Splumonkeys should be shadow aligned

[Jakepeng99]

It just makes sense.

[cropo]

This is just a headcanon but i do not think they are shadow aligned, they are non-consensually affected and altered by the nightmare fuel while still being alive. They do not have any allegience or will to take and use the nightmare fuel, just as pigs do not seem to consent to being affected by the moon transforming them(if that is a lunar thing although I'm not sure about pigs because that's a whole unexplained phenomenon that can be a topic of its own),

 

You might say ''But the new bosses are lunar aligned and were transformed'', but I see it more that the gestalts themselves are sentient, and they are piloting the dead body of their host. When you stun Crystalclops for example, you see the Gestalt leak out of its eye, and that is what you're attacking.

 

Lunar frogs? They fall from the sky, they aren't possessed by a gestalt, they're made from whatever is raining them down. Although I have yet to see them so idk about them.

 

So it seems that gestalts can take over things that ''aren't alive'' which is why they are lunar aligned because a different being is using their body, whereas the shadow changing mobs that aren't clearly using the fuel for their own purposes are just temporarily changed by it until they knowingly embrace it(like the ancient guardian, if that is what happened to him).

[Jakepeng99]

The nightmare were pig is attacked by shadows, and it shadow aligned.

Though i think your point is fair even though it would be good for the staff to be better against them.

[cropo]

6 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

The nightmare were pig is attacked by shadows, and it shadow aligned.

Though i think your point is fair even though it would be good for the staff to be better against them.

Judging by its dialogue, it wholly consented to and used the nightmare fuel for its own selfish reasons. It wasn't just ''Ook me monkey like shiny dark energy like all the other things I steal from dumb Wilson.".   He got power(as is evident by his massive physique) and paid the price for it, and is now whining that he's having to pay his part of the bargain. His story might have more to it, but that's the gist. 

 

I kind of overanalyze small details in the game and make abstract conclusions that Klei probably never intended, but idk I think I see a logical pattern in the Mob alignment system.

 

Pigs might also be just more shadow-attuned because they transform from eating monster meat, which is clearly laced with nightmare fuel due to the natives in the constant being exposed to it 24/7, idk pigs are an unexplained gray area of the game that would take up an entire textwall to talk about.

[lakhnish]

56 minutes ago, cropo said:

This is just a headcanon but i do not think they are shadow aligned, they are non-consensually affected and altered by the nightmare fuel while still being alive. They do not have any allegience or will to take and use the nightmare fuel, just as pigs do not seem to consent to being affected by the moon transforming them(if that is a lunar thing although I'm not sure about pigs because that's a whole unexplained phenomenon that can be a topic of its own),

 

You might say ''But the new bosses are lunar aligned and were transformed'', but I see it more that the gestalts themselves are sentient, and they are piloting the dead body of their host. When you stun Crystalclops for example, you see the Gestalt leak out of its eye, and that is what you're attacking.

If Ancient Guardian can become shadow-aligned when it hits phase 2, then I think it makes perfect sense that the Spulmonkeys become shadow-aligned when in their shadow form.

[Mysterious box]

1 hour ago, cropo said:

This is just a headcanon but i do not think they are shadow aligned, they are non-consensually affected and altered by the nightmare fuel while still being alive. They do not have any allegience or will to take and use the nightmare fuel, just as pigs do not seem to consent to being affected by the moon transforming them(if that is a lunar thing although I'm not sure about pigs because that's a whole unexplained phenomenon that can be a topic of its own),

Honestly it's a good theory but ancient guardian somewhat ruins it canonical reason it becomes shadow aligned is due to abuse of nightmare fuel and it only becomes shadow aligned once the corruption sets in even if only while in their shadow state it makes sense for them to be shadow aligned.

[Jakepeng99]

Broken clockworks are shadow aligned and all they did was be broken.

[gamehun20]

2 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Broken clockworks are shadow aligned and all they did was be broken.

Fueled by darkness

[Jakepeng99]

1 minute ago, gamehun20 said:

Fueled by darkness

They drop nightmare fuel, but so do splumonkeys even in their normal form. It is a paradox. If clockworks count so should monkey

[Cassielu]

I thought it already was?

If it isn't already, I support it. It makes sense to have Shadow Splumonkeys into aligned, both aligned seem to include all creatures that are influenced by their own side magic, and do not require them to subjectively serve a master or something.

