agaricus5
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1838
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged
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Dungeon Chameleon (0)
This giant lizard likes to hide in damp and overlooked corners of cellars and dungeons where it watches for its prey, anything it can catch, to walk by, and then catches it with its long sticky tongue.
It is an unpleasant pest to deal with because it, like spiders, can change its coat colour to the same one as the square it is standing on, so being a hard-to-spot creature on all types of floor (But it probably won't be altogether invisible as Beethro needs to be able to see its orientation at least once in a while - see below). It, like normal chameleons, has a very long tongue, and will not hesitate to use it if it's hungry or feels threatened by anything. It normally sits on its chosen square, unmoving, and waits for something, either Beethro or another monster, to pass by. When it steps into a four square radius around the Chameleon, the Chameleon will instantly turn towards it and lash out with its tongue, which attaches to the unfortunate prey and pulls it back to the waiting jaws of the Chameleon. The Chameleon is fairly lazy and if two or more monsters or Beethro and a monster step into its tongue range, the one in the closest direction to the one it is facing will be the preferred catch. If for any reason, two monsters are at the same angle difference to the Chameleon, it will become undecided as to which to eat, and won't bother trying to catch either of them. The Chameleon is, however, rather greedy, and once it has caught its prey, it will stop to eat and digest its prey for five moves, in which time it will not try to catch anything else.
If Beethro manages to step within a 3 square radius of it at all during this time, the Chameleon will immediately try to run away from Beethro, running along walls if in a corner as well as using a mixture or goblin/roach queen running behaviors. If it manages to get five squares away from Beethro, it will stop and wait there for one move, while it changes colour again to the colour of the tile it is on, before being ready to eat again.
Chameleons will attack all monsters, including un-stabbable monsters like "The Globule", but not Tar, Brains, electrified ones, monsters larger than one square, and serpents.
If a brain is present, then the Chameleon will try to chase after Beethro like a roach under a brain, although if a monster steps within its tongue range, then it will eat that first and pause for five moves to digest it before resuming its chase after Beethro.
The Chameleon, however, will ignore mimics, follow force arrows, and will not be ably to stick its tongue through force arrows pointing the wrong way.
One last thing. A thought came to me - Do you think Chameleons should be able to stick their tongues through Teleports and Teleportation Tunnels and make them come out of the other side?
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Resident Medic/Mycologist
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