#tyrantisterror

"You ask who I am upon this festival of masks, so I will give you three answers.

The first is, I am a traveler from a region known to you from the city of Babel, where a tragedy once happened, the city of the tower that no longer stands and yet still has been written, and I am the keeper of those lost records.

The second is I am not from this world, but another, where Babel was far greater and far more cursed, a tumor that would have created a cancer upon the most high, excised from time and memory but for myself with the wish granted by the almighty, chronicling another world that too knows its end and erasure.

The third is I am simply a fiction, placed from one doomed world in another, by an author contemplating the doom coming upon their own.

The fourth is... I am terrible at small-talk. I rarely go to parties, I prefer to sit by the side with the hors'd'urvres. I come not with a wish but the price I am willing to pay, to see what recompense would be worth that price...

...By the by, have you heard of the works of Xavier X Xolomon? I think you may appreciate their work."

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So, my OC the Librarian of Babel (Who I really need to update the art for) is prepped for @tyrantisterror's masquerade ball, and I decided to do something cheeky with her in terms of it being ambiguous whether or not she's simply a version of the character from TT's setting, or the multiversal one transplanted to there.

I will say, if one chooses to read it as the former, you can probably say this one is a massive chuuni, tho even with my own version if you're not familiar with her she's kind of someone who plays the cool and aloof mysterious figure role to hide how she's socially awkward.

Her dress is meant to invoke one of the many dooms of Babel, and the mask is related to the Owl and the Dragon, a lost cultural metaphor of Babel that few know the original context for.

IDK if it's too overdesigned or just the right kind of fancy, but either way it does fit!

A rather loud-mouthed contestant has appeared for the dance at @tyrantisterror's Castle Dantalion... and what's this? Another spooky has appeared!

The largest and arguably most property damaging animal of the bunch was the Atlasaurus. The company (Whose name I no longer recall) was taking animals out from other times and putting them in the modern day, to see if they could adapt and if we in turn could potentially adapt to their worlds. The Atlasaurus was the king of the rail shipped animals, a single large unit that didn't move fast, but anything that challenged it would likely fall. Atlasaurus was a dinosaur from the Middle Jurassic of Morocco, and was known for overly sized forelimbs. We've had two specimens near complete of this animal, and while somewhat familiar, was the right kind of bizarre for Melody.

But what is a king without the much more deadly queen? Enter Gigantoraptor, the only other known from a single animal from the train wreck. While the Atlasaurus is scary because a large angry animal that can break buildings is spooky, the Gigantoraptor was the horror angle planned up for the whole thing. Luring people away into the woods with recreated vocal cries like a parrot, before crushing skulls with that beak, she was the closest to monster of the bunch I had planned.

Gigantoraptor was a titanic oviraptorid from Late Cretaceous China, standing over 26 feet in length, 11 feet in height at the hip, and up to 2 metric tons of weight. A true queen of adaptability, and just a spark of horror. I had not seen Weird Birds at the time of making it, nor am I sure that was around three-four years ago. But glad to see others used the idea well.

In the Bishop seat, I had an animal that always reminded me of a clergy member in the form of Corythosaurus. On paper, it seemed a sure case really. Hadrosaurs are/were the "weak" dinosaur, and having two running around would be the kind of thing that would make players de-priortize them or make them easy pickings. Neither of which are true for a 30 ft+ long reptile with a great sense of confusion and the attitude of geese. Corythosaurus is a lambeosaurine hadrosaur from North America, and has some of the earliest and best presreved dinosaur mummies around. But with such clarity, they've fallen in the shadow of Parasaurolophus and I think it's a damn shame. Hence their inclusion.

For the Knights, I had two individuals that feel like they should be paired more often in the form of Dilophosaurus and Ceratosaurus. These more moderately sized theropods are the kind of animals that would be selected as safer than an Allosaurus, only for us to find out that their smaller size means they consider human sized animals more likely for prey. Ceratosaurus was a Late Jurassic theropod from the Morrison Formation of North America. One of the actual dinosaurs to be discovered with scute like bone structures, I wanted to have a good red color to contrast with the greens that were predominating the higher echelons of ranked dinosaurs. Dilophosaurus was a massive predator for it's time of Early Jurassic North America. I swear I had a colored and lined version somewhere, but it was not in the folder with the rest and may be lost. The sketch at the very least does still exist.

