Honhon! Je suis un Canadienne!

... Et ma francais est terrible aussi.

Good to know I'm not the only one, lol.

Being good with linguistics in general is extremely helpful. Now if only my college actually offered a dedicated linguistics course. God dammit.

Alons enfant de la patrie,
de jour de glorie arrive!

omelette du fromage!

Sorry I've been absent, life.

Some more fauna for y'all! Luckily for y'all, these aren't on any of the landmasses you're currently on, so don't worry about running into any unless you take a boat to Hell's Gate.

Before anyone asks, I've PM'ed Isla Diablo's map bit to Darcs, so hopefully she'll add that in for me soon so you all know what the hell I'm talking about.


Name: Ash Strider
Species: Eremobates chasmatis
Rarity: Far too common
Behavior: Aggressive as fuck
Location(s): Isla Diablo
Key Points:

• No. Nonononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononono.
• Can move 30-40 kph through knee deep volcanic ash.
• In place of venom, the Ash Strider has sacs of extremely caustic chemicals that it shoots at prey in superheated jets.
• Fangs capable of penetrating solid homogenized carbon steel.
• Chitin is capable of resisting most semi automatic handgun rounds up to and including 10mm/.357 Magnum.

Appearance: The Ash Strider is the most common predator on Isla Diablo. A bit smaller than a hippopotamus, the Ash Strider is orders of magnitude larger than its old world counterpart, the Sun Spider. The chitin plating of the Ash Strider is a matte black/grey and blends in well with its landscape.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Name: Acid Worm
Species: Unclassified
Rarity: Thankfully, rare
Behavior: Extremely aggressive ambush predator- has literally attacked tanks.
Location(s): Isla Diablo
Key Points:

• Nope.
• Ridiculously powerful jaws- Have been observed to cut an Ash Strider right in half, and to easily penetrate stainless steel. The real danger is the sheer crushing force, 103000 kPa.
• The Acid Worm spits scalding acid capable of eating straight through steel.
• Burrows and can lunge out at like lightning
• Covered in spiky bristles that can cause permanent nerve damage if touched even once

Appearance: The Acid Worm is a monstrosity of the apocalypse, stretching almost 12 meters in length on average and about 300-400mm in width. The front meter of the Acid Worm is coated in a tough chitinous plating that for some reason sports an iridescent sheen, easily capable of stopping a 9mm bullet in the thicker portions. Back to the rear, the worm is much softer, and can even be cut in half with a large axe- though this is strongly discouraged as the front half of the worm will remain alive long enough to demolish whatever fatally wounded it.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Name: Thresher Hive
Species: Unclassified
Rarity: Rare in the southern half of the island, more common in the northern half
Behavior: Aggressive if prey nears, otherwise dormant
Location(s): Isla Diablo
Key Points:

• Nopenopenope.
• A typical hive might hold 5000 insects.
• Fire is an excellent way to ward them off and has in fact been used to eradicate entire hives with no loss of human life. Anything that clogs their breathing holes will kill them almost immediately as well.
  
  Recommended Handling Policy [+]

  

Appearance:
Imagine a swarm of locusts. Now imagine that swarm of locusts being carnivorous, black and shiny, aggressive, being able to consume almost anything organic, and residing underground until something disturbs them, where they’ll promptly swarm out to strip whatever it is down to the bone. And then break open the bones to get at the marrow and some will even eat the bones too to develop tougher exoskeletons and also to make stronger hives with. And then go back to waiting for the next thing. That's a Thresher Hive.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I had some more but those will have to wait because I'm tired af rn, I'm sure you're all devastated about that.

I went home and opened my computer, only to find myself staring at picture of bugs. Dust is already a bad place my friend, why are you doing this?

@RedDusk

Well then, I know where James isn't going.

Well then, I know where James isn't going.

Seconded!

If Dust is analogous to a weird blend of Westeros and Essos, and Ash is basically all Essos, but a little underdeveloped compared to actual Essos. Then Isla Diablo is probably analogous to Sothyros.

Which means it's got dinosaurs and manticores but no one ever actually goes there and it's just horrible. I feel like we should retcon some names though-- Ash might be a more appropriate name for Isla Diablo than Ash. I wanna give Binary Star a more apropos name anyway.

Name: Nachthund
Species: Canis noctis
Rarity: No longer seen in the wild except on remote parts of Dust. However, common as relatively domesticated animals on Ash and Isla Diablo especially.
Behavior: Wary of strangers, will attack if provoked. Fanatically loyal to a human of its choosing and will fight to the death if need be.
Location(s): Everywhere humans are.
Key Points:

• Finally something that's relatively nice for a change.
• Rigid fur mats have over time essentially hardened into armored plates and will easily halt high velocity handgun cartridges and nearly any commonly found melee cutting weapon.
• Has no venom or anything of that nature, instead a highly septic bite that will rapidly cause extreme blood poisoning.
• Can see perfectly in near absolute darkness.
• Teeth and horns hard and strong enough to pulverize bone and penetrate mild steel plates.

