Cult of the Blob

[Podrick Equus]

[Edit: Added a bunch of suggestions to the game mechanics. I suppose you could consider this an alternative game mode, rather than a rework]

Many people I've seen in discussion about the Blob seem to view it unfavorably as an antagonist as it is usually "not very fun" to play against, even when you are winning. I had an idea that might remedy that, and I'm ready for it to be torn to shreds.

As many of you probably know, some other servers have a Blood Cultist as an antagonist. The goal of the cultist is to sacrifice people to summon a dark god to wreak havoc on the station. When I read about it, I had a thought: What if we had something like that, but instead of worshiping a dark god, they worshiped the Blob instead?

The purpose of this "Cult of the Blob" would be simple: Ensure that their gelatinous master grows and devours the entire station.

In regards to how this might actually work as far as game mechanics go, I have the following thoughts.

• There is only One Blob, not two.
  
• The number of Cultists would be proportional to the number of crew members (1 Cultist for every 10 Crew I suppose? Math is hard)
  
• The Cultists start the round like normal crew members, and are indistinguishable from them. As the Blob grows, they start to transform into human shaped blobs, revealing their servitude. They become slower, and actions may take longer to complete. Medicine heals less, or not at all. They become more resistant to brute damage and more vulnerable to fire and certain poisons. Eventually, their heads may take on the shape of a nucleus. (and no headgear can be worn to conceal it)
  
• If a Cultist strays too far from the Blob, they start to slowly lose health. Being near or touching the Blob would slowly restore that lost health. This would not heal Cultists from damage inflicted by other sources.
  
• The Cultists share a hivemind-type chat with the Blob and each other.
  
• The Cultists possess no spells initially, but can gain some (weak spells) as the Blob grows.
  
• The Cultists cannot recruit new members conventionally. Anyone who is absorbed by the Blob can be "revived" as a lesser Blobling(name pending?) with limited ability to interact with the world. If they stray too far from the Blob, they will lose health rapidly. The Blob would need to spend resources and research an upgrade in order to create a Blobling.
  
• The Blob may also revive dead Cultists as Bloblings.
  
• Bloblings and Cultists that have undergone visual transformations are not considered Human by synthetics.
  
• If the Blob's final nucleus dies, a Cultist may perform a ritual (A spell with 30 seconds of self-harm and standing still?) to sacrifice themselves to create a new nucleus. If multiple Cultists try to create Nuclei at a time, only the first once succeeds. The new Nucleus is controlled by the same Blob player that died earlier.
  
• The round does not end until the Blob has been dead for at least 3(?) minutes, or until it consumes 500 tiles' worth of space like the current blob objective.
  

The presence of human servants to the Blob would allow for several weaknesses of the Blob to be remedied, such as being spotted early or being overwhelmed. The Cultists could "prepare" an area by cutting the camera wires so the A.I. can't see, or by bolting and guarding doors to allow the Blob to expand.

The hope behind this idea is that it'd make the Blob more fun and interactive as a whole. I hope that this is interesting enough to warrant discussion.

[UrsulaMejor]

a Crew of 40 peeps would mean 4 cultists, I.e, 5 free nuclei. that's a pretty huuuuuuge buff out the gate. hard pass on that ability

involving more people makes it pretty fun, though I'm not sure this is the way to do it

[Podrick Equus]

The Cultists would not be able to create more Nuclei unless all of the Nuclei are dead, and even then they could not make more than one at a time. (And they'd have to sacrifice one of themselves to do it)

And yeah, the idea was to try to involve more people.

[MrMagolor]

This seems cool, but: it doesn't really make sense to call it a "cult" if there's no way at all to convert people to their "religion".

[Podrick Equus]

This seems cool, but: it doesn't really make sense to call it a "cult" if there's no way at all to convert people to their "religion".

That's a good point. Perhaps if, instead of just being able to revive dead cultists, the Blob could expend a large amount of resources to revive someone that it has consumed into an additional cultist? That would both add a way to "convert" people (The Blob would have to absorb their body) and it'd give dead players something to look forward to.

[MrMagolor]

This seems cool, but: it doesn't really make sense to call it a "cult" if there's no way at all to convert people to their "religion".

That's a good point. Perhaps if, instead of just being able to revive dead cultists, the Blob could expend a large amount of resources to revive someone that it has consumed into an additional cultist? That would both add a way to "convert" people (The Blob would have to absorb their body) and it'd give dead players something to look forward to.

