Hallucigenia is an extinct species of worm that lived in the ocean, likely a scavenger and around the size of a human finger.
They had several leg like tentacles they used to walk around on similarly to how a Star Fish does and several sets of long spikes protruding from their backs, as well as a head, eyes and a mouth.
Idea and basic concept for Hallucigenia in ARK.
In ARK I propose like many other creatures that Hallucigenia is given a pretty significant size increase, equivalent to most other shoulder pets.
Although unlike most shoulder pets Hallucigenia will be worn like a spikey bandolier, wrapping itself around the players naked torso to protect them.
The idea is that once tamed, Hallucigenia and the player will form a symbiotic relationship, with Hallucigenia becoming a shoulder pet that acts like living armour for the player, protecting them in exchange for the player serving as Hallucigenia's never ending food source.
I also intend for the existence of Hallucigenia in ARK to help promote the use of a couple of (in my opinion) underused tames while making a few others feel a bit more threatening/dangerous.
Where to find Hallucigenia in ARK.
Hallucigenia would only be found roaming the deep ocean floors, often nearby Eurypterid or Ammonite spawns and are non hostile to tamed and wild creatures.
They would not be able to picked up by any tamed or wild creatures either.
Wild Hallucigenia are only hostile to players and will rear up when swimming players get close and latch on to them if they get too close, breaking their chest armour in the process.
No worries though.. well some maybe, but this is part of how you will tame Hallucigenia.
The taming process.
After a wild Hallucigenia has attached itself to you it will start slowly draining your health and possibly stamina and food stats until your inevitable death.
And the only way to remove a wild Hallucigenia, is much the same as a leech, by setting yourself on fire.. not easy to do underwater.
The player now needs to swim back to the surface before they die and leave the water entirely to start taming Hallucigenia.
Players should be unable to mount their tames while a wild Hallucigenia is attached to them (with exception to Diplocaulus) to add an extra level of challenge to the taming process.
Once you are back on land Hallucigenia is smart enough to understand that it will suffocate and die if it looses it's new human host, so it stops feeding on the player (draining your health and stamina) and starts using you as an oxygen tank, only draining your food stat from this point on.
During this time the player must go around killing other creatures on foot with melee weapons to raise Hallucigenia's taming bar, which will be displayed above the player in 3rd person camera.
Hallucigenia's taming affinity however will be based on how much recoil damage the player is able to do by taking damage without dying, this affinity will slowly drop if you remain out of combat for too long, so bring plenty of healing items, food, water and good armour for your remaining slots + repair resources or backups to help you survive this process.
This bar will also be displayed above the player while in 3rd person camera.
It goes without saying that if you die while taming Hallucigenia, there are no second chances, Hallucigenia will suffocate quickly on land without it's human host and you will most likely have to track down another one.
Tamed Hallucigenia behaviour.
The same also goes for Hallucigenia that are tamed by players.
If the player is killed, knocked out or logged off in water Hallucigenia will sink down as far as it can and will wait for it's player to retrieve it.
If the player is killed, knocked out or logged off on land Hallucigenia will drop like any other shoulder pet and will curl up into a spiked ball to protect itself in the location it lands in and will then start suffocating, loosing oxygen over time like any drowning creature or player would.
The player must return to their place of death etc and pick up their Hallucigenia before it's low oxygen and health stats drain completely and it dies.
Reclaiming Hallucigenia will also mean that the player must now heal it of any damage it sustained from suffocating, so until the creature is fully healed it will feed off the players food stat until it is back to full health similarly to how players regenerate health as well, if the player's food stat is low this could be dangerous and could result in the player starving to death.
Breeding and maturation.
Underwater breeding.
Hallucigenia must be underwater to breed and will produce water only eggs like Squids and Frogs.
Symbiotic nature.
Because Hallucigenia forms a symbiotic relationship with the player wearing it, it's only possible for one player to raise one Hallucigenia infant at any given time.
