Themes
Themes are a way for you to modify the appearance of your creatures in various ways, you'll find here a list of forty themes.
Contrary to effects such as Template or Variant that you gain in the Celestial Menageries, the effect of a theme is purely cosmetic, it does not change your creature's health, strength, resistance, or power.
A Summoned Dog under the Machine theme still possesses the ability to smell things, and if you possess the Controlled Reproduction power you could allow him to reproduce with a normal dog. Despite being only cosmetic the effect is not purely external, if a Cat under the Plant theme is cut in two, its inside appears made of vines with bone made of wood. It is also not purely visual; it includes all senses. A theme does not create weakness either, a dragon under the insect theme, wouldn't be vulnerable to a power that grants insect control.
You can gain one free theme when you start your story and you can gain additional ones by rolling in the power section.
You choose what theme to apply, if any, each time you summoned a creature and if you possess multiple themes you can even combine them.
1 - Nothing
Normal: No change, you creatures keep the same appearance they possess in their original universe.
Enhanced: N/A
2 - Air
Normal: This theme makes your creature look like they are formed of Air, Tornado, Mist, Fog, Steam, or Smoke. Colors can vary from normal to outlandish. Your creature shape may also appear to be moved by an unseen wind. (Credit: Omnimercurial)
Enhanced: When enhanced this theme grants your creatures the ability to pass through partial barriers such as prison bars, air vents with grate covers, wire fences, etc. Does not allow them to pass through fully solid barriers.
3 - Anatomy
Normal: This theme makes your creatures appear like anatomical models, removing their skin and exposing their organs to the world. This can also include illusory text that indicated the name of various body parts. (Credit: chinlamp)
Enhanced: Seeing your creatures exposed organ induced feeling of disgust in other beings, they are reluctant to look at your creature and have a tendency to focus on other things instead.
This applies even to those normally accustomed to such sights, like doctors or forensic surgeons.
4 - Angel
Normal: Your creature gains angelic features. This can mean white wings, a halo, a white/gold/silver aura, glowing skin, silver or golden eyes, etc.
Enhanced: When your creatures die or are unsummoned, they leave behind a blessed zone, equal in diameter to their size plus one meter. Any ally that stands in that zone finds themselves slightly faster, tougher, and able to endure longer, equal to about a 5% increase on their base stats. This effect does not stack with itself.
5 - Balloon
Normal: The balloon theme transforms your creature to make them look as if they are made out of balloons, akin to balloon animals made by performers for parties, etc. (Credit: Omnimercurial)
Enhanced: Gravity is lighter for those with this theme, as if Helium-filled Balloons, gives a Moon-like Leap and Fall effect, giving higher and longer jumps with extended air time.
6 - Cloth
Normal: Your creatures appear to be made of various types of cloth and textile. It could be, cotton, nylon, silk, wool, etc... But it can also include buttons, zippers, belts, and knots, or any other such things.
Enhanced: Your creature gains a 50% resistance to bludgeoning damage
7 - Constellation
Normal: Your Creatures look like a piece of the night sky with a constellation inside it. The stars of the constellation are the joints and also in the center of distinct body parts, the chest, the face, etc... Glowing lines connected stars and distinct glowing outlines are optional. The look can also include galaxies, nebulas, or solar systems. Sometimes a cloud, a satellite, a comet, or even an aurora can appear inside the body as if seen from afar. (Credit: Tizian.s)
Enhanced: Your creatures are fascinating to look at, people other than you and your summons find it hard to look away from them. Sufficient willpower or sudden distraction can overcome this effect. Once overcome the effect is not reapplied for the same creature, but can still manifest from another one.
8 - Costume
Normal: Your creatures look like empty costumes of themselves that move on their own. This can range from fully realistic costumes, even animatronic, but can also resemble themed park mascots or even muppets. In all cases, your creatures cannot be mistaken for normal beings, the difference is made obvious by gaps in the costume, overlapping fabric, or badly hidden articulation.