But, y'know, as is the issue with all conversion game-types, people will just throw themselves into the blob to be converted into an antag.

[Podrick Equus]

Okay, that's also a good point. What would you suggest then?

[FULLDEMOCRATICCOMMUNISTFASCISM]

What if being a blobman sucks, but not as much as being not converted (dead). Like somehow when it starts to adsorb you or whatever you can either be converted or die. While conversion will come with some cool perks like not being dead and maybe even the revival thing it would still have some debuffs making it undesirable such as maybe:

* Automated security systems like guardbuddies going after you.
* The emergency shuttle re-routing into the sun if there's only you and other beings like you on it.
* Security killing you on-sight.
* Slowness.
* Losing health and/or the ability to regain HP when you're far away from the blob.
* Synths no longer considering you "human".
* The HoS activating a self-destruct if command become compromised. (I still think the station should have a nuke but that's a different story.)

[Studenterhue]

Okay, that's also a good point. What would you suggest then?

MBC once discussed some really interesting thoughts about conversion antags through the lens of general game design. Basically, the general idea is that you have to somehow be "worse" off after you converted. For example, zombie thralls need on blood. Flockdrones are weak to brute damage, the conversion process takes a good while, and the flock is just as likely to kill you for resources as to convert you (this, of course, applies to all antags). In the defunct Martian mode, the Martians had less equipment slots, less health, and were generally kinda janky (though this is really unintended).  Mindslaves and revs are at the mercy of their controller, but this is a bit iffy because the latter tends to be pretty merciful these days. Gang in is an exception in that it limits of the number of people able to become antag.

Personally, I'd recommend that the cultists become gradually less human and more blob-like as their blobby blob god of blobs's influence over them grows. Since we're dealing something entirely alien and nonhuman and are absolutely not in any way bound to "lore" or realism, we've room for some really crazy, unconventional, and, most importantly, unique downsides. Some ideas:

• Cultists' movement speed slows, reflecting their lazy-ass blobby blob god's general immobility.
  

• Cultist limbs become more blobalicious and pseudopod-like. Actions take longer time to complete, and cultists have trouble using certain tools, especially guns.
  
  
• Medicine heals less (and eventually not all) because it doesn't work on blobbish...flesh?
  
  
• Certain poisons hurt blob cultists more, especially ones that blobbity blobss are naturally weak to, like sarin.
  
  
• Similarly, fire hurts them more.
  
  
• Their eyes gradually merge into a single iris, similar to the one on the blorpity blobbity nucleus, rather graphically. Some tasks have a higher chance of failing, and aiming is harder because of the lack of depth perception.
  

• Their heads slowly take on the shape of nucleus. This makes hats took stupid on them.
  

[Wisecrack34]

I like the overall, general idea, hope it gets added once all the kinks are worked out. I think it'd be pretty cool if they constantly were losing health when not within a certain range of the blob, when they are then said damage would be healed. This would allow members to jump between attacking the crew, gathering supplies, destroying weapons and defending the blob. This would also prevent blob membrainers from f-ing off to the adventure zone or something. Yeah they can survive there but there ain't no blob there to keep em from falling apart due to hasty construction. I also like the idea of them getting more blobby as time goes on, though I feel that this should act as more of a buff/reward for surviving longer that has a number of downsides dealing with dehumanization, maybe even have a small skill tree that bloblets can go through to "pick their class" as they grow on. Some potential upgrades could be that your pockets can be used without clothes and eventually even be used as hands themselves, you can heal yourself instantly of homesick damage by touching the blob, maybe have a fire resistance trait that lowers your overall durability by 25% but makes you take half fire damage? Lots of potential options for blumans

[Podrick Equus]

I've updated the initial post with a bunch of suggestions, thanks everyone!

[Recusor]

seems like a neat idea. Also, it might make sense to have something similar to gangs where only a certain amount of blob-ists are available at a time, maybe that can be upgraded using EVO points too?

[Podrick Equus]

seems like a neat idea. Also, it might make sense to have something similar to gangs where only a certain amount of blob-ists are available at a time, maybe that can be upgraded using EVO points too?

That's probably for the best. I'm not sure how high the limit should be, I'm not very good at precise balancing.

[Wisecrack34]

1 per 50 tiles?

[Recusor]

maybe even like 2 or 3 per nucleus?