Giant ants go by many names, but it’s generally best to just refer to them as THEM. The reason for this is simple: you never face just one, or even a dozen of these huge insects. You always face hundreds of THEM, rampaging across your city as they take it apart piece by piece. They’re frighteningly efficient at this process, moving with one mind as they swarm about with pincers twitching. You’ll also discover that it takes far more than machine guns to stop them, because they possess a black chitinous armor that is extremely durable and at least five feet thick.
Giant ant colonies nearly always have a hive structure, divided up into workers, soldiers, and the queen. The worker ants aren’t much of a threat, because they’re usually fixated on the specific task at hand. Soldier ants, however, are specially bred for dealing with miniscule threats like humans. Be prepared for long and protracted battles. The queen, meanwhile, is their greatest weakness – she controls the hive, so if you can somehow destroy her, the remaining ants will flail about and spend their last moments crying for mommy. Send them to the giant anthill in the sky.
Evil faeries have an absolute fascination with magic riddles. It’s difficult to say precisely why, but it has something to do with crazed minds and the disjointed manner in which they think. They might ask you, “What stands on four legs in the morning, to during the day, and three at night?” You will answer ‘Man’, having heard that one back in grade school, but the actual correct answer will be a magical chair with regenerating legs that people like to kick a lot. You’ll then be turned into a sparrow that they keep permanently on a silver chain (as evil faeries are known to do.)
You could try learning the answer to every riddle known to man, but it probably won’t do much good. The puzzle that the two-headed ogre asks you will likely have no bearing to those classic conundrums, or make sense of any kind. Your best bet is to simply respond to his riddle in a completely authoritative fashion, cross your arms together, and nod smugly. He’ll assume that you must know what you’re talking about since you’re so sure of yourself, and allow you to continue on your journey wondering how you possibly managed to get the better of him.
Most vampires have the supernatural ability to command others with their gaze. They simply strike a dramatic pose, stare deep into a person’s eyes, and issue a powerful command. This could be to offer their neck, reveal some secret information, or pretend to be a chicken. The victim won’t be able to resist, because their mind will be totally clouded. They can even be made to forget what they’ve seen, useful when the vampire has just killed a room full of people and doesn’t want to have to deal with hunters tracking him down.
It’s not too difficult to defend yourself from the vampire’s piercing stare – you simply need to look in the opposite direction. This may be perceived as rude, however, and you will probably lose status in polite society. There may also be some difficulty in attacking the vampire, since you won’t be able to look directly at him. Mirrors won’t work, since many vampires don’t appear in them. You’ll probably need to use a sort of Marco Polo routine where you shout insults about his parentage and he responds with a vampiric hiss, thereby providing you with knowledge of his current position.
One surefire way to stop a malevolent spirit is to give it a proper burial. The ghost is a restless soul, you see, and destined to stay between worlds until he gains the permanence that he craves. You’ll need to first find his body (or bones, in certain cases), which could be anywhere from an abandoned auto yard to a boiler room. You’ve then got to dig a grave and bury him according to standard religious tenets, often with his skeleton trying to stop you. If you manage to succeed, then a glowing crucifix should appear on the spirit’s forehead right before he vanishes in a blinding white light. Until the upcoming sequel, anyway.
Some items you will need:
Shovel
The Body
Crucifix
Holy Water
Bible
Martial-Arts Skills (optional)
Once the most popular type of walking dead, the voodoo zombie has declined in recent years. You now only tend to encounter them when traveling into the deepwater swamp to speak with the creepy voodoo woman about the death of your son. This doesn’t mean you should overlook them, though, because these shambling corpses will eat your brains just like anything else.* Or rather, they’ll eat your brains if their zombie master commands them to. For unlike other undead, this type of zombie is under the strict control of the diabolical occultist who brought them back.
There are several factors to your advantage here. You don’t have to worry about getting bitten, since these zombies aren’t contagious – they are created through powerful voodoo rituals. They also tend to be the slower variety of zombie, and run into tombstones and trees a lot. That said, they can still be quite dangerous in small groups. Your best bet is to stop the zombie master before he can unleash his undead horde on the nearby town. Take out a rifle and shoot him in the head, and his zombie minions will quickly fall to the muddy earth in mock unison.
