Brightshade Variants?

[Radicaljoe]

An issue with Lunar rifts is it doesn't add much enemy variety. It has brightshades, lunar frogs (rarely seen), grazers (only seen at the rift itself), and the lunar bird.
I have gotten a bit bored fighting the same green plant enemy for the last year and I think it would be a cool way to add more enemy variety by adding some brightshade subspecies.
So far I have thought of Smiteshade and Knightshade.

Smiteshade will be a less numerous infestation, only 1-2 per wave. But be far more dangerous and aggressive. Similar to vines that grow to try and kill competition, like Kudzu. Maybe they'd get 2-3 vines to chase you with, but with a larger range. To make this not just a worse brightshade, the Smiteshade would have lower health, but the vines would all still need to be killed to make the plant vulnerable.

Knightshade would be the opposite. Highly defensive, but not aggressive. They would also be more numerous about 3-5 per wave. These shades focus on protecting themselves more than killing you. They won't have any attacking vines and instead you have to break their shell like an icker. So the player can't just ignore them; Knightshade will trap multiple plants at once, making them unusable by strangling them with vines. When regaining conciousness from a stun, the knightshade would spew a pollen cloud on itself that attracts random bugs (up to 3) (bees, mosquitos, fruit flies.) It will try to eat these bugs and heal itself, 100 from bees, and 50 from mosquitios/fruit flies as they are faster and harder to hit properly.

Alternative/Rejected ideas:

Biteshade- reverse brightshade where it has the main body attack like a snaptooth, and after knocking out the main body you have to chase down the tail vine bulb to kill the plant.  I liked this idea, but chasing the tail seemed annoying.

Flightshade- These would attach themselves to plants, and they would dig it up and take the plant away about 1 screen and replant themselves. These were rejected because that sounded very annoying.

[viblym]

I do want more lunar mobs but please workshop these names.

[SilverSpoon]

NO MORE PLANT MOB

If it's fireproof, that's fine.

[viblym]

35 minutes ago, SilverSpoon said:

NO MORE PLANT MOB

If it's fireproof, that's fine.

do not use electric weapons on the plants...

[Kehvran]

Please no more possessing garden ****, My world is crowded with brightshade after I spent a year in caves T___T I can't deal with it any longer, It's like I'm spending more time managing the same s%¨& over and over again than actually doing some other stuff, for example: fighting bosses, building stuff/farms and switch shards so I can enjoy the other content. 

Edited September 26, 2025 by Kehvran

[Mike23Ua]

Wormwood has cool animations, a world that’s trying to retrofit new content has “sealed” entry point animations, there’s more Klei can do with plant life then “Brightshade” make Lureplants animate to life with legs and walk like some sort of funny moon plant spider/octopus with long vine legs for example..

Add a mob that can “root” (pun intended) the player in place for a few seconds.. 

IDK do cool stuff to make combat more engaging outside of dumb boss fights.

 

[SilverSpoon]

12 hours ago, viblym said:

do not use electric weapons on the plants...

You're right, but MoonStorm will...

Edited September 27, 2025 by SilverSpoon

[Dingle]

Lunar tree Lunar Treeguards.

High chance to spawn, drop a bunch of husks on kill. Maybe they only spawn when rifts are open.

[Green latter A]

I agree, but in my opinion they should definitely not be just Brightshade variants. For example, you could have a small lunar golem (made of stone and glass) that would wander around the infected area and defend it, it could attack in a similar way to the crab knight (for example), and it would serve as an additional obstacle during combat, especially in groups(this is just one example, there is much more that could be thought of)

[Waywarbler]

12 hours ago, SilverSpoon said:

You're right, but MoonStorm will...

They could just make it so the moonstorm won't

Edited September 27, 2025 by Waywarbler

[SilverSpoon]

12 hours ago, Waywarbler said:

They could just make it so the moonstorm won't

Why do we have to do that? 

We had been able to choice of eating spaghetti with a fork or with bare hand, but from now on we are forced to dip a fork into spaghetti sauce before using it, how can it be fun?

