This post is cool, and communicates three principles:

1. Trick Monsters are easy to defeat if you know the trick
2. Trick Monsters are arduous to defeat if you don’t know the trick
3. Vary the trick so that it makes other, harder monsters easier to beat later.

This is fun and cool. Think about video game bosses. Pikmin 4 does this well. You could build this into anything:

The Wizards of Millinery wear pointed hats from which they gain their powers. They are stunned for a moment when they are knocked off, and cannot cast spells until they regain it. They are lead by a two-headed giant who wears a hat on each head, and also wields a club.

Dragon-tortoises are iron shelled and breath interdimensional warp. They are invulnerable to all damage, unless they are knocked on their back by a charge, grapple, or similar. Their belly is highly vulnerable to damage. The father-tortoise exists in five dimensions; he must be knocked onto his belly twice in a row, and hence onto his fifth dimensional belly, to be damaged.

Cookie Monsters are devouring monstrous giant cookies. Remove their choc chips to weaken them. The Titan Cookie has raisins, indistinguishable from choc chips. Which ones do you attack?

Bombardier Worms are burrowing brutes that blow boulders out their maws after sucking a spectacular vacuum through a blowhole. Blocking their blowhole renders them impotent until they clear it. The Bombardier Queen has three blowholes, each on a different side of her body. Only one must be blocked, but you must position yourself to be able to see it.

Serpent guards have snakes attached to their necks. Remove their snake, and they are rendered inert robots. The Serpent Queen appears a titan in golden armour, with thirteen giant snakes for hair. Kill the snakes, not the giant.

I’m sure you can do better and be more creative, but this is cool and fun. More trick monsters!

10th September, 2023

Idle Cartulary