Many of the monsters in Dark Matter are new and exciting inventions to add a spark to your sci-fi universe. Others, however, are effectively classic sci-fi monsters with the serial numbers filed off. Automatons are effectively the Droids from Star Wars. Androids are very much the Replicants from Blade Runner. Sandworms are a dead-ringer for Shai Hulud from Dune.
Let’s look at a third category of monsters, however: those which are an homage to an existing sci-fi property, but remix the original element enough that it becomes something entirely new.
Alien’s Xenomorphs in Dark Matter
H.R. Giger’s design for the xenomorph is perhaps the most iconic movie monster of all time, and plenty of games have stolen the black chitinous exoskeleton, elongated head, and long limbs to make their own knockoff Alien. I’ve never been fond of stealing that particular design, however, because it’s just too recognizable to look like anything other than a lazy copy-and-paste job.
The Vortirrackt is our attempt to use the best horror tropes from Alien with a few twists to make it even scarier. Like the xenomorph, the vortirrackt has a convoluted life cycle with a chrysalis stage, acidic blood, and a gnarly appearance. It also uses vents to move around the ship and prefers to be a shape in the darkness that suddenly strikes, rather than a looming figure that wanders the halls.
Unlike the xenomorph, however, the vortirrackt is extremely intelligent. Not only does it hide in the vents, it sets traps in them. It rigs things to explode when someone enters a room. And it lies in wait specifically to ambush people when they’re most vulnerable. It’s also telepathic. It’ll interrogate and taunt people to learn their weaknesses and better exploit them. In short, the vortirrackt is an entire toolkit for a GM to use against a party bundled up in a single monster.
One fun, final note: the art direction for this monster was to “give it long arms so it can grab you from especially far away.” I think this single element gives it a unique and horrific appearance that differs a lot from its xenomorph inspiration.
Warhammer 40K’s Orks in Dark Matter
Dark Matter has orcs, and it had them as a playable part of the game even when half-orcs were the only way to do so. Though Dark Matter places orcs at the center of the Warzone, they’re very much no longer the aggressors. Their long-standing feuds have been inherited and transformed by goblinoid factions that battle over the warzone to this day.
So where are the green, fungal warmongers pulled directly from the pages of Warhammer 40K? Those are the Sporeserkers! These violent, green bipeds are a type of fungus creature that knows only to fight and die. Dying releases a burst of spores that quickly grow into a new group of sporeserkers. In this way, sporeserkers are more like a plague than a typical creature. Their ultimate weakness (and the thing that allows them to be used a little more reasonably in games) is sunlight. Their spores only take root in darkness, so waves of sporeserkers usually stem from a persistently dark place, like an underground cavern or a deep forest.
Practically-speaking, the sporeserkers are more akin to the orks in Warhammer Fantasy, because they don’t have the technical aptitude or psionic potential to create weapons and vehicles made from scrap. But they can grow into a single, enormous mass called a sporegantua, which is even stronger and more dim-witted than its constituent parts, giving them a dangerous alpha-unit to break down walls and kill overconfident parties.
Dune’s Spice in Dark Matter
Frank Herbert’s Dune series centers on a substance called “spice melange” or “spice” that is ruinously addictive, but allows one to see through space and time. This spice is local only to the desert planet of Arrakis, which becomes the focal point of the series.
Dark Matter engines also necessitate a sort of prescience to pilot effectively. However, people instead eat Roaches, weakly psionic ten-legged insects that allow one to jump with almost perfect accuracy. Like spice, roaches can only breed on certain planets, which become flashpoints for conflict in the setting.
Whereas Herbert portrayed the risk of addiction to spice as an unavoidable death, we (as children of the D.A.R.E. era) lean into disgust and regret as a motivating factor. It’s not just a dangerous drug, it’s like eating a big cockroach. A cockroach that feels emotions which you also feel when you eat it. Addiction to roaches is still a problem in the setting, but it’s directly paired with the overwhelming guilt of snuffing the life out of a little emotional bug each time.
Star Trek’s Q in Dark Matter
Old Superman comics featured a character called “Mister Mxyzptlk” (a name which is intentionally hell to pronounce), who is effectively an all-powerful dimensional imp that likes to play pranks on Superman. Batman comics feature a cousin character named “Batmite” who’s also an all-powerful imp, but mostly a Batman fanboy. And Star Trek has Q, an all-powerful being who exists to give the writers carte blanche to do whatever they want with an episode.
Following this long tradition of extra-dimensional imps, Dark Matter includes the Xenostiltskin, a native of the Star Wilds — effectively the Feywild in space. These creatures are reality-warping illusionists that can create matter out of thin air, change their appearance at will, and become Invisible as long as they please. And they mostly exist to harass players with pranks and give the GM carte blanche to do whatever they want to do with a session.
Much like the Superman character, each xenostiltskin has an extremely elaborate name, and is banished back to the Star Wilds if they hear their own name spoken forward or backwards. For our purposes, we figured out a bunch of names that (when phonetically reversed) sound like a normal word. “Roama’kiss” phonetically reversed becomes “Sycamore” for example. This was a nightmare to write, but should be a very fun little puzzle built into every encounter.
Previous entries:
Off the Record 3
Off the Record 2
Off the Record
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