For our third monstrous profile of Book II, we decided to give you a look at a species of deadly plant that grows in the wilds of Eschalon: the Sentinel Stalk.

Direct Link: http://basiliskgames.com/monster3.html

BW, This plant is I am sure the plant is deadly accurate. Not only that it will clean up the mess after it is done! Book II is shaping up to be one wicked games!

A nasty version of Spiderweb's Geneforge spinecores. That high health makes for a long battle where you get to suck up damage just waiting for it to drop.

Purely coincidence, I can assure you! I have never played the Geneforge games as thoroughly as the Avernum games, and so I was not aware that such a thing existed until just now when I Googled it. Great minds think alike, I guess!

A simple question about the monster's pedia.
It will be in the game menu or the character has to buy it in a book shop or bazar?

Would be great if the hero could collect seeds and plant those babies in his own front yard. A new 'gardening' skill can be useful.

Nasty sounding creature, especially for non-magic users.

I would also suspect based on the description that there should be a larger number of dead bodies to pilfer around these plants. After all they won't be stealing the gold and armour from the dead.

Corpse Root eh? I like the sound of that. It's by far the most sinister mushroom I've ever heard of. Really it's a wonder it's not poisonous... Wait, did I just give an idea? (Shh...)

In explaining that the reason for the shooting of the barbs is not defense but offense I smiled, cause then I thought, "Oh, so it's okay to hate it then, as it is evil."

I can almost see a garden of them surrounding the tower of a solitary wizard in the middle of a forest.

Another cool monster like what I am seeing so far

So if I get into trouble with another monster, can I cast that nifty missle shield and run under the plant for protection? It would be nice to watch the plant kill the monster chasing you. How do you like my new weapon? I sure hope you still get the xp for killing the monster in a creative way.

It's starting to look like Thaermoore was a rather safe area to wander around in, compared to the beasties we will have to deal with in the here to fore unexplored provinces. Book II is shaping up quite well as an interesting and dangerous world to explore! I may have to try to get into the beta test program just so I can start playing sooner!!

While I don't think this was a ripoff of any sort, a few clarifications are in order. The Geneforge creation that closely resembles this monster is not the spinecore, it is the turret, which in fact looks almost identical both in terms of graphics and description, except that the turret is not puffy at the top.

Additionally, not having played Geneforge is not the best defense, because turrets also appeared under different names (different types of fungi, like "burning fungus") in Avernum 4 and Avernum 5.

Given the frequency with which Eschalon and Avernum are compared, as a dev, I would want to be aware of this.

Scary plant...

Don't forget to change "long-rang armor piercing" into "long-range armor piercing" in the final version. I think "in only most remote" sounds better if changed to "only in the most remote". Also I'd change "7 Armor Rating" into "Armor Rating 7" but that's debatable.

Oh..getting pedantic again...

Got a great chuckle out of "evolutionary reason" though.