With the Rook, I wanted to play a twisted on the usual suspects. Just because the majority would be Mesozoic animals (A crowd pleaser at the table), throwing in a prehistoric mammal or two would be fun. So two Arsinoitherium were added, both to give the species a little bit of shine and also switch things up from existing ideas. Made for a perfect proxy for the rook on a chess board. Arsinoitherium was a large mammal from Eocene of Egypt and North Africa. Despite the horn layout looking like a rhinoceros, this animal was an Afrothere, placing it into the family of elephants, hyraxes, manatees, aardvarks and tenrecs among others. It's almost made a cameo in several different films, but never quite made it out. Didn't make it to Melody either though so it is what it is.

Hey, here's where Dirtifer came from. I was actually really surprised to see a dockalfer show up in Wizard School Mysteries Book 1, I think I designed him before the book was released? Related was my attempt to draw a Beelzebub to varying results.

Most of this page is dedicated to the knucker and Lambton worm. The knucker was designed after seeing the kettles and pot-hole lakes named after knuckers. It made me think of them as a type of pest which lodges themselves into these holes, with spikes to prevent people from removing them. Their ears also have long scales or hairs to mimic reeds. The Lambton worm was drawn to make it look a little more like an eft, or juvenile newt, which the worm was supposed to resemble.

“The Basilisk”

T H E - T H I N K E R - O . N . I . A. C . Lore Below!

A.T.O.M. CREATE A KAIJU CONTEST 3-D!!! ENTRY: LILACORN

Aliases: Last of the Unicorns, Prancing Pony Princess, [various profanities in a Scottish accent]

Date (Re-)Discovered: June 21, 1962

Place of Origin: Scotland

Notable Stomping Grounds: Scottish Highlands, Echidna Island

Height: 80 feet at the withers

Length: 100 feet (excluding tail and horn)

Biology: First discovered in a lilac-forested, Yamaneon-rich Earth hollow beneath the Scottish highlands, Lilacorn is an elegant but bizarre herbivore whose horse-like appearance is only coincidental - many aspects of her anatomy from her three-toed hooves to her rhino-like dermal armor and from her stout tusks to her far more imposing cranial horns set her apart from most conventional equines. The general consensus is that she is most closely related to the much larger, bulkier mammal kaiju, Mastemuth, though her daintier appearance allows her to move at even greater speeds with enough open ground. More unusual still is that the concentration of Yamaneon within her tissues is higher than has been recorded in most other kaiju. This enables her to emit "pulses" of Yamaneon energy - producing an oddly pink glow in her mane, tail, eyes, and horn instead of green as in the normal substance - which can accelerate healing and growth in most other life forms and even neutralize a variety of posions, infectious bacteria, and other biological weapons. Lilacorn cares little for this strange ability of hers, however, primarily relying on her trampling hooves and especially her enormous, incredibly strong, and lethally sharp central cranial horn, which is comprised of an unknown substance harder than any on record and capable of piercing through even reinforced Xeno-Titanium. Able to outpace most other kaiju before skewering them on that single terrifying horn, the lavender-colored pachyderm needs little more than the standard kaiju power set:

