The Featured Freak

The Featured Freak is a first-gen genetically altered creature that I put up on my blog every once in a while. Each creature comes with their genome (in the form of .gen and .gno files) and a short text file explaining what's so special about them. They usually won't be quite as in-depth as my genetic breeds are - they're more experiments based around concepts that may or may not become full breeds someday.

Technically, the Featured Freak covers all three games. However, Freaks I make on my own will be solely for C3/DS. I do accept C1/C2 Freaks other people may want to send in, though.

Alien gets the credit for inspiring this feature of the blog with her Weekly Freaks.

Current Featured Freak:

Kiara
Featured Freak #7 (11/5/2015 - Current)
C3/DS Norn
Sprites: Bengal Norn (Norn B), Yautja Norn (Norn V)
Kiara is a bit of a rough-and-tumble norn. She has slightly more of a temper and is more resistant to slapping than normal norns, and also can play with weeds, pests, and beasts with no issue. She is also very restricted diet-wise; she can only gain nutrition from eating critters and food. If she eats anything else it won't help her.

Want to Submit a Featured Freak?

 If you have a genetic experiment of your own you want to share, then drop me an e-mail with the following information: 
  • The creature itself (I can't host it if I don't have access to it!)
  • The creature's genetics files (.gen files - .gno files are optional)
  • An image of the creature (in .jpg, .gif, or .png format)
  • An explanation as to what makes the creature special.
I accept freaks for all three games (C1, C2, and C3/DS). 

That said, not every creature qualifies to be a Featured Freak. Here is a list of the things I won't accept:
  • Bog-standard first generation creatures. Anyone can go to the egg-layer and make one of these.
  • High-generation creatures of a standard genome. I'm not interested in high-generation ChiChi Norns; go to TCR or Creatures Caves if you absolutely must share those.

Past Featured Freaks:

Bonnie
Featured Freak #6 (10/3/2015 - 11/5/2015)
C3/DS Norn
Sprites: Fimbul Norn (Grendel T), Civet Norn (Norn C)
Bonnie has an affinity with machinery. Pushing and carrying around machinery and gadgets makes him feel at home, and if he's kept around machinery his immune system gets a boost.

Veronica
Featured Freak #5 (7/2/2015 - 10/3/2015)
C3/DS Norn
Sprites: Dream Norn (Geat F), Harlequin Norn (Norn O), Gargoyle Norn (Geat W)
Veronica is more inclined to breed than the average ChiChi Norn (though she's definitely no Spam Norn) and feels less crowded when other creatures interact with her. Otherwise she's pretty ordinary apart from her appearance, but at least breeding that appearance into a population should be fairly simple.

Abaasy
Featured Freak #4 (23/12/2014 - 7/2/2015)
C3/DS Grendel
Sprites: Draconian Norn (Geat Z)
Abaasy never feels cold and never shivers. He actually feels at home in cold places, so keeping something like the iceflowers around would probably be good for him. 
He also is quite dragon-like in many respects; he eats critters, lives longer and ages slower than normal grendels, and will not hobble when he gets old. He is not social and feels no obligation to be friendly to other creatures, so be careful when he's not alone.

Toeko
Featured Freak #3 (12/11/2014 - 23/12/2014)
C3/DS Grendel
Sprites: C3 Grendel (Grendel A), Banshee Grendel (Grendel B), Mask Grendel (Grendel J)
Toeko is based on the ChiChi genome just like Enya is, but unlike her Toeko is sensitive to Melhite (chemical 42) like the Grendels of Minimordor. This means that injecting Melhite into her gives her loads of benefits (such as a longer life) at the cost of potential addiction, while giving her preMelhite will make her immortal when she becomes an adult as well as giving her an endless supply of Melhite. In this download she has not been exposed to Melhite or immortalized with preMelhite, so these chemicals need to be injected into her first. 

Nosferatu
Featured Freak #2 (14/10/2014 - 12/11/2014)
C3/DS Grendel
Sprites: Vampyre Grendel (Grendel F)
Nosferatu ages slower and is generally less aggressive than normal grendels (although he's still not friendly by any means). When he becomes a youth, he'll be able to lengthen his lifespan by hitting other creatures.

Enya
Featured Freak #1 (1/9/2014 - 14/10/2014)
C3/DS Grendel
Sprites: C3 Grendel (Grendel A)
Enya may be a grendel, but she's actually based on the ChiChi Norn genome. As such she'll mostly behave like one, although all references to "norn" were changed to "grendel" and vice-versa (e.g. she'll choose to mate with other grendels instead of trying to push norn). 

Freaks of the Week: 

 Originally, the Featured Freak took the form of the Freak of the Week; it was the exact same idea, just updated once a week (as the name suggested). However, after eleven weeks of this I burnt out and stopped updating it. Later on I decided to retool the feature into the Featured Freak, which didn't require nearly as much updating.

Lilith
10/3/13 - 16/3/13
C3/DS Grendel
Sprites: Jungle Grendel (Grendel A), Banshee Grendel (Grendel B)
Lilith is quite different from previous Freaks of the Week in that she isn't a one-off genetic experiment - she's actually a specimen from one of my in-progress breeds, the Manticore Grendels. 
Manticore Grendels are pretty similar to the Flesheaters in concept. However, Flesheaters are meant to serve as a check to the norn population, while Manticores are simply designed to have a diet revolving around norns. They get little protein from anything other than hitting norns, and their behavior, aging rate, and ability to take hits are all based around their dietary habits. 
No, I did not intend for her picture to have the same pose as last week's Freak; that is just an odd coincidence.