When picked up, a baby Hallucigenia will attach itself to the player similarly to a leech, minus the horrifying screen blocking effect.
During this time the player will be able to wear chest armour, but the Hallucigenia infant will not provide any additional armour nor any recoil damage or other additional benefits like the adult would.
Instead the Hallucigenia infant will drain the player's food and water stats at a much increased rate as it grows but will thankfully have a fairly short maturation time, requiring only a few hours of the players time at most (on official rates) to fully mature, so the player will need to keep themselves hydrated and fed during this process.
Once fully matured the players armour (if wearing any) will be unequipped automatically and the now adult Hallucigenia will auto equip itself as a shoulder pet.
Imprinting.
Due to the symbiotic nature, imprinting Hallucigenia will be pretty unique.
Prompts and info about what Hallucigenia wants during feeding intervals, as well as the feeding interval timer will be displayed above the player when in 3rd person camera.
Running around with Hallucigenia when it want's to go for a walk will trigger the walk requirement successful.
When Hallucigenia desires a specific food item, the player themselves must consume that specific item to trigger the feeding requirement successful.
(Occasionally Hallucigenia may want you to eat something pretty gross though like raw or spoiled meat so keep that in mind)
As for the cuddle requirement, Hallucigenia will just simply want some attention from you and you can provide this by having your player use any Emote while the prompt is active, doing this will trigger the requirement successful.
(Important) Food stat misuse.
Since Hallucigenia doesn't use it's food stat nor does it's food stat drain like normal creatures it's important that baby Hallucigenia unlike the adults, have a natural health drain while unattached to a player, even when they are in water.
This will ensure that negligent players do not end up causing issues with server performance by having tons of Hallucigenia babies piling up at their bases.
Baby Hallucigenia must have human player interaction to survive, or they will die fairly quickly after birth due to their low health stats.
Living Armour, the pro's.
1. Equipping a tamed Hallucigenia provides the player with living armour, granting the player some additional armour to their total and giving the player the ability to inflict recoil damage on hostile creatures and players that attack you with a melee attack, similarly to a Kentrosaurus.
I think the additional armour Hallucigenia provides should probably be based on it's health stat but with a hard cap of somewhere around 200-300 maybe.
2. Due to the protection it's spiked body provides, a player equipped with Hallucigenia also cannot be picked up or grabbed by almost any tamed or wild creatures.
This means that players using Hallucigenia, cannot be dismounted either by almost any attack that is considered a "grab" giving them significant protection from enemy fliers and squids, though their mount may still be able to be grabbed.
I want to give an exception for armour protected creatures like the Karkinos as well, so Karkinos should still able to "grab" a player wearing a Hallucigenia.
Players with Hallucigenia can also still be dismounted by Microraptors as they do not technically "grab" you either, making them a more viable counter to mounted Hallucigenia players in pvp settings.
3. While a tamed Hallucigenia is equipped the player will loose oxygen while swimming at half it's usual rate, the Hallucigenia acting like a sort of Scuba chest piece substitute to some degree allowing players to stay underwater longer than normal but nowhere near as long as they would be able to with actual Scuba.
Hallucigenia will also provide some camouflage properties similarly to what a Ghillie chest piece provides although not as much.
(These abilities are to make up for the inability to wear chest armour with Hallucigenia, however Hallucigenia will not provide any protection against hot and cold)
4. Hallucigenia may be a tameable deep sea creature but it's utility is universal, Hallucigenia can be transferred to any map, even ones where water is extremely limited like Scorched Earth and still be usable as it's intended to be in those more hostile environments.
5. Uses the player as a food source while equipped thus has no need for typical food items like meat or berries and will not drain feeding trough supplies.
While unequipped underwater Hallucigenia uses extremely little energy thus it can survive for extremely long periods of time without feeding.
