there aren't very many big monsters, and they generally don't like each other very much.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Are there any monsters that specialize in enchantment or ritual magic?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I don't know of any.

[sianmink.livejournal.com]

I knew a critter (critters) that was much like that Chromodon, though they called themselves Tine.. I don't know if it/they had any sort of magic, but there were definitely eight of them, and they acted as one.

Pretty sweet critters, really. ^..^

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[Bard doesn't remember the Tine as being very sweet -- or as having eight members; the main one mostly had 4-5 as it recalls. -bb]

[sianmink.livejournal.com]

Mebby it was six.. I dunno Kinda hard to keep track of! they were nice to me, at least.

[redbird]

The other thing about Tines is, if they lose a body, they can adopt a new one and go on (though with slightly different personalities), instead of being permanently sterile.

I knew a Tine once....

[(Anonymous)]

it's name was Clemen...

Grin, Duck, Run like heck....

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

With this message, I'm going to give away that I really am a monster...

Has anyone asked the Nendrai at the bottom of the Verticals for a favor -- for a Mutoc spell that they couldn't otherwise manage? What happened to zir?

(I mean -- Mutoc a meng sword into a diamond-coated, steel sword! A live tank with permeable walls -- letting an Orren just reach into the side of the tank to catch her fish!)

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[Bard, looking annoyed at the whole plot complication, mutters, "We don't know much about that beastie yet. Despite how long ago
this
was.]

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Well, presumably the Nendrai has its reasons! For one thing, maybe it's not really a Nendrai...

[redbird]

Do primes ever get into difficulties by approaching one of a chromodon's bodies under the mistaken assumption that it's a cat?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Not after it opens its mouth, no!

Before that ... I don't know. I've never seen one. In some pictures they look fairly feline, in others much less so.

[brennabat.livejournal.com]

By "like getting things from primes" do you mean in general, such as the aforementioned trinket trading, or in a more sinister fashion such as manipulating said farmers in to tricking their loved ones to sacrifice all they own, willingly, to the nendrai? With the latter I suppose chuckling would then be in order, followed by turning the family in to a six volume desk reference set on horticulture. It would be dry and unillustrated! That's what I would do, anyway.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I am not on such close terms with even one nendrai as to be able to tell which one is meant.

[brennabat.livejournal.com]

Perhaps some day you will be so (un)lucky as to find out! Or perhaps you can ask an adventurer. Or become one. You DO seem to be on that sort of path. Adventurous.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

I really can't see Sythyry going on a proper out-of-town adventure.

Or, well, I can't really see zir *surviving* such an adventure, which is something completely different, I suppose.

[brennabat.livejournal.com]

I was actually thinking of the other sort of adventerous, or maybe the other, OTHER sort of adventerous, and then mixing the two up for fun and or lack of sleep. Hm, it sort of reminds me of the peppermint patty comercials. "What would Sythyry need to adventure? Would you do it for an allowance? For an Orren? For an Orren in distress?" And then the camera would be set on fire.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

"No? Well, how about for an Orren in *this* dress?"

And then the music shifts, and bright red spotlights start swinging around, with smoke machines...