CREATURES FROM HALF LIFE 2
BARNACLE
Cirripedia donaldsonia
Val CHA Cost Roll Notes 10 STR 0 11- Lift 100 kg; 2d6 HTH Damage [1] 10 DEX 0 11- 15 CON 5 12- 8 INT -2 11- PER Roll 11- 5 EGO -5 10- 10 PRE 0 11- PRE Attack: 2d6 4 OCV 5 5 DCV 10 2 OMCV -3 2 DMCV -3 4 SPD 20 Phases: 3, 6, 9, 12 4 PD 2 Total: 4 PD (0 rPD) 3 ED 1 Total: 3 ED (0 rED) 5 REC 1 20 END 0 8 BODY -2 21 STUN 1 Total Characteristics Cost: 30 Movement: Running: 0m Leaping: 0m Swimming: 0m Cost Powers & Skills 17 Sticky Tongue: Clinging (30 STR), Area of Effect (Surface - Damage Shield) (+½); Tongue Only (-½) 26 Bite: HKA 1d6 (1d6+1 w/STR), Armor Piercing (+¼), Constant (+½), END 3 15 Unresponsive: +30 PRE; Only To Protect Against Presence Attacks (-1) 12 Sessile: Knockback Resistance -12m 1 Slow Metabolism: LS (Eating: Character only has to eat once per week) 3 Alien Biology: LS (Sleeping: Character does not sleep) 10 Limbless: No Hit Locations -2 Sessile: Leaping -4m (0m total) -12 Sessile: Running -12m (0m total) -2 Sessile: Swimming -4m (0m total) 13 Sense Vibrations: Detect Physical Contact/Vibrations 11- (Touch Group), Targeting -35 Blind: has no Sight Sense Group -25 Deaf: has no Hearing Sense Group 14 Sessile: Clinging (20 STR) 10 Tongue: Reach +10m Total Powers & Skill Cost: 92 Total Cost: 121 175+ Matching Complications (50) 20 Physical Complication: Animal Intelligence (Frequently; Greatly Impairing) 10 Physical Complication: Small (roughly 1 meter long and broad; +6 KB) (Infrequently; Slightly Impairing) 20 Physical Complication: Very Limited Manipulation (Frequently; Greatly Impairing) Total Complication Points: 50 Experience Points: 0
Ecology: Barnacles are an alien life form from the dimension of Xen, although true home is a currently unknown separate dimension/world. They came to Earth following the ‘resonance cascade’ at Black Mesa Research Facility (seen in Half Life) and by the time of Half Life 2 (set 20 years later,) they can be found all over the world.
As their name implies, barnacles are stationary animals. They are found on the undersides of any large object—be it a freeway overpass, tunnel roof, cave ceiling, or in the inside of a building. They feed via a long tongue-like appendage, and clusters of barnacles can form a virtual curtain of tentacles. This tongue is very sticky and very strong and when retracted can lift a full-grown human with ease. Barnacles use their tongues to draw up anything that might be a prey item to their mouths, and will readily feed on ant lions, birds, people, and just about anything else they can catch. Inedible items that happen to be drawn up into the mouth, such as small boats, barrels, crates, and tires, will be spat out and allowed to drop.
As far as can be determined, a barnacle doesn’t move throughout its life. Thus, how they reproduce, spread, and find a new home is a mystery. It is possible barnacles have a multi-stage life cycle, with a mobile larval stage that eventually grows into the final, adult form of a barnacle.
Personality/Motivation: Normal animal motivations.
Powers/Tactics: As stated, barnacles hunt via their long and very sticky tongues. As they have no eyes, ears, or nose, they depend only on their sense of touch to let them know when something has blundered into their tongue. Once contact has been made, the barnacle will quickly retract its tongue, drawing whatever’s stuck to it up to its mouth. The only way to escape would be to pull free from the tongue (not an easy task) or to kill the barnacle. As the tongue doesn’t wrap around the body, this can be a fairly easy task for a well-armed human (most animals are out of luck.) Food items will be devoured by the barnacle’s strong jaws, while non-food items will be released. Anything drawn into a barnacle’s jaws will be subject to a non-stop series of bites as the creature attempts to force it prey into its gullet via sheer brute force. They can eat a human being in a matter of moments, and once having fed will digest their prey slowly before spitting out the bones and other objects.
Appearance: A barnacle is a short, barrel-like creature, roughly three to four feet in length and about two to three feet wide. They are dark in color with a roughly square body. The mouth has four large teeth, each set into a muscular pillar. The tongue is long and thin and can extent to nearly 10 meters.
Designer's Notes: The Barnacle is one of the alien creatures found in Valve Software’s Half Life and Half Life 2. Much of the information here was taken from direct game play, as well as the Combine OverWiki. The stats given here are a mix of conjecture, game play descriptions, and an attempt to present in-game concepts in a manner consistent with the HERO System.
You can easily modify the Barnacle to make it more of a threat. For starters, you can give it a 1-2 meters of Running, allowing it to creep along and find fresh hunting grounds. You could also give it 1-2 points of Restraint PD and ED. Based on comments found on the Combine OverWiki, you could even give the Barnacle a form of Choke Hold, either as a Martial Maneuver, or as an NND Advantage to its tongue-based STR.
(Barnacle created by Valve Software, character sheet created by Michael Surbrook)
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