(Credit: Doccer)
Enhanced: Your creatures can be opened and their interior is hollow. Items or beings can be put inside and are protected from attack while inside. Should the creature be unsummoned while it contains something it is left behind. If you possess the Free Modification power you cannot dismiss this theme as long as the creature contains something.
9 - Demon
Normal: Your creature gains demonic features. This can mean red skin, horns, bat wings, spade tails, flaming eyes, etc.
Enhanced: When your creatures die or are unsummoned, they leave behind a cursed zone, equal in diameter to their size plus one meter. Any enemy that stands in that zone finds themselves slightly slower, weaker, and runs out of stamina faster, equal to about a 5% decrease in their base stats. This effect does not stack with itself.
10 - Drawing
Normal: Your creatures appear as if drawn in the air. They appear two-dimensional from any angle but in true remain, three-dimensional creatures, and on touch possess a texture in accord with their look. The type of drawing can vary from cartoon to painting but also graffiti or charcoal drawing.
Enhanced: Your creatures can become two-dimensional to move along a solid flat surface. They are still subject to gravity in that state.
11 - Earth
Normal: Your creatures look like they are made of the ground beneath you. Be that looking like a pile of dirt and rock come to life in the rough shape of the creature, like a sculpture made of unfired clay, or even as though the asphalt and sidewalk of a road got up and decided to walk away. They are not made of such, simply appearing to be, nor can they manipulate the earth in any way.
Enhanced: When your creature walks on the ground it creates tremors that can destabilize creatures smaller than it within a radius equal to twice its size.
12 - Eldritch
Normal: The appearance of your creatures appears wrong, to a greater or smaller degree. This can include deformity, pustules, vestigial tentacles, additional eyes (non-functional) in random places. But it can also be more subtle, shadow too small, light that reflects as if the creature was farther away, colors that seem to change when not looking, or even voice too high pitched for their size.
Enhanced: Your creatures are immune to all time-based effects unless they allow it.
13 - Feather
Normal: Feathers and other bird features cover your creatures, replacing fur or any other body covering. This may also include vestigial wings, bird-like claws, or even a beak.
Enhanced: Your creatures gain the ability to slowly glide in the air. If a creature already could fly, it gains a 10% boost of its speed.
14 - Fire
Normal: Your creatures look like they are made of flames, in whatever color you choose. They can be a fully solid inferno of fire, an empty shell of flame, or even barely there, only the outlines and contours of their body are made of flame, while the rest is just a haze of shimmering heat. This look is just that, however, a look, as they are still fully solid and not made of fire. They do not burn, nor are they even hot to the touch beyond what is normal for their species. They cannot manipulate fire in any way.
Enhanced: Your creature's natural weapon and handheld weapon are surrounded by fiery energy that deals additional damage when they land an attack and leave persistent burns.
15 - Food
Normal: Your creatures all look delicious with this theme. Looking like they are made of various types of cooked food. Licorice for hair, bread for skin, fries as horns, or wine as blood.
Enhanced: Other beings can eat pieces of your creatures to gain a slow regeneration effect, this deals damage to your creatures depending on the size of the pieces taken.
16 - Forcefield
Normal: Your creatures are made of forcefields. Either one with a complex shape, or multiple small ones. They can be of any color but blue and green are the most common and they are semi-transparent.
Enhanced: Your creature can freely ignore any forcefield that could hinder them.
17 - Fur
Normal: The appearance of your creature mimics that of mammals. This mostly consists of a fur covering, but hide like a cow or elephant is possible, or even smooth skin like a dolphin is available. This may also include antlers, tusks, or horns.
Enhanced: Your creatures gain a 50% resistance to cold and heat.
18 - Glass
Normal: Your creatures become transparent like glass. This does not make them invisible. The glass quality can vary, can include mirror-like effects, stain glass, or even crystal effects.
Enhanced: Your creatures become immune to all light-based attacks, any such attack passes right through them. Any such attack can still damage their environment after passing through.
19 - Ice
Normal: Your creatures look like ice sculptures of themselves, quality of sculpting, and clarity of ice decided when summoned. They still move and act as normal.
