Spitter

The Spitter was a Slasher-type Necromorph grown from a female host, set apart from the more common male form by its ability to spew acidic bile across short distances. In every other respect a close relative of the Slasher, it preferred to harass survivors from range, spitting at them while other creatures pressed in to finish the work.

Form#

The Spitter was, at its root, a Slasher, and it shared that creature's basic anatomy: large, bladed arms protruding from the shoulders alongside the host's intact original arms. What marked it apart was its origin in a female host and the apparatus that origin produced. In the earliest of the Spitters the host's body remained relatively intact, the least mutilated of the Slasher forms, with green uniforms still in place and the chief changes being the blades on the hands, flesh hanging from the arms, and a head torn loose from the body and rejoined by a new fleshy neck.

In later outbreaks the form grew far more grotesque. The upper back ripped open to grow new bladed arms made entirely of mutated flesh, the ribs were exposed, and the original arms were repurposed to hold the split chest open. That open chest revealed the lungs, enlarged and reworked to make and spew the creature's bile, fed by an enlarged esophagus that ran from a split, widened mouth down to the transformed lungs. By the most extreme stage of its mutation, the Spitter had sprouted many new arms from across the host's body and a new bladed head at the base of the neck, with the lungs drawn out of the main body entirely.

Behavior#

The Spitter fought with attacks drawn from both the male Slasher and the Puker. From a distance it launched a fast glob of acidic bile at its target, and up close it slashed with its bladed arms and attempted to grab its victim. Early in an outbreak the creatures relied mostly on close combat and would spit only when their path to a target was blocked, but as a crisis wore on they came to spit far more freely, bombarding survivors rather than charging.

Spitters tended to be loners, but they were often found in the company of Pukers or other Slashers, spitting from range while the other creatures closed the distance. This made them a priority to put down first. A Spitter could be killed in the same manner as a Slasher, by cutting off both of its bladed arms, while shooting away its head or its legs stripped it of the ability to spit at all. The bile it launched, like the spray of a Puker, could be caught in midair and hurled back at the creature, killing it outright. Alongside the Puker, the Spitter was one of only two Necromorphs able to spew acid across short distances.