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Blacklight Ravager

"Oh gods. I don"t want wanna go back there. Please. That thing fucking made a bloodbath of our patrol! We were a hundred men armed to the teeth and after witnessing that nightmare, only i have come out alive and that too because of the sacrifice of the others. I saw some of them being eaten from the inside out by those worms in the beasts "face" and others being eviscerated by its claws or becoming the food for the thing. No matter what happens, we can"t let that being or whatever else lies in that fucking nightmarish swamp come out. No, we have to burn that entire fucking swamp and marsh burn to the ground and make sure whatever else lies there become ashes too. Captain Elrina Lausanne, talking about how her entire patrol team was murdered by a blacklight ravager after they were sent to investigate the causes of the disappearance of livestock from a nearby farm.

The Evil Within by Christian Bravery

The Blacklight Ravager is probably the most nightmarish creature to have been encountered by the Imperial army legions in the Arval valley. A hulking monstrosity that was first sighted in the last five years, it is theorized that this beast is connected as well to the sinister events taking place all over Elladia. Standing a full five metres tall when fully up and being nearly impossible to kill due to its nigh impenetrable armoredp plates and thick hide, the ravager leaves a trail of human corpses in its wake, sparing no mercy to any poor man or woman that would cross its path.

Fighting a Blacklight Ravager

To Fight a Blacklight ravager is an insane and near impossible task. The Creature is nigh invulnerable to conventional weaponry thanks to its armored plats and thick hide, and its claws can eviscerate even heavy knights and their horses in a single swipe. However, soldiers have already come up with a few options to combat this creature. One of them is to pretend to run away whilst having some sort of fire weapon or a few firebombs ready. When the worms deattach themselves from the ravager, the fire weapons/ or firebombs are used to kill the worms and escape away in ease. This strategy has earned the moniker of "run and blaze" for its nature. Another tactic which led to the first confirmed ravager kill was the use of magically tipped spears which are attuned to explode on contact. A group of Imperial soldiers managed to kill a ravager by first using the run and blaze tactic to kill the worms so that they don"t obstruct the soldiers in their hunt and then used the spears to kill the ravager by aiming at the unarmored spots in its body. The carcass was also retrieved and the soldiers were rewarded as well. Imperial researchers have learnt a great deal about the ravagers through examining the corpse. Whilst it is too expensive and time consuming to develop those magical spears quickly enough, it remains the only stopgap solution to counter these nightmarish beings, and every soldier now desires for one of these spears in the hopes that they can at least defend themselves from the ravagers wrath.

Average Height

5 metres.

Average Weight

Estimated to be around 1000 kg

Average Physique

Bloated but Muscular

Body Tint, Colouring and Marking

Ranges from greenish white to black

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All content in this that has been made by the author ( Artwork and music used from other artists and musicians have their own copyright) falls under the CC BY license. This means that anyone is able to tweak, build up on and remix upon any of the content here and even use it commercially as long as they credit me as the original author. Any content found violating this rule will be requested by the original author to be taken down immediately. Disclaimer: If the work found is racist, abusive or discriminatory in any way, then i shall reserve the right to take it down even if the creator did credit me properly. This is a strict rule and will be enforced whenever i see instances of it.

Cover image: Blacklight Swamp by

Metadata

Article template

Species

World

Elladia

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Author's Notes

Forgive me for any typos or grammatical mistakes i made whilst reading this. I would personally love feedback on the content itself and how it can be improved as well as questions about what you want to see more. But formatting help will be awesome too! Also forgive me if the images don"t align up. I have a flight soon and haven"t eaten so had little time to search for images XD. All being said, i hope you guys enjoy the article!

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Grandmaster Lenosallose

Jan 24, 2020 17:41 by Lenosallose

This is a scary and interesting creature! I like how it is described and the quotes give a good sense of dread. The description of how one can fight these things was nice as well. Though, I would like to know a bit more about these worms; are they part of the same species? Is it something of a symbiotic relationship? Anyway, good article! Looking forward to more!

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Redclaw123

Jan 24, 2020 17:47 by Elias Redclaw

Oh god thank you so much Leno! I really appreciate the comment! The worms are indeed in a symbiotic relationship with the ravager ( I forgot the word symbiotic and used partnership lol so thank you for reminding me!). I will try to improve upon it when I have the time!

Toblin

Jan 24, 2020 17:59 by Tobias Linder

Article polish

or becoming the nutrition for the thing.

This is a very awkward thing for someone to actually say. To quote Ademal: "If someone saw that, they'd just be busy 'there's a whole lotta NOPE over there' and wax the poetry." While it doesn't exactly apply here, I think a normal person would just say "be eaten by the thing".

worms in the beasts "face" and

It's common practice to use 'single quotes' for quotes within quotes, at least in American writing. It helps separate the quotes.

The only way i see to control the situation is to murder every last one of them and raze the entire marsh and swamp to the ground.

I see what you are going for here, but this is a very immersion-killing sentence. Someone who has just seen their entire squad get torn to shreds and eaten would either call for the place to be nuked, send in EVERYONE or just never want to go back there ever. Saying that we should go back and murder everyone of them sounds a bit like you're trying to make a point, but didn't see the situation from the POV of the character. The essence of what you wrote is sound, but not the way you wrote it. See if you can imagine yourself in their shoes and rethink how you would've said it and it'll be fine.