Enhanced: Your creatures are lighter and faster, able to slip and slide around as they move. This comes at the cost of hitting slightly less hard due to reduced weight.
20 - Insect
Normal: Chitin becomes the main material that covers your creatures. It also includes antennae, mandible, pincer, elytra, and segmented body.
Enhanced: When wounded your creatures do not bleed, instead, they release a short-lived swarm of bugs that hover around them attacking anything close by. The swarm dissipates after no more than 15s.
21 - Lightning
Normal: Your creatures look like they're made of living electricity. Whether this is constantly crackling lightning bolts in the outline of your creature, a thundercloud in the shape of your creature constantly rumbling and flashing with inner light, or a creature-shaped plasma globe. They do not shock anything they touch, are not made of electricity, nor can they manipulate it.
Enhanced: Your creatures repel metallic items, lessening considerably the damage that they would receive from metallic weapons, it even affects bullets as long as they are metallic.
22 - Machine
Normal: Metal and plastic are now the main components of your creatures. They look like robots, clockwork toys, or even vehicles. They can have gear, pistons, doors, or even wheels.
Enhanced: Your creatures become immune to all poison and diseases. They also no longer need to breathe.
23 - Musical Instrument
Normal: With this theme, your creatures look like musical instruments. Either one instrument with a shape modified to that of the creature or a combination of different instruments such as trumpet for legs, guitar for the body, and flute for the tail. This theme doesn't change the volume of the sound your creature emits but makes them more harmonious and pleasant to hear.
Enhanced: Your creatures gain immunity to sonic damage and sonic-based hostile effects.
24 - Mystic
Normal: This theme gives your creatures a magical flair. This includes mystical tattoos, ioun stone floating around them, embedded gems in their body, amulets around their neck, glowing lines under their skin, etc...
Enhanced: Your creatures gain a 5% bonus to the effectiveness of their magical power, this includes damage, healing, benefits granted, and difficulty to resist.
25 - Oiled
Normal: With this theme, your creatures appear fatter, maybe even excessively so, and covered in a sheen of oil. This can be sunblock, body lotion, engine oil, etc. (Credit: Omnimercurial)
Enhanced: Your creatures became extremely slippery, this makes grappling them considerably harder, but not impossible. This may also permit them to slid upon flat surfaces.
26 - Paper
Normal: With this theme, your creature appears as if made of paper. Origami is the most obvious, but a mass of confetti is possible, stacks of cut paper, or even multiple cardboard boxes. The type of paper and the color can wary too, glossy, vellum, gift wrapping, postcard even paper money.
Enhanced: Your creatures can absorb loose paper to regain health.
27 - Plants
Normal: Your creatures are made of a mix of plant matter. This includes vines, woods, leaves, flowers, roots, fungus, fruits, seeds, etc...
Enhanced: Your creatures regenerate 5% of their health per hour when exposed to natural sunlight.
28 - Scales
Normal: The appearance of your creature mimics that of Fish, Lizard, Snake, or even Dragon. They are covered in scales, spines, and ridges, shells are also a possibility. Their shape may appear elongated. Vestigial fin and webbed-paw are also common.
Enhanced: Your creatures can swim at up to half their normal speed and can breathe water. If a creature already could swim, it gains a 10% boost of its speed.
29 - Screen Time
Normal: This theme is very varied it gives your creatures the appearance of coming out of the tv screen. It includes movie special effects as if incrusted on a green screen, stop-motion, or black and white movie. But also video game looks such as pixel art, Minecraft cube, vire frame or PS1 3D. In all cases, your creatures look wrong and can't pass for normal.
Enhanced: Your creatures became more image than real, they have a 50% chance to ignore any physical attack, passing right through them.
30 - Shadow
Normal: This theme makes your creatures appear as solids mass of shadow and darkness. They lose nearly all defining features except for their basic body shape. Their eyes, teeth, and claws may be the only thing not made of shadow, purple eyes, pure white teeth, or red claws are good examples.
Enhanced: Your creatures can see no matter the level of light, in perfect darkness, they simply see in shades of black and white. This does not allow them to see through opaque objects.
