Lost and afraid in a world soon to take you with it. Your journey is one of choices and consequences. Make everything you do count, as to leave your mark upon what is left.
Introducing The Mother! A cautionary ball of fluff that needs a miracle to find her finality.
Have you ever though playing Winter's End was way too easy? Want something that'll make you think Inv's campaign was a cake walk?
No?
Well, thankfully this isn't ENTIRELY AS HARD as those two. It's hard, but it's not impossible.
This Slugcat is meant to be a tough final playable character meant to be at the VERY end of the Rain World timeline, at least Downpour's. The Mother takes place far past the time of Saint, as possibly one of the very last Slugcats to exist in the world. Desperate to find a place for her kin to reside with less worry before she passes, the journey of The Mother is one of great caution, and heartbreak if all goes wrong.
FIRSTLY, the Benefits, make them count.
Mother doesn't have to worry about Rain, but instead a day-night cycle. This allows Mother to be able to utilize Risk-Reward to be able to hunt at night and possibly reap the rewards of feast to be able to make it to the next Cycle. Mother has High Reputation, to the point of basically just having Monk levels of easily utilizable amounts of Reputation amongst the Scavengers and other prey creatures that would otherwise be adverse to other Slugcats, Scavengers will often follow and aide Mother, because they recognize that their numbers are dwindling heavily, and cooperation is one of the most important things that help with survivability in this world. Aide them as well, it is not a one-way deal. Alongside that, Mother is VERY strong, able to dish out damage that can knock a Vulture on their ass to compensate for every other thing wrong with her. She has no special powers like Rivulet, Saint, Artificer and Spearmaster, but she's the closest thing to a Downpour level Slugcat that still stays within the roots of a base-game Slugcat.
SECONDLY, the Downsides, and there's plenty.
Mother is very fragile, as well as her kin in which she bears. You need to be EXTREMELY careful when traversing, as any forms of damage, minus rocks and what have you, are consequentially fatal to Mother and her kin. Predators are much more likely to target Mother, though they will still try to catch other creatures as they can, Mother and her condition are seen as a package meal deal for Predators, and will want a little more food due to the scarcity of it as is in the current environment. Mother's moveset is limited, being able to do speedrunning tricks may not always be the best solution as the way you move affects those you carry closest to you. Thirdly, WATCH what you eat. Your diet is very-dependent on how you wish your pups to eat when they are born. Choose your food wisely. Last of the Downsides. Make your time count, you may not have a lot of it to find assistance in bringing new life to the world, so make every cycle count as if it were your last.
The Endings
Mother has several endings that can befall her fate. I didn't draw all of them out because I wanted to keep this a LITTLE simpler, but depending on how you play, you can either achieve the best of the best, or the worst of the worst.
So going from best to worst as displayed:
Home - Find the Final Frontier, basically Outer Expanse but with a Slugcat Population still intact, a place to call home, and to raise your kin with others of your kind, the best ending for a Mother Slugcat after everything.
Living Motherhood - Mother must find a functional Iterator to be able to help her with birth, to assure she can live on to take her children to a new home. Though, after finding them, your journey isn't quite over yet.
Extinction - Ascend Mother either while still pregnant, or with her Slugpups.
Goodbye to a World - Ascend Mother after going through the Rubicon after the Last Gift ending, or without her Slugpups.
Last Gift - Birth without help, and watch as your kin mourn you as the Cycle permanently takes you away from them. Happens after 30 cycles
Rotted - Eat a Rot Creature (Easiest way to achieve this is by eating a Brother Long Legs in Silent Construct) and birth Rot-Infected pups, and reflect upon the fate you had bestowed upon your kin.
Without being displayed best to worst
Home
Living Motherhood
Complications - Birth with help... you weren't extremely cautious, but... at least they're able to be fixed. (85% wellness to both pups)
Extinction
Suffer Siblings - Birth with help... your pups suffer from your negligence (One pup dies while bearing, or both pups are at 50% Wellness while bearing and achieving birth.)
What is Left - Reach Final Frontier after Suffer Siblings ending, Final Frontier will feel a little gloomier with either 1 pup or 2 broken pups.
Goodbye to a World
Last Gift
Rotten
Last of your Kind - Remove the pup corpses from you, your heart aches too much from their loss to stay alive.
