“More hidden monsters for my garden, yey! They’ll mix with the plants and ambush, yey!” I sing a random melody as I spout whatever letter comes to mind.
What am I doing? I’m getting ready to create the next monster Template, of course. But before I start, I’m waiting for the creation of the troll.
I want to put it into my dungeon before I forget. Also, I want to give some time for the players to enjoy it, together with the new Experimental Sector, before I add any more stuff.
The Stalk Dancers, as well as the other monsters I’m going to create, will take a long time to finish anyway... Even if I wanted to, I won’t be able to add them until the day after tomorrow at the earliest. If I start the creation of the new monster and the troll finishes in the middle, I might forget to add the troll to the dungeon until I add all the others, so I’m waiting.
The clock tickles, slowly marking the end of the creation process.
“...why does it take so long?” Is it just me, or when you’re waiting for something, it always takes longer than expected? “Ugh, come on…”
On top of the operating table, a bigger version of the normal one because the troll is so tall, there’s a countdown number. It says two minutes.
One minute… thirty seconds… ten… five, four, three…
With a ridiculous ‘poof’ sound, the counter disappears and the troll, who was resting on top of the table, stands up and walks away from it. This is a behavior all monsters have, to prevent obstruction for any monster that might spawn next.
“Finally!”
I quickly add the troll and the troll statue to the bridge I created not long ago and set it so that the statue and troll spawn in the same position and posture. The difference between them is that the troll will appear 10% of the time, and the rest of the time it’ll be the statue instead.
Then I save the changes and move on to the next task.
The next monster I’m going to create is the perfect immobile ambusher. It’s going to be so perfect, that the victims will willingly walk into its trap. It won’t affect players and only work on support mobs, though. But it’s fine anyway.
“Yeah… Few things can set you more back than the sudden disappearance of one of your support mobs. Doubly so if you relied on that support mob for any specific task.”
I shake my head, remembering all the times I had to surrender or retreat from a Dungeon Invasion just because I lost Cyam, who isn’t even a monster designed for combat.
This monster relies heavily on the innate skill Sweet Scent to achieve what I want.
Sweet Scent (Innate active skill) Cost: 100 EP, plus 5 EP per second You release a sweet aroma that attracts enemies within 20 meters. While active, one random non-player, non-boss unit that isn’t given strict orders will unconsciously walk in your general direction.
“Intoxicated by the sweet promise of a delicious treat, the poor fellas change their paths to meet their doom…” That’s the best way to describe this skill.
As it couldn't be any other way, this skill comes from the Dream Vestiges faction. From a monster called Candy. A monster that looks exactly like its name suggests: a crystalline sugar ball enveloped by a tidy stripped plastic wrap, not bigger than your fist in size.
Please, don’t ask me. The Dream Vestiges are filled with random bullshit you’d never expect from a game. Anything goes when it comes to dreams, I guess.
By the way, the ‘isn’t given strict orders’ means it hasn’t received a specific order from the player to do something in particular. ‘Attack that monster’, ‘Run’, or ‘Heal me’, are considered strong orders. Meanwhile, stuff like ‘Follow me’, isn’t.
This means Sweet Scent can’t interrupt or easily disrupt enemy formations during combat, but it can cause serious trouble when simply walking around.
Apart from its innate skill, Sweet Scent, the Candy monster also has one of the most unique stat lines I’ve ever seen. After all, it’s a candy… literally. It’s the first monster I’ve ever seen with a Strength, Spirit, and Speed of zero.
It can’t attack, nor it can’t move! It’s ridiculous!
…not like it’ll affect me much, as all stats get added, and only the highest speed is retained, when I create one of my monsters. The monster I’ll create will be able to attack and move around, should I wish to.
Which I don’t. Don’t want it to move, I mean. Attack, yes. There’s no need to move when the food comes to you on its own, don’t you agree? Hahaha!
The other half of the monster is the Trapvine, from the Secret Grove. A large vine plant that strangles its victims to death with its multiple tendrils and branches, thanks to the Strangle skill.
Strangle (Innate active skill) Cost: 40 MP, 3% Max MP per second One unit you’re touching can’t talk or use active skills until this skill ends, and takes (1 + 0,1 * STR) physical damage per second. This skill can only silence enemy Champions and Bosses for a maximum of 5 seconds. The timer resets one minute after the silence ends.
Strangle is a very powerful, and also very expensive, innate skill that’s perfect to neutralize a single target. Fairies are always problematic to deal with thanks to their tricks and playful nature, reflected upon their units' innate skills.
Yeah, I know I’m using lots of units from the elf faction and fairy factions for the Botanical Garden, but what do you want me to do? They are the factions that have more to do with plants!
A Botanical Garden without plants isn’t a garden, nor does it have anything to do with Botany! It’s clear I need to use lots of units from their factions!
“Alright, alright. Let’s calm down, should we?”
This time the AI is pretty simple. Just don’t move and do everything else as usual. “And done.” Only its aspect remains.
I use the Trapvine as the base and change the color and texture of the vine’s stems into Candy’s bright red and hard surface. Like leaf-covered thin candy sticks. This way, when looked up close, it’ll be easy to identify them as dangerous, but when looked from afar, the leaves will cover most of the red parts, making it harder to identify.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
And, done. Here are the final stats.
Sweet Trapvine (Lv 1) HP 590 (590) STA 37 (37) SOU 46 (46) EP 260 (260) MP 530 (530) STR 26 (26) CON 34 (34) AGI 17 (17) SPI 20 (20) WIL 32 (32) DEX 29 (29) SPD 1 INT 2 COM 0 Skills
Active: Strangle (Innate), Sweet Scent (Innate). Passive: Untouchable, Eternal Pain (Innate).
