The foruth and final monstrous archetype is the Divine Enforcer. They are the punishers of transgressions and the keepers of sacred and forbidden places.
Sometimes they are the twisted results of previous transgressors, ones the gods have already punished through a monstrous transformation, or they the creation, even the children of those who have transgressed.
More than any of the other monster archetypes, Divine Enforcers are often tragic figures.
Divine Enforcer Examples: Godzilla, Sekhmet, Bloody Mary, Medusa, Asterion (The Minotaur), Frankenstein’s Monster, The Krampus, The Mummy, Lucifer
Common Features
- Origin
- Punished: A human or being who was perfect/unblemished and was transformed into a monster.
- Created: Made in a lab or through magical experimentation, then got out of hand.
- Consequences: Formed naturally from a mistake, or waste left over from unthinking actions.
- Sent: A punishment sent by the gods or other forces for the purpose of punishing a transgression, maybe through a monstrous birth, or a divine being given a mission.
- Awakened: It was always there, dormant, waiting for someone to overstep their bounds.
- Purpose
- Retrieval: of a stolen relic or something that should not have been removed from a sacred place. Usually returning it or allowing the enforcer to take it back can end the punishment.
- Territory: Protecting a specific forbidden area, or simply living in it’s home and attacking anything that intrudes. May combine with retrieval if something taken from that home expands the percieved area needing protection.
- Grudge: A very personal quest to destroy a person or group who did the transgressing or was in some other way set in the monster’s sights. It will seek to target those people specifically, but there will likely be collateral damage, or the group will be bigger than the one doing the aiming intended.
- Don’t do the thing: If you do the thing, the monster will come and kill you. You just did the thing on a dare. Good job.
- Good children get candy. Bad Children get pulled into a lake and their livers eaten.
- We made this thing that only targets Bad Genes and not Good Genes. But wait, doesn’t everyone, technically, when you think about it have a little of Bad Genes?
- Obliteration: The monster’s goal, or simply the consequence of it doing what it wants to do is simply to cause as much destruction as possible. This is usually a consequential action rather than a directed one. The monster has been unleashed and has no natural checks or balances on a violent or hateful nature.
- Form taken by the divine enforce is wide open, but there are a few popular ones to examine.
- Kaiju: The giant monster, possibly a giant form of a regular animal with altered proportions and super-powers. Often mythically large to the point of absurdity.
- Zoomorphic Humanoid: A mutated human with some recognizably human features, and some added animalistic traits, usually exaggerated, or slapped on in weird places like a Mr. Potato head.
- Broken Form: The original form, but instead of an animalistic transformation, it may be a decayed, injured, or distressed form, like a rot or corpse-like color.
- Demonic/Angelic: The Enforcer is sometimes sent from heaven or hell, depending on the mythology from which it was derived, so may have traits resembling artistic expressions of those traditions, such as angelic wings, demonic horns and hooves, or things like that.
Blending Archetypes
Blended with Primal Predator: Divine enforcers may often take a superior physical form that renders the human victims as mere prey in relation to a predator. Consider Jurassic Park. The dinosaurs are comfortably in the category of Primal Predators, but were created by scientists, in a lab, and their subsequent escape is the consequence of hubris and “playing god”, in thinking that such animals could be controlled.
Blended with Twisted Reflections: There is another way that these two archetypes can combine into a form not otherwise represented in this framework, in which, through divine intervention, a sin of humanity can take on a corporeal punishing or avenging form. Consider the Golem. The Golem is a guardian of the Jewish people, an entity made from clay and given life. It is strong, unstoppable, and possesses the power to brutalize the brutalizers, to oppress the oppressors, and to do what must be done while allowing those it protects to remain pure from the corruption of the evil acts.
Blended with Corrupted Humanity: This can look like a punishing plague, (zombies come to mind) or a kind of infection released, like the Jurassic park example, through hubris and human fallibility playing with forbidden powers. But as a more concrete example, let’s look at Medusa. She was a human and was not so much a transgressor as a scapegoat of the Olympic pantheon’s soap-opera-shenanigans. Her form was twisted, she was cursed, and now she has the form of a divine enforcer. Though it is against her will, she is the protector of her lair, and a holder of great power. Her existence, becomes a kind of a magical dare to kings and “heroes” to test themselves against, as she probably wouldn’t kill anyone if people didn’t keep coming to try and slay her.
Let’s Make a Kaiju!
To begin, lets assume this is not part of any kaiju mythos, so not set in a setting with other kaijus, like the Godzilla universe. This monster will stand on its own as the only such being to terrorize the earth.
