“The more you watch, the more mysterious the natural world becomes, and the more you realize how little you know. Along with its beauty, you may also come to experience its fecundity, its wastefulness, aggressiveness, ruthlessness, parasitism, and its violence. These qualities are not well-conveyed in textbooks.”
― Michael Crichton, Micro
(Not familiar with that book - just searched for fitting quotes online, and this seemed to be one.
)
Okay, another update!
My entry for this year's September custom contest - which came in joint first!
(Shout out here to the other joint winner, @
BiggaBullfrog and his
Dionean Mantrap.)
I'm actually pretty happy with my design. As I've said before, I like to try to make my entries to these contests a little creative, to try to take a somewhat different and unexpected spin on the theme that the brief or figure seems to be pushing me towards. In this case, there was really no way this design
couldn't be a plant monster, but I didn't want to go the usual, D&D-esque generic fantasy route with it. As such, I thought it would be fun to try to make it a folklore spirit, because 1) I thought it would be an interesting and distinct take on the plant monster theme, 2) it was a theme that really spoke to me anyway, and 3) I already seem to have a blossoming little faction of folklore spirits coming from these contests in the form of
Dreg Mera and the
Myji Coven. A quick Google search didn't unearth anything like this in Irish folklore, but I decided not to let that deter me - this was less about translating a specific creature from folklore, and more about getting across that feeling. The name, though unpronounceable, was carefully chosen, meaning 'The Murdering Flower' in Irish (at least as far as my Google-fu was able to deduce - I'm no scholar of the Irish language!
)
A very early decision was that I didn't want her to be able to move, not normally - she is a plant, after all. Therefore, I decided that, to give her mobility, I'd play up the unknowable spirit angle and let her turn up anywhere near the enemy at the end of the round. Then I realised - if she's returning to the board like this, why don't I
really play up the spirit angle and make her
immortal? It doesn't make her unbeatable if she can come back like this at the end of each round - if she's gone when the rest of your army's eliminated, you still lose - but it does mean you can never truly eliminate her, which I was hoping would give her a nicely distinct, terrifying, otherworldly vibe. I could have made it automatic, or based on a D20 roll, but I decided - almost going for a reverse of
Morwyn Rhoderyk - that basing it on the deaths of opponents' figures would make her feel more sinister.
After that it was just trying to get across how she would hunt - Undergrowth Tendrils to tie her prey up and drag them towards her, and Helpless Victim to allow her to pick off those who are separated from the pack - and I had my concept. After testing her, I was honestly surprised by how happy I was with her - she felt evocative, ethereal and like nothing else in the game.
After bumping her up 20 points on account of the fact I'd underestimated the power of her abilities, and altering Helpless Victim to be less punishing to heroes, I was ready to submit.
One final small note about An Bláth - though lacking in explicit synergy, by counting as a tree and counting all spaces next to her as swamp water, she allows for plenty of subtle synergy throughout Classic and Mixedscape; benefiting the likes of the Marro Drudge, Water Elemental, Microcorp Agents and Aquaman (as well as the new Durgeth Ravagers, though obviously I didn't know that at the time) with her water; and the Quasatch Hunters, Poison Ivy, Floronic Man and Swamp Thing by acting as a tree.
So, here we are - An Bláth Dúnmharú:
Custom Set Nine: Scourge of Éadóchas
~Lazy Orang, making acknowledgement to @
Soundwarp SG-1 for the General and Homeworld.