Mistwalker

Monster Summary

• Size: Haze that covers 50 to 100 feet
• Motivation/Temperament: Survival | Curious & Unpredictable
• Preferred Environment: Cold Mountainous Regions; sometimes found floating in clouds
• Prevalence: Few
• Danger Level: Because they are removed from most populated areas, they aren’t a major threat, but get anywhere in range and large groups are certainly in danger.
• Attack Description: Haze creates magnetic field and snowstorm-like environment. If a threat gets past the mist, a Mistwalker’s arms can crush, stab, shock, and freeze.
• Monster Core Size and Appearance: Palm-Fist sized core with a silvery-pink (bismuth) hue. Contains ‘nearly microscopic tunnels’ throughout.

Description:

Mistwalkers appear from a distance to be a shimmering sheen of haze, blurring the area around them with a slight rainbow tint effect around the edges. The area it covers is amorphous and shifting, but often transitions to and from perfect geometric shapes although the changes to it are so slight that it is difficult to notice. Once inside the area of the haze, a constant throbbing pitch is heard and rings like tinnitus.

Their second layer is a storm of snow and ice, coalescing in tendrils that reach and laze on invisible currents like some kind of kaleidoscopic jellyfish. Their arms drag across the ground languidly or reach to snowflakes. More than out of idle curiosity Mistwalkers actually absorb the Hydrogen in the snow and ice, turning it into an incredibly cold superfluid that surrounds its body like a skin. The process of absorption releases oxygen in a pure state. Entering into this area has the adverse effect of oxygen poisoning to those within the haze. If damaged, it will attempt to reabsorb more matter from the surroundings into itself, thus creating more expansive clouds of oxygen. The gas clings to the area around the Mistwalker in large quantities before dissipating.

The layer below the ‘skin’ of superfluid-cool hydrogen are the muscles and bones of the Mistwalker. The soft skin of fluid covers a hard, bone-like structure that forms geometrically complex three dimensional fractals, with multiple ‘arms’ that reach out to touch around the central body which hovers over the ground by about four to six feet. The mass of the structure is encapsulated with mercury that hovers only just above absolute zero temperature, and is formed out of nearly infinite layers of a ‘central nervous system’, with hollow tubes spiraling throughout the body. Whereas a human would receive electrochemical stimulus to their brains, a Mistwalker takes their electrical current straight to their center, their core, which serves the same purpose. Because of the constant flow of electrical signals through the creature, Mistwalkers release a strange, unearthly glow at all times.

Mistwalker Cores & Appearance

Their cores are fairly large, from the size of a palm to the size of a fist, and rest in the center of their mass. They appear to be composed of a material and coloration similar to bismuth, that has nearly microscopic tunnels that dig their way through the composition, allowing for the free passage and manipulation of electricity, and serving as an active “brain” for the Mistwalker. The core constantly hums at a single, constant pitch that only ever changes in intensity. An everflowing icy mist seems to seep out from the core when not connected to the main body. The size of a Mistwalker ranges, depending on the size of their monster core. Smaller Mistwalkers’ haze extends in an almost 50 foot radius, and larger versions can extend their haze over 100 feet. Their jellyfish-like bodies float a few feet off of the ground, and most tendrils are just barely able to touch the ground, about 1 in 4 are long and can extend a quarter of the way to the end of their haze, and 1 in 20 can reach beyond the halfway mark. These tendrils act as whiskers/feelers for the Mistwalker, though their eyes technically fall under the haze itself. Mistwalkers are incredibly slow, seeming to drift aimlessly, though when threatened, they tend to retreat up into the sky at a fairly rapid rate, drawing with them great plumes of snow.

Mistwalker Population & Habitat

When a Mistwalker spawns, it births asexually. After ingesting enough mass and through some unknown instinctual signal, they will send an electrical current through their body which effectively rips them in half. The old Mistwalker dies, and in its place spawns 2 to 5 much smaller offspring. The process also pumps out intense, if contained, explosive waves of magnetic force that dissolve most matter in a small area around them to their base atomic level.

Because of their nature, Mistwalkers only inhabit cold locations that allow for water to exist as either a gas or a solid, making their abodes up high in the mountains and volcanoes, or even floating in the clouds. Their food consists mainly of hydrogen and aeresolized mercury that comes from fissures, vents, and eruptions from within the earth. If exposed to enough metal of a single type, it will attempt to homogenize it over several days to incorporate it into the mass and transition the composition of the metal into mercury instead, rapidly gaining growth.