(It doesn't need nor actively use it's own food stat, much like some creatures do not need or use their oxygen stats)
6. Decently short maturation time and fairly easy to imprint by players.
Additional benefits could be:
Hallucigenia has a small chance of it's recoil damage inflicting a short bleeding effect on tamed and wild creatures, and a greater chance of inflicting a bleeding effect on tamed/wild creatures that attempt to grab it's host player.
Likewise Hallucigenia has a small chance of inflicting a Dizzy Spore like effect on human players who try to attack a Hallucigenia equipped player with a melee weapon.
The con's of Hallucigenia.
Well every creature needs weaknesses and Hallucigenia is no different.
1. First of all I think Hallucigenia should have extremely weak health and oxygen stats, even when bred up in order to ensure there is always a big risk of loosing it should the player die on land while traveling with it.. a fitting punishment that helps promotes the symbiotic relationship you share with this tame.
2. I also think a good trade off for using a tamed Hallucigenia is that while it is equipped, players cannot also equip any chest armour.. you must choose one.
This would mostly impact your max armour rating but I think that's a fair trade for the recoil damage Hallucigenia provides.
This also means that you will not be able to use Scuba tanks while a Hallucigenia is equipped, thus providing a good reason for Hallucigenia giving it's player reduced oxygen drain while underwater.
This inability to use Scuba will also make the Diplocaulus a more appealing and useful tame for those who wish to use Hallucigenia underwater, and will be essential to taming them in the early game while remaining a useful creature for taming them later on as well since they are the only creature a player can still ride while a wild Hallucigenia is attached to them.
3. While Hallucigenia provides some compromise bonuses for the inability to use Ghillie and Scuba chest pieces, as well as the natural armour.
It will not provide any protection from the elements, so no hypothermal or hyperthermal protection.
4. Taming Hallucigenia won't be easy due to multiple factors:
It can only be found in dangerous deep ocean territory.
Wild Hallucigenia will instantly break a player's chest armour when it attaches to them.
It must be carried to the surface by a dismounted player while it is draining them, leaving them open to other dangerous ocean threats like Meg's, Squids and Mosa's.
Players will be unable to be grabbed by any tamed/wild creatures while a wild Hallucigenia is attached to them, with one exception being Karkinos.
Players will be unable to mount any tames while a wild Hallucigenia is attached to them, with one exception being Diplocaulus.
Taming efficiency must be raised by actively taking melee damage.
Taming progress must be raised by killing wild creature with melee weapons.
Wild Hallucigenia attached to players will not provide any armour benefits, leaving you effectively without any chest armour until Hallucigenia is tamed or you are killed.
Taming Hallucigenia could potentially drain significant amounts of food and healing items, so be prepared.
While taming Hallucigenia other annoying threats like Ichthyornis and Pegomastax stealing your weapons, food or healing items would be significantly higher and could be the deciding factor in your failure.
5. A single player can only raise one Hallucigenia baby at a time due to unique maturation mechanics.
6. Popular mod benefits like the S+/SS Nanny can only auto imprint Hallucigenia babies if the player stays within range of them.
Additional cons could be:
Hallucigenia dislikes hot environments like deserts and thus will also drain the players water stat to hydrate itself while in those biomes.
Hallucigenia is terrified of fire and if the player is set on fire while below a certain HP threshold, Hallucigenia will be forcibly dismounted from the player.
This will make Fire Wyverns, the Dragon boss and flame based weaponry more dangerous to players using Hallucigenia.
Thank you for your consideration.
Well, that's my more fleshed out idea for this creature submission anyway.
I really want some kind of water based creature to win one of these competitions and this was probably the most unknown and unusual creature I could think of to submit.
Thanks to anyone and everyone who votes for it and if you've never heard of Hallucigenia before, say Hello to this strange little guy in the picture attached.
(Credit to the artist who made this image)
We didn't make it last time but new submission contest means we get another shot to put this unique and funky little worm into ARK.
Thanks to everyone who voted for this creature in the last contest, hopefully we'll get more votes this time
Suggestion
Teratus
Introducing Hallucigenia: The spiked worm.
