Moss family
The Moss family (JP: コケ類) are a group of slime monsters introduced in What Did I Do to Deserve This, My Lord!?.
Mosses are created from Level 1 Nutrient Blocks and can transfer nutrients between other soil blocks. They are at the bottom of the food chain, being eaten by insects. They move in a cardinal direction whenever they hit a wall, making them very manipulable. For example, cube-shaped room without any extension from the corners will trap mosses within, allowing for nutrients to pick up very quickly.
When mosses reach enough nutrients and lose vitality, Basic and Abnormal Slimemosses will transition into their next stages, sucking in nutrients from a set distance. Basic Breeds will go through Slimebud stages first, sucking in nutrients from a 1-space square, while Abnormal Breeds skip this stage. Both will eventually become a Slimeblossom and suck in nutrients from a 2-space square instead. Finally, once their vitality is exhausted, they split into more Slimemosses; this acts as their reproduction system. With high Dungeon IQ in No Heroes Allowed!, Slimeblossoms can distribute Fluff to reproduce from more of a distance.
However, not all mosses will go through this cycle. Giant Breeds — known as Jumbomosses — skip it entirely and instead split apart when they have enough nutrients, similar to the Obese Lizardman. Rare Breeds such as Sticky Amoebas will become powerful, omnivorous monsters, in this case the Putrid Flower, when they would otherwise enter their Slimeblossom state. Rare Breeds have a diet somewhat akin to Mimics, though they can't eat Dragons; this can be devastating to poorly prepared ecosystems, but they are equally devastating to heroes.
Mosses, with the exception of the Rare Breeds, have limited offensive capabilities, with the most they can offer a God of Destruction being the paralysis effect of Paraslimemosses. Slimeblossoms can also defend themselves with gooey projectiles which do similar things, but the damage is so negligible that they demand support from other monsters to do so. Combat is simply not the job of a moss and it's up to the rest of the dungeon to defend them so to not cause the ecosystem to collapse. However, with hundreds of Mosses, they can overwhelm heroes; this strategy is known as "Moss Hell".
Mosses are Level 1 green monsters, and when combined on the puzzle table, they will become Level 2 monsters like Omnoms. They are the most common monsters to drop, but deal little damage without extensive combos. Basic, Abnormal, and Rare Breeds will automatically evolve into their Flower states when their levels are maxed out; notably, this means the Basic Breed outright skips the Bud phase.
In No Heroes Allowed: No Puzzles Either!, the Giant Captain Moss has the highest Attack, making it the best for raw damage output. However, the Imperial Aroma and Paralacaptain Flower have less Attack but access to the "Nutritious" and "Paralysis" abilities, respectively, which can give them an edge in-context. However, the Spirit family has stronger monsters all around in all roles, all having higher Attack, making Mosses generally suboptimal in gameplay. In fact, even the Giant Captain Moss has lower Attack than the Psycho Spirit, the Basic Breed of the family.
In No Heroes Allowed! VR
In No Heroes Allowed! VR, Mosses were reworked. Being set above ground instead of under, instead of consuming nutrients, they feed on dew from Fiend Trees, relying on them to multiply and keep up the ecosystem. Thus, placing Nests around them is essential to succeeding. Instead of going through the blossoming cycle, Mosses will instead grow into Shrooms as well, capable of reproducing while maintaining their mobility.
Jumbomosses, the Giant Breed of the Moss family, were repurposed into coalescences of multiple Mosses, as the lore in the Almanac originally stated, making them among the few mutations from previous games to remain. They do not reproduce or grow into Shrooms, serving only as attackers. Because their Horde Power is higher than average, they are good candidates for combining monsters to create strong Mimics or Runeborn monsters.
List of Moss family members
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M-My Lord! There's hardly any information here! Aren't you going to fix it? The editor who added this tag elaborates: NHAVR members |
Gallery
A Slimeblossom as it appears on the "It's Alive!" trophy in No Heroes Allowed: No Puzzles Either!
A Slimemoss as it appears on the "Combo: First Blood" trophy in No Heroes Allowed: No Puzzles Either!
A Moss as it appears on a trophy in No Heroes Allowed! VR
A Slimemoss as seen in Yu-Nama: The Puzzle.
Slimemoss sprite released as a PlayStation 3 avatar in 2012.
In other languages
| Language | Name | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Japanese | コケ類 Koke-rui |
Moss family |
| Mandarin Chinese (Traditional Script) |
苔蘚類 Táixiǎn lèi |
Moss family |
| Korean | 이끼류 ikki lyu |
Moss family |
Trivia
- Seemingly in error, members of the Homunculus family are categorised as Pure Mosses.
| Land monsters |
|---|
| Moss family - Insect family - Lizardman family - Spirit family - Lilith family - Dragon family |
| Aquatic monsters |
| Aquachnid family - Hurtle family - Thunderhead family - Lorelei family - Whale family |
| Runeborn monsters |
| Demon family - Golem family - Lady family - Gargoyle family - Mara family - Homunculus family |
| Other monsters |
| Mimic family - Skeleman family - Mandrake family - Humanoid family |