When the worms deattach themselves from the ravager, the fire weapons/ or firebombs are used to kill the worms and escape away in ease. This strategy has earned the moniker of "run and blaze" for its nature.

Previously in the sidebar entry you have said that "fighting a ravager is ... insane ... and ... impossible task". Using "with ease" only a few sentences later makes for an odd juxtaposition.

"... fell off and started chasing us, eventually murdering every last one of us"

If it murdered everyone, who is talking? ;) Also, in the same quote you seem to have been distracted mid-thought and forgotten to finish the quote's credit. "writing in his diary about " there seems to be something missing here.

Its gigantic belly contains large amounts of acid, which it can spit at a range and use it to attack prey. At the top of its bloated body where most people would assume was a head, there was only a gigantic mouth fitted with row after row of sharp serrated teeth and deeper inside it was a second mouth which it could shoot out as a ranged attack. On the sides of its face are hideous wormlike ...

This is a problem I have as well, but you keep switching tense here. In the beginning you use "belly contains" (present tense) and then in the following sentence you say "most people would assume WAS a head" (imperfect/past tense). Along with your spelling errors and apostrophy fixes, look over your sentences to catch your tense-switches and stick to either present or past.

which could easily eviscerate even a fully armored knight and its warhorse.

Which of course raises the question: Do you fight a ravager without armor? One would assume that if it's like tissue paper to them, fighting unarmored would be preferred thanks to increased mobility and stamina. Or do they still keep their armors to protect them from glancing blows and perhaps prevent worms from getting an angle of attack?

"Only a fool or someone with a deathwish or some incredibly drunk idiot would venture into the swamps and marshes right now.

I see you are making the same mistakes I am. This sentence becomes an absolute hurdle to read. First, you list three things conjoined by "or" which throws a reader off. Use a comma between "fool" and "someone with a deathwish" and keep the "or" for the drunk idiot. But I'd rather you removed one of the options entirely. Perhaps dropping the fool and keeping the (fool) with a deathwish. Furthermore, this is supposedly a signpost put up by an authority. It certainly doesn't sound like official language. This is the style of a barkeep trying to keep a conversation going. A warning signpost would not be written like this, unless your authorities are angsty teenagers. It's a bit confusing that you have a place called the Blacklight Swamp *and* a Blacklight Marsh. Those two words are often synonymous and separating them like this makes it far too easy to mix them up. Also, since the Ravagers are called "Blacklight" Ravagers specifically, do they only appear near these places or are these creatures widespread across the planet? If not, why?

For many thousands of years, the swamp was a pristine place and still is to this day. There were rumours of old hags, black magicians and witches dwelling here besides the usual creepy and dangerous creatures but people didn"t pay much heed to them.

Make up your mind! Is this place pristine or is it dark and creepy? Try to keep your descriptions cohesive. Also "fairy tail" is spelled "fairytale". That's a common issue that easy slip past a spelling check, which is why I'm pointing it out specifically.

She managed to escape somehow and...

This is a unsatisfying. You don't need to write an entire story of how she escaped, but that "somehow" makes the whole sentence feel handwavy and, frankly, lazy. You could just remove the "somehow" and it would instantly read better. I think just removing the "somehow" is the right choice. We understand that she escaped and that how she did it wasn't important.

...also led by Lausanne after she had recovered from her depressive mood.

Going back to what I said in the beginning about her response to having her entire squad slaughtered, this just emphasizes that what she says in the beginning is out of character. Story thoughts
It's a nice "boogeyman" for the people to fear. It's perhaps a little generic, in spite of being creative. The design is clearly inspired by the art you've chosen and I think that's a great way to get going and really mentally picture the thing. Overall, I'd say this is a good idea and depending on if you are roleplaying or writing a book, these can be a powerful hook for an adventure or chapter. There are a few things that stick out and that's for instance that the ravagers seem to be increasing rapidly in number in addition to just suddenly showing up in the Blacklight. Where did they come from? Are they breeding, are they being summoned or are they just migrating? This is something you need to have clear for yourself, even if you're not ready to divulge that in the article itself. On writing in general
Throughout the article your writing is a bit run-on and awkward in places. For instance, repeating conjunctions and other little things that aren't necessary. Keep an eye out for those when you are writing and consider whether or not you really need a determiner or conjunction again. One example:

The Blacklight Ravager has a keen sense of hearing, and it is also speculated that the worms can act as scouts and also as traps, lying in wait after separating from the ravager and alerting it when prey is found.

. You do not need to use "also" that second time, as the first one still applies. There are several similar situations in the article where you can "lean" your writing, making it easier to read and digest. This is a thing one needs to practice, so don't feel bad about doing this, but considering how far you've already come as a writer, I feel it's time I start pointing out these finer details to you so you can further improve. Final thoughts
You've gotten far in the last year and I'm really happy to see you grow like this. That's why I'm being this in-depth. I think it's time you take the next step as a writer and really start to polish your writing. Overall, after reading this article, I think that you would benefit greatly from one or two polishing passes over your articles before sharing. Most of these things are minor mistakes that you make while being creative and creating. If you leave it to rest for a day or two and then carefully read it through, you would catch probably 70-80% of what I've listed above. I am a creator myself, both in writing and music, and I know how hard it is to sit on something you've created that you are proud of. But trust me: Let them rest and come back a couple of days later with fresh eyes and fix the most glaring issues. Good job!

Blacklight Ravager

Fighting a Blacklight Ravager

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