So, I created MONSTERS, creatures that specialize in guerilla warfare, sabotage, and terror. I immediately knew which one to make first:
Vashta Nerada - The Ravenous Shadows
Terror level: 10/10 (doubled sanity damage against British schoolchildren)
Toughness: 6/10
Stealth: 10/10 (they can be in ANY shadow)
DPS: extremely-high against organic creatures, negates unsealed armorWeakness: Despite being impervious to gunfire, strong acidic/basic substances sprayed over an infested area, open flame, and/or extreme heat can decimate swarms if they can't get out of the area fast.
Vashta Nerada are swarms of dust-speckle-sized creatures that live together in clusters. These clusters make home in and disguise themselves as shadows. When you make contact with a Vashta Nerada cluster, it doesn't react violently (if at all) at first. However, if you let it envelop you or try to go too deep, it will kill you in an instant, leaving only a spooky scary skeleton behind.
Overall, high-octane nightmare fuel
Sounds like a neat terror unit, one that can simultaneously ruin morale, up casualties, and destroy supplies without even knowing how to use a gun. Too bad I don't know what its internal workings should be.
There are three pillars that make the flesh-melting shadow the flesh-melting shadow:
- Speed: It has to keep up with other people's shadows.
- Stealth: These swarms also have to be able to blend into shadows.
- Nom-Nom: It has to be able to consume flesh at a rapid pace.
Obviously, we can't reach the OG Vashta Nerada (you simply can't eat a whole human in less than a second), but we can try to create something similarly terrifying and powerful.
So, how could a scientifically plausible swarm of artificial beings fulfill those three criteria?
EDIT: This is NOT a duplicate of the question Can a 2D object living in a shadow be examined in a 3D world? as it is asking how something similar can be functional as a weapon in the real world, not how such a thing can be studied, or how a true 2D being can exist.