Creatures

Creatures

The native life of the Nerospace planets. Each has bespoke geometry, a walk animation, a distinct hand-tuned texture palette, and an emissive glow on its eyes/crystals/embers that shines in the dark.

Greenxertz

Xertz Stalker — "Crystal Hunter" (hostile)

A tall, upright crystalline biped — the planet's apex predator. Uses a light-independent spawn rule, so it's dangerous day and night. Strides toward prey on two legs with down-swept blade-arms.

Look: deep emerald/teal crystal hide shot through with angular cyan facets; its blade-arms, crest and back-fins are brighter crystal with glowing edges. The facets and eyes are emissive, so it reads as a cold cyan silhouette in the dark.

Sounds: chitters while idle, shrieks when hurt, shatters on death. (Placeholder audio aliases vanilla spider sounds until bespoke audio is recorded — see "Sound notes" below.)

Quartz Crawler — "Geode Skitterer" (neutral)

A low, domed six-legged crawler with a back crystal cluster. Skitters along the ground and leaves you alone unless provoked.

Look: a pale, milky quartz carapace divided by darker seams, with faint rose-quartz veins. Only the green crystal cluster on its back (and its eyes) glow — the plated shell itself stays solid, non-emissive quartz.

Sounds: skitters while idle, cracks when hurt, crumbles on death. (Placeholder aliases vanilla silverfish sounds.)

Greenling — "Sprout" (passive)

A small, chubby grounded critter with an oversized cheeky head and a leaf crest. Harmless ambient life; toddles around on two stubby legs.

Look: soft, friendly mottled greens with a lighter belly and gentle darker spots, topped by a leafy crest. Deliberately the only creature that barely glows — just a tiny glint in its big dark eyes.

Sounds: chirps while idle, squeaks when hurt, wilts on death. (Placeholder aliases vanilla panda sounds for a soft, gentle voice.)

Alien Villager — "The Wary" (social)

The social aliens of the planets — see the dedicated Alien Villagers page for the full system (appearance, gifting, trust tiers, trading). In brief: a wary-neutral humanoid with a domed head and crystalline shoulder growths that strides on two legs. Each individual is a slightly different green/steel shade, and the skin shifts per planet (Cindara ember, Glacira frost). Win its trust to trade and to grow a Village Core village.

Cindara

Cinder Stalker — "Magma Hulk" (hostile)

A heavy, horned quadruped of the volcanic moon, ridged with obsidian back-plates and glowing embers. Fire-immune and aggressive — the main threat on Cindara.

Look: a charcoal/obsidian hide veined with branching, glowing orange-red lava cracks; obsidian horns and back-plates whose ridge seams burn hot. The cracks and ember eyes are emissive, so it smoulders in the dark.

Sounds: smoulders while idle, roars when hurt, cools on death. (Placeholder aliases vanilla blaze sounds.)

Glacira

Frost Strider — "Ice Stilt-Walker" (hostile)

A tall, gangly predator stalking the frozen moon on four stilt legs, with a long low-slung neck and a row of ice-shard back spines. Freeze-immune; slightly faster but more fragile than the Cinder Stalker.

Look: pale glacial plates over a deep-blue hide; the shard spines and eyes glow a cold frost-white.

Sounds: creaks while idle, splinters when hurt, shatters on death. (Placeholder aliases vanilla stray sounds.)

Bosses

Ruin Warden

A towering crystalline construct that guards the Mega-City keep. Heavily armoured, resists knockback, hits hard, and hunts players on sight — clearing it is the price of the keep's grand vault.

Look: a hulking dark-crystal body veined with glowing violet, with jagged crystal shoulder spires and heavy limbs. Stats: 120 HP, high armour + knockback resistance, strong melee.

Terraformed worlds — livestock

Mature ("Living") terraformed ground wakes a breedable livestock species per planet — the seeded ecosystem of deeper terraforming. All three are peaceful, follow their breed food, panic from damage, and spawn naturally on Living ground (the Terraformer also seeds starter herds).

Meadow Loper (Greenxertz — cow-analogue)

A placid bulk grazer: a deep barrel body on sturdy legs, broad low head, small horn nubs, lazy swishing tail. Breeds with wheat; drops Loper Haunch (hearty food).

Ember Strutter (Cindara — chicken-analogue)

A skittish little ground bird with ember-orange feathers, a comb and quick two-legged strut. Fire-proof, like everything that survives Cindara. Breeds with seeds; drops Strutter Drumstick (food). Its ember flecks glow faintly in the dark.

Woolly Drift (Glacira — sheep-analogue)

A shaggy snowdrift of a grazer: one big rounded fleece ridged with wind-packed tufts over stubby legs. Cold-proof (no freeze build-up). Breeds with wheat; drops Drift Fleece (crafts into 4 string).

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Sound notes

Each creature has three registered sound events under the nerospace namespace — entity.<creature>.ambient, .hurt, and .death — defined in assets/nerospace/sounds.json. No .ogg files ship yet: each entry currently aliases a fitting vanilla sound event ("type": "event") as a placeholder, chosen to suit the creature (spider for the Stalker, silverfish for the Crawler, panda for the Greenling, blaze for the Cinder Stalker).

Because the events are registered under our own ids and every sound carries a Nerospace subtitle key (e.g. subtitles.nerospace.greenling.ambient), dropping in real audio later is purely a resource change: add .ogg files under assets/nerospace/sounds/entity/<creature>/ and switch the sounds.json entry from an event alias to a sound file. No code changes are needed.

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Spawn eggs: all eight creatures — the five natives (Xertz Stalker, Quartz Crawler, Greenling, Cinder Stalker, Frost Strider) and the three livestock (Meadow Loper, Ember Strutter, Woolly Drift) — have creative spawn eggs in the Nerospace tab, each icon coloured to match its creature. For a quick A/B look (live vs frozen), use the creative gallery command /nerospace gallery, which spawns each creature twice — once with AI and once with NoAI — alongside a display of every block.