Hallucigenia is an extinct species of worm that lived in the ocean, likely a scavenger and around the size of a human finger.
They had several leg like tentacles they used to walk around on similarly to how a Star Fish does and several sets of long spikes protruding from their backs, as well as a head, eyes and a mouth.
Idea and basic concept for Hallucigenia in ARK.
In ARK I propose like many other creatures that Hallucigenia is given a pretty significant size increase, equivalent to most other shoulder pets.
Although unlike most shoulder pets Hallucigenia will be worn like a spikey bandolier, wrapping itself around the players naked torso to protect them.
The idea is that once tamed, Hallucigenia and the player will form a symbiotic relationship, with Hallucigenia becoming a shoulder pet that acts like living armour for the player, protecting them in exchange for the player serving as Hallucigenia's never ending food source.
I also intend for the existence of Hallucigenia in ARK to help promote the use of a couple of (in my opinion) underused tames while making a few others feel a bit more threatening/dangerous.
Where to find Hallucigenia in ARK.
Hallucigenia would only be found roaming the deep ocean floors, often nearby Eurypterid or Ammonite spawns and are non hostile to tamed and wild creatures.
They would not be able to picked up by any tamed or wild creatures either.
Wild Hallucigenia are only hostile to players and will rear up when swimming players get close and latch on to them if they get too close, breaking their chest armour in the process.
No worries though.. well some maybe, but this is part of how you will tame Hallucigenia.
The taming process.
After a wild Hallucigenia has attached itself to you it will start slowly draining your health and possibly stamina and food stats until your inevitable death.
And the only way to remove a wild Hallucigenia, is much the same as a leech, by setting yourself on fire.. not easy to do underwater.
The player now needs to swim back to the surface before they die and leave the water entirely to start taming Hallucigenia.
Players should be unable to mount their tames while a wild Hallucigenia is attached to them (with exception to Diplocaulus) to add an extra level of challenge to the taming process.
Once you are back on land Hallucigenia is smart enough to understand that it will suffocate and die if it looses it's new human host, so it stops feeding on the player (draining your health and stamina) and starts using you as an oxygen tank, only draining your food stat from this point on.
During this time the player must go around killing other creatures on foot with melee weapons to raise Hallucigenia's taming bar, which will be displayed above the player in 3rd person camera.
Hallucigenia's taming affinity however will be based on how much recoil damage the player is able to do by taking damage without dying, this affinity will slowly drop if you remain out of combat for too long, so bring plenty of healing items, food, water and good armour for your remaining slots + repair resources or backups to help you survive this process.
This bar will also be displayed above the player while in 3rd person camera.
It goes without saying that if you die while taming Hallucigenia, there are no second chances, Hallucigenia will suffocate quickly on land without it's human host and you will most likely have to track down another one.
Tamed Hallucigenia behaviour.
The same also goes for Hallucigenia that are tamed by players.
If the player is killed, knocked out or logged off in water Hallucigenia will sink down as far as it can and will wait for it's player to retrieve it.
If the player is killed, knocked out or logged off on land Hallucigenia will drop like any other shoulder pet and will curl up into a spiked ball to protect itself in the location it lands in and will then start suffocating, loosing oxygen over time like any drowning creature or player would.
The player must return to their place of death etc and pick up their Hallucigenia before it's low oxygen and health stats drain completely and it dies.
Reclaiming Hallucigenia will also mean that the player must now heal it of any damage it sustained from suffocating, so until the creature is fully healed it will feed off the players food stat until it is back to full health similarly to how players regenerate health as well, if the player's food stat is low this could be dangerous and could result in the player starving to death.
Breeding and maturation.
Underwater breeding.
Hallucigenia must be underwater to breed and will produce water only eggs like Squids and Frogs.
Symbiotic nature.
Because Hallucigenia forms a symbiotic relationship with the player wearing it, it's only possible for one player to raise one Hallucigenia infant at any given time.
