BONUS MONSTER 30:

Counterfeit Cereal Vampire
HUSKTODAWN

CLASS: BOTANICAL

Free, additional supplementary monsters for the Mortasheen Tabletop RPG Core Rulebook, created by Jonathan Wojcik, additional writing and all gameplay stats by Bonnie Saucier. For use with the gameplay system by Morgan Mullins!

*Today's monster written by Bonnie, edited by myself.

My Vampire contacts in the midwesterly region of the wastes have gone radio silent for the past few days, and I fear what may be drawing their collective attention.
-From the journal of Doctor Forbos, Shade Vampirologist

Description:
This monster has a body like an emaciated, rubbery bat or pterosaur with huge, membranous wings that taper into thin strands. Its "head" is a segmented, bony looking stalk that splits into a ring of many twiglike digits, surrounding a large soft tongue that branches like a wisp of smoke or a gout of flame. It has no legs, but its "tail" ends in what looks exactly like a giant, upside-down ear of corn, with a wispy open husk and pulsing, glistening kernels that evoke red and orange eyeballs.

BIOLOGY:
This immensely powerful Botanical integrates far more Vampire-class genetics than the otherwise unrelated Dracadaisy, and can be considered functionally "paravampiric." Its botanic characteristics bear a strong resemblance to the mutant retronatural maize that grows throughout the outer scrub-wastes, sharing the same razor-edged "leaves" that absorb blood or other bodily fluids through capillary action.

  Though it lacks the polyDNAvirus unique to the Vampire class, the Husktodawn's kernels carry infectious psychondria and emit a subtle psigital lure, infesting the nervous system of any sentient enough host that ingests them. Once excreted, a kernel quickly develops into a demimonstrous botaniform indistinguishable from a cornstalk, which the host is compelled to continue protecting and nurturing as it collects blood and produces even more kernels. Over time, the monster's collective mind can grow into entire fields of paravampiric pseudomaize tended by a legion of mentally dominated "gardeners." Even without vassals, the monster constantly nourishes a number of "overripe" kernels on a supply of its own blood, ready to hatch into small but fully functional stalks from the moment they're shed.

  When forced to defend itself directly or incapacitate a feistier meal, the Husktodawn can inject a chemical compound through its tongue-like stinger that instantaneously expands into a dense foam on contact with liquid, tearing apart an unfortunate recipient from within as their bloodstream bursts into hardened, airy clots.

BEHAVIOR:
The Husktodawn comports itself as any genuine Vampire, with a grandiose ego and diabolical intellect to match. It seeks open, empty plains and deserts where it can stake out a wide territory, avoiding conflict with its supposed conspecifics and amassing as many vassals as it can, particularly targeting retrohumans. The first recorded Husktodawn caused quite a stir among Vampire networks, investigated as a potential meta or retrohuman bioweapon against their kind, and many prominent Vampiric researchers fell to the monster's unexpected power before it was determined to be a metanatural mutation acting only in the interests of its own survival. Earning the respect of the Vampiric underlords as an "honorary" Vampire Count in its own right, any unauthorized replication, dissection, or unnecessary assault upon a feral Husktodawn continues to draw the same ire from Vampires as they typically reserve in defense of their own brethren.

  A Husktodawn Count is more than willing to distribute its kernels for their many culinary applications, resulting in a variety of sweeteners, pastries and other products that retain some of their infectious properties within up to a dozen kilometers of the monster. It is not uncommon for cults to form around the many uses for its kernels, and in some cases the Botanical may be forced to flee from the overwhelming attention of the overeager thralls.

Concept Notes:

A vampire corn is a concept Bonnie specifically asked for over a year or so ago, and serves as callback to when I turned a slightly baffling coloring book page into one of this website's oldest, silliest Halloween events.

The formatting is long broken, but you can see the original "Vampires Eating Corn" Fanart Contest here. All the monster's lore and abilities are also Bonnie's elaboration on my design sketches; as you've probably noticed, she had to take over a lot of the work for this month-long promotional content to happen, and I still fell behind as it still took me hours a day to make the artwork, assemble the statblocks and write or edit each monster's bio.

This is the very last one before the game "goes live" for the first time.