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Water skipper
Waterskippers
They strike from the shoreline
Monster ID 16
Layer Monster
Movement Normal beelining
First appears DROD 3.0
Is required Yes
Is brain visible No
For the DROD RPG monster, see Water skipper (RPG).

Water skippers (or waterskippers) are aquatic monsters located in rivers and lakes both above and beneath. Despite being restricted to water, they are just as deadly as all the other fearsome beasts of the world.

Description[]

Waterskippers are carnivorous animals, occurring naturally throughout the Eighth. Over the millennia, the Rooted Empire engineered waterskippers to live underground and defend their tunnels. When the Onsuary Floods strike, the Empire uses the temporary underground lakes that form to insert waterskippers into dungeons

When they reach maturity, a male and a female waterskipper will make a nest on the water, scavenging sand and branches from nearby areas and solidifying them into rough piles with their saliva. After the nest is finished and a brief mating dance is performed, the female occupies the nest and begins to spawn offspring at a prodigious rate, three times faster than the roach queen, herself no slouch in this department. Waterskipper offspring are born ready to slaughter prey with terrifying efficiency.

Waterskippers prefer to stay in the water but are happy to leap onto land to devour their prey. Unwary targets are all too easily overwhelmed by the sheer number of attacking beasts.[1]

Behavior[]

Visit monsters page for information on default monster behavior.
See the interactions page for a list of all interactions for this element.

Movement[]

  • Waterskippers use normal beelining movement but can only move in water and shallow water tiles.
  • Waterskippers under the influence of a brain use pathfinding movement.
  • Waterskippers can jump onto land if attacking their target, though they will respect force arrows and orthosquares.
  • Waterskippers are attracted to decoys but will not jump onto land to kill them.
  • Unlike seep, waterskippers will not die when leaving their domain. They won't be able to keep walking over land unless they jump to another target, but if a waterskipper is adjacent to a tile of water or shallow water, and that tile is between the monster and its target, it will move into the tile on its own.

Vulnerabilities[]

  • Waterskippers are vulnerable to sharp weaponspuffs, explosions, and briar.
  • Waterskippers that end up on land are also vulnerable to hot tiles, active firetraps, floor spikes, and being eaten by adders.
  • Unsurprisingly, waterskippers cannot be drowned by pushing or dropping them into water. Waterskippers can be killed by pushing or dropping them into pits.

Other[]

Trivia[]

During development for DROD 3.0, waterskippers were originally prototypes as giant ants. Ants would come out of the nest and leave a trail toward the player for subsequent ants to follow. They would have some elements of brained movement but without the brains. However, the idea was considered too difficult to implement, so the idea was scrapped and the graphics were recycled into waterskippers.[2]

External Links[]

  1. Article on waterskippers
  2. From scrolls in TSS: Developer Commentary 3E
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