Fodder

The Fodder, also called the Waster, was a Necromorph form that used a human facade to hide its alien interior, keeping the full appearance of its host so it could pass as a living person until it was close enough to kill. It appeared during the outbreak on the New Horizons Lunar Colony and on Tau Volantis, both during the original Sovereign Colonies Armed Forces expedition and at the planet's rediscovery in the 26th century.

Disguise and behavior#

The Fodder relied on a method of disguise unseen in other Necromorphs. It retained its host's silhouette, outfit, and equipment so fully that it could pass as a living person, tricking an unsuspecting victim into lowering their guard until the creature was close enough to strike. The most obvious giveaway was its eyes and mouth, which overflowed with a slime that emitted a ghastly yellow light. It also made sounds that closely resembled distorted human speech, murmuring quietly and then breaking into angered roars when it attacked. When injured it let out near normal cries of pain or even something like a plea to stop, and when it split apart it gave a horrified scream that was cut off by the hiss of emerging tentacles.

Unlike Necromorphs that assaulted their prey with mutated limbs, the Fodder fought with the melee weapons its host had carried in life: ice axes, hatchets, bone saws, pipe wrenches, crowbars, and police batons. It was one of the only Necromorph forms to use human tools as weapons.

Mutation and forms#

Though its outward form had almost no physical alteration compared with a standard Necromorph, the Fodder could split apart into two different shapes depending on where it took the most damage. When its upper body was badly hurt, three pronged tentacles ruptured out of the host's pelvis and destroyed the torso. When its legs were hurt instead, three projectile-shooting appendages sprouted from the torso both to fight at range and to move, destroying the remainder of the legs and pelvis in the process.

Variants#

Fodders took on the appearance of whoever the host had been, and their weapons differed accordingly. The S.C.A.F. Legionary variant, made from dead Legionaries, wore green combat uniforms and wielded crowbars or hatchets. The New Horizons Security Officer variant kept its host's slime covered armor and carried retractable batons, its head hollowed out behind a flood of slime. The S.C.A.F. Navy Enlisted variant was a mummified corpse of the fleet that orbited Tau Volantis, dressed in faded green naval uniforms and carrying hatchets. The S.C.A.F. Snow Scout variant, made from scouts who had died in the cold or the purge, wore black and yellow thermal outfits and carried ice axes, and was found at camps and outposts across the planet's surface.

The Unitologist Soldier variant was a reanimated Circle soldier that discarded its rifle in favor of red handled ice axes, found where Unitologist troops had been slaughtered in great numbers. The S.C.A.F. Research Team variant, found only in the Science Division's mountain peak base, wore blue and white insulated suits with broken hazmat visors and wielded the saws used to cut apart alien specimens. Most dangerous was the Enhanced Fodder, formed from military personnel in bulky Legionary Suits whose enclosed decomposition forced slime through the armor's seams and gas masks. The suit's protection and the creature's enhanced resilience made it one of the toughest Necromorphs that could be faced, and it wielded a pair of pipe wrenches.

Origins of the form#

The Fodder grew from a very early idea for the Necromorphs, in which an octopus-like parasite would wear a corpse like a suit and, when dismembered, emerge as a mass of flailing tendrils searching for its lost limb. That early concept was set aside but later reintroduced in the form of the Fodder. The disguise it wore and its retreat into inhuman appendages drew comparison to the shape-stealing creature of the frozen station in The Thing, fitting for a Necromorph found among the snows of Tau Volantis, and the slime that lit its hollow face echoed the false Nicole Brennan that haunted the Titan Station outbreak.