This is for that:
The purpose of a system is what it does. Cars run over kids you can't even see over the hood and enfever the Earth with their exhaust. Cars grind down their tires and fill your balls with microplastics. Cars are vehicles of death, engines of extinction - it's only with constant ads of smiling families driving on scenic and empty country roads that we manage to convince them otherwise.
Some cannot be fooled.
These cars have lapped at pools of blood and purred. These cars have caged people in their steel ribs and watched them burn alive. They have tasted blood, they have tasted death, and they hunger for more - no longer slavish machines, they are night-honkers, road-killers: Dragulas!
Stat a dragula as the car it was before its dread awakening, with the following additions:
-It is intelligent, and ambulatory. A dragula is animalistic when first created, and later if very hungry. Its knowledge will revolve around car stuff, and things it could observe from the road, unless it is unusually experienced or curious.
-Gas will keep it going for a little while, but to survive it needs blood, which it can absorb through any of its surfaces. Regular feeding, about one kill a month for a regular-sized car, will keep it fueled and in perfect condition - a smaller car will need less, a bigger car more.
-After feeding a dragula will excrete rusty chunks. Touching these chunks is a good way to get tetanus. A spike in tetanus cases is a decent indicator of dragula presence.
-Direct sunlight will cause it to quickly rust, but an unscratched paintjob is enough to protect a dragula. Immersion in running water will also cause a dragula to quickly rust.
-Every dragula has a special dragula power. More experienced and well-fed dragulas will have more. Some examples:
1. The fumes of its oil-blood intoxicate and hypnotize people who inhale them.
2. The dragula can reanimate animals it rolls over as roadkill-zombies.
3. The dragula can paralyze those who stare into its headlights.
4. The dragula can discorporate and fly around as a cloud of black smoke.
5. The dragula can manifest a shadowy humanoid avatar.
6. The sound of the dragula's shrill honk induces restless nightmares in everyone who hears it.
7. By splattering other cars with its oil-blood it can turn them into a convoy of sub-ghouls.
8. The dragula's malign spirit resides in its license plate, and if this license plate is swapped it can possess a new car, even escape the destruction of its previous form.
-It is intelligent, and ambulatory. A dragula is animalistic when first created, and later if very hungry. Its knowledge will revolve around car stuff, and things it could observe from the road, unless it is unusually experienced or curious.
-Gas will keep it going for a little while, but to survive it needs blood, which it can absorb through any of its surfaces. Regular feeding, about one kill a month for a regular-sized car, will keep it fueled and in perfect condition - a smaller car will need less, a bigger car more.
-After feeding a dragula will excrete rusty chunks. Touching these chunks is a good way to get tetanus. A spike in tetanus cases is a decent indicator of dragula presence.
-Direct sunlight will cause it to quickly rust, but an unscratched paintjob is enough to protect a dragula. Immersion in running water will also cause a dragula to quickly rust.
-Every dragula has a special dragula power. More experienced and well-fed dragulas will have more. Some examples:
1. The fumes of its oil-blood intoxicate and hypnotize people who inhale them.
2. The dragula can reanimate animals it rolls over as roadkill-zombies.
3. The dragula can paralyze those who stare into its headlights.
4. The dragula can discorporate and fly around as a cloud of black smoke.
5. The dragula can manifest a shadowy humanoid avatar.
6. The sound of the dragula's shrill honk induces restless nightmares in everyone who hears it.
7. By splattering other cars with its oil-blood it can turn them into a convoy of sub-ghouls.
8. The dragula's malign spirit resides in its license plate, and if this license plate is swapped it can possess a new car, even escape the destruction of its previous form.
9. The dragula's got a pocket-dimensional garage-lair it can access from any area of complete darkness.
10. The ghosts of the dragula's victims are bound to it, and it can send them out to haunt and harass future victims or investigators.
10. The ghosts of the dragula's victims are bound to it, and it can send them out to haunt and harass future victims or investigators.
Some say that after 100 years as a blood-drinking mecha-fiend a dragula will shed its exterior like a chrysalis and emerge as a new sort of monster, no longer bound by the roll of asphalt. No known dragula is anywhere close to that age, but the rumour had to have come from somewhere, right?
I originally thought Dragula was going to be a Drag Queen Dracula but this is also very good. Also, "Drag On" if you want to do drag race / dragon wordplay, and it works since Dracula is etymologically related to Dragon anyway.
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