[Mike23Ua]

23 hours ago, Waywarbler said:

They could just make it so the moonstorm won't

From a lore standpoint, Moonstorms setting fire to Deadly Brightshades (out of all mobs in the game) doesn’t make very much sense, the “Moon” in DST is an ancient celestial god, and more importantly Deadly Brightshades only start spawning when you open up the LUNAR Rift, these particular plants should be “Immune” to Moongleams fires, because they are literally alien plants from the moon.

Every other grass related mob however: is still subject to being burnable by the Moongleams flames. (Lureplant, Grass Gecko, etc.)

Edited September 28, 2025 by Mike23Ua

[SilverSpoon]

1 minute ago, Mike23Ua said:

From a lore standpoint, Moonstorms setting fire to Deadly Brightshades (out of all mobs in the game) doesn’t make very much sense, the “Moon” in DST is an ancient celestial god, and more importantly Deadly Brightshades only start spawning when you open up the LUNAR Rift, these particular plants should be “Immune” to Moongleams fires, because they are literally alien plants from the moon.

Every other grass related mob however: is still subject to being burnable by the Moongleams flames. (Lureplant, Grass Gecko, etc.)

I'll approve they are completely fire resistant. Brightshade Husk is not flammable, and to plant DragonFruit next to Magma pool and farming Brightshade Husk feels exploiting.

[Annwvyn]

Previously Brightshades were refered to as "the first level" of the new lunar thralls back when Taking Root introduced the lunar rifts, however we haven't really seen any other new thralls that would complement the role that Brightshades fulfill, leading to repetition. Bright-Eyed frogs are incredibly rare and differ very little from their regular counterparts, Bright-Beaked birds aren't even hostile to the player and the possessed giants are restrained to their respective seasons in order to spawn. I don't know if Klei has plans to further develop lunar rifts in order to address this issues, especially now that we basically reached the conclusion of the lunar arc, but I can see inclusions such as these being part of a follow up update in the future, even if the rifts themselves may no longer be the main focus of the content we will get. For now, I took the time to illustrate how this hypothetical variants would look like since their descriptions sounded fun to me, hopefully they look interesting enough and unique enough from each other .

[lowercase skye]

20 minutes ago, Annwvyn said:

For now, I took the time to illustrate how this hypothetical variants would look like since their descriptions sounded fun to me, hopefully they look interesting enough and unique enough from each other .

These are beautiful! Amazing job giving them each a distinct silhouette while keeping them recognizable as being a type of brightshade. If you make more Don't Starve art you should totally make a thread for it here on the forums.

[gaymime]

37 minutes ago, Annwvyn said:

Previously Brightshades were refered to as "the first level" of the new lunar thralls back when Taking Root introduced the lunar rifts, however we haven't really seen any other new thralls that would complement the role that Brightshades fulfill, leading to repetition. Bright-Eyed frogs are incredibly rare and differ very little from their regular counterparts, Bright-Beaked birds aren't even hostile to the player and the possessed giants are restrained to their respective seasons in order to spawn. I don't know if Klei has plans to further develop lunar rifts in order to address this issues, especially now that we basically reached the conclusion of the lunar arc, but I can see inclusions such as these being part of a follow up update in the future, even if the rifts themselves may no longer be the main focus of the content we will get. For now, I took the time to illustrate how this hypothetical variants would look like since their descriptions sounded fun to me, hopefully they look interesting enough and unique enough from each other .

bro, i don't say this lightly when i say i think these might actually be prettier than the actual official art!

[Tigris Nano]

8 hours ago, Annwvyn said:

Previously Brightshades were refered to as "the first level" of the new lunar thralls back when Taking Root introduced the lunar rifts, however we haven't really seen any other new thralls that would complement the role that Brightshades fulfill, leading to repetition. Bright-Eyed frogs are incredibly rare and differ very little from their regular counterparts, Bright-Beaked birds aren't even hostile to the player and the possessed giants are restrained to their respective seasons in order to spawn. I don't know if Klei has plans to further develop lunar rifts in order to address this issues, especially now that we basically reached the conclusion of the lunar arc, but I can see inclusions such as these being part of a follow up update in the future, even if the rifts themselves may no longer be the main focus of the content we will get. For now, I took the time to illustrate how this hypothetical variants would look like since their descriptions sounded fun to me, hopefully they look interesting enough and unique enough from each other .