Trivia:
Mother's Children have names and designs! :D Their names are Wahma and Mesi.
Wahma is a curious little Slugpup that likes wandering and peeking into places. Potentially dangerous, but, being a good mom means letting your kids feed their curiosity.
Mesi, on the other hand, is a fierce little combatant, Mesi will be more prone to using Spears, Explosives, and other dangerous little tools to keep their family safe.
Mother loves them both to death, and will do anything to keep her pups happy and safe.
Mother used to have a partner, who had lost his life permanently when trying to gather food for his family. Additionally defending them from an imminent Red Lizard attack, but died nobly to defend the ones he loved.
Mother would likely have the Fragility and whatnot removed after birth, if she does not die. But idk if I would keep that or not.
I might tweak the concept a little, because some parts maaayyyy be too hard to deal with, but... I dunno, I wanted to put my idea out there because I like da rain worl- and I like da Shlugcat and they are silly and I love this game :3
Did I ever talk more about my card themed iterators? I don’t think I did. Anyways here
I thought the idea of a central iterator with a bunch of other sub-iterators was cool. Text under the cut
- JOAT is essentially iterator Vegas with one of the largest populations
- the other houses act as support and extra resources
- each iterator structure is still an individual but JOAT is still acts as central processor
- built out in the middle of the ocean so all units have enough water
- getting to and from the structures is obviously very expensive
- without internal maintenance and support from benefactors, the houses are some of the first to collapse after global ascension, leaving JOAT essentially handicapped
Imagine a version of Metropolis where the chieftain managed to figure out how overseers worked and modified their eyes and turned them back on to display messages and news to their city.
Now imagine being in Metropolis as Artificer and overseers are all over the city displaying flashing red messages for the scavengers to evacuate the city immediately, showing Artificer’s face in the projection along with the outlaw symbol. Across the city you can encounter scavengers that are rushing at full speeds over to the city gate, all of them having a very low bravery stat. It’s clear that any scavengers that stay in place and patrol the city have chosen their path to protect their chieftain.
Some concept art for a headcanon Iterator critter, and my ideas for their potential mechanics! (In all honesty the idea of them going to the edge of iterator structure/the areas you could see the sky would be... very very hard to actually code, so I feel like if they were to actually be implemented in the game they'd instead drag stuff (and maybe the player as well!) to dens
Their design mainly comes from the fact for a while I thought the tendrils of coral neurons looked like legs, and that they were actually weird little hallucigenia creatures
If you were a slugcat what would your powers, your special mutations be? Also backstory maybe? :3
okay well i do have a slugcat OC but they don’t exactly represent me: they’re called The Hermit, and is gray with green-tipped limbs and markings. their hands are large and webbed, allowing them to climb walls and ceilings quick like a lizard, but their walking speeds and spear damage is pretty average. they make up for this by being quite crafty, and dons a pair of ancient binocular goggles. when using this ability, time slows (even slower than the effects of mushrooms), and you can freely move the camera around the room, allowing you to quickly take notice of everything in the room. though when using the goggles, you can’t control the hermit’s movement or throws at all, but it will warn you if a projectile or predator is approaching them. also after you take notice of something off-screen, it will show a faint marker at the edge of the screen pointing to it. you can customize this to show creatures, objects, exits, shortcuts, etc. the markers disappear once you leave the current room.
anyway, onto lore! [THIS IS GONNA BE A LONG ONE LMAO]
(this takes place a little bit before spearmaster’s campaign) the hermit once lived in the slugtree, but during their time the current leaders of the tribe were a lot more anxious about leaving the territory. despite this, one day the hermit leads a large expedition to find some ancient technology hermit claims will improve the lives of all the slugcats. this goes horribly wrong, and everyone but hermit is lost in the excursion. when they return, the hermit is exiled from the slugtree, never to return. because of this, they feel an intense fear of ever going outside again, and spends the next decade of their life in isolation, living in the remains of one of those giant transmission towers.
they never leave the tower, but over the years they transform a lot of it into their own massive fort, easily traversing the structure with their wall and ceiling climbing. maybe life as a hermit isn’t that bad?
