The Fiend

## Evil-Doer

**The Fiend** is one of three main antagonists (the other being The Brute and The Hunter) in the roguelike survival horror game *Monstrum.*

It's a highly intelligent and homicidal monster that antagonizes the player while they attempt to escape the ship.

## Appearance:

The Fiend is a corpse-like demonic entity with overall jagged and withered humanoid form along with black eyes with glowing white pupils on an elongated head. Both its legs end with pointy stump instead of feet and its tights appeared to be fused by flesh. It is also surrounded by hazy purple fog.

## Personality:

The most calculating of monsters, The Fiend has penchant in toying it's victims rather than blindly rushing towards like the Brute or making pragmatic approach like the Hunter. While not blindly searching potential hiding spots as much as other monsters, The Fiend relies on psychological torment on it's opponents, making a good use in fear it instilled upon them thanks to it's more supernatural nature. It also has a much more cruel and sadistic manner while killing the player and seems to understand when it has been tricked.

## Biography:

It's origin is a mystery, though through notes it could be determined that it was, much like the other two monsters, presumably were a failed experiment, a human genetically manipulated, which was kept aboard a shipping container in the freight vessel Hisa Maru and sent somewhere before breaking free and killing most of the crew.

However, there is not much to indicate it had anything to do with the experiment, and may be a real monster or demon that boarded the ship, with actual intelligence unlike the Brute or the Hunter, as well being very sadistic and psychotic with cruel mannerisms also unlike the other monsters, it's possible it's responsible for letting the other two loose.

## Skills & Abilities:

The Fiend possesses supernatural, telekinetic powers that it uses in a variety of sinister ways:

* **High-Intelligence**: Although seemingly not as smart as The Brute or the Hunter, The Fiend is actually the most intelligent monster. Rather than wasting it's time to check every hiding place while searching a relatively large and narrowly focused area, The Fiend instills fear upon the player through it's persistence and ability to distort electricity around it through it's presence alone, forcing them to make a fatal mistake by jumping right before it. Sometimes occasionally The Fiend will even backtrack or go around to cut off the player catching them off guard with an easy kill, as the player must always keep good distance when being chased. It even understands when it has been tricked or swayed and will often pursue and search areas much longer then the other monsters.
* **Speed**: The Fiend is the slowest monster in a chase, since it relies on it's telekinesis to float around, but it's speed does not change much between chase mode and patrol mode, as it's the fastest monster while in wander mode. Suggestively, it can move faster, but chooses not to, this further implies toward it's strategic mind.
* **High-Telekinetic Strength**: To make up it's physical weakness, the Fiend utilizes it' ability to interact with things via it's telekinesis, which is strong enough to rupture locker doors and even bone structure like a small twig. It can also unlock any locked doors with it's telekinetic powers as well, though it usually needs a minute or more to do so depending on the complexity of the aforementioned door's locking mechanism.
* **Telekinesis**: As stated previously, the Fiend possesses telekinetic abilities that can be employed in a variety of ways other than executing the player, such as paralyzing a target within it's line of sight, causing electrical disturbances around it, and unlocking doors and vice-versa.

## Trivia:

* This monster was added in version 0.9.5 of *Monstrum*, but it's inclusion was veiled and kept secret by the developers, taking many players by surprise.
* According to *Team Junkfish's Design Blog #05*, The Fiend's behavior and looks were inspired by **Freddy Krueger** from *A Nightmare on Elm Street*, **Slenderman**, and the **Controllers** from the *S.T.A.L.K.E.R.* series.
* The Fiend's paralyzing power gives it the longest killing range of all monsters.
* The Fiend appears to be slightly reptilian, having thick ridged skin covered with scales in some areas, rigid spikes and horns, and nostrils that appear similar to a tortoise's.
* The Note #17, which the player can obtain, implies that The Fiend is possibly in constant pain.
* In Markiplier's playthrough of *Monstrum*, a ghostly disembodied head appeared for less than a second when he exited out of the journal, which some speculated had something to do with the as-of-then unimplemented third monster. Nothing like this has been found in-game since; as this was simply an editing trick.
* The Fiend performs a special animation after it successfully paralyzes the player. For obvious reasons this goes unnoticed in a normal playthrough, but can be seen clearly when using a loophole.
* The Fiend's eyes are always trained on you. This is the result of a clever illusion, where its pupils are set back into it's head.