Which in game speak means they take critters and warp them into monsters by attaching weapons and control devices.
There are some cool ones already in Star Frontiers - the Quickdeath (think of a tentacled tiger), laser-firing slugs, dinosaur-like critters with head-mounted energy weapons, slave troopers, etc.
But some fantasy monsters scream out to be SAMs. Here are my top four.
1) The Purple Worm. Add an in-mouth gas expulsion system, a battery pack to power eye beams, and maybe attach an albedo screen to it? It's a natural.
2) The Bulette. It's basically already a SAM, except for some reason it doesn't reflect lasers or shoot death rays. Both are easily added.
3) Type III Demons. The Sathar took these poor peaceful creatures and hacked off their hands and added big C-clamp bladed grabbers. They probably made them bullet-resistant, too.
4) Grell. Tentacles beaked brain-looking things that eat people. Add a sonic stunner area attack with pulsating rings in the illustrations and bam! Sathar Attack Monster.
The LJN one with the eyes would have hypno-rays, maybe.
I'm leaving off the Beholder, because those are clearly Dungeon Master Attack Monsters. Even the Sathar wouldn't know what to add to them.
I should mention that one of the inspirations for the Slorn (the big breath weapon lizards in my DF game) were SAMs.
Any other fantasy monsters that are clearly Sathar Attack Monsters?
Carrion crawler
ReplyDeleteOh, yes! Awesome.
DeleteCarrion crawler
ReplyDeleteMeenlocks (or Jermlaine, if you want to be nice) with a ready supply of holdout needlers and a queen that secretes BoomEx seem like a really great gift from our Sathar friends to the urban planning departments of the other races.
ReplyDelete"A series of strange explosions have gone off on Grand Prenglar's downtown. Your group must investigate the sewers and find the origin of the blasts."
DeleteHeh.
Remorahz. If that heat is coming from a fission plant the Sathar implanted, you got power for all kinds of goodies (screens, laser eyes, what have you). Might be too close to the Slorn though.
ReplyDeleteThe deadly Flumph!
Displacer Beasts.
Radiation instead of heat would explain the Remorhaz well. It would make a great Gamma World beast!
DeleteFlumphs would just make good SF aliens. Friendly, acid-spitting levitating guys with eyestalks. They seem more likely as allies you have to help against the Sathar, if you can come to understand them. (Plot of SF0 - every other SF adventure until Knight Hawks.)
Displacer beasts as SF monsters? That's a Coeurl. :)
Wow, I read the Voyage of the Space Beagle ages ago, and never put the Coeurl and Displacer Beasts together! Neat!
DeleteRemorhaz is my favorite beastie. Radiation does make a good fit.
Ankhegs and umber hulks, especially for attacks on mining colonies. (The beasts tunnel up from below while the Sathar fire from orbit)
ReplyDeleteAnkhegs - that's true, they'd make a good burrowing species that was warped by the Sathar for sure.
DeleteUmber Hulks in space? Heh. That was a Spelljammer thing, too! The confusion gaze seems very Sathar-granted. Fill their heads with explosives, too, may as well . . . Sathar hate competition from other smart things they can't subvert.
Armor piercing beak + paralytic poison injection = SAM Stirge
ReplyDeleteArmor piercing beak + paralytic poison injection = SAM Stirge
ReplyDelete