Appearance: The Nachthund, despite a superficial similarity to the bloodhound, is anything but. Standing at the size of a large tiger, the Nachthund is genetically speaking still in the same family and genus as the bloodhound and old world dogs, its physiology has diverged dramatically. Originally a feral species, the Nachthund was somehow domesticated through means unknown and has now become a favored companion for adventurers needing a big friend, or simply people who want to be absolutely sure about their guard dog being an effective one. Covered in fur that has hardened and matted into what are basically overlapping armored plates, the Nachthund can in fact go toe to toe with some of Dust's and even Ash's nastier fauna. Also sporting large horns that curl under its jaw, the list of things that the Nachthund cannot disembowl or generally fuck up is a small one that includes monsters such as the A.D.T. Spider, or Armatapede.

Also they're big enough to ride.


Name: Armatapede
Species: Nobody's wants to get close enough to find out.
Rarity: Uncommon, act as an apex land predator on the island of Ash and even on the southernmost end of Isla Diablo.
Behavior: Highly aggressive apex predator.
Location(s): Southernmost tip of Isla Diablo, Island of Ash.
Key Points:

• Nope.
• Highly aggressive
• Well armored along entire body, resistant to handguns up to .44 Magnum
• Delivers a necrotoxic sting that, if it doesn't kill its victim simply from the wound itself, will result in agonizing death within hours without medical attention.
• 180 degree vision
• No ability to hear, limited smell
• Can move rapidly in a straight line, slow to turn.

Appearance: The armatapede is one of Ash's most deadly land predators. Able to reach up to 20-25 meters in length and with scorpion like claws that can deliver a devastating cut or crush, or simply to hold prey still while it stings it. It has powerful jaws that are not unlike a pair of hydraulic shears, and a sting capable of easily piercing centimeter thick plates of most common metals. The Armatapede is a burnt red coloration, with large black eyes. It is easily detected by sound if moving at top speed, the bug's legs and chitin clacking together create a harsh rattling sound that can be heard some distance off- even then, at that point it's often too late to run.
_________________________________

I had a few others in mind but they're a bit too 40k for the setting, I'll hold off on truly bad shit until later.

Also they're big enough to ride.

I love how you just throw that in at the bottom.

Also, I am happy to announce that I am back home and will be resuming normal activity.

Soooooo...

@TheMadAsshatter Not sure, I'm tied down with a bunch of schoolwork, but I am slowly working through another collab with Darcs and Lightning. As to other people, no fucking clue.

I'm in a collab with Darcs as well, and also waiting got the CS on Rose. No need to worry, I haven't abbadon ship yet.

Name: Rattus Conversion Plague
Species: Norvegicus pestis-Y.R (A)
Rarity: Currently 25 - 50 subjects in experiments
Behavior: The Rattus Conversion Plague behaves almost identically to the bubonic plague that is half of it's genetic parent (the other half being Immortal Lab Rat subjects). The primary difference is that the characteristic buboes of the plague serve as incubators that then give 'birth' to rats, typically coinciding with the psychical 'death' of the host. The mind of the host is then transferred across any and all rats that were bred in the host's body. Although these rats appear sterile, and cannot bred (or simply do not wish to) breed with actual lab rats, they can breed amongst themselves.

The rats are slightly smaller than normal mice, and appear just as easy to kill. However their bodies are covered in Norvegicus pestis-Y.R (B) and their saliva carries Norvegicus pestis-Y.R (C).

Location(s): Exclusively found in Tombstone laboratories
Key Points:

• Incubation period of 2–6 days, when the rat cells are actively replicating.
• General malaise
• Fever
• Muscle aches
• Gangrene
• Headache and chills occur suddenly at the end of the incubation period
• Extreme weakness
• Swelling of lymph nodes resulting in buboes, the classic sign of bubonic plague.
• Death can occur in less than 2 weeks, with rats bursting from the buboes.

Appearance: The initial symptoms of the plague appear identical to the bubonic plauge right up to death. Post death, the affected will appear as a swarm of small rats, the were the color of the hosts' hair.

