Rust Monsters Are Real(ly, really tiny)!

[Dannyalcatraz]

After theorizing their existence for many decades, scientists accidentally discover organism that metabolizes manganese:

Bacteria that eats metal accidentally discovered by scientists | CNN

Scientists have discovered a type of bacteria that eats and gets its calories from metal, after suspecting they exist for more than a hundred years but never proving it.

www.cnn.com

 

[Mad_Jack]

Y'know, this might explain why sometimes when I'm stripping paint off my minis they end up with a blackish crust on them - manganese oxide is often used as a pigment in paint...
I usually dump them in Simple Green for a few days, then scrub the paint off, rinse them off under the faucet, and put them back in the SG for awhile longer. Sometimes when I forget about them and they sit for a few months, they end up with a dark flakey crust on them.

 

[Eltab]

The rust monster has colonies of that bacteria all over its antennae, with perma-Haste cast on the bacteria?

Hmm, now I want to add this to my mini-Tomb of Annihilation dungeon. Because it sounds like the kind of spiteful malicious thing Acererak would do.
Maybe the rust monsters have been trained to come investigate when they hear the magnet trap activate ...

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

The rust monster has colonies of that bacteria all over its antennae, with perma-Haste cast on the bacteria?

Hmm, now I want to add this to my mini-Tomb of Annihilation dungeon. Because it sounds like the kind of spiteful malicious thing Acererak would do.
Maybe the rust monsters have been trained to come investigate when they hear the magnet trap activate ...

Maybe the magnet is lined with that bacteria?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Thing is, now you can have that type of critter in your Supers or Sci-Fi game without having to counter assertions that it’s too unrealistic!

 

[Blue Orange]

The displacer beast was based on a sci-fi story, so not totally nuts.

Actually, the oxidation of iron to rust is energetically favored, so a monster that accelerates it isn't that nuts. The question is what it gets from the rust, thermodynamically speaking--it's a pretty low-energy substance.