“Fufufu! Hahaha!”
As soon as I log into DMA, I laugh like a mad scientist. Lightning courses through my hands and is expelled in random directions. This is the visual effect of Chain Lightning if you don’t fire the spell when it’s ready.
“It’s time for some more obnoxious creatures! Hahaha, yeeees!”
The rewards from the Mystery Event were perfect for what I will do next. Are you curious? Okay, I’ll tell you…
What I’m going to do next is create a few monsters I’ve been considering adding to my dungeon since a while ago, but I haven’t found the drive to put any effort into it. You know, the typical crazy stuff you suddenly came up with but forget after a few minutes. But since I didn’t have to move a single finger to get the bodies this time, I can’t keep making excuses.
“The first one will be a classic: the troll over the bridge.”
Huh? You say I’m mistaken, that it’s the ‘troll under the bridge’? Nah, it’s you who’s mistaken. When I said classic, it obviously implied there would be a twist. I’m not a guy who sticks to the rules.
In case you haven’t heard of it before, the ‘troll under the bridge’ is a recurrent theme in old stories. A troll inhabits the space under a bridge and asks questions or compensation to those who want to cross it.
But that’s too outdated. My troll, instead, will be standing on top of the bridge. To be precise, it’ll be standing right above it, near the entrance. So when a player tries to cross it, they’ll have to pass right next to it. And here’s where it gets interesting.
“La, la, la… Who’ll be the unlucky one? La, la, la.”
I open the Templates menu and create a new one. This one will use a Troll and a Geodis, one of the few earth elemental humanoid units. It’ll have the body and shape of the troll but several parts of its body, like the shoulders, kneecaps, chest, and so on, covered in a thick layer of stone.
So… yes, it’ll be a Stone Troll, hahaha!
Alright, alright, that was too lame of a joke. But I couldn’t stop myself from making it.
“It’s a shame I can’t use a Gargoyle for this… It would have been so perfect…”
As much as the Earth Elemental skill helps when it comes to faking a statue, thanks to the reduced damage when it isn’t moving, there’s no comparison to the Gargoyles. If you’re curious, here’s their innate skill description.
Fake Statue (Innate triggered skill) At the start of the Dungeon Invasion or Dungeon Battle, you become invulnerable to all damage and status effects, and can’t be identified. This effect lasts until you move for the first time or use a skill.
Fake Statue is the perfect skill for faking being a decorative element before striking the unaware fools! Even its name is perfect, as it leaves no possible confusion as to what is its purpose.
The problem with Gargoyles is that they are considered a ‘construct’, so they’re not ‘alive’. This means they’re one of the units I can’t use for my monsters.
“A Gargoyle would be so perfect…” I shake my head. “What a shame. Sigh…”
I leave my regrets behind and move on to the next step while I wait for the Hybrid to be created. I’ll assign the skills later, first I want to finish the setup.
Do you remember the underground river crossing the Tunnels? Well, there are a few spots where the water level is low and have stones to cross it without having to go inside the river. I choose the one closest to the laboratory areas, widen and deepen the flow, and create a bridge there.
“The next step is the fake troll…” I told you I would give it my spin, didn’t I? “La, la, la. The real troll statue to combine with the fake troll statue and real troll… la, la, la.”
I create a statue that looks identical to the finished hybrid troll, and put it right next to the bridge, as I promised. It’s easy because I can use the hybrid troll as a model and the game will use its 3D model as the base for the statue.
As you all know, trolls are significantly taller and bulkier than humans. The statue stands well over most player’s height right next to the bridge’s entrance.
With one hand, the troll raises its large trunk-like club. With the other, it asks for money in exchange for passage. The troll also wears a nasty grin on its face, as if to say ‘Give me the money, or else…’
“...or else I’ll ask another type of ‘compensation’. It’s called HP, and it hurts. Hahaha!”
Of course, there’s no money inside the game, nor am I planning on adding a key item to my dungeon just for this, so there won’t be any retaliation if they don’t pay.
Or will there…?
“There will be. It wouldn’t be me if there wasn’t.”
As I’ve said from the start, this isn’t an important element for my dungeon, it’s just an idea I came up with and thought it was cool. Something to bring more confusion and surprise to the invaders.
What I mean is this: the real troll will be there only 10% of the time. The rest of the time, it’ll be the statue instead, which will do nothing. As for the troll…
I open the AI screen and make a few easy changes. The troll won’t move and stay still, benefitting from Earth Elemental’s damage reduction, regardless of what the players do. It’ll remain like this for as long as an enemy unit doesn’t try to cross the bridge, even if it means it’ll end up dying while waiting. And when they try to cross, the troll will strike down and squash the poor fella into oblivion, and the battle with the rest of the invaders will start.
Is it random? Yes. Is it predictable? Yes. Is it good? Um… maybe?
But I don’t care if it’s good or bad. It’s just another random thing the players will have to keep in their minds… unless they want to receive a trunk to their face when they least expect it.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Oh, by the way. This is how the hybrid troll’s stats end up. I had to give it the Unidentifiable skill and upgrade the Earth Elemental skill just to emulate the Gargoyle’s innate; and even with this, the troll is still susceptible to status effects, unlike the Gargoyles.
“This is why innate skills are considered so powerful. They give you an edge that can’t be compared with other skills… Sigh.”