Super strength

An enhanced healing factor

Immunity to radiation

Healing Aura

Bio and Personality: The first appearance of Lilacorn occurred during the short-lived Beyonder invasion, wherein she charged in seemingly out of nowhere, viciously attacked the invading forces in Inverness, and mysteriously vanished after the few surviving Beyonders fled, not giving anyone a chance to study her. Her "official" discovery wouldn't come until years later, shortly after a group of stranded hikers stumbled upon her hidden home, and then herself shortly after. Their celebration upon discovering a real, live "unicorn" - albeit much bigger than expected - turned into a panicked rout when she took their cheering for a threat display and pursued them out of the hollow, and then discovered what had become of the surface world she had once loved. Several brutal town-flattenings followed, followed by an attempt to seal her hollow off by caving in the entrance, only for her to emerge at the last moment and end up being shut out of her original home. Grief-stricken and enraged, she promptly and violently laid waste to the very same city she'd previously "rescued" before being finally detained after simply passing out from sheer exhaustion. The kaiju was swiftly deported to Echidna Island, where she has been regularly harassing the other residents ever since. Lilacorn's majestic appearance is deceptive - as gentle as she may seem from a distance, she is in fact one of the most bloodthirsty kaiju on the planet. No one can get close to her without being viciously attacked, and she will charge at anything alive that her acute senses detect, either to chase it off, trample it into the dirt, or simply gore it outright. A comparison can once again be made to Mastemuth in that she is similarly compelled to lord over other creatures, but because she lacks the size advantage of her distant cousin, it is her attitude that has to make up the difference, and she delivers it in plenty. Once riled into a frenzy, it's all but impossible to get her to stop, and so she will continuously rampage for hours on end even long after what originally provoked her no longer presents a threat. Between her natural resilience and most other creatures not wanting to end up on the business end of a horn that can pierce almost anything, the majority of her rampages end when she finally runs out of stamina and simply keels over in a tired faint - and if she's nursing a grudge against someone, she will simply track them down and continue her pursuit of them once she gets back up. Furthermore, the kaiju is far more intelligent than her savagery would suggest, and she is always keen on letting everyone know that fact. She will purposely sabotage capture equipment, turn environmental hazards against the opposition, and toy with opponents until they're provoked into revealing a vulnerability which she can exploit with a single stab of her horn. Her distinctive "roar", a raucous cackling mix of a rather donkey-like bray and a deep bellow, is often uttered when she's successfully humiliated or impaled an adversary, and as it's always accompanied by an almost smug expression, it is thought to be equivalent to laughter - a cruel, malevolent laugh befitting an equally cruel, malevolent bully. It has been suggested that Lilacorn's provocative behavior has a biological explanation, being derived from her species of origin presumably being territorial. Some other quirks of her behavior are a bit harder to explain, however. In particular, despite often trying to make kebabs of even fully-grown kaiju much weaker than her, she seems to shy away from the prospect of maiming creatures that were absolutely helpless when she found them, whether they're too young to put up a fight or have already been injured by something else. If she sees another monster picking on a vulnerable target or even attacking them while they're already down, she will always go for the attacker, especially if it was a child on the losing end - and if she senses that the creature she saved was injured, she will heal their wounds as well. That is as far as her empathy will go, however - once the deed is done, she will abandon her rescuee without a second thought. Lilacorn has nonetheless unwittingly "saved" baby kaiju enough times that they tend to regard her with gratitude and will try to follow her in a bid to repay her supposed kindness. While she wants nothing more to do with them most of the time, she seemingly can't bring herself to hurt them and will simply leave when they approach, though she will reluctantly make an exception towards younglings who are persistent enough and will let them remain in her vicinity... even if she still absolutely refuses to let anyone get close enough to touch her.

The most likely reason for Lilacorn's refusal to hurt children, ironically, is arguably the very same impetus for her hatred of almost all other creatures. Observers have sometimes reported the beast standing largely motionless on the coastlines of her new home, staring off at nothing in particular and occasionally emitting unearthly calls that sound almost mournful. It's likely that even after all these eons, she still retains a herding instinct of some sort, and in fact may have once been the lead female of a herd of her kind prior to undergoing atomic fossilization, so it wouldn't be surprising if she desired to be reunited with the herd she lost long ago. Unfortunately, since her kind is now completely extinct with the exception of herself, Lilacorn no longer has others like her for company. Her grief and anger over this may have thus transformed over the years into the nasty, spiteful demeanor she has today, believing that if she suffers from her loneliness, then everyone else should suffer, too. Whether she recognizes how flawed her logic is or if she's simply using the stress of her being the last of her kind as an excuse to justify her savagery isn't clear, but that doesn't change the fact that her needlessly brutal conduct towards potential herd-mates who turn out to be too "different" cannot be condoned by most other kaiju, who will often attempt to stop her proactively before she hurts someone she shouldn't have. For all her ferocity, though, it isn't impossible that Lilacorn secretly wants companionship once again - it's just that her own personal faults are what end up discouraging it more often than not, and if she is aware of this fact, she chooses to purposely ignore it, having long since dismissed the possibility of befriending others as nonexistent for this reason. Nonetheless, the younger kaiju who know her seem to believe that she might be capable of genuine goodness more than she herself thinks, and that there is a non-zero chance of her mellowing out and becoming the leader of a new herd on Echidna Island. All she needs to do is open up her heart a little.

