Last night, as I crashed, I had an image in my head of a circle with five positions- one for each sense- and a monster hovering near each. The monsters killed using those senses of their prey. The list was like this:
sight - medusa
touch - carrion crawler (ghoul)
sound - sirens
smell - ghast
taste - ?
Okay, the ghast doesn't exactly kill you with smell, and I suppose the others aren't as direct as petrification either, but I still wonder, what would be a monster that kills you through taste? The most immediate idea that comes to my mind is some kind of poisonous fruit, but my creepier nature jumps to withered teats that are somehow addictive. How about you?
Maybe it's produced by something like the horseshoe crabs below?
ReplyDelete( Who milks the crabs and to what purpose?)
The succubus kisses you to death... :)
ReplyDeleteBurroughs's mugwumps exuding their addictive goo would cover taste. Perhaps a very different version of Ezekiel's scrolls that are sweet to the tongue but sour in the stomach.
ReplyDeleteOr any of the Willy Wonka scenarios.
Gelatinous cubes probably get in your mouth when they absorb you.
ReplyDeleteMaybe when a mind flayer is eating you, you can taste your own brains as it's mind interlaces with yours?
ReplyDeleteI don't know, but you could add Green Dragon or Troglodytes to your smell list.
ReplyDeleteI really like the Mind Flayer one though.
I'm off from work sick today, so please forgive the following:
ReplyDeletePerhaps a fungus creature exudes a hallucinogen-laced spore cloud that, one failed saving throw later, causes a mad ravenousness that compells the victim to comsume anything and everything available,starting with rations and moving swiftly on to companions and eventually inedible objects,all of which seem unbelievably delicious. In due course, a ruptured gut triggers explosive fungal growths that consume the host body and arise some time later as a gaggle of new fungus creatures.
I immediately jumped to Spirited Away and delicious faerie-food that turns you into a pig or causes you to pine away lusting after another bite, and heady dandelion wines that put you to sleep or makes you dance for a hundred years.
ReplyDeleteWhew, I was expecting a Flavor of Love parody.
ReplyDeleteYou know there is a sixth sense. Not seeing dead people, but proprioception - sensory feedback from within one's body. Now try to think of a monster that messes with that ... pain elemental?
You folks rock. I'm personally fond of Jim's suggestion.
ReplyDelete@SoE: I haven't read naked lunch, but I'm down with willy wonka.
@anon: yeah, that mind flayer idea is giving me the heeby jeebies. Unpleasant thought.
@drcm: you're right, thanks.
@jasons: yep, a fungal thing seems like a good choice.
@joshua: yes!, dandelion wine is nice, like lotus eaters.
@Roger: Interesting. Maybe a tarantella that makes you dance so wildly so break your own bones because you don't know where you are flinging them.
You all missed the obvious Dire Loaf or Gummi Lich, haha.
I recently ate some garlic hummus that I could taste for hours, even after having brushed my teeth. What if the taste of the creature/item was so strong it started blocking out other senses one at a time-- smell, touch, sound, sight.
ReplyDeleteI thought of "doing toad" from the Simpsons.