So im new on the forum and noticed the monster contest, that is long over so oh well, still had an idea i thought i'd put out there even though it may be taken. This is a 'monster' that can appear on literally any planet, its origin is unknown, and its made up natural terrain like a golem or elemental might be. They can be trees, dirt, rocks, mud, lava, almost any block. They are undetectable until touched, either by walking on them as they are grass, or attempting to mine one. You might be digging underground and find a vein of a nice mineral you need, thats all it will look like. You'll try to mine it, and there will be sound, and blood, and you will know you done bad. The material will come to life and break free of immediate surrounding confining blocks to attack you, mining weapons will work against these monsters who need broken to pieces until they stop moving. They'll reward you with the material they are made of, naturally. They are basically Mimics but in the form of material instead of chests, and the name is derived from Terror + Terrain. I think they'd be a genuiningly scary monster since they are completely unpredictable and more lethal based on the rarity of the material they are composed of. The names kind of a mouthful, need a better one, like Terrabio?
Although I live this idea I think it would be really nerve-wracking if they spawned ALL over the place. In order to make then less of a problem I would make them relatively rare, like 6-8 on a planet at any given time (depending on the size of the planet of course). I also think that this doesn't necessarily have to be made out of materials, but rather covered with them as a form of camouflage that also protects them from attackers. This would be a VERY useful adaptation for any animal. A way you could tell that one's there is the size of the ore vein and how close it is to an open space. In order to burrow itself into the vein while disguising itself as said mineral it would have to push the ore outward making it protrude a bit! I think that once awakened it would look like a golem with small amounts of dark-coloured flesh in between. Mining tools could do more damage to it than conventional weapons do, and at certain health levels (75%,50%,25%,0%) it would drop ore, totalling in 4-8 pieces per monster. As for the name, maybe Gialax?
They'd have to be rare and powerful to maintain any kind of scare level, but mining tools being extra good against them kind of goes with them being actually made of the material which also adds to the mystery of them as a species and lets them scale up with materials. Alternatively and maybe more simply, it could be a collection of block sized ravenous resource monsters that all split apart and attack when any of them are struck. I like the name, kind of like 'sleeping earth'. I'm sure there will be scanner tools of some sort later for detecting them but until then i think it would be best if the size varied as much as the material so you cant just spot them. Of course now just imagine what you could do if you captured one ? Decorate it into any material you want and hide them in your house for friends.