When picked up, a baby Hallucigenia will attach itself to the player similarly to a leech, minus the horrifying screen blocking effect.
During this time the player will be able to wear chest armour, but the Hallucigenia infant will not provide any additional armour nor any recoil damage or other additional benefits like the adult would.
Instead the Hallucigenia infant will drain the player's food and water stats at a much increased rate as it grows but will thankfully have a fairly short maturation time, requiring only a few hours of the players time at most (on official rates) to fully mature, so the player will need to keep themselves hydrated and fed during this process.
Once fully matured the players armour (if wearing any) will be unequipped automatically and the now adult Hallucigenia will auto equip itself as a shoulder pet.
Imprinting.
Due to the symbiotic nature, imprinting Hallucigenia will be pretty unique.
Prompts and info about what Hallucigenia wants during feeding intervals, as well as the feeding interval timer will be displayed above the player when in 3rd person camera.
Running around with Hallucigenia when it want's to go for a walk will trigger the walk requirement successful.
When Hallucigenia desires a specific food item, the player themselves must consume that specific item to trigger the feeding requirement successful.
(Occasionally Hallucigenia may want you to eat something pretty gross though like raw or spoiled meat so keep that in mind)
As for the cuddle requirement, Hallucigenia will just simply want some attention from you and you can provide this by having your player use any Emote while the prompt is active, doing this will trigger the requirement successful.
(Important) Food stat misuse.
Since Hallucigenia doesn't use it's food stat nor does it's food stat drain like normal creatures it's important that baby Hallucigenia unlike the adults, have a natural health drain while unattached to a player, even when they are in water.
This will ensure that negligent players do not end up causing issues with server performance by having tons of Hallucigenia babies piling up at their bases.
Baby Hallucigenia must have human player interaction to survive, or they will die fairly quickly after birth due to their low health stats.
Living Armour, the pro's.
1. Equipping a tamed Hallucigenia provides the player with living armour, granting the player some additional armour to their total and giving the player the ability to inflict recoil damage on hostile creatures and players that attack you with a melee attack, similarly to a Kentrosaurus.
I think the additional armour Hallucigenia provides should probably be based on it's health stat but with a hard cap of somewhere around 200-300 maybe.
2. Due to the protection it's spiked body provides, a player equipped with Hallucigenia also cannot be picked up or grabbed by almost any tamed or wild creatures.
This means that players using Hallucigenia, cannot be dismounted either by almost any attack that is considered a "grab" giving them significant protection from enemy fliers and squids, though their mount may still be able to be grabbed.
I want to give an exception for armour protected creatures like the Karkinos as well, so Karkinos should still able to "grab" a player wearing a Hallucigenia.
Players with Hallucigenia can also still be dismounted by Microraptors as they do not technically "grab" you either, making them a more viable counter to mounted Hallucigenia players in pvp settings.
3. While a tamed Hallucigenia is equipped the player will loose oxygen while swimming at half it's usual rate, the Hallucigenia acting like a sort of Scuba chest piece substitute to some degree allowing players to stay underwater longer than normal but nowhere near as long as they would be able to with actual Scuba.
Hallucigenia will also provide some camouflage properties similarly to what a Ghillie chest piece provides although not as much.
(These abilities are to make up for the inability to wear chest armour with Hallucigenia, however Hallucigenia will not provide any protection against hot and cold)
4. Hallucigenia may be a tameable deep sea creature but it's utility is universal, Hallucigenia can be transferred to any map, even ones where water is extremely limited like Scorched Earth and still be usable as it's intended to be in those more hostile environments.
5. Uses the player as a food source while equipped thus has no need for typical food items like meat or berries and will not drain feeding trough supplies.
While unequipped underwater Hallucigenia uses extremely little energy thus it can survive for extremely long periods of time without feeding.