Ah, right. I didn’t give it any skill other than Untouchable, which increases the damage from touch skills, because I don’t want Sweet Trapvines to be too strong. Not yet, at least. I want to see how they perform before I turn them into absolute killing machines… in case I decide to do so, I mean.
For a total of 380 cp – 300 from the Trapvine, 60 from the Candy, and 20 from being a Basic Chimera – the Sweet Trapvine has relatively low stats. This is mostly because Candy’s stats are atrocious.
But I don’t care. The reason I want to add them is to confuse the players with Sweet Scent.
For now, I’ll add five of them to the long, very long, queue of monsters awaiting creation, and use the Template to distribute them randomly through the Botanical Garden. If I need more in the future, I’ll have to go capture some units.
“Alright, another one down… Next, please!”
I rub my hands in expectation. The next monsters on the list are something I’ve been quite looking forward to. Something I’ve seen other players try in their dungeons, but none have quite reached my expectations. But thanks to the Flesh Monstrosities’ peculiarity, I expect a huge success.
What am I talking about, you ask? “Drums please…” What I’m talking about is nothing else than… “...it’s the Anima Tree!”
Also called a spiritual tree or elemental tree, what I call an Anima Tree is… well, a tree, imbued with elemental powers.
And what’s better to achieve it than literally using a tree and an elemental and fusing them into a single body, huh? It’s something only I, or a player from my faction, can ever achieve!
“Laughs on you, elf players! I’ll be the first one to create a real Anima Tree, hahaha!”
For a monster that looks like a tree, it can’t be any other unit than the Treant. And for elementals, you must go to the Primordials, so here you have the units I’m going to use.
Ah, by the way. Treants in DMA aren’t humanoids. This is for a multitude of reasons, some of which are balance reasons as well as player size, but the most important reason is that they don’t have the same limb configuration as we do.
Simply put, a monster that looks exactly like a tree when standing still, can’t be humanoid. Or looking at it the other way around, a humanoid made out of wood won’t look like a tree regardless of how still it remains.
Treants in DMA have the equivalent of our arms and hands above their heads, unlike us humans, who have them below our heads. Their heads are located somewhere in their trunks, and their hands are the branches that protrude above them. This means Treants can theoretically have as many arms as the players want, though they will only use two to attack, regardless of how many the players add.
This gives them extreme reach as well as makes them extremely tall. It’s hard to find a Treant that’s not at least ten meters tall, and their melee attacks have about the same reach as their height.
By the time you get to them, you’ll have received a significant amount of damage.
“Truly, true monsters.”
Treants are not only one of the most famous units but also one of the strongest. The tallest and biggest treants can compete with some dragons, and with the correct build, they can be unstoppable.
But that’s only if you’re working with Ancient Treants, the largest and most powerful variant. What I have to work with is their weakest form: the Young Treant.
Still, the Young Treant is a unit that costs 1.200 cp, so they aren’t weak by any stretch of the word.
Yeah… now you know where most of the points I obtained during the Mystery Event went. They’re freaking expensive for my level, but I don’t care. It was worth it.
Now, as to what other unit I’m going to use… I’m going to use three different ones.
“What, a monster that uses four units!? When did you unlock such ridiculous units!?”
No, no, no. Think calmly. When did I ever say I was going to create a single monster? I’m going to create not one, not two, but three Anima Trees. This is why I spent so many points on them.
“Aah, now I understand.”
Oh, my god. You sometimes surprise me with your stupidity.
“What did you say!?”
Nothing, I said nothing.
After the short monologue with myself, I make a fake cough and continue with the Anima Trees.
Anima Trees are special trees that are imbued by the spirits, that’s the idea I want to go with. And as such, they also inherit the characteristics of the elemental I’ll infuse into them.
The three elementals I’m going to use for now are the Stone Bear, the same I used for the secret boss in the cave, the Fire Horse, and the Electric Hawk. All of them are monsters in the 300 cp range. I’m using them because they aren’t humanoid elementals, which is required because the Treants aren’t humanoid either, but also because their stats aren’t that high.
I don’t want boss-level Anima Trees. I just want them to behave like mid-bosses instead.
So as I was saying, the Anima Trees will inherit the characteristics of the elemental they’re infused with.
For the Fire Anima Tree, this means an eternally burning crown and a fiery personality. The Fire Anima Tree will continuously roam around the Botanical Garden and pour endless flames into any invaders it finds.
The Earth Anima Tree will be the opposite. Calm and collected, with granite-like bark skin, it won’t move except when provoked. When so, it’ll ensure its safety first, and use its powerful ground manipulation skills for devastating effects.
And finally, the Electric Anima Tree will have lightning constantly coursing through the branches. The flowers will emit a flash when lightning passes next to them. Like lighting, it can suddenly teleport to another location, and its unstable nature will make it very fickle. When players meet the Electric Anima Tree, there’s a chance nothing will happen, but with the same probability, the tree will suddenly burst into a huge explosion that obliterates everything around it.
As for their stats and skills… They’re a secret. Fufufu! Hahaha!
These are just the first three Anima Trees I plan on adding. I’ll also add the trees for the remaining elements in the future. Water, air, ice, light, shadow… At least that’s the plan.
image [https://i.imgur.com/ZGSK4Pl.png]
It wasn’t unusual for players to create monsters that copied those in other games or fictions. The free access to skills and aspect customization allowed in DMA was so great that the players could go as far as their imagination allowed. There were even players who created whole dungeons dedicated or inspired by another work.