Introducing the Hallucigenia: The Fearful Monster Worm

[Yeetboy101]

Dossier:

 

Common Name: Hallucigenia

 

Species: Hallucigenia Monstrumvernis

 

Time: Cambrian

 

Diet: Carnivore

 

Temperament: Aggressive

 

Wild

 

If I haven't seen Hallucigenia Monstrumvernis in the flesh, I would've assumed it was made up or from some Sci-Fi flick, yet its mere existence shocks me. While Hallucigenia have an almost alien-like appearance, they are actually a relative of modern day velvet worms. Unlike the fossils of Hallucigenia already discovered, Hallucigenia Monstrumvernis is as big as a small car and has rows of teeth in its mouth. The scariest part of Hallucigenia is its chemicals stored in its body. The chemicals can be sprayed out of the bottom arms or the top spikes of the Hallucigenia in the form of gas. The unidentified chemical causes anybody who inhales to panic and hallucinate, making any target easy prey.

 

Hallucigenia mostly stays in the shallow part of the ocean, where sea life won’t attack it, but sometimes comes out to hunt on beaches. Once Hallucigenia finds prey, it shoots slime-like substances out of its main pair of arms, and then drags its prey in. The Hallucigenia then injects its bottom arms and toxin into its victim, securing the kill and allowing Hallucigenia to start eating away at its victim alive. Even if a man or creature escapes the grasp in a drugged state, Hallucigenia can use the slime excreted from the top arms as tentacles, allowing it to whip its opponents from farther away.

 

Domesticated:

 

While I haven’t found how to domesticate a Hallucigenia, my theory is that if a chemical were to counteract its own immunity to its fear toxins, then it would be acceptable to domesticate. The survivors that have managed to tame Hallucigenia have used its unique anatomy to its fullest potential. The fear toxins allow Hallucigenia to defend itself from predators, other survivors, and can even make creatures more acceptable to tranquilizers. I’ve even seen survivors demonstrate its mobility, by teaching Hallucigenia to curl up in a ball and roll on its sturdy spikes. Hallucigenia might give most survivors nightmares, but if you can get over that, then you have yourself one of the most useful and bizarre creatures a survivor can tame.

 

Gameplay

 

Wild Information: Hallucigenia is around the size of a Baryonx and will mostly spawn in the shallow end of the ocean, and very rarely spawn on the beach itself. It will only attack small to medium sized creatures and all creatures will ignore it unless attacked. Once the Hallucigenia aggros onto something small enough, it will grab it and damage its target similar to a Bloodstalker. You can swing to get out of the grab and if a target does, then it will chase it while spray its toxins

 

Taming Information: Hallucigenia is a passive tame that can only be fed on land once affected by its own fear gas. The Hallucigenia can be led onto land by attaching itself to an aquatic tame. The only way to make them affected by their own gasses is to shoot ammonite bile arrows/darts into the Hallucigenia. After it is affected by its toxin it will start to flee and allow the survivor to feed it. Its favorite food is Mindwipe toxins, which make it an instant tame, but mutton and raw meat can work as well.

 

Creature abilities:

 

Passive: Deals 25% damage from melee attack back at target. Immune to Paranoia unless affected by Ammonite bile. Can move in horizontal directions. Saddle has a built in oxygen tank built in, so players mounted are immune to any toxic gasses (Poison grenades, Poison Balls, Hallucigenia Toxin, etc).

 

New Status:

 

Paranoia is a debuff that can stack up to 100. Once infected with Paranoia between 1-99%, the target will take 25% more damage and deal 30% less damage. If fully infected with Paranoia, the target will take 80% damage from Hallucigenia. If the target is a tamed creature at 100%, they have a similar visual effect to a Yuty fear and run away. If the target is a human with 100%, they will be blinded like a Yuty debuff, but will also have their game volume lowered, except for Hallucigenia sound effects, which will randomly play or can  replace other creature sound effects. Wild creatures at full Paranoia will take 30% more torpor damage. Paranoia will slowly decrease over time, or can be quickly decreased by Yuty and Mammoth buff.

 

First Ability, or RT::

 

Slash: Hallucigenia will swing its top arms at anybody close. If nothing is in its attack range, it will extend its attack with hardened slime coming out of its tentacles. This attack will have a 8 foundation range, but has very little horizontal AOE. This attack does a little more damage then a Bloodstalker melee.

 

Second Ability: Hold RT

 

Grab: Like a Bloodstalker, the Hallucigenia will grab its target with its extended tentacles and pull the target closer. It can grab the same creature that the Bloodstalker can and has the same range as a Bloodstalker grab, but the Hallucigenia reticle will not have an aim assist and it will take a second windup for Hallucigenia to start the grab animation. Once grabbed, the target will slowly get infected with Paranoia. Once fully pulled in, the Hallucigenia will inject its lower arm into the target, giving it 100% Paranoia and start sucking on the head of the target. This attack will deal a bit more damage than a Bloodstalker grab, but has no armor piercing. If used on an aquatic or swimming tame that is above its drag weight, it will grapple itself to it. 