Also lets up the camp-level just a teensy bit, as this genre really did begin with rubber suits and carboard skyscrapers, and I don’t want to shy away from that.
The Origin
We must also determine if we want the origin to be magical or pseudo-scientific. Lets aim for something a bit lovecraftian, so lets say it will be an awakened monster. It has been existing beneath the earth and some new technological development has begin to awaken it.
The Purpose
What new technological development could have awakened the beast? I know just the thing: 6G Internet! It was just one “G” too far.
Therefore the kaiju will go after all 6G internet towers, and maybe the entire internet structure. It took 6G to awaken it, but now it will allow no broadcast or cell towers to exist, thus threatening our entire infrastructure.
The Form
Lets break this one down a little more and look at some classic Kaiju forms. I want this to be iconic, not like the kaiju in Pacific Rim where it is kind of hard to tell them apart or remember much specific about any individual monster. This kaiju should be able to go toe to toe with Godzilla and not look out of place.
Godzilla, King Kong, Ghidora, Rodan, Mothra, Gigan, Behemoth
A lot of them will have a vaguely humanish-form, at lest enough that it can be represented by a human in a suit. Though, of course, puppets like mothra can be swung down on a wire, too.
So what kind of a base can we begin with? Maybe turning to some of the biotypes from my Create your Own Alien Species Chart. In fact… we could draw a LOT of the form details from that. Lets draw up a few from that!
Chimpanzee, Humanoid, Claws, Strength, Mucousoid Skin with Armor Plates.
Well, that one would fit nicely in a monster costume, but it almost seems too easy.
Bipedal cheetah with no forelimbs (like a t-rex), wings, heightened senses.
Gettin’ weirder. The cat-like features make that one feel pretty silly and random. Might work if those features were warped and disguised enough.
Spider-skunk-hybrid with radial legs, spinnerets, claws, and a long sticky tongue, vivid color patterns on a salamander-type skin.
Holy crap. That one is like a horrible collection of the most awful things a thing can be. And it is EXCEEDINGLY weird, so let’s go with that one.
Though, frankly, I could see the armored claw-chimp kaiju taking a lead in this kaiju pantheon, and this one being more horrible, like a ghidora type.
Final Description: 8 spidery legs around a bestial but hairless upper torso. The upper torso features clawed arms and a snarling snouted maw. It has black shiny skin and carapace highlighted by toxic greens, yellows, and stark white patches. It’s arsenal of weapons includes its claws for close combat, the long sticky tongue it uses to snap up small prey and draw rivals in close. Beneath the spidery legs it can unleash a devastating chemical “skunk” attack against anything it passes over, dissolving the flesh of mere humans. It can also unleash a sticky webbing like a snail-trail to trip up rivals maneuvering in combat, or hold entire populations in place, allowing them to feat at its leisure.
The Name needs to also fit the genre. Giving them titles such as King or Caesar is not uncommon. This clearly doesn’t fit in the “saurus” category, and doesn’t really evoke any particular continent’s biological type.
If it has a “scientific” sounding name, it would likely be something insect sounding and latin. However I did want it to be some ancient avenger, possibly not even from this planet or dimension, so something ancient sounding is best.
Godzilla, Gigan, Hedorah, Ghidora
Three syllables seems to be popular, and the names ending in an A syllable are also common.
What do I want the name to evoke? I definitely want to highlight the grossness of it. It is spiders and skunks and long sticky tongues. Definitely gives a swamp-monster vibe. Relevant words to toy with:
Gruesome, Bile, Gross, Vile, Muck, Slime, Rancid, Rot, Bog, Swamp, Suck, Goo, Rue, Skitter, Web, Foul, Stench, Bitter, Ruin, Murky
I’ll play with these until I get some good candidates.
Grusha, Grushama, Bilggrua, Garuga, Vileboga, Rueboga, Mukboga, Murboga, Groskitta, Gruboga
I could play more but I think I like The Gruboga. The only thing I don’t like is that it could sound similar to a monster from The Relic I discussed last week, the Kathoga, but I think they will be easily separated if that ever became relevant.
Conclusion
That brings us to the end of our exploration of Monster Archetypes! Next week we will continue with our normal content, until we decide we need some more examples to cause some mayhem.
If you have any other ideas, or want to share some examples of your own created Kaiju or other monsters, please share! I’d love to hear from you 🙂
In the mean time, I’ll see you all next world!
—Charles