********** In celebration of the release of the second volume of his fantastic e-novel series The Atomic Time of Monsters, @TyrantisTerror is hosting a third create-a-kaiju contest! I linked it at the start of this artist's description, so go check out the rules post if you want to join! As for this entry, well... It's #kaijune, right? And I've also wanted to contribute to #junicorn, right? Weeeeeeeell, what if I drew... a unicorn kaiju? Yessssss, it's genius I say, absolute genius! Mwahaha! >:3 So basically, in the notes for the last create-a-kaiju contest entry I made, I said that my original entry was going to be a giant unicorn with rhino- and knight-like traits, which I rejected due to being too similar to Mastemuth, who is a member of the related "behemoth" clade which are basically very big weird thick-skinned prehistoric mammals... which was what that idea was too, actually. This time around, though, I decided to revisit the concept while leaning into precisely that similarity. I didn't have any other ideas that resonated with me quite as well, and experimenting with a similar overall concept behind one of the "canon" designs, but taken in a completely different direction, was something I think a few other entries for the previous create-a-kaiju contests also did, so trying something similar with a less represented clade and design turned out to be worth exploring after all. So that's exactly what I did here, though I did try to distinguish Lilacorn from Mastemuth to the best of my ability. Whether or not I succeeded of course is up for debate. ^^; Compared to the previous entries I've made for these create-a-kaiju contests, I actually had a good idea of how Lilacorn would look from the get-go and managed to get the lineart done without too much trouble and almost no post-production revisions at all! It's pretty funny to me because I actually did try to come up with a unicorn kaiju years ago only to scrap it because it looked too similar to someone from a certain popular new-tens cartoon, and instead came up with a design inspired by giraffes and deer rather than horses. For this design, though, I decided to start with Pliny's account of the unicorn as having a deer's head, horse's body, elephant's feet, and boar's tail, and then build from there until I had something more prehistoric-looking to better fit A.T.O.M.'s 50's sci-fi aesthetic - though I did also give her a short trunk to distinguish her face from Mastemuth's, like older depictions of Macrauchenia as well as saiga antelope and tapirs. Other contributing influences include indricotheres, Elasmotherium, wildebeest, a bit of bison, medieval unicorn tapestries, Amalthea from The Last Unicorn, the Galarian Ponyta line, a touch of Shadowfax, and of course a wee smidge of the aforementioned popular new-tens cartoon. I did have to revise the color scheme somewhat because originally she had a rainbow-colored mane a la Starlite from Rainbow Brite but I figured that'd be too ridiculous and implausible, so I ended up giving her a palette more akin to a lightened, desaturated reference to Twilight Sparkle (sans cutie mark of course lol) while also homaging how Amalthea is introduced in her novel of origin living in a "lilac forest", which is incidentally the source of both her name and the, well, lilac forest she was found in. (The date of her discovery, btw, alludes to when the author of The Last Unicorn novel, Peter S. Beagle, was inspired to write it.) As for her personality... yep, she's basically a "bad girl" archetype =P. I was thinking of Harley Quinn's depiction in the Birds of Prey movie specifically with respect to that but her character can be taken as a nod to any example of the trope. I'm not sure if a brutal badass female thug who starts off as a villain but has a hidden heart of gold has been represented yet as a kaiju personality in A.T.O.M. proper (though one could argue that Tyranta fits that mold, she was never an antagonist to begin with), but the old accounts of unicorns as being such wild, violent creatures coupled with how they were only pacified by virgins (albeit with accounts of that varying from allegorical to downright skeevy) meant that it was only fitting to characterize her as a fierce, harsh-natured bully who eventually softens up and learns goodness but never loses her prideful ferocity. If I had a penny for every time I've submitted an entry for the create-a-kaiju contests for which the personality was that of a villain (at first) but with sympathetic aspects, I'd have two pennies - not a lot, but it's funny that I've done that twice now. XD

