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Forget the Tarrasque, the humble Rust Monster is now the most frightening creature in all of gaming.
That is why the Androffins made all their ships out of adamantine(well glaucite, but pretty much the same)
Forget the Tarrasque, the humble Rust Monster is now the most frightening creature in all of gaming.
Why?
What, if anything, is explicitly made out of ferrous metals?| 12 people marked this as a favorite. |
Everything is made out of universal polymer now. Rust monsters are actually on the verge of extinction now, due to environmental pressures.
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That is why the Androffins made all their ships out of adamantine(well glaucite, but pretty much the same)
You just put in my head an image of these normally emotionless Androids and their high tech Androffin masters running in terror when they hear a single weeping chirp in the distance. "Build the ships out of something they can't bite," They whisper, "Something, anything to keep us safe!"
What's funny is that Rust Monsters aren't technically evil, even...kind of cute. It's almost a shame the poor reputation they've gotten. Why...when People of the Wastes comes out, I hope we get some sympathy for my favorite aberration.
But with the conversion rules and six bestiaries worth of pathfinder monsters and a further hardcover on alien creatures on it's way and an endless number of splatbooks worth of ghouls, freaks, and fiendish creatures, it's hilarious to me that a humble little CR3 monster that's been a minor aggravation since the days the great beast Gygax ruled over these lands, is now a fearsome party killer if one of them bites the wrong part of the hull or chews the wrong steel covered cable in the ship's engine room.
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Forget the Tarrasque, the humble Rust Monster is now the most frightening creature in all of gaming.Why?
What, if anything, is explicitly made out of ferrous metals?
Carbon steel, steel alloys, stainless steel. A space ship, even a high tech one, is just a big ball of metal and plastic.
But it doesn't actually matter if the metal is ferrous or not...because Rust Monster don't care:
"Typically 5 feet long and weighing almost 200 pounds, the lobster-like rust monster would be frightening enough even without the alien feeding process that gives it its name. Rust monsters consume metal objects, preferring iron and ferrous alloys like steel but devouring even mithral, adamantine, and enchanted metals with equal ease. Any metal touched by the rust monster's delicate antennae or armored hide corrodes and falls to dust within seconds, making the beast a major threat to subterranean adventurers and those dwarven miners who must defend their forges and compete for ore."
It eats metal. ANY metal.
What if they have mutated due to cosmic rays and can eat that universal polymer too?
Stay tuned for the future Starfinder Adventure Path: AP2 "Save Our Loot!"
Adamantine won't save you.
"Rust monsters consume metal objects, preferring iron and ferrous alloys like steel but devouring even mithral, adamantine, and enchanted metals with equal ease. "
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So jacket everything in plastic, and shoot the goofy little buggers in the head. Almost none of the armor in the preview blogs looks heavily metallic, and lasers are everywhere.
It isn't like D&D where the fighter is going to get run down and stripped.
It's a stupid trap monster that doesn't really fit, even if the party has metal, backing up while shooting solves the 'problem' neatly. It is effectively helpless against a firing squad.
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It's a stupid trap monster that doesn't really fit, even if the party has metal, backing up while shooting solves the 'problem' neatly. It is effectively helpless against a firing squad.
*ahem* Guys, stop taking this so seriously.
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That's why they blew up Golarion.
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Dust off and nuke them from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
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Dust off and nuke them from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
If all of the Rust Monsters are where Golarion is now...then that is Torag's final gift to the Dwarves.
I could have sworn that at one early point in (A)D&D, Rust Monsters couldn't corrode gold (which does not react exothermically with oxygen or even ozone), but that concept seems to have disappeared.
* * * * * * *
At some point as technology advanced, but before the Gap, somebody must have figured out something to do to defend against Rust Monsters. Otherwise, Golarion would have never been able to make it into the Industrial Revolution except in isolated regions.
Plastic eating monster would be very environmental friendly solution to pollution.
I could have sworn that at one early point in (A)D&D, Rust Monsters couldn't corrode gold (which does not react exothermically with oxygen or even ozone), but that concept seems to have disappeared.
* * * * * * *
At some point as technology advanced, but before the Gap, somebody must have figured out something to do to defend against Rust Monsters. Otherwise, Golarion would have never been able to make it into the Industrial Revolution except in isolated regions.
Nah, in 3.5 they ate gold. They just preferred ferrous metals.
The way to defend against them?
Honestly, it wouldn't be a problem.
It'd be like bears or wolves. People in the cities would kill them, and eventually they'd (mostly) stop coming into cities.
The lack of bears or wolves within 50 miles of cities helped more. Near extinction events can be pretty persuasive.
There's still a solution and george lucas saw the answer way back in 1999. Make it out of silversheen.