 

Third Ability: or LB and RT

 

Fear Toxin: The Hallucigenia has a HUD meter that shows the amount of Fear Toxin in its reservoir. Hallucigenia oxygen is replaced with Fear Toxin Capacity, which can be leveled, but very little. Once LB is held, the Hallucigenia will slow down like a Velonsaur and main attacks switch to the Fear Toxin stance. Once used, the Hallucigenia will spray orange fear gas into the air from a distance of 4 foundations then linger for 3 seconds and depletes Fear Toxin from its reservoir. It is like a flamethrower except it stays for a couple of seconds.The gas texture will be an orange poison grenade that is easier to see through. If in the gas, a target will quickly stack Paranoia. If the target wears a hazmat helmet or gas mask, they are immune. Cannot work underwater. Ally creatures and players can be affected. Doesn’t stack with Yuty fear, instead applying more Yuty fear if Yuty fear is already applied, and vice versa.

 

Fourth Ability: or LB and LT

 

Fear Toxin AOE: The Hallucigenia will go into Fear Toxin stance and spray Fear Toxin out of its top spikes, which surround it in a 4x4 foundation radius. Everything is the same as the normal Fear Toxin attack, except it depletes more Fear Toxin. Cannot work underwater. Ally creatures and players can be affected.

 

Fifth Ability: or LT

 

Mobility Stance: Hallucigenia will roll up into a ball, a lot like a Roll Rat. The Hallucigenia will not deal damage and will be slightly slower than a Roll Rat, but the turn radius is greatly decreased. Unlike the Roll Rat, Hallucigenia doesn’t move forward once the Mobility Stance is activated.

 

Sixth Ability: or A

 

Jump: Does a small jump. If used in a Mobility stance, the Hallucigenia will jump the same height, but still have momentum and can use its melee and grab attack while in the air.

 

Seventh Ability: or Right Stick

 

Toggle Climb/Sink: Hallucigenia has a climb similar to Rock Drake and Megalania, and can sink and attach to the ground underwater like an Andrewsarchus.

 

Other Information: The Hallucigenia can be affected by radiation. Immune to fall damage. Can breathe underwater. Anything from Argy and up can pick it up. It has normal breeding with breeding stats comparable to a Mantis. The Saddle can be unlocked at level 72 and crafted in the fabricator. At the same level, Ammonite Arrows can be made, which is an arrow that gives the ammonite debuff.  Immune to fear. Can be hit with bola and net. Weapons cannot be used on this creature.

 

Gameplay Uses: The main purpose of this creature is to lock down areas and take down any threats that come close to it. It has amazing offensive capabilities with its high mobility, disjointed long attacks, and a dismount. Its paranoia can also completely counter enemy players by disabling all of their senses and by being able to deal massive range blows. It also has amazing defensive abilities, with its fear toxin being able to stop enemy pushing to certain areas, unless they want to get Paranoia, which buffs Hallucigenia’s already good range attacks, and can also obscure vision with the gas being kind of hard to see through, and its damage reflection being icing on the cake.The weakness of this creature, however, is that it cannot do all of this at once and has several counters. The main negative about Hallucigenia is that its a glass cannon with its heath stat being around the same amount as a Terror Bird. For it to be amazing at defense, it has to be slow and predictable, meaning the rider is acceptable to be shot at. Also Paranoia doesn’t stack all at once and Hallucigenia has no damage option while spraying fear toxins, so swift offensive attacks can take one out, with the cost of suffering from partial side effects. Not to mention gas masks and hazmat helmets completely negate the gasses’ effects and Yuty and Mammoth, both popular creatures in the current meta, can greatly reduce the time for Paranoia to go away. For it to be amazing at offense it has to get out of a secure area and be acceptable to attacks that it cannot handle with most mobility-based creatures, such as wyverns, tropes, and manas, being able to take Hallucigenia down with ease. Any ranged attack completely negates Hallucigenia damage reflection. Hallucigenia is a skill based tame that relies on strong follow through to be good with, and good placement and understatement of surroundings. If you can do that then you have yourself one of the best creatures in the game, that can counter most non-mobile creatures in the game, including Gigas. It doesn’t take away from other creatures like Bloodstalkers and Yuty either, with Bloodstalkers being more mobile and easy to use, and Yuty having a better ranged debuff that is better for teammates than itself. For any PVE player, this thing is also a taming machine, making tranq more effective to use, and being a pretty good mobility creature on the right maps.