Regardless, best of luck to all entrants! And if you want to check out The Atomic Time of Monsters, both volumes are available for purchase on Amazon and Kindle (the latter of which was what I went with to save money). Go check them both out - these are truly stellar pieces of work!

Name: Argonautilus, Scuttlebutt and TALOS

Aliases: The Soldier Crab

Date Unveiled/Discovered: July 9, 1960 (Scuttlebutt)

Place of Origin: Aegean Sea (Scuttlebutt)

Notable Stomping Grounds: Bermuda Kaiju Sanctuary, Mediterranean Sea

Height: 30 feet (Scuttlebutt), 100 feet (TALOS)

Length: 60 feet (Scuttlebutt)

History: One cannot tell the story of Argonautilus without first telling how its constituents met, and that story begins with TALOS, the mechanical member of the duo.

Following the Beyonder Invasion, the European Union pooled its resources to create a mecha of their own so they wouldn’t have to rely on a loan from either the USA or USSR, which they named TALOS, after the mythological colossus built to protect the island of Crete from invaders. Equipped with a state-of-the-art Olympian-Class Artificial Intelligence, it was hoped that TALOS would be the first of a new breed of mecha, able to operate without a human pilot and thus fully eliminate the risk to human life. Yet the mecha’s first real mission, a dual kaiju emergence in Greece, would prove to be its last.

A powerful earthquake had struck Greece, giving rise to two kaiju but in different locations. In the mountains, a domesticated goat had fallen into a fissure full of Yamaneon, and the surge of tectonic energy was enough to kaijufy him. Already possessing a mean streak, the kaiju enjoyed his newfound power and began to tear through the Grecian countryside, screaming with excitement which put the fear of god into all that heard it, earning the name Pandemonium. Meanwhile, in the waters of the Mediterranean, the earthquake had a similar effect on a hermit crab, whose explosive growth shattered the shell she had adopted. Confused by her sudden immensity and vulnerable without a shell to protect her still-soft abdomen, Scuttlebutt proceeded to scour the coastline for a suitable replacement, attempting to fit houses on her back to no avail.

Soon enough, the two kaiju’s paths met. Pandemonium felt threatened at first, having not met another creature of his size, but discovering how timid Scuttlebutt was, he began to bully the poor creature (who was too slow and awkward on land to escape her tormentor), enjoying the fact that his new punching bag could heal from whatever damage he could dish out... until the fun was cut short by the arrival of TALOS, who engaged the more hostile of the two first. But in a dirty move, Pandemonium downed the mecha before moving onto greener pastures to trample, having grown bored with Scuttlebutt. Left to her own devices, she inspected the fallen mecha, and before defense forces could respond, she proceeded to gut the mecha to make room inside, believing it to be a suitable shell. Unexpectedly, Scuttlebutt’s bio-electric properties allowed it to integrate with TALOS’s systems, gaining control of its limbs as it were a suit of armor. But more surprising, TALOS’s AI-core had managed to survive against all odds, and proved able to communicate with the kaiju via electrical impulses. Scuttlebutt didn’t understand these strange messages at first, but the two quickly came to understand each other. TALOS’s objective remained clear: It had to stop Pandemonium, but Scuttlebutt’s careless evisceration of the mech’s internal systems meant it could no longer control its body. In the face of this conundrum, it appealed to Scuttlebutt. But the kaiju wanted to put as much distance between her and her tormentor. She had gotten what she wanted--a new home. Until TALOS pointed out that a lot of other people’s homes were going to be destroyed, and more people would be hurt, if they didn’t put a stop to Pandemonium. For the first time, she looked upon the humans with sympathy: she knew what it was like, being small and fragile and afraid. Mustering her courage then, Scuttlebutt strode after Pandemonium, confronting him in Athens.

