Draft:Hornet

Omega 0.90.4

h Hornet
Form	Ordinary creature
Attacks	2 attacks: 0–1 physical each before absorption; no defensive actions
Base level	0
HP	1
Hit	1
Defense	10
Action interval	1 ticks; lower is faster
Kill experience	1, when death is in sight
Generation	Random pools, plains and arena
Carried items	None at ordinary generation
Immunities	None innate
Remains	Dead hornet; 50% on normal death
Remains use	Poisonous food; no alchemy
Traits Initially hostile Flies and flutters toward the player Poisonous remains, but no poisonous attack
Reference	minit.h in Omega 0.90.4, line 6

A hornet is a small flying monster, displayed as a yellow h. It has only one HP, but acts at a base interval of one tick and attempts two attacks in a tactical sequence. Its corpse is poisonous; its attacks are ordinary physical attacks, without an added poison effect.

Generation

Hornets can appear in ordinary random-monster pools and are explicitly included in plains encounters on LOCUS. Random encounter slots can also produce them in other terrain. Ordinary hornets have no starting possessions.

The hornet is the second opponent in the initial unregistered Coliseum sequence, between the pencil-necked geek and hyena. Registration skips these opening matches. The arena hornet is awake, named, and carries a disposable garage-door opener.

Form	HP	Hit / defense	Raw damage per attack
Ordinary	1	1 / 10	0–1
Arena	1	2 / 10	0–2

The arena adds HP according to monster level, so this level-0 opponent remains at one HP. Both forms retain two attacks and a one-tick base interval. Tick intervals describe how often a creature acts, not how many attacks it makes per player command.

Behavior and remains

Hornets flutter toward the player and attack when adjacent. They have no innate damage immunity, defensive action, ranged attack or special ability. Surrender does not pacify them.

A hornet's corpse appears on 50% of ordinary normal deaths; the named arena form always leaves one on normal death. Eating it causes poisoning and provides no ordinary food benefit. There is no alchemical transformation.

The corpse can instead be offered to a still-hungry hyena or grunt. Both accept poisonous food and suffer 100 poison damage, enough to kill their ordinary or arena forms at their initial HP. The offering is consumed and moves alignment two points toward Chaos. This requires a target that has not already lost its hunger through feeding.

Strategy

Do not confuse low damage with harmlessness. A hornet has low accuracy, but its frequent actions and two attacks can still wear down a character who remains beside it. Armor helps against the arena form's larger damage roll, but each successful non-immune physical hit still costs at least one HP. A single damaging hit is enough to kill a hornet in either form.

Keep the corpse out of your food supply. In the initial arena sequence it can provide a poison offering for the next hyena match, subject to the alignment cost above. Use Give while adjacent to the target; a cursed offering cannot be given. Collect the opener as well: carrying a corpse does not open the arena gates. See the Coliseum for leaving a victorious match.