flint fog
Description
Dust Piranhas, despite their name, are more closely related to bats, and rather get their name from how they feed. Dust Piranhas are small in size, no bigger than a Tulip Snake. Dust Piranhas are almost completely hairless, but use a fluid they secrete from their skin to make any dust they come in contact with to stick to their skin, allowing them to appear as an oddly shaped hair-ball. Dust Piranhas like to stay in groups, and generally dont move very much, unless they need to feed. Their most notable feature however, has to be their set of jaws, made up of teeth so big that adults have their eyes get completely covered by them. Their wings by contrast however are quite pathetic, not allowing them to sustain themselves in the air for very long at all, but still aids their movement in the air to an extent.
Behavior
Perched
Upon spawning, the Dust Piranha will select a random room/node to be its perch. It will then proceed to a room/node and perch itself on the ceiling, much like a Snare Flea. Other Dust Piranhas that spawn will also perch themselves in the same spot as the first Dust Piranha. While perched, Dust Piranhas are completely harmless, but will create an increasing amount of noise as more Dust Piranhas join. A Minimum of 4 Dust Piranhas will spawn on a given moon, and a maximum of 12. If a group of Dust Piranhas is left undisturbed for a while, they, as a group, will move into the Relocating Phase.
Relocating
While Relocating, all Dust Piranhas will start dropping to the floor one by one, piling on top of each other, attempting to mimic the appearance of a bunny, but look more like a really dusty/dirty Sea Bunny (yes specifically Sea Bunny, instead of normal bunnies). Once they've all fallen into formation, this Sea Bunny looking creature comprised of Dust Piranhas will slowly begin crawling its way to its next selected node, albeit quite slowly. If a Player encounters the Dust Piranhas from the front during this phase, the Dust Piranhas will stop moving momentarily, and begin to break formation, as they begin to give chase to the Player. This moves them to their Hunting Phase.
Hunting
After a Dust Piranha breaks formation, it will begin chasing the Player like a Tulip Snake, latching itself to the Players head, and begin dealing damage over time by chomping at the Players head, and adding weight to the Player for each attached Dust Piranha. If the Player has a max of 3 Dust Piranhas on their head, additional Dust Piranhas will still chase the Player and bite them for damage instead. They can be knocked off of a Player by smacking them with a Shovel. Each Dust Piranha takes 2 hits to kill. Once the Dust Piranhas have successfully killed a Player, they will enter their Feeding Phase.
Feeding
Once in radius of a dead Player, all Dust Piranhas will swarm the body and begin a feeding frenzy, making it almost impossible to recover without a Teleporter, lest a Player trying to retrieve it gets added to the pile. But this will also keep all Dust Piranhas occupied for a very long time, before leaving the body, and resetting the cycle. If a Player has died from a different source, another Player can bring the body to a group of Perched Dust Piranhas. This will cause Dust Piranhas to move from their Perched phase directly into the Feeding phase.
Special Interaction
A Player with Weed Killer can come up behind a group of Dust Piranhas as they're in their Relocating phase, and spray them. This causes a reaction between the Weed Killer, and the fluid that Dust Piranhas secrete from their body, causing them to stick to one another, halting their movement and essentially killing them. This will leave them stuck in their Sea Bunny form, and at this point, will become a piece of scrap you can use to decorate the ship, or sell for a good buck.
Said this on my last Creature Concept but, Im not a modder, Idk if anything Ive described can even be done. But I hope you like the concept nonetheless!
lavish escarp
errant fog