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View Full Version : Help me design terrible beasties and such! It's for a good cause, I swear!



D20ragon
2014-07-02, 08:24 AM
Ok, so I'm starting a new writing project, after finishing my last three.
It revolves around The world as the characters know it is a city, with a forest around the outside.
If you go too far in the forest, the tigers eat you. If you break the laws, the tigers eat you. Otherwise, no government, and no authority, apart from whoever makes the tigers.
No one knows who this is, but they listen to him because he can create life, appearently.
Haven't got a solid plot yet, but the twist is: they aren't on earth. Or if they are, it's After Earth style, and it's become immensely overgrown.
So the tigers are there to keep the people safe from whatever threats are out there, in addition to preventing them from venturing out until the creator dubs them ready.
So maybe the protagonist longs to know what's outside the sanctuary.
They find a way out, and spend a few days living in the "Real World"
They almost die, repeatedly, and come back convinced that no one is ready to leave the sanctuary.
They spend a bit in the city, trying to learn more about the situation, discover some secrets, ie: how the tigers and all wildlife in the sanctuary is mechanical.
However, the general populace learns that there is an outside, and doesn't believe the claims of how deadly it is.
The protagonist tries to calm them, but they won't listen.
Someone discovers the secret factory were all the animals, including the tigers, are made.
The people rebel, and break into the creators fortress/tower/sanctum/ whatever.
The protagonist is racing against them, trying to warn the creator.
They don't arrive in time, the mob kills the creator.
Slowly, everything shuts down in the sanctuary. Food stops appearing at set locations, the tigers stop working or just go haywire, the lights, water, and most importantly, the protection and weather control in and around the sanctuary shut down. Chaos reigns, with several factions vying for power. In the middle of all this, whatever horrible beasts lurk outside the sanctuary break in.
The protagonist has to maintain order, fend off the beasts attacks, survive assassination attempts by people who are convinced it's all the protagonists fault, and in the end, perhaps take a band of survivors and set out into the strange new (or old) world.
That long and hastily written plot description, but what I need help with now, is designing the dangers and terrible beasties that lurk beyond the Forest, in the Real World.
Any ideas?

Bulldog Psion
2014-07-02, 08:54 AM
I don't have the spare cycles to help out right now, but I'd like to note that designing terrible beasties is, itself, a good cause. :smallwink:

Gnomvid
2014-07-02, 10:57 AM
How about some cute cuddly rabbits that appear very friendly and follows you around until enough of them are there to overwhelm their prey with vicious clawing and biting attacks and eating what ever unfortunate creature happens to come in their path, like piranhas but rabbits instead.

D20ragon
2014-07-02, 11:07 AM
:smallconfused:
I suppose I could...
Hardly seems worthy of a whole sanctuary built to preserve humanity from them though.
That would be funny, but this isn't a comedy.

Fragenstein
2014-07-02, 11:19 AM
:smallconfused:
I suppose I could...
Hardly seems worthy of a whole sanctuary built to preserve humanity from them though.
That would be funny, but this isn't a comedy.

Bigger tigers? Think automated drones taken to an absurd degree; as in sentient, self contained plasma fields that are basically walking bonfires. Except hotter and better at chasing people.

Man-made dogs of war that have gotten out of control. The remaining people are only safe because the sanctuary is too quiet to be recognized as a city. These are creatures that the creator has been trying to hack into for generations. He's only partially regained control of some of them, however.

And now he's dead.

D20ragon
2014-07-02, 11:55 AM
:smalleek:
Wow...
I'm really liking the idea of plasma tigers... :smallcool:
I need to give some more though to the idea all done now.

The Plasma tigers were used as drones, and went out of control.
The sanctuary was built by the creator who hopes to preserve humanity until he can hack the Tigers. He is also trying to create a "master race" with the people in the sanctuary by messing with their genes and stuff to make them stronger, smarter, etc so they'll have a better chance of surviving.
The few tigers he has hacked he's changed a bit to make them look more like normal tigers, and now uses them along with the Forest and some other stuff as a defense against the Plasma tigers.
He's also using them as law enforcement.

I am so totally using the line: Tyger, Tyger, Burning bright, in the forest of the night, what immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?
That could have literally been written for this story.


Alright, so Plasma tigers are go.
But I need some more hazards. Weather, mutated wildlife, c'mon people, let's work!
I'm thinking superstorms caused by weapons of mass destruction used during the war...

Fragenstein
2014-07-02, 12:22 PM
I need some more hazards. Weather, mutated wildlife, c'mon people, let's work!
I'm thinking superstorms caused by weapons of mass destruction used during the war...

Acid Seeps: Poisoned water tables that periodically react, forcing hazardous chemicals to well upwards through the ground. So, periodically, poisonous bogs appear in certain locations.

Gnomvid
2014-07-03, 05:54 AM
How about some fields of mutated grass that will pierce you with their barbed tips to suck you dry if you get too close and it also has the property to make new shoots if you are not quite close enough for them to reach.

But also if it's more geared towards mechanical things how about barbed wire with rudimentary intelligence which will entwine you and pierce you so both squeezing you to death and ripping you to shreds at the same time, obviously you'd have to get close to it to activate but it looks harmless until you are too close.

D20ragon
2014-07-03, 06:50 AM
I like both of these... The wire I think will be remnants from high security prisons and such on the Real World, the grass, a bio weapon gone wrong.