then one day, they find a peculiar, spear-sized needle in one of the tower’s many shelters, alongside a wall scribbled in drawings. the hermit is fascinated by this concept of “art”, alongside the mysterious needle. finally tired of endlessly scavenging parts and improving their fort, the hermit embarks picks up two new hobbies: drawing and finding out who or what left that needle. they manage to find an ancient telescope and set it up, spending most of the day watching from atop their tower for any new travelers, while at night they retreat to the lantern-lit shelters and draw (mainly fanart of the carvings they found, which are of a strange being with antennae and seven dots on their forehead.).
eventually, they find something. a glimpse of a purple slugcat with a large be-speckled tail, carrying two white spears, traveling from the direction of the slugtree to somewhere in the distance. despite the hermit’s fear of the outside world, a primal urge burns inside them to follow this purple stranger into the fog. the next cycle a close call with a vulture sends them running back inside the safety, though they continue to ponder this for many cycles, scribbling drawings of the mysterious traveler everywhere.
deja vu strikes the hermit, as they catch yet another glimpse of the tantalizing stranger, this time traveling the opposite way, back towards the slugtree. this infatuation the hermit has with them leads them to slide down the tower and get a closer look at them. from the safety of some rafters, they observe the traveler pulling white needles from their tail and hurling them at lizards. at some point, the hermit accidentally makes a noise, and the spearmaster looks up at them, surprising the hermit with their lack of a mouth, before both of them slink away into the shadows.
the next day, the hermit returns to that spot, finding more of the spearmaster’s drawings of creatures and beings unknown to the hermit, including that same antennaed entity, confirming this is the same slugcat who left that needle here so many cycles ago. inspired by the spearmaster’s beautiful combat skills, the hermit ties rope to a pair of spears leftover by the purple traveler, fashioning two “grappling hooks” they can use to pull impaled prey closer or assist with climbing, as the rope is also tied to their back. (these two spears + rope both occupy a back slot and free up the hermit’s hands when not in use. when you have an empty hand, press grab and up to unsheath one of them. you can throw it and it does the same damage a normal spear does, but it can’t travel further than about double the length of saint’s tongue. this frees up the hand you previously had the spear in, but if you want to reel it in, you have to keep at least one hand free, and having two hands free increases the reel-in speed and force. to pull it back, hold C. once within grabbing distance, you can press grab to yank it out and return it to your back sheath slot. also keep in mind the hermit has two rope spears, and if one of them is already deployed, you can up+grab another and throw it, maintaining the original rope connection. however, if both of your spears are impaled into two different large objects/creatures and one or both of them is moving away from the other, one of the spears will be dislodged once the impaled creature moves further than the max rope length. extremely fast or forceful creatures/objects may also dislodge even if you just have one spear deployed, but most of the time they’ll stick into whatever they’re impaled to until removed. also, when both spears are out and grappled to two different objects, you can hold C to reel in the first one and V to reel in the second. keep in mind though that unlike grapple worms or saint’s tongue, the spears aren’t strong enough to allow you to dangle from impaled ceilings, and you need both spears to scale a wall, though im unsure why you would want to do that as you can just climb walls/ceilings with your webbed feet. the rope spears are designed for pulling things closer, though with both of them impaled into the same creature you can theoretically grapple to it and let it pull you along lmao)
anyway, back to story. the hermit becomes even more obsessed with art, drawing the spearmaster and the strange creatures they drew everywhere inside their tower. this helps them pass the time and keep insanity at bay, but the hermit can’t keep doing this forever. one day, either the tantalizing stranger returns for a 4th time and forces their curiosity to leave the tower, or the hermit’s transformation of their home tower leads to the creatures and plants they feed on eventually dying out, forcing them to leave and find food elsewhere.
turns out, it’s a combination of the two. the spearmaster is seen once again traveling back into the unknown, and the hermit uses their dwindling food supplies as an excuse to face their fears and satisfy their obsessive curiosity. though even if the hermit’s tower was crawling with nutritious prey and their dreams weren’t plagued with the spearmaster obsession, it seems the universe has an extra, third safeguard in place to force the hermit out of their tower. past the slugtree, far far in the distance, one of the giant cubes that dominates the horizon, crumples into the ground, shaking the land for miles with a deafening rumble. and whether it’s due to a design flaw or the hermit’s modifications, their home tower collapses in half, leaving them disoriented and destitute. hopefully their tools and the knowledge they gathered from the spearmaster’s scribbles will be enough to keep them alive, as they embark on a mission through the unknown to track down their mysterious idol.