Mistwalker Temperament

Almost nothing is known about their thought patterns, and seem to have a completely alien intelligence. Language, wants, and needs beyond even the most basic survival are enigmatic and variable, if they exist at all. Their attitudes can be determined as ‘random’, though when engaged where its survival is taken into question, it lashes out with fervour. They tend to be curious towards other forms of life, and oftentimes approach unwary or foolish individuals, though their intentions may not be hostile, their environment definitely is. Mistwalkers are also drawn towards large concentrations of magnetizable objects, and single them out quickly, along with other sources of what it would consider food.

Additional properties:

The haze itself is the extent of their eddy current, and can thus be fairly far reaching. Because of their unique control over electricity and magnetism, the current can be manipulated like whiskers on a cat, and any objects in the area can be seen with a sort of blindsight.

The closer magnetizable objects get to the center, the more likely they are to be sucked inwards with an exponentially strong pull. If any such object touches the ‘skin’ of the Mistwalker, and the creature objects to the object, it manipulates the magnetic properties of the object to flip polarities, flinging them away to the edge of the haze and oftentimes even further beyond.

Area inside the haze is intensely oxygen rich, more so when damaged and attempting regeneration of it’s hydrogen superfluid ‘skin’. This can lead to sudden cases of oxygen poisoning to those that require air to function.

The area around a Mistwalker is uncomfortably cold, even with the most bundling protection, as the mercury, hydrogen, and core of the beast reach temperatures that hover only at maximum, thousandths of a degree above absolute zero.

The electrical currents running through the monster core ‘brain’ of a Mistwalker and through the hollowed out tubes spanning the changing, fractalizing mercury shell, conduct electricity. A lot. Like a crazy amount. The hydrogen superfluid acts as an insulator, but any object directly touching the mercury will most likely take a massive shock (should the Mistwalker not care, be unaware, or be actively aggressive. In passive or curious states, this shock might not occur, or will to a lesser, not quite as dangerous degree).

If broken off, when attacking or defending, the mercury form has a chance to contaminate nearby people and gear. Anything that pierces the skin causes the metal to melt and instantly poison the target, though Mistwalkers rarely do this as it seems to stunt their figure, and when reabsorbing the mercury into its form, takes a lot longer to return to its fractionated mass.

High intensity bursts of electricity, besides doing the obvious, also sometimes melt the corresponding ‘arm’ of the Mistwalker, although it remains attached to the main body. It can whip around for a few seconds before it begins to return to its solidified state. This function can spread to the entire Mistwalker’s body if so desired, though their core at all times remains undisturbed.

It is hypothesized that some Mistwalkers communicate through vibrations, though not in a language that can be understood. When threatened, or attacking, strange patterns have been observed to appear in the surrounding snow. (think sand on a speaker, though the pitch never modulates)

Although it should be obvious, SYNTHOIDS BEWARE.

Combat:

Because of Mistwalkers’ unpredictable nature, it is impossible to tell if one will attack a given individual, regardless of if the Mistwalker intended it to be an attack in the first place. Their perception of the world beyond their magnetic haze is fuzzy, though they are able to detect magnets, and items that can be categorized as ‘food’ to them fairly well, up to 4 times as far away as the edge of their haze.

When threatened a Mistwalker employs several natural advantages:

The haze surrounding it offers a magnetic field that wards most attacks from reaching its center if deemed dangerous, though excessively fast or powerful attempts might break through. It also strongly attracts those inside to the arms of the Mistwalker, which flip the polarity of the items in defense.

A light haze of snowy fog and shimmering mist constantly envelops the Mistwalker, providing concealment, and when aggressive turns into a full on thundersnow storm.

Though any of their arms can be used for all of the listed below purposes, they tend to function like so:

Short arms: shock, amalgamate, and freeze (because their superfluid hydrogen skin varies in thickness, targets grappled by the Mistwalker might end up subsumed in its skin, which because of its total lack of viscosity, begins seeping into cracks, pores, and the like)

Medium arms: smash, stab, and crush

Long arms: switch polarity, and reaaaaally shock Because their being is composed of pure cold, coming close, and especially into direct contact tends to harm by freezing.

The mercury structure of the Mistwalker is incredibly tough, with tensile strength over double that of steel, they rarely fracture under strain. When directly attacked, most often they simply take the hits without bothering to avoid if the magnetic fields didn’t succeed in repelling them.

When their core is threatened, their shell becomes sizably damaged, or they determine whatever potential dangers to be not worth their time, Mistwalkers retreat by rising quickly on invisible currents high into the air, often to where the edge of their haze just barely grazes the ground. Their normally slow movement is thrown aside and they ascend like gravity was suddenly reversed.