Scuttlebutt had to fight every instinct to run and hide from the monster that had thrashed her, but TALOS consoled her; although it could not fight, it could guide her. It had been programmed with a variety of hand-to-hand combat techniques, proven effective against kaiju by other mecha. Pandemonium, impressed neither by the mecha it had bested or the puny kaiju it had cowed, chuckled in derision by the duo... which left him wide open for a hard cross that knocked teeth loose, faster than he could blink. Since TALOS could communicate with Scuttlebutt at the speed of thought, it could teach her faster than if it had to audibly explain it. The fight began in the earnest, and as Scuttlebutt grew more confident in her skills, the tables were turned and Pandemonium was forced on the back-foot, no longer the aggressor. And all the while, TALOS urged and reminded Scuttlebutt to beware of collateral damage, minimizing human casualties. Since Scuttlebutt wasn’t exerting herself, merely commanding TALOS’s arms and legs, she steadily wore down Pandemonium until his stamina gave out, and she could finally pin him down long enough for defense forces to arrive and put the ornery kaiju on ice, preparing him for transport to the nearest kaiju sanctuary. Scuttlebutt and TALOS were hailed as the saviors of Athens, and the public quickly took to calling the combined duo “Argonautilus”. Of course, following the battle, the European Union tried (unsuccessfully) to separate Scuttlebutt from their mecha, with TALOS itself communicating that it wished to remain with Scuttlebutt; the two made a good team.

On that day, a new kind of hero was born: part beast, part machine, all guts

Personalities: TALOS’s revolutionary AI puts it on par with a human in terms of intelligence and problem-solving, though if one were to actually talk to it, they might think it’s a stiff or more generously a consummate professional. It’s fortunate then that its occupation is preserving life. It genuinely cares about it mission, even if its singlemindedness still comes across as robotic. Initially its partnership with Scuttlebutt was done out of pragmatism, but it has since come to respect the kaiju’s willingness to face her fears and stand up for others.

When Scuttlebutt first crawled out of the ocean, she was timid and confused. Thrust into a world of giants at a severe disadvantage, her first encounter with another kaiju was unfortunately with Pandemonium, a bully and a brute. She would have liked nothing better than to crawl into a nice, dark, safe hole. Yet TALOS’s words, and seeing the misery left in Pandemonium’s wake, awoke something in Scuttlebutt: a desire to look out for the little guy.

Biology/Arsenal: Resembling a bizarre cross between a hermit crab and a mollusk, Scuttlebutt isn’t all that impressive as kaiju go. She’s small, slow, and for the most part squishy. She’s stronger than her size would suggest, but her claws are so small that they can’t effectively harm other kaiju. However, her bio-electric nature allows her to integrate with the TALOS mecha, which she wears like a suit of armor, moving the arms and legs as if they were natural extensions of her own body.

With a tireless body of xeno-titanium that she can control with just her thoughts, Scuttlebutt can slug it out with monsters with technically superior stamina, though she will still evade blows on TALOS’s account since she cannot repair the mecha if it does suffer damage. In addition to TALOS’s raw mechanical strength, the mecha comes equipped with several GMCs (Gravity Manipulation Cannons) for limited propelled flight, to accelerate their blows, or in a pinch deliver a nasty plasma blast. Since these are powered by Yamaneon radiation, Argonautilus technically has an unlimited power source in Scuttlebutt. However, TALOS was built first and foremost as a hand-to-hand combat; to this end, it was programmed with a variety of hand-to-hand-combat techniques, which it can relay to Scuttlebutt literally lightning-fast. Their method of communication gives them unparalleled reaction time compared to other mechas which rely on a human pilot. TALOS’s ability to compute at superhuman speeds makes them especially deadly at hurling boulders or other improvised weapons, calculating for gravity, air resistance, etc. that would escape Scuttlebutt’s notice.