Clockwork App Chat

Hey so as of March 1st, there's a new section open in the Cosmosdex for Clockworks. As clockworks have to follow the naming convention of being named after a Greek, Roman, or Egyptian monster, the suggestion was to make a thread so people can "softclaim" the name of a particular beast. Also cuz Gime's already reserved a bunch.

If claiming a slot, please post the name of the beast and potentially a short description so we're not getting the same general kind of monster under three different names.

Also Gime has asked that all questions in the vein of "is X an ok feature for a clockwork" be put on hold until the application guide has been written up proper.

Phoenix: A strain that causes those infected to appear healthy, but after a time they explode and regenerate. The idea being they work into the populous at various places and weaken the resistance, before the actual fighting clockworks invade.

The lore behind these was the notails trying to engineer a strain that self combusts in an attempt to weaken the clockworks overall. They fucked up just a little

I have been writing the typhons, giant clockworks that infest other strains and amalgamate them into giant murderous monsters with fire-retardant carapaces that make them very hard to kill.

For my own submission, I'd like to call dibs on Muse.

Muses are either Safe or Host type clockworks which act in a similar fashion to toxoplasmosis with cats and humans - an infected individual experiences a mental re-wiring of their brain that turns them into clockwork sympathisers. It's spread mostly by accident through sharing of bodily fluids, but infected individuals don't deliberately go about spreading their strain.

It's very hard to spot and extremely hard to wipe out, because most people infected with it keep their faculties and aren't stupid enough to go around professing their love for clockworks. They make things infinitely worse in any situation where clockworks are active, as they'll feed cetus-laced water to strangers, break off and spread stationary clockwork strains, and sabotage anti-clockwork deployments. When faced with death the individual will make a sprint for the nearest aggressive strain and turn themselves into a nutritious clockwork snack, loyal to the end.

The 9 actual documented Muses gives potential for subtypes which may increase the host's skill in certain clockwork-propaganda-spreading areas, but I haven't quite thought that far ahead.

Stymphalian: Basically, this aggressive strain seeks to integrate mostly metal, and it will use the metal to form a shell of what is effectively armor. It can choose to shoot out fragments of this shell to infect a person, though this exposes the flammable meat underneath. It looks like a bronze/steel/gold pangolin, sort of.

i propose hydras, a strain that, if newly infected with, has no special appearance. however, get a scrath and if it didnt burn, you have double of whatever was hurt. (ie, lose a head, now you have 2). they have a very very minor resistance to fire compared to other clockworks, but fire/acids/other burning things are still the best option to fight them. if even a patch is unburned if the rest of the body was... well... oof. this only applies to major, full body burn wounds. if lucky, some hydras never lose their control, as they never get hurt in their life. hydra strands only choose those suitable, otherwise their just a carrier.

I got dibs on the following strains, their summary is included.

Telchine: A clockwork that "salts the land" with their waste products. As the land becomes harder to live on the telchines will feast upon those who have died or are near death. It can take years for nature to make the land viable for growth even after the telchines are removed.

Hippocampus: While harmless and non-violent, hippocampus spread clockwork infections via the air, as such, they have some of the highest infection to individual rates in the clockwork kingdom.

Gorgon: Gorgons are simple clockworks. They pretend to be a statue, stalk, and kill. They are notable for being some of the longest-lived clockworks, with some being over 1000 years old. No clockwork understands how much it pays to be patient more than the gorgon.

Normal: The most common type of clockwork. It has no perks or flair. Its goal is simple, invade, eat, and conquer. Due to having no defining characteristics the only way to confirm a normal clockwork outbreak is to take note of the widely different looks of those who are infected.

Taraxippus: While the taraxippus is not an issue to intelligent beings, it is a pest among farmers due to being able to herd livestock to their doom. The taraxippus runs around animals making a noise known to activate a primal fear in many. If the victim is near an area of more intelligent beings, such as farmers or owners, they will herd them away from them and tire them out before killing them. Is also known to herd livestock off cliffs for an easy kill.

