Creature Seed: Specimen HER-10292020-DRK.

Specimen HER-10292020-DRK

Description: roughly humanoid. 6 feet 4 inches, three fingers and a thumb on both hands and feet (fully prehensile), 275 lbs. The flesh is a substance with a 97% congruence to chocolate, with cherry-flavored cola for blood, licorice for hair, and razor-sharp candy corn for teeth and claws. When encountered, Specimen HER-10292020-DRK was wearing a steel-reinforced leather tunic, shirt, and boots, and carrying a leather satchel that contained various instruments and a supply of dried meat: tests indicated that both the meat and the leather were of human origin. Due to the unique nature of the corpse, it is recommended that the Specimen be kept frozen.

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Creature Seed: Speebras.

Speebras

Description: take a standard Grevy’s zebra, and make its stripes horizontal instead of vertical. Its legs and head are noticeably more muscular and bony than a regular zebra’s, too. Do not approach a speebra without protective gear.

Top speed: 95 mph burst, 40 mph cruising.

It is unclear why there is such a specific and sudden mutation among the wild Grevy’s zebra population. Possibly it’s because they’re endangered: evolution sometimes moves in mysterious ways. Mother Nature might have simply decided that more than doubling the speebra’s speed might help more of them survive to breed.

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Creature Seed: Cosmosquitoes.

Cosmosquitoes

Description: imagine an eight-inch long mosquito (not including proboscis).  Their dual heritage as Gene Warped Perversions of Science / Unholy Sorcerous Abominations is as obvious as the visible tendrils of magical energy sustaining and suffusing their blue-glowing, electro-technic wings.  Actually, Cosmosquitoes are rather pretty, although the crackling proboscis can be a bit off-putting.

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Creature Seed: Psionic Crittertech.

Psionic Crittertech

Well, it’s like this.  During the 1970s there was a lot of psionic research that was being done by both the USSR and the USA; the Russians went in for mechanical and electronic methods that went nowhere, and the Americans went in for biological and genetic techniques that went nowhere.  It turned out the problem was fundamentally that human brains are far too complex to successfully activate most psionic powers.  Trying to do so ‘merely’ doesn’t work, at best — and fries the human cerebral cortex, at worst.

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THE GORILLA-CROW!, Part 2 (Creature Seed.)

Gorilla-Crow

Corvis gorilla celeri

(Blame this, of course)

Description: Gorilla-crows range about three feet in length and weigh about 35 pounds.  They resemble miniature gorillas with, well, the head of a large-billed crow. Gorilla-crows typically eat insects, small lizards, some plant foods, and every form of junk food ever devised by man.  Lifespan is unknown, but studies suggest that Gorilla-crows reach sexual maturity somewhere in the twelfth year; the oldest individual found appears to be somewhere in her thirties. The cheeky question of how science managed to somehow miss the existence of miniature crow-headed gorillas for the last few decades has not yet been dignified with an answer.

Well.  They’re not really a danger to humanity, yes?  There aren’t packs of Gorilla-crows (or, as the locals mostly call them,  gokarasu) rampaging through the streets of Tokyo, mobbing and eating passerby.  For one thing, the animals are too small, and even in a group they’re not really aggressive, or violent.  But a pack of Gorilla-crows will distract somebody having lunch for long enough for one of them to barrel in, grab and run off with that person’s box of wagashi, and then retreat to share out the pastries in a safe location.  Which they’ll do: Gorilla-crows love sweets.

On the other hand; they’re smart.  Smart enough to get bribed and stay bribed with a bag of snack foods.  Smart enough to reliably recognize people who are nice (or mean!) to them.  Smart enough to not go after anybody who is obviously poor. And, in one documented case, even smart enough to go get a cop when somebody was having a heart attack.  Which means that they are definitely smart enough that the Japanese now get very, very intense when anybody looks like they want to test gokarasu to anything resembling destruction.  There’s just something about the critters that appeals.

Which is nice, of course, but it’d still be great if it could be worked out where Gorilla-crows come from. Aliens are right out, time travel is fantasy, interdimensional portals are nonsense, and surely people would have noticed the existence of crow-headed miniature gorillas before now.  So it’s probably just good old-fashioned bleeding-edge genetic engineering with the safety interlocks removed. Time to track down the lab!

…Well, I don’t know.  This is more your team’s skill set, surely?  Start by tracking the Gorilla-crows themselves.  Ask around the neighborhoods, see if there are any commonalities to how the animals got there.  Remember: however they got to Tokyo, it was probably by walking. Well, at least padding. Although if a pack of Gorilla-crows simply took the trains, surely somebody would have noticed that.

Creature Seed: Zombie Cicadas.

Zombie Cicadas

Magicicada septendecim mumia

(Blame this)

Description: imagine a seventeen year locust.  Now give it a half-eaten undead appearance, apparent mummy wrappings (actually, flaking chitin), and eyes that glow red in the dark.  And they can fly, too! …Of course they can, because that’s all the situation needed, really.

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Creature Seed: Thano-nano.

Thano-nano

For what it’s worth, Thano-nano is not natural.  It’s also not exactly unnatural, either — OK, let’s start from the beginning.  Once upon a time, there was a sector of space that had two competing space empires, each spanning about a hundred and fifty worlds or so.  The two empires fought. The war lasted a while.

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Creature Seed: Dandelion Dryads.

Dandelion Dryads

Strictly speaking, they should be known as Leimakids, given their Grecian origins, but these meadow spirits have absolutely no ties — implicit, explicit, and particularly integral — to their Hellenistic ancestors.  ‘Dandelion Dryads’ they were first called by the Department of the Interior, back in 1855, and Dandelion Dryads they remain.  By now that’s probably even their True Name; these matters of nomenclature can be fluid.

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Creature Seed: Sanguinary Paperlouse.

Sanguinary Paperlouse

Trogium pulsatorium cruentorum

Description: when not battening on blood, these are very, very tiny insects that eat library glue and paste.  When they are battening on blood, this is a collection/collective of blood-red, glowing, very tiny insects that very slowly and painfully eat human flesh. Think “leprosy” more than “piranha attack,” in terms of how quickly the damage spreads.

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