this takes them through the following regions:
-Crumbling Skyway: an old railway bridge, with half of the hermit’s collapsed tower home crashed into it. through the railway itself is only about one or two rooms thick, it supports a variety of plants and creatures that dangle from its underside. below that is the
-Dandelion Forest: growing from the mud flats of this part of the outer expanse is a grove of lighter-than-air puffballs, connected to the ground by vines. despite being a separate biome from the skyway above, the roots that dangle from it seem to form a symbiotic relationship with the floating dandelion trees below, perhaps even being two parts of the same creature’s life cycle. whether the hermit takes the skyway or the forest floor doesn’t matter, as either way brings them to
-Midpoint Factory: a large hulking mass of steel, filled with a variety of both mechanical and biological instruments made for producing specific parts for the iterator project. though after it was abandoned in the ascension, most of the bizarre, purposed mechano-organisms remain alive inside, some still producing parts for a long-abandoned project. on top of this factory facility is a subregion called the interchange, where resources and parts for the iterator project would be put on trains and distributed to other sites in the local group. at this point the hermit has lost track of which direction the spearmaster went, and there is a secret path that will take you towards NSH’s facility, but most of the evidence points you the other way, towards the
-Hazy Spires: following the railway bridge, the ground below gives way to a hazy abyss, where bizarre structures pierce through the toxic smog. these are remains of an old bioengineering compound; matrixes of mixers and separators, where organic chemicals and the ingredients for purposed organisms were synthesized. many species were even grown in situ here, escaping from their confines and roaming the complex. at lower levels of the facility, the toxic haze grows thick enough to be dangerous, though the hermit is able to fashion a gas mask to survive the deep sections for short periods of time. eventually, the hermit discovers the collapsed railway bridge gives way and they have to ride some giant flying organism to get across the gap. on the other side is a subregion but it’s so large it may as well be it’s own, the
-Organometallic Refinery: a bioengineering compound more specified for forging a special steel alloy, infused with microbes for a self-healing effect. this facility could be considered more lifeless than the one next door, but it simply lacks a biodiverse ecosystem, as the organometal refinement process leaves the building too toxic for many creatures. though it’s unknown how much of the hazy abyss below the factory spires is created from industrial activity, as beneath the toxic clouds is a massive sinkhole called the
-Vent Zone: at the end of the organometallic refinery, the hermit finally catches up with the spearmaster after all the agonizing factory structures they passed through. both don’t know how to react, as neither have interacted with another slugcat in ages, with spearmaster having never met another of their kind before. but they look out into the distance together, as a looming superstructure grows closer and the fog grows thicker. they mount a giant flying creature to cross the vast expanse of haze between the retaining wall and the refinery, but not too far into their journey, a vulture attacks them, and the hermit panics, falling off into the abyss below. somehow they survive, waking up in a massive sinkhole. the terrain is filled with acid pools alongside the rubble of the collapsed railway bridge, and even during the day the air is dark and hard to breathe. the proximity to the hermit’s destination results in deadly, acidic rain that drowns the sinkhole every night. the hermit’s skin is chemically burnt from injuries, and can no longer stick to walls or ceilings, relying on only their spears, goggles, and gas mask to keep on surviving. what little life manages to sustain itself down here is unlike anything else, being borderline impossible to kill. as the hermit stumbles through the mangled mess of acid, mud, and metal, they eventually come across a crumbling wall, and realize this sinkhole must be a recent development. it turns out a vast aquifer once stood here, right above a chamber of void fluid. ever since ancient construction activities damaged the thin crust separating this aquifer from the void sea protrusion, the two fluids have mixed, resulting in a reducing chemical reaction, decomposing water into its base elements and allowing it to recombine into much more reactive compounds. this, combined with the draining of the aquifer for the nearby iterator facility, has led to a mixture of toxic gases and acid bubbling from the ground, creating the vent zone and the layer of haze on top of it. as the hermit scales the crumbling, slanting wall, unable to use their climbing ability, they eventually make it above the layer of smog, into the facility grounds of Seven Red Suns. first off, they cut through a passage near the top of the retaining wall through to the other side, a vast reservoir known as