Hydra: The multiheaded creature of death, the hydra infects urban areas where it can kill buildings worth of people within hours or even minutes once it's large enough. When damaged the hydra unleashes more and more heads, becoming increasingly more deadly as the fight rages on.

Lycanthrope: The lycanthrope comes in all shapes and forms. It stalks its victims before biting to infect and then fleeing. Attacking from short range is a deathwish due to how easily a lycanthrope can grab and bite someone from any angle. Will go after any and all creatures, from small vermin to large livestock.

Centaur: The centaur is a clockwork to be feared. While they lack the unique abilities and gimmicks of other clockworks, they make up for this in brain power and grouping together as a team. They are smart enough to avoid obvious hazards and traps. The centaurs even share among each other, as opposed to other clockworks who are willing to steal even from starving members. When the centaurs run out of food they form a disaster known as the "Flood of legs."

Safe: The safe strains are a group of strains that do not actively infect people but prefers to cause passive infections, typically hitching a ride on other clockwork types for a chance to infect a host if the other strain fails to propagate. There are two dangers of safe clockworks. One is that they may keep the failed infection dormant for years before suddenly activating it in hopes of getting the host to infect more people. The second is that there is a subtype that infects the mucus of the host with any dormant strains and itself, meaning a single case of the sniffles can spread much more than the cold.

heck me

May I claim Dragons. I had an entire paragraph of its summary, but I accidentally refreshed the page and I freaking lost it! Anyway, its main concept is that its a one-man army strain and has the tendency of turning anything they integrate to be unnecessarily powerful and lethal.

If dragon is not allowed, help me a bit by suggesting a name.

I'm claiming the Nemeans, based on the Nemean Lion, a strain of clockwork with a metal coat that is almost unparalleled in durability, that can survive in almost any environment, and can track down people the infected was familiar with, but always runs into danger along the way, and has a very obvious weak point.

Hecatoncheires and (greek) automata.
Not claiming them (yet) though, just leaving them here for if someone else is interested/needs inspiration.

medusa. instead of organics and metal, they integrate organics and stone. (specifically granite marble clay and porcelain)
fire still works well, but acids are slightly better, as well as anything that breaks rocks

Euryale: On small creatures, this infection leaves the host intact and just creates an extra mouth that screams when the host is nervous, so as to attempt to get eaten by a larger creature. When it infects a large creature, it will keep the outside in tact but when it finds a group of prey or is attacked snakes will burst out of it to kill you.

Since it saves the snake trick for groups, a lone hunter can relatively safely trap the big guys. And you can prevent sentient infections by telling people not to eat things that have mouths where they shouldn't have.

Cyclops: Cyclops are known for two things: their massive size, and their singular eye. They don't start out that way though: watch out for someone with all but one of their eyes closed at all times, or seems bigger every time you see them. Another indicator is if someone suddenly doesn't want to leave their house and hoards food, eating far more then normal. This is because every cyclops has a territory it roams that it won't leave, this territory getting bigger as they get bigger, and it captures anything alive it finds in it. A cyclops can hypnotize most fauna with its one big eye and have them follow the cyclops, which it will pick off as a food source, but anything it can't hypnotize it traps in one enclosed space (be that a cave or the largest nearby building). While it won't attack what it captures (until of course it eats them), anything that tries to leave it will suddenly attack.

A cyclops is quite dangerous and when it gets big its difficult to get rid of, but due to how its easier to catch early its fairly rare. Most cyclops come from people who were caught by one and then escaped.

Minotaur: Starting out with a particularly pretty and alluring fauna, those who come with in contact with it will become infected themselves, and will begin "gestating" the minotaur within them. When fully grown the minotaur sheds the host's body, all except for it's head, which the the minotaur had grown a pair of horns through.

Myrmekes: Insectile monsters that congregate together in hives, which are infection-riddled shelters that are continuously built and maintained by the newly infected, while several of the others spread out from their hives to hunt and infect. A single hive can be filled with up to thousands of myrmekes at a time, making it a Pandora’s Box filled with ants if you happen to stumble too close to one.