[Reiko24]

5 hours ago, Jakepeng99 said:

They drop nightmare fuel, but so do splumonkeys even in their normal form. It is a paradox. If clockworks count so should monkey

Splumonkeys in their normal form don't drop nightmare fuel

[mykenception]

it makes sense to me that shadow splumonkies ought to be shadow aligned already

not like carrats and saladmanders did any higher thought process to be lunar aligned

10 hours ago, cropo said:

Lunar frogs? They fall from the sky, they aren't possessed by a gestalt, they're made from whatever is raining them down. Although I have yet to see them so idk about them.

there's definitely some gestalt influence going on here 

[Jakepeng99]

12 hours ago, Cassielu said:

I thought it already was?

If it isn't already, I support it. It makes sense to have Shadow Splumonkeys into aligned, both aligned seem to include all creatures that are influenced by their own side magic, and do not require them to subjectively serve a master or something.

It is not shadow aligned. Currently the shadow creatures who are not shadow aligned are splumonkeys, the twins (they are essentially like ruins clockworks), and beardlords and beardlings.

8 hours ago, Reiko24 said:

Splumonkeys in their normal form don't drop nightmare fuel

At the very least the shadow form can be shadow aligned, i remember them dropping nightmare fuel though still

[cropo]

4 hours ago, mykenception said:

it makes sense to me that shadow splumonkies ought to be shadow aligned already

not like carrats and saladmanders did any higher thought process to be lunar aligned

there's definitely some gestalt influence going on here 

 

Definitely a dead frog then. Seeing this only really convinces me further. Klei seemed to have intended this from the beginning in my opinion, seeing as they were going to have dead creatures resurrect in zombified forms to fight you again. It's not that the Frog is lunar-aligned, it's a gestalt piloting the dead frogs body, so the GESTALT is lunar aligned. This marks a noticeable difference between the Shadows and Lunars. The shadows seem to corrode and eat their hosts over time, eventually converting them into their own like a virus, the Lunars parasitize their hosts after their death and use their new body to manifest themselves physically. Maybe a portion of the hosts intellect remains in tact though, because they don't attack Wurt(although this was added in a later update to them, this could be a gameplay compromise after the complaints of brightsahdes attacking wormwood.). Actually, on that topic, Wormwood is doing the same thing, isn't he? He's posessing a non-living item to manifest himself in the world, which is why he himself is only lunar aligned. 

 

 

As for the Ancient Guardian, we don't really know its full story. I would assume that it was holding the nightmare fuel inside of itself to protect something, think of Hollow knight and the blight. It doesn't want you to get the key, and unlock the atrium(doing to significantly strengthens the nightmares influence on the ruins.). So it hasn't been fully converted and isn't shadow aligned yet.

 

Then when you beat it to a bloody pulp, it's body starts oozing out the fuel pushing it beyond its breaking point which causes it to become shadow aligned. It was holding back its nightmare influence this entire time, until you came along and hastened the inevitable, that's my theory. It decides that it needs the shadows help to beat you, to kind of stop you from making the shadows stronger, if that make sense? The Fuelweaver is doing the same thing but it's already so far gone that it doesn't transform midfight.

 

As for the clockworks, I could make a couple of guesses. One is that they were built by sentient beings already willingly giving themselves to the nightmare fuel, they were specifically made and tailored to host the shadows inside of it as a proper host in the same way the Sentrypedes were intentionally designed to host gestalts(and possibly the Iron Hulk in Hamlet). The ancients knew what they were doing, and that's why the clockworks are shadow aligned. 

 

This makes the shadow and lunar creatures feel more like an eldritch race of beings that prey on other life in some way to feed themselves, this could even mean that there are more of these unknown races out there that do the same thing and influence life...like the Maw. Merms might originally be vegan because it would lead to less overall food eaten so they can feed it to their own version of their own eldritch god that ruined their civilization.

 

There are a few alternate theories I have about the clockworks and ancient guardian, but I really think Klei knows what they are doing here, and the Splemunkeys not being shadow-aligned is completely intentional, just like they stubbornly refuse to let Willow use Bernie on the lunar island, they have a precedent for shaping game mechanics in this way.

[CameoAppearance]

Shadow Splumonkeys should be shadow-aligned. If this requires the normal form to also be, I'm okay with that.