Reminds me of scape and run parasites mod for minecraft with its evolution from lvl1 crook to some lovecraftian horror. And I really like it. It would be cool if brightshades changed from easy husks to actual terror that rips parts of your farms (maybe even more with roots), flies around and hunts for you. Imagine sitting next to campfire then hearing their sounds from one-two screens away, knowing they are close and can strike you with their vine or even throw your giant potato at you. Besides that I would add some portable and small units - zombified mobs with flower growing out of their head (like brain flower in fear and hunger). Pigs, spiders, merms, rabbits, players and even treeguards or spider queens (tho last two is bit bigger than small) - all of that can be infected and upgraded with new power. And sea variation of course, something like giant octopus but plant.

[mima_]

10 hours ago, Annwvyn said:

Previously Brightshades were refered to as "the first level" of the new lunar thralls back when Taking Root introduced the lunar rifts, however we haven't really seen any other new thralls that would complement the role that Brightshades fulfill, leading to repetition. Bright-Eyed frogs are incredibly rare and differ very little from their regular counterparts, Bright-Beaked birds aren't even hostile to the player and the possessed giants are restrained to their respective seasons in order to spawn. I don't know if Klei has plans to further develop lunar rifts in order to address this issues, especially now that we basically reached the conclusion of the lunar arc, but I can see inclusions such as these being part of a follow up update in the future, even if the rifts themselves may no longer be the main focus of the content we will get. For now, I took the time to illustrate how this hypothetical variants would look like since their descriptions sounded fun to me, hopefully they look interesting enough and unique enough from each other .

i wouldnt mind DST 2 with ur art style .. love the color as well 

[Radicaljoe]

13 hours ago, Annwvyn said:

Previously Brightshades were refered to as "the first level" of the new lunar thralls back when Taking Root introduced the lunar rifts, however we haven't really seen any other new thralls that would complement the role that Brightshades fulfill, leading to repetition. Bright-Eyed frogs are incredibly rare and differ very little from their regular counterparts, Bright-Beaked birds aren't even hostile to the player and the possessed giants are restrained to their respective seasons in order to spawn. I don't know if Klei has plans to further develop lunar rifts in order to address this issues, especially now that we basically reached the conclusion of the lunar arc, but I can see inclusions such as these being part of a follow up update in the future, even if the rifts themselves may no longer be the main focus of the content we will get. For now, I took the time to illustrate how this hypothetical variants would look like since their descriptions sounded fun to me, hopefully they look interesting enough and unique enough from each other .

Woah these look awesome!

[Tigris Nano]

5 hours ago, Tigris Nano said:

zombified mobs with flower growing out of their head (like brain flower in fear and hunger).

I actually tried to draw this idea with my finger in ibis paint and here is what I got:

Wanted to make tendrils go into eye socket but then I realized that flower petals are too big and it would take too much time drawing tendrils going into empty eye sockets of every character and their skins. So they are now going into ears and back of neck to control brain and spine.

So those mobs will have 2 attacks as their limbs suggest: one is simple vine slap and second restrains you (if you fail to dodge maybe) so creature lands extra slap.

I dont know how implement zombiefication animation. It can be something simple like void masques "whoosh-whoosh and done" or something similar to mutated bosses. In second case it might be too disturbing because of tendrils and flower growing out of hosts head.

Edited October 17, 2025 by Tigris Nano

[NNOUS]

On 10/17/2025 at 4:35 AM, Annwvyn said:

Previously Brightshades were refered to as "the first level" of the new lunar thralls back when Taking Root introduced the lunar rifts, however we haven't really seen any other new thralls that would complement the role that Brightshades fulfill, leading to repetition. Bright-Eyed frogs are incredibly rare and differ very little from their regular counterparts, Bright-Beaked birds aren't even hostile to the player and the possessed giants are restrained to their respective seasons in order to spawn. I don't know if Klei has plans to further develop lunar rifts in order to address this issues, especially now that we basically reached the conclusion of the lunar arc, but I can see inclusions such as these being part of a follow up update in the future, even if the rifts themselves may no longer be the main focus of the content we will get. For now, I took the time to illustrate how this hypothetical variants would look like since their descriptions sounded fun to me, hopefully they look interesting enough and unique enough from each other .

its giving of fruitfly mini boss realness, i love it