* Yes, I’m aware that most zombies don’t eat brains.
You may encounter a situation where a set of murders are related from the point of view of the killer. This could be a series of hand-written journals, a disturbed camera crew that follows him around, or a delightful television program that airs every Sunday at 9 PM. You will see everything from the killer’s perspective – planning the kill, stalking the victim, the injection of paralyzing drugs, and the rapid hacking of the body into conveniently-sized pieces. There may even be a pithy bit of wisdom that relates to whatever happens to be going on in the murderer’s life at the moment.
You can learn quite a bit from these blood-splattered stories. Psycho-killers don’t tend to think like normal people, so it might not occur to you that icicles make decent disposable weapons or that air conditioners are a great place to store trophies. You’ll also see how they choose their victims, and why it’s specifically mimes that have be to be strangled (beyond the obvious reason). Just be sure to stop when the killer’s murderous philosophy starts to make sense. It may be useful to get inside their head when you’re tracking them down, but you’ll be in trouble if you wake up one morning holding a butcher’s knife that’s drenched in blood.
Skinwalkers are people who have the ability to transform into any animal that they choose. This is usually due to a family lineage, though the ability can be obtained through magical means (known as as the Witchery Way). The most common forms that skinwalkers use are coyote, fox, or owl, though other variations exist. A skinwalker could decide to become a buffalo in order to bust down a door, or a bear if they wanted to give someone a really big hug. All they need is a general knowledge of the animal and the money to purchase some new clothes.
As you might have guessed, many (though not all) skinwalkers are Native Americans. They have passed down the supernatural ability through the ages, and used it to fight their oppressors. That said, they don’t tend to be very popular – something about the skinwalker transforming into a wolf and eating small children whenever they gets bored really grates on the tribe’s nerves for some reason. Most skinwalkers thus roam from place to place, never having a true home. Or rather, they trot, fly, and scuttle, using whichever mode of transportation they find best.
Aliens don’t always seek to destroy mankind. Sometimes they want to use humans as slave labor, or soldiers for their vast space armada. These extraterrestrials tend to be maniacal empire-builders, ruling the galaxy with an iron tentacle. They’ll start their invasion of the planet the normal way, destroying famous landmarks and mutilating cattle, but instead of vaporizing you with their laser guns, they’ll transport your family into their spaceship and take you to the salt mines of Rigel-3. This is a fairly miserable fate, so be forewarned, though you might be able improve your standing by offering to be the alien emperor’s new pet.
The desire to procreate is one of the strongest in the world, and giant monsters are not immune to its effects. They want to find a mate like anyone else, and will rampage through cities in an lusty search for a female (or male) of their kind. This is guaranteed to result in a staggering amount of property damage, because anything that stands in their way is pretty much guaranteed to get smashed and tossed aside. Entire neighborhoods might be leveled just because the gigantic lizard from the sea wants some hot lovin’.
This is not the only problem you will face, however. Giant monsters tend to not be quite as ‘choosy’ as most humans in regards to a potential mate. Many also possess poor eyesight. It is thus not unknown for one to come across an office building of the approximate size and shape and… take it out for a night on the town, as it were. Best to not use your imagination on this. It is highly suggested that people witnessing such acts seek out psychotherapy immediately, or at least curl into a fetal ball and rock gently back and forth for several days.
The rise of nanotechnology may one day result in robots that are constructed out of liquid metal. This is an amorphous, metallic substance that allows a mechanoid to change its shape into almost anything it desires. This is not to say it can simply become a bomb and blow a person up. Guns and explosive have chemicals and moving parts – it doesn’t work that way. The liquid metal robot can form solid metal shapes, however, such as knives and stabbing weapons. A chilling thought, and not just because of the smooth feel of cold chrome.
The liquid metal robot further possesses the ability to duplicate the appearance of anyone that it touches. It can become your mother, your son, your friendly neighborhood mailman… it was for these scenarios that the phrase ‘Trust no one’ was invented. You’ll be relieved to know that the liquid metal robot does possess a weakness to extreme temperatures, so if you can somehow lure it into a foundry and knock it into some molten metal, the mechanoid should be destroyed. You’ll probably need a similar robot of your own in order to successfully spring the trap, however.