-Darkwater: SRS’s facility was built in an unconventional configuration, with one of their can’s legs being right on top of the retaining wall. this means that right after the hermit steps through the wall into SRS’s facility grounds, they’re beneath their can’s underhang. the first subregion of this shaded reservoir is the Treatment Center, where pumped groundwater would be purified before being sent up SRS’s leg. a bunch of scavengers have made the refineries and water-agitators their home. past that is the Lakebed Pipeline, which during dry seasons, would transfer water across the bottom of the reservoir into the Treatment Center. during wet seasons though, the whole reservoir would be full of water, creating a vast lake underneath SRS’s shadow, even partially submerging the treatment center. however, as more iterators went online, the climate became much wetter, and so maintenance orders on the pipeline were stopped, as even during the dry seasons the reservoir was full. even before the mass ascension the lakebed pipeline fell into disrepair, which came back to bite SRS all these centuries later. the recent earthquake caused by moon’s collapse resulted in the vent zone sinkhole caving in, damaging half of SRS’s water intake systems, draining the darkwater reservoir, and what little remains of the lakebed pipeline has barely enough capacity to supply SRS with water. most of SRS’s critical systems are intact and operational for the meantime, but the creation of spearmaster will be the last bioengineering project SRS can attempt without drying up. anyway, past the lakebed pipeline is the last subregion of darkwater, the Exterior Pumping Station, which takes in water from beyond SRS’s can and pumps it across darkwater and through the treatment center, up into SRS’s easternmost leg. through this mechanical mess of pipes and pumps lies the source of half of SRS’s groundwater, the
-Underground River: a snaking maze of natural caverns and artificial conduits, the underground river is quite small compared to the other regions but it felt distinct enough to not just be a subregion of somewhere else. the dank caves and tunnels are home to a diverse selection of life, mostly adapted to breathe underwater as the conduits flood with water when the rain comes. the river eventually branches into two paths, but i’ll continue through the one which leads up into a sewer system beneath
-Derelict Cityscape: one of the oldest cities in ancient history, that sits at the bottom of a massive cliff. it was abandoned long before SRS’s construction, as most of its inhabitants chose to scale the massive cliff it’s built next to once technology allowed them to modify themselves to breathe at those altitudes. then some time later the iterator project started, and the first ever generation-2 model, Seven Red Suns, was built a few miles past the cliff, sandwiching the derelict cityscape between the two sides. what few stubborn ancients who remained at the bottom of this canyon were forced to leave once the iterator came online, drenching the ancient city in rain. the nearby cliff acts to trap most of the moisture exhaled by SRS in the canyon, resulting in the abandoned city being vastly overgrown and humid, with some buildings being completely unrecognizable as the high moisture allowed nature to overtake them. some of the more modern buildings are still standing however they lack the luxuries and advanced technologies of the living cell block skyscrapers atop iterator cans. speaking of cans, if you go to the eastern edge of the city, you’ll end up at the base of the leg of
-Seven Red Suns: okay im gonna be honest i haven’t drawn the map for this area yet but this is the end of the hermit’s journey. they finally reunite with spearmaster and meet SRS, who at first is cautious, as the spearmaster nearly died saving the hermit, but the hermit expresses their admiration for spearmaster, and SRS eventually comes around, adopting hermit, who is now The Apprentice. spearmaster, SRS, and the apprentice all teach each other different things from their journeys, and maybe one day spears and apprenti fall in love and maybe have slugpups and SRS becomes a scug grandpa or whatever the non binary equivalent to that is lmao. but yeah, that’s the end of the hermit’s journey of becoming the apprentice, but i still have some ideas i wanna write down. somewhere in SRS’s can is a blocked off area, where they first experimented with bioengineering. they were very young and experienced when they began this however, resulting in the creation of many bizarre, useless, or dangerous organisms. but to SRS they were all still living creatures, and they couldn’t just kill them all or release them into the environment, so now there’s a secret lab inside his can full of mutant beasts and it plays out like the true lab from undertale. maybe there’s even some prototypes to spearmaster in there, SRS is super guilty but doesn’t know how to deal with it, and eventually, far after spears’s and apprenti’s campaign someone discovers it and SRS has to deal with it finally. another cool idea i had for SRS’s structure is for the top to be a giant empty grassland instead of a desolate wasteland, which also lacks a city. the reason why? well that leads us to my next region idea, where you take a precipice-like skybridge across the canyon to the aptly named
