Vulture



Vultures are large, winged predators, capable of diving into any room with an open ceiling. Characterised by their skull-like masks and large wings that expel pink gas, they present a persistent threat throughout the game, appearing throughout many regions.

Appearance
Vultures have large, ovular bodies, featuring prominent shoulder blades, small vents on their undersides, fleshy protrusions of varying lengths in place of lower limbs, a slender neck and two large wings lined with hollow tube "feathers". Adorning their faces are mandibles and a mask, underneath which their beady eyes can be seen. When flying, the caps on their feathers and their shoulder blades lift and, along with their vents, emit a pinkish-purple gas - used to to adjust their buoyancy - which dissipates shortly after release. Inversely, when walking, their feathers turn black and curl up at the ends of their wings, presumably to help provide better grip on the terrain. Vultures can come in a range of colors, spanning purple, blue, teal, green, pale yellow, red and pink.

Combat
Though intimidating, vultures are somewhat cowardly and often retreat after taking only 2 or 3 spear hits, and they typically require 9-11 spear hits to kill. Therefore, if intending to kill one, the most efficient method is to stockpile a few spears in an enclosed space that they cannot easily get out of, luring a vulture there, and spamming spears. This stunlocks them, making them unable to escape. Other than this, moving fast and circling around the vulture, using the environment to block them from getting a bite in, all whilst throwing spears at them dispatches them quickly - by means of either warding them off or killing them. Attempt to hit the head or neck - these areas take double damage.

Stealth
As vultures watch from off-screen before diving in to chase their prey, stealth isn't a tactic that can be effectively employed against them. The most that can be done to avoid a confrontation with them is to avoid open spaces and instead go through tunnels, or even avoid rooms with open ceilings - however the latter is not possible in some areas.

Evasion
Vultures are quicker than slugcat's running speed when flying, but slower when walking, making evading them a balancing act of picking when to make a run for it and when to circle around to shake them off - especially given they frequently attempt to block off their prey's escape route with their own bodies. Using their size and the terrain against them to force them to take longer routes can buy valuable time. Alternatively, retreating to another room and waiting for them to leave is a viable option - vultures often follow up until the pipe connection, which they cannot move through, and typically stay there for a few moments before leaving - you can monitor whether or not they're in front of the pipe connection by how much it flashes white. Additionally, distracting vultures with other creatures can provide enough time to slip by.

Abilities & behavior
Vultures are highly aggressive and fast, pursuing until they can no longer follow and often using their bodies to physically block prey from running off. Their arrival is signalled by the shadow they cast descending over the background, and when attacking they have a short wind-up - during which their head and neck shake - before lunging in to bite at their prey. If they catch something, it becomes incapacitated and the vulture then flies back off-screen with it. They are able to see prey even whilst off-screen, and cannot enter pipes, shortcuts or tunnels, though they often attempt to stick their heads into these.

Movement
Vultures have two modes of movement: flying and walking. When flying, vultures move quickly through the air, honing in on their targets. Once they are close enough to solid ground, or their prey has retreated into a more enclosed space, they release a large amount of gas and grab onto the nearest terrain, signalling their transition to walking mode which allows them to stiltedly walk around on their wings. Wings can shift modes independently of each other. Vultures give chase into any space so long as they can physically fit into it.

Demasking
It is possible to demask vultures with a spear, either alive or dead, by hitting them in the base of the head - spears that hit the mask directly get deflected. It is only possible to demask a vulture with spear hits that deal over 0.95 damage, meaning that The Monk (who at most only deals 0.9 damage) cannot access vulture masks by their own means. Vultures that are demasked but alive are targeted by other, masked vultures, and relentlessly hunt down whoever demasked them until death; whilst vultures bites typically only incapacitate their prey, maskless vultures bite to kill. The maskless state persists even when the region the individual is located in gets deloaded.

Masks can be picked up and used to ward off most varieties of lizard for 17.5 seconds (per individual, once a cycle), or in trade.

Variants & attributes
!WIP!

Trivia

 * King vultures are the hard-mode variant of vultures.
 * Whilst they are high-level predators feared by most, it's possible for vultures to be killed by several other threats, such as pole plants, monster kelp, scavengers, leviathans, red centipedes and red lizards.
 * Vultures and green lizards ignore each other, unless the latter has been tamed by the player.
 * Vultures are affected by echo sleep zones.
 * This can be easily exploited on the bridge to the left of the Chimney Canopy echo, leading into Sky Islands. Using a vulture grub calls vultures to the room, but they instantly fall asleep once they enter, making it trivial to kill and claim a mask from them.
 * Very rarely, vultures can travel through pipes, though this is an unintended behavior.
 * Additionally, if the player manages to carries a dead vulture through pipe connection, they may gain a burst of speed until they travel through another connection.
 * Vultures may sometimes accidentally bite one-another even if neither is demasked. This does not appear to cause infighting.
 * Vulture grubs are seemingly related to vultures in some way given their unique interaction, though exactly how is unclear.
 * Vulture masks are stated to be made of a composite material interwoven with bone.
 * As masked vultures attack those without, vulture masks appear to carry some kind of societal status that is lost when demasked.
 * Alternatively, vultures may not be able to recognise other vultures without their masks, though this seems unlikely as they still attack slugcat when masked.
 * Though not observable in game, official art depicts vultures as having slimy skin.
 * The mandibles on vultures' faces are called "tusks" in the files.
 * The shadow cast on a vulture's arrival is created by shifting the vulture's geometry down from where it is off-screen, making its sprites invisible and letting that cast the shadow seen. After they travel a sufficient distance down the geometry is snapped back to the correct place.