#gloomizer

I realized I never posted these! Extermineater, Gloomizer and Dracloak added. Might start doing these again. Anyone have any suggestions? (no guarantee though)

Gloomizer, requested by me, because last week I thought, “hey, I’m pretty busy this weekend because I have to translate a 10.000 words text from portuguese to english, so maybe I’ll just do a simple monster so I don’t skip a week”, and then I saw a monster that was just eyes and I was like “perfect!”, and then I decided “it looks like slime drips from this, so maybe I could do some fluid simulation?” and then one week later I gave up on liquid simulation because fuck that fucking blender liquid fucking thing, so I just pasted some tendrils and called it a day.

I’ll do something more interesting next time.

Would like to see a particular Mortasheen monster in 3D? 

Hey guys, it’s been a while. We’re back on review number eight and just in time for halloween! I am going to try and get back to one review a day for october, emphasis on try. Anyways, I had a lot of trouble for this review because I... really do not have many strong opinions on gloomizer.

So! I decided to make this a special one since it’s the first one after a long hiatus. The first ever GUEST REVIEW! Handing the review over now to my friend @titleknown

------------------------------

Heya, for the review of Gloomizer, it’s me, Titleknown! You may remember me for refusing to shut up about the Creative Commons or for banging on about my Patreon that only makes ten bucks a month! I am here for a guest review! Of some floating eyes!

Yeah, apparently though Bogleech wanted to do this concept since the beginning of Mortasheen (According to the old Deviantart entry) Gloomizer’s design is remarkably bare bones for a Mortasheen creation, even admitted as such by Bogleech themself on the old Deviantart entry, but its powers are interesting enough to be worth a look twice-over.

Essentially, it’s got a comically gloomy personality that is contagious!; No, really, it can essentially spread its own ludicrous level of despair; produced by the twin brains occupying those ocular orbs, to everybody else in the room, with the idea of “Inducing auto-mutilation at a stare” being mentioned.

That is not only clever, but also a great case of tying powers to personality; a classic trope of creature design that creates a cohesive-feeling entity with a lot of potential for storytelling.

The “perpetual downer” is kind of a classic comedic archetype, and they’d probably make a great foil for; say; more comically direct or obstinately cheerful/obnoxiously twee creatures.

But again, that design. I mean, it’s a classic; simple design, but I can’t help but think that it could have been slightly more elaborate. I’m not sure how, maybe emphasizing the veins or making the gelatinous coating more prominent or doing weird stuff with the pupils, but probably something.

This monster’d probably benefit a lot from a redesign in color honestly, to make those distinctions pop. Heck, I even did my own weird colorjob of the original art, though your mileage may vary as I did get a bit off-kilter:

But yeah, in the usual rating scheme of the blog, I would give it a 3 / 5 for its neat power but overly-simple design. But, on a more personal level, my final rating is A 50/10 .

It’s simple and arguably necessary, but there’s probably ways it could have a fair bit more flavor added to it.

But, after this review, inspired by The Daily Bestiary and my own dedication to decadence, here’s three story prompts for how to use it, after the break! Because the RPG’s gotta get out of development hell sometime, right?!

--

- As often happens in Mortasheen, yet another scientist made an arbitrary and stupid bit of monster hybridizing with more “mundane” (For lack of a better term) organisms, a combination of the eyeballs that grow like grass around Mortasheen city with the Gloomizer to create an effect that; from an individual eyestalk; appears much weaker.

But, in this case, it ascended from “Arbitrary nuisance” to “potential ecological threat” when it escaped and began causing mass die-offs. Because, while one stalk is far weaker than a proper Gloomizer, in aggregate they’re far stronger; and more widespread in their effects. And now, a squad of “cleaners” have to eliminate the infestation before it spreads too far…

- An entire village of Gloomsday Devilbirds have gathered around a gargantuan; ancient Gloomizer wedged in the ground as essentially a sort of mystery cult; dedicated to this being of ultimate; arbitrary despair.

If one could befriend them (As much as one “befriends” a village of horrible monster-birds), they could gain valuable allies and, a valuable weapon in the form of the gargantuan Gloomizer’s rays…

- How does one pacify an ancient living weapon? Why, with endless despair of course! At least, that’s the logic of the professor sending you down into the bowels of a gargantuan entity; said to be a peer of the dreaded Ultimates; which has been showing troubling signs of motion lately.

The idea is to get a Gloomizer into its brain to allow the Gloomizers eternal despair to keep the entity down while it’s vulnerable; placing that straight near the source. Trouble is, it’s always unpleasant at best to drag around such a thing, and even moreso when the thing you’re dragging it into has curiously active bodily defenses…

------------------------------

Thanks title!

My own opinions on gloomizer are, as I said, kind of sparse. It really does not appeal to me much both in appearance and description. It has a simple design and a straightforward method of attack. This is a case were the design is just too simple for me to really enjoy properly.

and with that, my harsher personal rating for Gloomizer is a 2 out of 5