Flatwoods Monster

The Flatwoods monster is a creature in Appalachia in 2102.

Background
The Flatwoods monster is a humanoid creature of seemingly extraterrestrial origin. Its head is encased in a purple space helmet, which obscures its face save for its glowing white eyes. The rest of its body is sealed in a protective suit, with an armored breathing apparatus and a large spade-shaped frill on its back. The Flatwoods monster has no visible legs, its suit instead terminating to a bullet-shaped point at its bottom, with what appear to be small hover-jets around its waist, allowing it to float above the ground. Its long arms are tipped with large, three-fingered hands clad in large black gloves. It can be encountered in a random encounter in which, if approached or shot at, it will suddenly disappear along with a flash of light, or if it is a hostile variant, it will engage the player character using teleportation to move around. It is possible for it to spawn alongside the mothman.

In pre-war West Virginia, near the town of Flatwoods, many claimed to see a dark, mysterious figure with glowing eyes. The Flatwoods monster purportedly took Colton Pickins onto its spaceship and performed experiments on him, however, that account was disbelieved by the responding police force.

Biology
Beneath its hard metal shell is a Zetan alien, however it is difficult to tell because of the suit and the helmet. However, if encountering a glitched Flatwoods monster, one can see beneath its suit. If so, it will become evident that the mythical cryptid is nothing more than a standard alien in a suit.

Gameplay attributes
During combat, the Flatwoods monster will teleport around. It regenerates lost health when nearly dead multiple times. It can also take control of other creatures and robots around it and use them to defend itself, indicated by the purple glow around the creatures under its control. Killing it counts towards the "kill different kinds of human-like creatures" challenge.

The Tales from the West Virginia Hills magazine issue #5 will provide an additional 15% damage against the Flatwoods monster.

At the Whitespring Resort, the Whitespring robots will not attack the Flatwoods monster if it appears. Conversely, the Flatwoods monster will only attack player characters. This can occur during a "Whitespring assault" random encounter along with a regular assault of randomized enemies that will attack the robots. The player character must fend off two different types of enemies at once, including the Flatwoods monster, as opposed to only one type of a hostile enemy for the Whitespring security detail.

Flatwoods monster
The base variant of the creature, with all of the above attributes.

Fabled Flatwoods monster
An elusive variant, this Flatwoods monster has increased health and laser damage, although its resistances are the same.

Mythical Flatwoods monster
This powerful Flatwoods monster has even higher health and attack damage, being the strongest of all three variants.

Locations

 * A Flatwoods monster can be encountered near Abbie's bunker.
 * Across the river from Dyer Chemical.
 * Outside the converted munitions factory.
 * Southeast of Spruce Knob Channels on a cliffside.
 * The woods west of Wilson Brother's Auto Repair.
 * Near the Top of the World.
 * Near Johnson's Acre.
 * Near Southhampton Estate.
 * On the northwest side of Sunnytop Ski Lanes.
 * Chance to spawn west of R&G station.
 * Chance to spawn at the southwestern point near the lower southwest or eastern guarded "checkpoint" of The Whitespring Resort near road 83A on the map.
 * Near the Twin Lakes.

Appearances
The Flatwoods monster appears only in Fallout 76.

Behind the scenes
The Flatwoods monster is based on West Virginia folklore. The was encountered by Fred and Edward May and their friend Tommy Hyer, who claimed to have encountered an alien creature after investigating a mysterious light that flew across the sky and appeared to have landed in the woods. The hovering monster was described as being ten feet tall with a green body and clawed hands, as well as a red face, glowing yellow eyes and a head shaped like an "ace of spades."