(It doesn't need nor actively use it's own food stat, much like some creatures do not need or use their oxygen stats)
6. Decently short maturation time and fairly easy to imprint by players.
Additional benefits could be:
Hallucigenia has a small chance of it's recoil damage inflicting a short bleeding effect on tamed and wild creatures, and a greater chance of inflicting a bleeding effect on tamed/wild creatures that attempt to grab it's host player.
Likewise Hallucigenia has a small chance of inflicting a Dizzy Spore like effect on human players who try to attack a Hallucigenia equipped player with a melee weapon.
The con's of Hallucigenia.
Well every creature needs weaknesses and Hallucigenia is no different.
1. First of all I think Hallucigenia should have extremely weak health and oxygen stats, even when bred up in order to ensure there is always a big risk of loosing it should the player die on land while traveling with it.. a fitting punishment that helps promotes the symbiotic relationship you share with this tame.
2. I also think a good trade off for using a tamed Hallucigenia is that while it is equipped, players cannot also equip any chest armour.. you must choose one.
This would mostly impact your max armour rating but I think that's a fair trade for the recoil damage Hallucigenia provides.
This also means that you will not be able to use Scuba tanks while a Hallucigenia is equipped, thus providing a good reason for Hallucigenia giving it's player reduced oxygen drain while underwater.
This inability to use Scuba will also make the Diplocaulus a more appealing and useful tame for those who wish to use Hallucigenia underwater, and will be essential to taming them in the early game while remaining a useful creature for taming them later on as well since they are the only creature a player can still ride while a wild Hallucigenia is attached to them.
3. While Hallucigenia provides some compromise bonuses for the inability to use Ghillie and Scuba chest pieces, as well as the natural armour.
It will not provide any protection from the elements, so no hypothermal or hyperthermal protection.
4. Taming Hallucigenia won't be easy due to multiple factors:
It can only be found in dangerous deep ocean territory.
Wild Hallucigenia will instantly break a player's chest armour when it attaches to them.
It must be carried to the surface by a dismounted player while it is draining them, leaving them open to other dangerous ocean threats like Meg's, Squids and Mosa's.
Players will be unable to be grabbed by any tamed/wild creatures while a wild Hallucigenia is attached to them, with one exception being Karkinos.
Players will be unable to mount any tames while a wild Hallucigenia is attached to them, with one exception being Diplocaulus.
Taming efficiency must be raised by actively taking melee damage.
Taming progress must be raised by killing wild creature with melee weapons.
Wild Hallucigenia attached to players will not provide any armour benefits, leaving you effectively without any chest armour until Hallucigenia is tamed or you are killed.
Taming Hallucigenia could potentially drain significant amounts of food and healing items, so be prepared.
While taming Hallucigenia other annoying threats like Ichthyornis and Pegomastax stealing your weapons, food or healing items would be significantly higher and could be the deciding factor in your failure.
5. A single player can only raise one Hallucigenia baby at a time due to unique maturation mechanics.
6. Popular mod benefits like the S+/SS Nanny can only auto imprint Hallucigenia babies if the player stays within range of them.
Additional cons could be:
Hallucigenia dislikes hot environments like deserts and thus will also drain the players water stat to hydrate itself while in those biomes.
Hallucigenia is terrified of fire and if the player is set on fire while below a certain HP threshold, Hallucigenia will be forcibly dismounted from the player.
This will make Fire Wyverns, the Dragon boss and flame based weaponry more dangerous to players using Hallucigenia.
Thank you for your consideration.
Well, that's my more fleshed out idea for this creature submission anyway.
I really want some kind of water based creature to win one of these competitions and this was probably the most unknown and unusual creature I could think of to submit.
Thanks to anyone and everyone who votes for it and if you've never heard of Hallucigenia before, say Hello to this strange little guy in the picture attached.
(Credit to the artist who made this image)
We didn't make it last time but new submission contest means we get another shot to put this unique and funky little worm into ARK.
Thanks to everyone who voted for this creature in the last contest, hopefully we'll get more votes this time
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