Insects & Reptiles
Spiders: By daytime, these web-spinning arachnids are rarely seen. They favor dark, out of the way corners and tend not to bother people. A patient may come upon one in a restroom or perhaps the corner of the courtyard, but chances are the little critters are more scared of the patients than the patients may be of them.
When it comes to the nighttime, however, these creatures show no fear. With bodies the length of a full grown human and legs that can reach up to five feet, no patient wants to run into one anywhere. These spiders are predators, and don’t rely on their giant webs to catch unsuspecting patients. They make good use of their pinchers, which are large enough to take off a limb. With heightened intelligence and remarkably good eyesight, the spiders are among the more deadly creatures that inhabit Landel's. They have a weak poison they can inject into patients if they manage to bite them, which causes dizziness, disorientation, and eventual paralysis of the bitten area. The dizziness and disorientation go into affect almost immediately, with the paralysis being the last consequence to appear.
The spiders tend to stick to the basement, though building upheavals can send them to other parts of the hospital. Their large bodies are weak, with little natural protection, and without their eyes they have no way of tracking prey that isn’t caught in their web.
Cockroaches: The most common and hardy bug known to man. Another one of those critters that is surprising to find in a mental hospital. Roaches are almost never seen during the daylight hours.
After nightfall, the roaches are prey to the strange metamorphosis of all other creatures. Reaching the size of an average sewer rat, roaches are stupid and hungry. Their main goal is simply to feed, and their bites bring with them all manner of nasty infection. A bite from a roach will swell and turn green within a few hours, encumbering the infected area. The pain is sharp and burning and several bites accumulating in the same area feels the same as being stabbed, although the feeling is constant and excruciating. If several bites accumulate on areas like legs and arms, the intensity of the pain and the size of the swelling can easily make the limb unusable for the rest of the night.
While with their armored shells they appear to be difficult opponents, flipping them over and exposing their underbelly will easily do them in.
Snakes: Along with woods and mountains, open fields grace the area surrounding the asylum. While dogs rarely venture here, there’s something else to give a patient pause. While fields are often home to a variety of snakes, the fields of Landel's offer sanctuary to monstrous constrictors. While not poisonous, their thirty-foot coils are more than capable of crushing a full-grown human. If their prey is lucky, these gigantic creatures will crush their dinner to death before unhinging their curiously long jaws and swallowing them down. As a snake begins to wrap, the patient will experience difficulty in breathing, moving on to an increasingly frantic heartbeat until they either suffocate or go into cardiac arrest from the intense pressure of the snake’s coils.
Snakes are particularly difficult to fight. With tough skin and amazing senses, blinding them or flashing them with light won’t hinder them from finding prey. The best bet against these predators is to break their surprisingly weak jaws and make a run for it.
Scorpions: While generally desert dwelling creatures, scorpions seem to have somehow found their way into Landel's. You won’t see these during the day, but at night you may have the misfortune of running into one of the pale, slender arachnids. In the darkness of Landels, their pale armor looks nearly white, and you certainly won’t miss spotting them, as they're the size of raccoons.
While scorpions do have weak points---damage the legs with their sensitive hairs and the creature is rendered blind---it’s often not worth the risk. A sting from one of these creatures brings with it burning pain which fades within half an hour to paralysis, confusion, , tachycardia, respiratory distress and an inability to speak. Luckily, scorpions have poor eyesight and the concrete and wooden floors of Landel's don’t absorb vibration as well as sand or dirt. Running from the creatures is possible, and far less risky than fighting them.
One sting is all it takes to paralyze, two stings will result in lasting effects into Dayshift (difficulty breathing, inability to speak), three stings will bring lasting paralysis through dayshift up to the lunch shift. Four stings or more may result in death.
Leeches: Found in damp and watery areas, these sickening creatures bear only the faintest resemblence to their normal kin. Ranging in size from one to two feet long, thick and fat and a dark sickly red color, these monsters are foul to look upon. Their bodies are covered in a thick, brakkish slime that reeks of dead things beneath water. They have no visible eyes, but perfectly round mouths that open wide and displays tiny teeth and open muscles. As large and vicious as they are - able to drain a human's blood in less than an hour - their soft bodies are weak. Though the mouths will hang on long after the creature is dead....