Vulture

"Vulture"
Details
Code name	Vulture
Behavior	Aggressive
HP	8.5
Food Pips	14 As Hunter 14 As Artificer 7 As Gourmand 0.5–1 As Spearmaster
Points	15
Regions As any Slugcat: Industrial Complex, Garbage Wastes, Shoreline, Chimney Canopy, Sky Islands, Farm Arrays As Hunter: Outskirts
Downpour Regions As any Slugcat: Industrial Complex, Garbage Wastes, Chimney Canopy, Sky Islands, Farm Arrays, Pipeyard As MonkAs Hunter: Shoreline, Submerged Superstructure As Survivor: Shoreline, Submerged Superstructure, Outer Expanse As Gourmand: Submerged Superstructure, Outer Expanse As Artificer: Outskirts, Waterfront Facility, Metropolis As Rivulet: Outskirts, Shoreline As Spearmaster: Outskirts, The Exterior, Waterfront Facility As Saint: Outskirts, Silent Construct
Damage Multipliers Head 150% Neck 200% Wings 10% Mask (Reflecting Spear) 10%

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

Appearance

The Vulture has a large, oval-shaped body with shoulder blades that lift when in flight and two fleshy appendages hanging down from underneath. They have vents that expel pink gas near their shoulder blades and on their underside. Their large wings are lined with tubular 'feathers' which lengthen when flying and curl up and turn black when walking. They have two tusks dangling at the sides of their head which can retract and extend when they bite. Their face is covered by a mask, underneath which their eyes can be seen.

Tips

Combat

Despite their large size and health pool, Vultures often retreat after taking only 2-3 Spear hits. They typically require 9-11 Spear hits to kill.

If intending to kill one, an efficient method is to stockpile a few Spears in an enclosed space, lure a Vulture there, and throw Spears in rapid succession. This stun-locks them so they are unable to escape. Move fast and circle around the Vulture, using the environment to block them from getting a bite and spearing them when possible. Their head and neck take double damage, and hits to their wings deal almost no damage.

A Vulture successfully blocking Slugcat

Stealth & Evasion

Vultures are able to watch from off-screen before diving in to chase their prey, making stealth ineffective when in open spaces. The player may avoid Vultures by retreating into tunnels or under cover where possible.

Vultures are faster than Slugcat when flying, but slower when walking, making evading them a matter of deciding whether to try outrun them or circle around. Using their size and the terrain against them to force them to take longer routes can buy valuable time. Retreating to another room and waiting for them to leave is a viable option; Vultures cannot move through pipes, and they typically stay near pipe entrances for a few moments before leaving. The player can monitor whether or not the Vulture is 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 very aggressive and mobile, pursuing their target until they can no longer follow it (e.g. the target goes through a creature tunnel or pipe). They often use their bodies to physically block prey from escaping. Their arrival is signaled by the shadow they cast descending over the background. When attacking, an audio cue plays and they perform a short wind-up, during which their head and neck shake and their tusks retract, before lunging in to bite at their prey. If they catch something, it becomes incapacitated and the Vulture flies off-screen with it. They are able to see prey even while off-screen, but 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, homing 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, signaling a transition to 'walking' mode, which allows them to stiltedly move 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.

• 
  Vulture shadows on the background walls signalling their arrival
• 
  Gripping a pole with their wings as they switch from flight to walking
• 
  Moving through narrower spaces

Demasking

It is possible to demask Vultures, either live or dead, by hitting them in the base of their head; weapons that hit the mask directly are deflected. Demasking occurs if the dealt damage exceeds 0.9 or if the damage was dealt with a Lilypuck. Since Monk's Spear damage is at most 0.9, they are unable to demask with Spears. Artificer is able to demask by mauling. Any source of sufficient damage is capable of demasking a Vulture; this includes Scavenger Spear hits, Lizard bites, Noodlefly stabs, and King Vulture harpoons.

Live Vultures that are demasked are attacked by other, masked Vultures, and attempt to hunt down the creature that demasked them. The target is always prioritized by the Vulture. Additionally, their Eats relationship with other creatures is reduced to 10%. While Vultures typically grab their prey without killing them, demasked Vultures always attempt to kill the creature that removed their mask. The maskless state persists across cycles, even when the region the individual is located in is no longer loaded.