The Troll Over The Bridge (Lv 5) HP 1.092 (780) STA 102 (73) SOU 37 (27) EP 840 (600) MP 336 (240) STR 75 (54) CON 78 (56) AGI 53 (38) SPI 25 (18) WIL 65 (47) DEX 46 (34) SPD 4 INT 5 COM 2 Skills
Active: Bash, Mighty Blow. Triggered: Unexpected Strike. Passive: Unidentifiable, Earth Elemental - LV 2 (Like A Rock) (Innate), Regeneration (Innate).
As you can see, the troll’s skills are pretty simple other than the skills required to feign being a statue. Bash for extra damage and stun chance, Mighty Blow for an even more powerful attack, and Unexpected Strike for a devastating first strike.
Yes, the troll will always start with a Mighty Blow combined with Unexpected Strike’s bonus damage. Over 1.200 damage will surely bring instant death to more than one player and support mob.
At 590 cp cost and level 5, The Troll Over The Bridge is a decent mid-level fighter. Most of the time it won’t appear, but when it does… good luck? Hahaha!
The troll encounter is like an ambush, but an ambush you can see from a mile away. And if the players waste lots of attacks and time on the (indestructible) statue, or the troll, to avoid being surprised and maybe killing it with status effects before it can engage in combat, I’m fine with it. All the EP and MP they waste here is EP and MP they won’t have in the future.
“Alright! Next monster on the list, please!”
The next monster on the list – or should I say monsters, in plural? – is one that will give a lot more character to the now almost empty Botanical Garden.
“Almost empty? But what about the tens of Beexies floating everywhere…?”
Ssht! Don’t spoil the fun!
So where was I…? Ah, yes. The next monster is going to give a lot more character to the Botanical Garden. And, as it couldn’t be any other way, it’ll be a critter. This is the reason why I’ve been postponing it for a while now: because I needed so many bodies that I didn’t want to spend the time to get them.
But since they’re cheap, it was very easy to obtain them using the reward from the Mystery Event.
“Get ready, because you’re about to see the awesome and extremely cool dancing flowers!” I shout while creating a new Template.
This Creepy is very simple. I start by selecting the two critters I’m going to use: Animated Flower from the Sylvans’ faction (elves) and the Impling, one of the critters from the Wicked Legion (demons).
I continue with the monster’s aspect. The monster will look like a margarita, but it’ll have two eyes and two tiny horns on the disc floret, the yellow part in the center of the flower. Then, it’ll have two leaves instead of arms, and the lower part of the stem will divide into two root-like legs. I also make sure the monsters have lots of colors, from the typical white to the more unusual blue and purple, making it hard to find two monsters with the same petal tone.
And the last step is changing their AI. As I’ve just said, I make them dance all the time, twisting their stem, flower (head), and leaves around…
…but only when the players aren’t looking at them. As soon as a player turns to look at them, they stop moving and pretend to be a normal flower, albeit one with tiny horns. The other change I do is that they will chase after the players for as long as they don’t leave the Botanical Garden.
Since I plan on creating more than a hundred of them, slowly but surely, the critters will congregate into a massive swarm following the players; but when the players turn around, they’ll just see a flower field. A flower field that wasn’t there before.
That’s why I call them Stalk Dancers. Because they dance, stalk the players… and also its body is a stalk. Literally.
There’s one last touch I want to give them, though. And it’s this one: when a Stalk Dancer is killed, it’ll make a high-pitched ‘Kyaaah!’ shout, loud enough to burst one’s eardrums.
I swear it has nothing to do with previous recent experiences… I swear.
If they get stepped upon, they will make the cry too, and then play dead, even if they’re still alive. And no, stepping on a monster doesn’t deal any damage. To deal damage, you must use an attack.
Finally, I level them up to level two – remember that critters don’t get a skill point at level one unlike all other monsters because they aren’t designed for combat – just to give them the Plant Vision skill, the same one that the Beexies have, so that they can more easily spot and chase after the players.
Since neither the Animated Flower nor the Impling have innate skills, Plant Vision is also the only skill they have.
“Go and dance, my little fellas!” I imagine a swarm of Stalk Dancers dancing at the same time while the players aren’t aware of their presence, only for them to realize what was going on after watching the match’s replay. For some reason, it makes me chuckle.
But the most important part of creating them is that now the Botanical Garden isn’t as empty as it was before. There’s more… life, now. And that’s without increasing its difficulty at all!
“Talking about more life in the Botanical Garden, it’s time for our next guests…” I start rubbing my hands together. “Fufufu! Hahaha!”
image [https://i.imgur.com/ZGSK4Pl.png]
“There are times when it’s better to leave things as they are to avoid causing a disturbance when you least need it. Then, there are other times when YOU MUST DESTROY EVERYTHING JUST TO VENT YOUR ANGER!
Smash those tiny flowers! Step on them! Make them shout in a panic! This might be your only chance to release all your pent-up frustration, so DO IT! There’s not even the need to worry about enemies spotting you with all that noise, because most of the enemies inside the greenhouse will wait for you to come closer, or have already spotted you anyway.
In short: KILL. THEM. AAAAAAAAALL!!”
- Extract from the Chapter ‘Release your frustration’ from ‘How to Stay Sane in The Mad Rat’s Lab’.