31 - Slime
Normal: Your creatures look like they are made of slime, jelly, tar, or other semi-liquid material. They can be of any color or combination of colors. On touch, they may be sticky or bouncy.
Enhanced: The surface of your creatures becomes adhesive, this allows them to cling to any surface vertical or horizontal, even upside down. This also means that they can keep hold of other creatures easily.
32 - Statue
Normal: The appearance of your creature mimics stone statues, be it marble, granite, clay, porcelain, or obsidian. This is different from the earth theme because it represents worked stone, with chisel marks, ornaments, or symbols.
Enhanced: When you creatures stand motionless they appear as inanimate objects even if people have seen them move before, and they ignore their presence.
33 - Stretched
Normal: This theme modifies the apparent proportion of your creatures. Their limb and body are stretched out or deformed. It can be limb much too tin, a compressed head, or the torso twisted into a spiral. This is similar to the effect produced by a funhouse mirror. But like all themes, this is only cosmetic and your creatures a perfectly fine. (Credit: chinlamp)
Enhanced: Your creature can stretch their limbs up to twice their own size to strike from afar. They can compress themselves to reduce their profile, but they can't maintain that for more than 1 minute at a time.
34 - Swarm
Normal: This theme makes your creatures look like a swarm or insect and vermin Tide, a flock of bats or birds, or a school of Fish if in or under Water. (Credit: Omnimercurial)
Enhanced: Your creature gains a 50% resistance to piercing and slashing damage
35 - Toy
Normal: With this theme, your creatures appear as if they were toys. This can mean plastic soldiers with big ball joints, plushy with button eyes, wooden puppets with leftover strings attached, or even remote control cars with a big antenna.
Enhanced: Your creatures emit an aura that makes them look less dangerous. This is not absolute and seeing them commit destructive action could overcome that effect.
36 - Undead
Normal: This theme appears to transform your creature into undeads. Walking skeletons, stumbling zombies, terrifying mummies, or ghosts (but they still are solid unless naturally intangible). This can also be more subtle with simply pale skin, sunken eyes, and disturbing odor.
Enhanced: When your creatures deal damage to a living creature by touching them with any part of their body they regenerate health for as much damage dealt.
37 - Uniform
Normal: This theme gives your creatures a uniform. Whether this uniform is military, emergency, or civilian-based is up to you at the time of summoning, as is whether the uniform is generic from Earth or matches with the specific world you're on. (Credit: chinlamp)
Enhanced: People who see your creatures assume they belong to the profession of the uniform they are wearing and treat them as such. A dog with a stethoscope and scrubs will be assumed to be a doctor, for example. This does not stop people from thinking of the creatures as enemies, or even attacking them, nor does it stop them from recognizing them as non-humans, but they see the uniform first and foremost, before the fact that it isn't a human underneath.
38 - Warrior
Normal: With this theme, your creature takes on the appearance of hardened warriors. This includes bulging muscles, scars all over their bodies, leather belts, or even (non-functional) ammunition belts. Aggressive-looking tattoos are also appropriate, such as predator animals, skulls, anchors, or even tribal designs.
Enhanced: Once enhanced this theme grant a 5% bonus to your creature's strength and basic instincts related to combat to those that do not possess them.
39 - Water
Normal: Your creature appears to be made of water. Whether your creature looks like it's made of churning seawater, calm clear water, or even green swamp water it is not actually made of that substance and is in fact as solid as its base form. They cannot manipulate liquids in any way.
Enhanced: Your creatures gain the ability to engulf creatures of their size or smaller, suffocating them should they not be able to breathe underwater, but anything able to swim can break free rather easily.
40 - Weapon
Normal: With this theme, your creature appears as if composed of a multitude of weapons and armor pieces. It can be elegant with each weapon positioned perfectly, knife for claw, whip for tails, greaves for legs, etc. Or it can be chaotic, with all the weapons mixed haphazardly in the shape of the creature.
Enhanced: Any weapons that strike your creature become trapped in their bodies and are slowly absorbed reinforcing your creatures at the same time.