Mander
3/3/13 - 9/3/13
 C3/DS Grendel
Sprites: Jungle Grendel (Grendel A), Maraquan Grendel (Grendel W)
Mander starts life as an aquatic creature, becomes amphibious at adolescence, before becoming completely land-living as an adult. He has a lot of air and oxygen in his lungs, giving you more time to get him to water before he drowns.

Nemi
 24/2/13 - 2/3/13
C3/DS Grendel
Sprites: C3 Ettin (Ettin A), Guppy Ettin (Ettin F), Aardvark Norn (Ettin Y)
Nemi is a "deep-sea" Aqua Grendel. Apart from his bizarre appearance and his darker coloration (both of which tend to be common features of deep-sea creatures), he goes for detritus instead of seeds, ages slower and lives longer than normal Aqua Grendels, and walks around on all fours for his entire lifespan.


Namaka
17/2/13 - 23/2/13
C3/DS Grendel
Sprites: Bondi Norn (Norn F), Deep Norn (Norn W), Maraquan Grendel (Grendel W)
Namaka is based on the Aqua Grendel genome, and for the most part is a standard Aqua Grendel. However, she can't breathe when on land, and her rate of aging is much slower. Not much about her stands out genetically,  but she ought to make a wonderful addition to your gene pool if you're looking for a funky appearance.

DS Ettin
10/2/13 - 16/2/13
Sprites: C3 Ettin (Ettin A)
Chiclet was sent in by LilyNorn. The description she provided is as follows:
"Chiclet is an Ettin who is terrified of food, running away from the mere sight of it. This comes from a slight change in what happens when she consumes food, giving her both 8 fear and 8 fear toxin. One may be able to coax her to eat food, but she’ll run around scared afterwards."

O'Malley
3/2/13 - 9/2/13
C3/DS Norn
Sprites: Bengal Norn (Norn B), Siamese Norn (Norn L)
O'Malley, having sprites from two norn breeds based on cats, has catlike behavior himself. He primarily eats critters and food (though he will eat other things should he need starch), takes impacts after falling down from high places with ease, and is scared of being dropped in water.

Borgetta
27/1/13 - 2/2/13
C2 Norn
Sprites: MerNorn (Norn M), Scorpio Norn (Norn S), Borg Norn V8.3 (Norn W), Gargoyle Norn (Grendel N)
It only helps to celebrate the 5th week of FotW with a special guest. Borgetta was sent in by Mea. The description Mea provided for her is as follows:
"Borgetta is the first creature I ever genetically altered. The only thing I was able to change at that time was the appearance genes, I didn't understand anything else in the genetics file. The norn she was altered from was an borg norn that captured my attention during a feral run. The only two types of norn that I know for sure that are in her are Atlantic mernorn & the Tactical/Threat analysis subrace of borg norn.
During the feral run, I noticed that one of the norns kept going rogue & would get assimilated again & again. As I watched her, I noticed that there were a number of times where after being assimilated she was feeling pain constantly, her face twisted into an angry expression the entire time. At the time, I didn't know enough about norn genetics to fix the constant pain problem myself, so after that point I just kept watching for her to be assimilated again & when she had both water breathing & no longer felt constant pain, that's when I used Genelab to modify her appearance & hatched a new egg from the modified gen file.
I think I learned how to modify norn genetics just so I could change her appearance to the one she currently has. I loved how she turned out so much that I made an egg file for her so that I could hatch her into any world I wanted to."
Borgetta comes with an eggfile in addition to the usual Freak package, in addition to having a rather in-depth readme.

Rachel
 20/1/13 - 26/1/13
C3/DS Norn
Sprites: Kunterbunt Norn (Ettin E), Butterfly Norn (Geat A)
Rachel is immune to glycotoxin and resistant to alcohol. She will seek out and eat detritus when she gets hungry instead of food, and gets more nutrition from detritus than from food. Not exactly the sort of behavior one would expect out of a vibrant norn like her, is it?

Cole
13/1/13 - 19/1/13
C3/DS Norn
Sprites: Bruin Norn (Norn A), Bengal Norn (Norn B)
Cole will steadily darken as he ages. When he becomes a youth, he will become photosensitive and unable to live in bright areas. Make sure you have a dark place for him when the time comes (Primordia might work).


6/1/13 - 12/1/13
C3/DS Grendel
Sprites: C3 Grendel (Grendel A)
Tai Lung is angered quicker by norns than standard grendels are. When he gets angry enough, he gets a compulsion to approach (and most likely hit) nearby norns. He might make a good grendel if you're looking for a way to curb your norn population.

Tianna
 30/12/12 - 5/1/13
C3/DS Norn
Sprites: ChiChi Norn (Norn D), Deep Norn (Norn W)
Tianna requires CA 3 (Airborne Water) to breathe. Silence Falls and/or the Portable Waterfall from the Waterfall Grendel pack ought to make a good home for her.
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