A demasked Vulture is always aware of their mask's location and attempts to move to the room it is located in, so long as it is a room that they can access.

Vulture Masks can be picked up and used to ward off any Lizard within range (except for Black and Red Lizards) for 17.5 seconds. This only works once per individual Lizard and only once per cycle. Vulture Masks are also useful for trading with Scavengers.

• 
  Getting demasked
• 
  Infighting between a masked and maskless Vulture
• 
  Hunting the Slugcat that demasked it

Variants & Attributes

A Vulture's mask, 'feathers', and appendages may take on a variety of hues: pinks, light browns, yellows, greens, or blues. Vultures also have a secondary color corresponding to their eye color and the outward gradient in their 'feathers'. The appendages hanging from underneath their bodies vary in size and length and may be different lengths from one another. They may sometimes have missing 'feathers' or individual 'feathers' with no coloration.

A variety of Vultures displaying different colors and traits

Downpour-Exclusive Content

This section contains content exclusive to the Downpour DLC. This content is not available in the base game.

Albino

If the More Slugcats Expansion is enabled, there is a 1/1000 or 0.1% chance for a Vulture to be albino. Albino Vultures have white bodies, red 'feathers' at the ends of their wings, and red eyes. Their masks and the 'feathers' closest to their bodies may be any hue possible in standard Vultures.

An albino Vulture is guaranteed to spawn in Submerged Superstructure for any Slugcat besides Rivulet and Saint.

• 
  An albino Vulture
• 
  Multicolored albino Vulture

Downpour-exclusive content ends here.

Trivia

An unmasked Vulture

Early Sky Kraken (Vulture) concept art

Sky Kraken (Vulture) tentacle-wing reaching through pipes

• King Vultures are the hard-mode variant of Vultures.
• The same Vulture can appear in multiple rooms with open ceilings while pursuing Slugcat. This is more noticeable if the player has demasked a Vulture, as the demasked Vulture is almost always the first or only Vulture to appear in the room until killed.
  • This also happens with King Vultures, but it is rarer.
• Vultures ignore Green Lizards. Green Lizards are afraid of Vultures, although they are too large to be hunted by them. However, tamed Green Lizards are capable of attacking Vultures.
  • If a Green Lizard is picked up by a player-controlled Vulture in Safari mode, the Vulture is incapable of taking the Lizard off-screen.
  • Vultures also ignore Miros Birds, Brother Long Legs, Daddy Long Legs, and Leviathans, despite these creatures being aggressive towards Vultures.
• The visuals of the gas emitted by Vultures were overhauled in 1.5.
• Vultures can appear in rooms affected by nearby Echoes, where other creatures are not usually present.
  • This can be exploited by using a Vulture Grub to call Vultures to any Echo affected room that is accessible to them, where they instantly fall asleep upon entering and fall on the ground, making it trivial to kill them and claim their mask.
• Very rarely, Vultures can travel through pipes, though this is an unintended behavior.
  • While this did not make the final cut, this was an intended feature present in alpha builds. Additionally, if the player manages to carry a dead Vulture through pipe connection, they may gain a burst of speed until they travel through another connection.
    • This burst of speed is a glitch and speeds up the entire game as well as the player. This can be seen in a slightly related glitch where a Vulture grabs onto, or attempts to grab, a creature while said creature is attempting to go through a pipe. This glitch can also be triggered and experienced if a Vulture grabs the player and they manage to escape the grab upon exiting the pipe. [citation needed]

• Vultures may sometimes accidentally bite one another even if neither is demasked. This does not appear to cause infighting.
  • When this happens, the Vultures fall to the ground and may even glitch.
• Vulture Masks are stated to be made of a composite material interwoven with bone.
• Though not observable in game, official art depicts Vultures as having slimy skin.
• The shadow cast upon a Vulture's arrival is created by shifting the Vulture's geometry down from where it is off-screen, making their sprites invisible and letting that cast the shadow that can be observed. After they travel a sufficient distance down (but still off-screen) the geometry is snapped back to the correct place.
  • There is a glitch with this where if the player pauses at the right moment during a Vulture's descent, they can see that Vulture when it is supposed to be in the sky.
• Elite Scavengers wear modified Vulture Masks.
• Early in development, Vultures were initially called "Sky Krakens" and had a Daddy Long Legs-style tentacle attack.

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