Additive Monster

Basic Information

An Additive Monster is a fictional or mythological creature that has extra duplicate limbs or similar duplication. Additive Monsters who are very similar to existing animals, but have more of certain body parts than you might expect. Examples: Sleipnir has 8 legs, an Ettin has 2 heads, the Lernean Hydra grows new heads whenever it is attacked, etc.

Compare and contrast with Composite Monster, a creature made up with parts of multiple different animal types. It's quite common for composite monsters to also be additive monsters, such as the Chimera which had heads from three mundane species attached to a single body.

Sources

Bibliography

1. full source reference

Game and Story Use

• The duplicate body parts should give a clue as to what tasks the Additive Monster is especially good at, or marks an area where it really needs some help. It would be really lame is if the extra parts didn't communicate anything about the creature to the viewer. It should never be "average" in anything that's associated with the duplicated bits.
  • Example of being really good: Sleipnir is really fast because of all those legs, and he's probably more stable and sure-footed as well
  • Example of being impaired and needing the help: An Ettin's 2 heads traditionally mark that it's not very bright.
• If your system has hit location rules, the duplicate parts might be either redundant backups (beheading a hydra barely even slows it down unless you can get all the heads at once) or extra targets (the creature has two of a major artery, and hitting either will cause severe bleeding).
• The "expanding regenerator" type of additive monster can be a nasty recurring opponent. If you wound it but fail to kill, it'll be back even stronger.