Mortasheen - Lumpty

"Mustard Egg"

CLASS: BOTANICAL

This dim-witted bioweapon possesses much more animal tissue than most botanical class monsters, with only a thin outer later of plant cells genetically similar to squash or eggplant. Devouring anything it can fit into its cavernous maw, a Lumpty feeds and grows continuously until the time comes to fulfill its sole purpose: exploding. Waste products retained by the Lumpty's system become highly volatile when mixed in a central gas bladder, detonating the monster in a thick, stinking yellow acid cloud and a deadly shower of tooth and bone shrapnel. The tiny brain is housed in a virtually impenetrable black "seed" from which the monster will rapidly regenerate.

Lumpty are crudely capable of speech, but spend more time chuckling than forming anything intelligible. They are easily amused by bodily functions, human sexuality and (unsurprisingly) explosions of all sorts, making them a valuable asset in media focus groups. At least one, however, is famous for its unusual intellect and enjoys a successful career teaching chemistry.

-----------------------------------------

This replaces the Whumpling, an older monster I always thought came out too uncomfortably close to the biting pear [link] . Finally talking it over with the pear's creator we both agreed the Whumpling should be a little different, especially since she had a line of monsters called Wumplings I never even noticed.

This design was one of the original working concepts for the "Whumpling" anyway, which I later used for yet another monster, the now-retired Oddgobble.

DEAL WITH IT ....I like it better this way.