Oh look, Pathfinder has increased my fear of Rust Monsters even more:
Large sized ravenous Rust Monsters who have a +12 Con damage touch attack.
Nah, the worst monster by far is the fire elemental, what now lasers?
Freeze ray says "whazup?"
Oh look, Pathfinder has increased my fear of Rust Monsters even more:
Large sized ravenous Rust Monsters who have a +12 Con damage touch attack.
Great, now I can't sleep.
Plastic eating monster would be very environmental friendly solution to pollution.
Talk about life imitating art:
http://www.iflscience.com/environment/bacteria-evolving-eat-plastic-dump-in to-oceans/
Well... they aren't the only possible variants. 3.5 had the Folugub which ate gems, and the Annihilator which disintegrated anything (CR 15!). A plastivore wouldn't be a strange thing. Also, the Ecology of the Rust Monster from Dragon Magazine is an awesome article.
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Everything is made out of universal polymer now. Rust monsters are actually on the verge of extinction now, due to environmental pressures.
... Given that "Polymers" and "plastics" are basically interchangeable terms, and given we've established that Rust Monsters only eat metal (however, just about any metal), I think we're safe.
Unless of course there's a form of metallic plastic I'm not aware of. Let me google that.
There seem to be conductive polymers/plastics, which "may have metallic conductivity". But its unclear if it means actual metals or just a property of metals.
Plastic eating monster would be very environmental friendly solution to pollution.Talk about life imitating art:
http://www.iflscience.com/environment/bacteria-evolving-eat-plastic-dump-in to-oceans/
... And so, life finds a way, in which all things return to dust, regardless of their original composition. Metal to rust, polymer to oil/coal, wood to ash.
If this gets converted into Rust Monster 2.0, one may as well hire a martial artist on every ship to punch them into submission.
I'd like to say though... Given that recycling metals and plastics is a common occurrence, and the process that does it works easiest on more broken down materials and especially metallic "dust", since its easier to smelt into new ingots than a solid lump of metal, I imagine that its probably now a common thing for Starfinder Recycling plants to keep trained Rust Monsters around as a cheaper means of breaking down materials before processing them.
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By now, someone should have already figured out how to reverse the corrosion process that rust monsters use for feeding, to turn base metallic ash back into useful raw materials for building things with.
In case my own statement previously was not enough... Let me remind you that when it comes out of the ground, Iron and other metals are typically already in its "corroded" form.
Iron ore is typically in the form of Iron Oxide, and same goes for most metals: its already oxidised by the time it comes out of the ground.
... In other words, reversing the actions of a Rust Monster turning a metal to rust only requires "the normal forging process" to reverse the process. As opposed to a new process.
So the statement you're making is one of those "no s!#!" moments. Anyone who can smelt ore can return gear bitten by a Rust Monster to "normal metal".
So the statement you're making is one of those "no s@@@" moments. Anyone who can smelt ore can return gear bitten by a Rust Monster to "normal metal".
The point is...it sucks when that ore is in your ship and flying at high speed through space.
Plastic eating monster would be very environmental friendly solution to pollution.Talk about life imitating art:
http://www.iflscience.com/environment/bacteria-evolving-eat-plastic-dump-in to-oceans/
Linkified. Also Wikipedia article that has a diagram of part of the chemical process, in case you can't get at the reference linked from the above article (that isn't the actual reference, but has links to it; however, actually getting at them requires a subscription).
Plastic eating monster would be very environmental friendly solution to pollution.Talk about life imitating art:
http://www.iflscience.com/environment/bacteria-evolving-eat-plastic-dump-in to-oceans/
Hmm. I get a bad feeling about this...
Still, though, it makes me think- maybe they've grown past metallic materials by the time of the Starfinder setting? Artificial/manufactured materials of equal or greater resilience? Transparent Aluminum, anyone?
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The most dangerous monster is always the GM
Jeeze, we're acting like Klingons versus Tribbles.
Someone who thinks tribbles aren't dangerous hasn't thought it through.
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So then I put my crew on an organic ship (space whale?), load up the torpedo bay with Rust monsters, and dominate the universe.
In the Forgotten Realms book Underdark, there was a variant rust monster called an annihilator. Medium aberration, 20 HD, where every feathery caress of its antennae was a disintegrate spell........sweet dreams, everyone.
Triune is the most frightening monster in this setting imho... slowly convincing others to destroy their planes of existence. The book assigns her/him a Neutral alignment, but I think it should have been NE. Even if it didn't consider the planar effects of drift engines as a bad thing, the long term effects can't be good. (Negligible in a mortal's lifetime, but accelerating with population growth and noticable over a god's lifetime)