Krampus

If "spiritual antithesis to Santa" makes you think of a furious cube of meat with a festive hat rather than a monstrous abductor demon with a suspiciously big sack, then you'll immediately understand Krampus, a strange monster that arrives to punish the crew when Spacemas/Christmas Cheer dwindles. Like all meatcubes, Krampus is supernaturally invulnerable and immovable but can barely attack and has a few easily-exploitable weaknesses.

Understanding Krampus

Krampus's spawn conditions are somewhat similar to random event antagonist spawns. The moment Spacemas/Christmas Cheer dips to 10% or below, all ghosts who have with Other Antagonists left open will hear a loud klaxon and receive a prompt asking if they want to become Krampus. After around two minutes, one of these players who answered yes is selected, and they spawn in Arrivals as Krampus.

Despite the unique sprite, Krampus is not too different from the other meatcubes created by mad chemistry or trash compactors. It cannot speak; everything it says comes out as horrific screaming, though it does get...interesting emotes. Very few things can hurt Krampus. Poison, radiation, toolboxes to the face (?), sharp objects, plasma fires, extreme cold, extreme heat, and lack of oxygen all have no effect. At the same time, Krampus can't do much damage itself. After all, it doesn't have any limbs, so it is incapable of piloting Space Pods or picking up weapons or other items, though it is very capable of pulling. At most, it can disarm and shove people down (mechanically, Krampus's "attack" is treated like a punch on Disarm intent).

But the most dreaded, the most loathed, the most dangerous trait of Krampus is the simple fact that it's an immovable object. Once it occupies some tile, it's impossible to push or pull it out of that tile, especially if it's a one-tile doorway/hallway, though humans and monkeys can still crawl under them. (Cyborgs and player critters are out of luck.) Worse yet, Krampus is also virtually unstunnable. It's essentially a living wall: nearly impassible, with poor offense and obscenely high defense. (In fact, the first iterations of Krampus were codewise treated as moving walls rather than actual mobs in their own right).

Despite its villainous nature and mission to punish crew members for their wickedness, it has been observed to do things that are more nice than naughty:

• Dragging medical supplies towards people.
• Volunteering as a punching bag (?) for the underdog wrestler.
• Professing their love for shotguns/revolvers/derringers, standing in front of those wielding them to admire their firing patterns.
• Offering their services as Vampire/Changeling dietician, cutting down on victims snack intake by dragging them away.
• Playing impromptu fireman, dragging people away from a fire.
• Hugging far more dangerous Critters such as zombies and space bears, much to both the jealousy and relief of crew members.
• Chatting with the crusher.
• Dragging people into maintenance during a blowout.

Counters

At the end of the day, Krampus is just a regular ol' meatcube with a funny hat and not so regular meanstreak. In fact, Krampus has even more weaknesses than a standard meatcube:

• Welders: Like an actual, non-living wall, a few hits with a welder will easy turn this naughty meat cube into nice slices of cube steak.
• Space: Krampus is so heavy it violates inertia. Should Krampus ever dare to venture beyond any space tile not bordering some sort of solid surface (e.g. a catwalk, a floor tile), it will be completely immobile, unable to squirm to safety or throw an object for momentum. Krampus can handle seafloor tiles just fine, though.
• Chairs: Hilariously enough, you can buckle Krampus to a chair just like you can with yourself or anyone else, by click-dragging its sprite onto a chair. Because Krampus has no appendages to unbuckle itself, it will be essentially helpless.
• Crawling: As previously mentioned, you can press the Stand/Rest mode button in the lower right to enter Rest mode to fall to the floor and, somehow, crawl under the slimey thing. Mind you, a clever Krampus can still find a way to dunk on you anyways, but now it can't block you.
• Santas: Santa Claus can instantly banish Krampus with the appropriately-named Banish Krampus ability. In theory, Krampus could come back, but that's impossible with this jolly burglar around, spewing presents, healing people with the power of Christmas, and just generally keeping Spacemas/Christmas Spirit high.