-Cliffside: if you kept going to the west through the underground river, you would end up in a giant waterfall which connects up into the bottom of a giant cliff. you can also reach this area at the western side of the derelict cityscape. this cliff is natural, unlike a retaining wall or iterator can wall, with many primitive, *ancient* ancient structures carved into the rock, long since abandoned or eroded from the humid exhalation of SRS. there are a bunch of more modern structures too, including experimental city designs the ancients undertook, and a sort of giant elevator that goes to the top. there’s also a bunch of scavenger settlements along the cliffside, covered in moss and roots. once you near the top, you’ll find the giant sky bridge that crosses the canyon over to SRS’s can, and on the top of the cliff is a massive plateau that stretches out for miles above the clouds, obscured by a gigasized city, the
-Continental Capitol: the end of what i have planned so far. before the ancients built SRS, they relocated from what’s now the derelict cityscape, far above the clouds, scaling Cliffside, and founded a new city atop this plateau. because of the cultural significance and long history of this city’s population, the new city became one of the many capitals of the ancient’s global empire. this one grew so large it was known as the administrative capitol of one of the planet’s entire continents, housing nearly a hundred million ancients in its towering constructs. so yeah, after they built SRS, they had no need for a city on top, as the continental capitol was already built atop a plateau above the clouds, and was safe from the rain. now the top of SRS’s can is just a flat empty sea of grass, with a radio mast in the middle
one more bonus concept: sometime in the future but probably before saint’s time, the activity in the vent zone has damaged the retaining wall to the point where SRS’s eastern leg collapses into the sinkhole with it, breaking their can in half. maybe this also unlocks the hidden mutant lab area and spears/apprenti/their descendants discover it and SRS has to explain themselves (as also half of them fell into an acid sinkhole lmao). i also think a lava region would be really cool but i have no clue how tectonics and volcanism works in a world where the mantle is void fluid instead of magma lmao. i already handwaved the vent zone’s creation as a result of void fluid “vaporizing” water but im not sure how i could explain it turning rock into magma. either way, the geological activity from the vent zone continues, causing severe damage to SRS’s facility and can. hey, you gotta figure out a unique way for each iterator to die out instead of them all just decaying from time!
also not even kidding, this post took me over three fucking hours to complete lmao. i have been doing nothing but typing this on my phone in complete silence, checking my notes and drawings and transcribing them here, and getting up for a bathroom break once, every so often plugging my phone back in. shit it may even be four hours by now xD
anyway, this one is definitely going in the parageist classics. oh and here are sketches i have so far (i didn’t even draw the hermit/apprentice yet lmao, i just focused on all the cool regions, i love drawing maps :3)
Before the age of iterators, prototyping was required to bring the greater machine project to fruition. This is where the “Test of Technologies” program was created. With the purpose of rapid testing and development the Iterator prototyping facility was constructed.
New Thoughts Closed Mind is the Management-module of the facility, the first proto-iterator. Created during a time when bioengineering has yet to reach the leaps and bounds of its potential, Thoughts has a more mechanical nature than later iterators. The researchers saw no need to grant a proper puppet, and with the technology they had at the time resulted in Thoughts being bulky and simple in body, though certainly quite robust. This leads to the proto-iterator dwarfing iterators of later models in sheer volume.
He would have a similar play style to lancer monk where the difficulty would be very high and his stats are very low
he would also suffer from tripping, dropping things or passing out every now and then
if you get into a room/threat music starts playing, an effect will take over your screen that intensifies with how much danger you’re in that makes it difficult to see/focus
his perks would be things like extra movement tech (like a partial vertical wall climb for example) and having things like mushrooms and bubble weed last for longer (and things like stuns will last for shorter)
there would also be things like cosmetic shaking like how saint has it that intensifies and slows depending on how much danger you’re in or how close the cycle is to ending
Shelter failures cause you to have an increased adrenaline affect (the visual effect you get around threats) to last the whole cycle and have the shaking increase
stats like speed and strength also lower but the affects subside as the rain leaves