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Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Constraints II, or, Two Word Monsters

I've talked about putting constraints on ourselves to help generate stuff you might not think of otherwise. I offered you a One Sentence Challenge: Monster here. One interesting thing I noticed is that the sentence format, SVO, pushes you to have the monster do something, you know because of that big V, the verb. They carry cities and pick your pockets and want to eat your brain. This all became apparent to me when I was joking with Kilgore, wanting my flying bears.

Well, what if you drop the sentence structure while tightening the constraints even more? So, the monster won't be doing anything, you'll need to make an adjective do a lot of work. How is that possible, you might ask. Well a lot of the classic monsters are just that Adjective-Noun. For Example, one-eyed giant, two-headed giant, or any giant natural creature: ants, frogs, weasels, bats, spiders etc. Here are some more adjectives you've probably seen:
  • skeletal
  • shadow
  • were-
  • various colors (grey ooze, black dragon)
  • winged (winged bears)
  • -man
But now that I think of it, adjectives can be about what creatures do as well. So, what if we go back to what the monster is doing, allowing for a hyphen. How about, metal-eating armadillo, blood-drinking undead, teleporting dogs, petrifying lizards, etc.

[Snip]Here was a ton of me generating back and forth and getting more complicated and possibly confused, haha[/snip]

This turned out harder than I thought, but here's my go at it:
  • brass spider
  • armor-plated ape
  • mummified sealions (okay, okay, sea lions is two words isn't it?)
  • mechanical fish
  • voice-stealing cat
  • explosive leeches
  • levitating herbivore
  • Crystalline memory-thief
And now I throw down my gauntlet in the Two Word Challenge: Monster! In two words describe a monster that intrigues us all. Post in the comments.

9 comments:

  1. psychotropic starfish

    hyperspatial hunter

    goth smurfette

    flesh-burrowing caterpillar

    psionic dragonfly

    chaos turkey

    invisible ape-lord

    plane-shifting serpent

    sperm golem

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  2. Yes! I think you've got the hang of this.

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  3. clockwork octopus

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  4. I love that word "clockwork." I should have used that instead of "mechanical." How about wind-up, ooh that gives me some ideas.

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  5. Vampire Cherubs
    Chaos Treants
    Skeletal Snakes
    Orbital Parasite
    Etheral Lamprey

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  6. Great! "Orbital" may take the prize for adjective use, because I can think of several different ways to interpret it.

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  7. If the goal is merely intriguing, not playable, then puns and conflicts do the trick.

    Quick Sand-Box
    Up-See Daisy
    Albino Shadow
    Abysmal Radiance
    Limbless Groper
    Receding Hare-Lion

    Of course, during my childhood gaming my favorite cleric PC was devoted to the God of Noise. Undead flee from holy symbols, but everything flees from holy cymbals.

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  8. Didn't I have more of these? I distinctly remember an Axiomatic Dragon and a Juvenecsing Corse.

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