 

Overall, this creature might not be meta defining, with it rather being very strong or very weak, it will be a fun addition to the games, with it still having a fun and unique design but also keeping it down to earth unlike later expansion pack creatures.

 

I wanted more Cambrian creatures in Ark because they are so weird looking, you would expect them to be a Wildcard original creature, but turns out they actually existed, which really gives light to the crazy amount of insane looking organisms that lived on our planet. The main fear gimmick is based on the name of Hallucigenia, which was given to it by its “”bizarre and dream-like quality” as described by the people who discovered the fossils. Hallucigenia sounds like hallucinate, and what would be a better concept then to give it something that had to do with   making the player and other creatures hallucinate, and at the same time making its fear unique in how it works and how it is applied. Its arms shooting out slime is a concept taken from its later ancestor, the velvet worms, who shoot the slime to capture prey. I didn’t want it to have a debuff and a crowd control ability, so I gave it the ability to use the slime as tentacles extending from its arms to make it more alien-like.

 

Pictures (I do not own any of these)

 

Edited June 4, 2023 by Yeetboy101

[Romuluas]

Interesting Ideas!

[Teratus]

We are back for Round 3 people!! ^^
With Rag being one of the few big maps in ARK with large regions of water I am once again re-submitting my idea for this wicked little worm to make it into ARK.
Thanks again to everyone who supported this creature in previous competitions.
 

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 so 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, as well as more danger for those who are unlucky to get grabbed by one unintentionally.

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/or 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 melee 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 should 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.

A fully imprinted Hallucigenia should gain a pretty nice damage increase to it's recoil damage as well as the general stat increases imprinting usually gives.
This would be a big incentive for players to actually go for 100% imprint. 

(Important) Potential food stat misuse issue.
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 decent 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 fair hard cap somewhere.

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 grabbing 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 a much slower rate, the Hallucigenia acting like a sort of living Scuba tank substitute to some degree allowing players to stay underwater longer than they normally could with their oxygen stat.
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 active 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.
While wearing a tamed Hallucigenia, players could become immune to the stealing effects of Wild and Tamed Pegomastax and Ichthyornis.
They will still attack players like normal but in doing so they will take recoil damage from your Hallucigenia instead of stealing your items.

 

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 promote 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.
Choosing Hallucigenia also means you can't use any Tek Jetpacks either, this maybe a deal breaker for some but at the end of the day the choice is yours and in some situations I would think taking Hallucigenia is the better option.

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 too 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 player while it is draining the life from them, leaving them more 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 resources, 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 current 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)

[Teratus]

Looks like you beat me too it this time OP and our entries got merged lol

Apologies to the mods for not noticing that btw.

 

I'm glad to see Hallucigenia is gaining some popularity, it already has more votes this time time around than the first time I submitted it.
I love how alien and out of this world it looks despite being a legit, extinct, real world life form so it totally qualifies in the rules for these competitions.

Admittedly that is one of the reasons I choose it

I do hope WC will allow for fantasy/fictional creatures when the Aberration and maybe Extinction creature submissions come around, at the very least for Aberration considering it's theme and all, and of course mythology for Fjordur.
But I guess we'll have to wait and see about that.

Until them we have Hallucigenia to keep submitting in the hope that it's strange and alien like appearance may win over enough people to make it into the game ^^

But if it doesn't, I hope at least once.. a water creature wins one of these.
We've had land winners and flier winners.
Now, water needs to win one!!  

[Yeetboy101]

I hundred percent agree. I like your shoulder pet concept too, I like it how their are drawbacks to using it to justify using other shoulder pets in certain situations. I don't like upscaling creature too much, I just think if you were to upscale the Hallucigenia there would more possibility. I have another Cambrian worm concept  Facivermis, which is an 8 legged worm with a bulb tail, I might of upscaled that one way too much. I think Hallucigenia would be a perfect Aberration creature and I been praying they make a fictional creature vote. Thanks for support Hallucigenia and I don't care if a mount or shoulder pet, I just want it in the game.

[Teratus]

Same ^^
I'd love to see this creature in the game regardless of how WC choose to implement it, and I completely agree that Aberration would be one of the most fitting map's for it tbh.

It's so alien looking and freaky, it would fit really well in that map despite there not being all that much water.

There's certainly a lot of different ways Hallucigenia could be done as a creature in ARK, and I really like the way your idea focused more on toxins and hallucinating too.
I did try to include a little of that into my idea design as well but it was more of an afterthought to the main things I wanted to focus on.

 

It is good to see other people trying to include things in their creature designs that are not really all that commonly used in the PvE game.
Like how you mentioned using Pheromone Darts as part of the taming process, I love that ^^
I can't say I've ever had a reason to use those in PvE tbh, same for things like Tripwire Traps which could also be a really fun thing to add into a creature's taming requirements one day.