---

Name: Forced Microscopic Chimera Nest Virus
Species: Norvegicus pestis-Y.R (B)
Rarity: Tested on 78 subjects in highly controlled settings
Behavior: Virus occurs when handling the bodies of those deceased by Norvegicus pestis-Y.R (A), aggressively causing necrosis of the skin and removing all feeling to the external world, before the mutated chimeric cells will attach themselves to the blood cells of the host and grow. Subject will experience intense pain in the veins as the viral cells grow from microscopic, to the size of dwarf baby rats, draining the subject of their blood and eventually eating their way out of the host's body.

The microscopic chimeric rats breed incredibly fast, being able to go from one rat to several thousands, crowding all paths of blood in host's body in a matter of hours. When the veins or 'nest' is nearly full, the subject will be unable to bleed, and instead bloat with the rats and bleed out their waste. Experiments have yet to be tested on Immortals or Hollow.

Location(s): Exclusively found in Tombstone laboratories
Key Points:

• Severe necrosis
• Chills
• Coughing
• Chest pain
• Rapid breathing
• Dyspnea
• Hemoptysis
• Lethargy
• Hypotension
• Blindness
• Internal bleeding
• 100% mortality

Appearance: Initially starting as microscopic cells, invisible to the human eye-- these chimeric organisms will, if given the chance, grow to the size of anything from a flea to baby mice inside the veins of the host, before crawling out and swarming to search for more blood.

---

Name: Black Prions
Species: Norvegicus pestis-Y.R (C)
Rarity: Tested in several thousand criminals, volunteers, and mental health wards.
Behavior: Black Prions-- the result of combining rat neurons, the bubonic plague, and mad cow disease-- is perhaps the most interesting ailment created thus far on Tombstone in the Norvegicus pestis-Y.R A through D experiments. In that, it results, physically in creating what might be the next stage of human evolution. The mind of these subjects can slow down time from their own perspective, create fire and move objects with their minds, as well as a myriad of other side effects, such as no longer needing to eat due to developing sudden photosynthesis and reaching a peak of human physique that will increase physical life, theoretically, to several hundred years.

However, to reach these side effects, subjects must first be exposed to what has been dubbed 'Temporal Displacement Syndrome' or more commonly called, the 'stun' when injected with the Black Prions. From a bystander's viewpoint, the 'stun' lasts all of five seconds. From the subject's viewpoint, however, the 'stun' last more than several quadrillions of years.

The subject, when injected, will immediately experience a disconnection from their mind and body, what they experience as a second, will actually, from our perspective, be a single Planck time. Each Planck time, for them, will exponentially increase in time experienced, in complete mental isolation, 1 second will stretch on for trillions of years, as 1 second becomes several thousand hours becomes several million years and continued to exponentially stretch on, with each plank second ticking down. Subjects must experience 5 seconds, before returning to our frame of time, and by that point their minds have long been lost-- or perhaps truly found-- from several life times of several Universes in complete isolation. They all use their new powers to kill themselves in the first Plank time of the first second they return.

We have not calculated the exact length of time spent in isolation.

However, for reference, one second is approximately 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 Planck times.

Location(s): Exclusively found in Tombstone laboratories
Key Points:

• Those afflicted will experience perfect physical health and significantly increased lifespans, it is believed to increase their lives by upwards of 500 after the 'initial stun.' Theoretically, these individuals exposed to the 'initial stun' would develop near psychic powers, and would be able to 'slow' time from their own perspective
• Complete mental breakdown. The synapses of the brain become frayed, the myelin sheath is gone-- in 5 seconds, all outside influences are removed and you are faced with your true 'self'-- it is believed that exposing to human to absolute truth is what leads to the subsequent suicidal insanity. It is also theorized that knowing truth, even only one, any thinking being realizes that death is a logical alternative to existence for the sake of existence. This has not yet been cured.
• Near instantaneous suicide, typically committed by clawing at one's own face and throat.
• True enlightenment is reached. Becoming mentally older than the universe gives one complete and absolute clarity.

Appearance: N/A

---

Name: Black Rat Synthesis
Species: Norvegicus pestis-Y.R (D)
Rarity: Currently the strain is only found in two beakers. Currently untested.
Behavior: Theoretically. This synthesis would give those afflicted with Rattus Conversion Plague to switch between being human and a swarm of rats. This was made using Immortal blood, it is currently untested.
Location(s): Exclusively found in Tombstone laboratories
Key Points:

• Currently unkown

Appearance: N/A

@Darcs

@Darcs There is only one known, lucid, non-catatonic survivor of Species: Norvegicus pestis-Y.R (C)...

... And his name... is Bartender.

You know, I'm almost positive you wouldn't introduce these diseases if they weren't going to A) spread out of control, or B) mercilessly be injected into some poor sap during a horrifying cutscene.

@Lightning Fast

@Monochromatic Rainbow Wow. Never before has such an adorable video horrified me so much based solely on context.