The Beast Fears Fire - Lobstermen

Other's Day continues!

Lobstermen - [Violence 4]
Impusle - To Fill the Monster Cupboard

If you are in the Other, near the Other, or around where denizens of the Other are active, you should assume there's a lobsterman somewhere. You won't know where at first. It won't move. It will wait. It can wait, perfectly still, for as long as it needs to. Behind a door, around a corner, someplace you would have noticed it getting into. The lobsterman has time, all the time in the world. It knows someone is going to open that door, look in that alcove, come around the corner, and there it will be, 2 meters tall, dark green and mottled and 1000 kilograms.

Lobstermen look like bipedal atlantic lobsters, their legs having formed a composite pair of legs and with heavy, crushing claws. They appear places and wait for someone to happen on them. That's what they do, that's what they're all about. Once someone has found them, they are fast, strong, and ruthless, clubbing and crushing and tearing.

Harm - 3 Lobstermen are utterly straightforward in every way, really. They destroy anything in front of them and then shuffle off to a different hiding place, or back to the Other. Their shell is made of a dark green metal that is stronger and harder than anything else in either world, which makes them very difficult to hurt in a fight. It also seems to protect them from psychic and magical attacks as well, and is very hard on weapons you bring to bear against it.

Shell Game
When you seek to harm a lobsterman and you bring weapons or talismans to the task, face Violence.
On a Hit, you do minimal Harm to the lobsterman.
On a Hard Hit, you can do Harm as stated.
On a Miss, you break the weapon or talisman you were using and get a moment to look upset before the Lobsterman inflicts Harm on you as stated.

Creeping up the stairs in the dark, waiting for the death blow.
The beast, in this case, actually does fear fire. If you use a larger bonfire or a weapon aligned with fire on the lobsterman it breaks the structure of the shell and lets you avoid the Shell Game Move entirely. The lobsterman is still a skilled and deadly combatant, but it could be a lot worse.

If you can kill a lobsterman without fire (good luck) and shell it, it is possible to make amazing armor out of the shell, which protects against physical attacks and magic. Unfortunately, it requires serious earth witchcraft to reshape the shell, because fire still makes it brittle and worthless. The armor is worth D12 when facing Violence and D8 when facing malevolence. Unless fire's involved, at which point it is worth precisely dick, as it will be from here on out because it's ruined.

Wearing lobsterman armor does also put you at risk of having your armor's relatives show up to collect, so beware.