Battle Kreaturez
is a workplace dramedy about competitive monster-tamers. It aims to tell a story where the characters and chemistry carry the plot, while treating the science fiction elements as mundane facets of everyday life.
In the world of Dimentiara, monsters are a fact of life, be it the wild, super-powered beasts lurking in the unclaimed lands, or the genetically engineered pets and beasts of burden that help move society along. These organisms are known collectively as 'kreatures'. Genetic technology has reached the point of commercialization, and customized organisms are as much a cornerstone of Dimentiaran society as any other technology. It even forms the basis of Dimentiara's largest sports industry: Kreature Combat!
In kreature combat, licensed tamers bond telepathically with their pets and fight as one entity for fortune, fame and fun. Though the fights appear quite brutal, battle kreatures are designed with an array of biological failsafes that ensure that they aren't seriously injured, and moreover that they can enjoy and consent to combat.
That's the life Ben Weiss wants for himself and his beloved Jagaldie, Slash. The problem is, he's not very good, and moreover he lacks any contacts in the professional world to give him pointers. And so one day he resorts to the fallback of any young, upstart hero and decides to find a remote place in the wilderness to train in solitude - This goes exactly as any trek into monster-infested woods tends to. Fortunately, the commotion from his altercation is loud enough to draw the attention of the Wyldcard Compound and its team of tamers who rush to his aid and pull him(quite literally) from the jaws of death.
Now Ben sits at the feet of an actual professional kreature combat team. This may be his final chance at success, but can he earn his place among the Wyldcard team, who are hurting financially as it is? And moreover, can the Wyldcard team afford to have him?
This webcomic contains examples of:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: Has the overall look, though it's kept ambiguous how far in the future the story is actually set.
- After the End: Sort of. Dimentiara's humans are the result of an exodus to another world after it became clear the people of Earth were going to destroy themselves. This is all ancient history though.
- All Animals Are Dogs: Noticeably averted. Kreatures behave like a wide range of different animals, despite most of the ones we meet being pets.
- Always Someone Better: Skyler is this towards Ben.
- Attack Its Weak Point: Actually don't. A kreature's nucleus is the only non-regenerating organ in its body. Attacking it is grounds for elimination.
- Badass Adorable: Plenty of kreatures, but most notably koobine, which is essentially a kickball with a cartoony face and antennae. It's also a deadly predator with powerful psychic abilities.
- Bioweapon Beast: Kreatures are created in laboratories rather than captured like Pokémon.
- Blood Knight: Battle Kreatures are designed for combat and enjoy it too, to the point where they become miserable if they go for too long without a fight.
- Blood Sport: Sort of. It is a sport and there is indeed lots of blood, but the lives of kreatures and their tamers are most certainly NOT considered cheap, and endangering them is a serious offense.
- Bond Creatures: Battle Kreatures form mindlinks with their Tamers via special amulets that go both ways, essentially becoming a singular entity during the mindlink's duration.
- Cartoon Creature: Some kreatures are explicitly designed with this trope in mind. Others subvert it.
- Combat Referee: An unnamed boy in glasses and a Kreature Combat Federation uniform shows up as a recurring character in this role.
- Com Mons: Various Rank D and C Kreatures, most notably Foddox, Eteep and Jaljal.
- Creating Life Is Awesome: Society in Dimentiara is built around bioengineering and this isn't portrayed as a bad thing.
- Creepy Camel Spider: Kraaster and its meta-form Kraaspine, which are based on Solifugids embellished with traits from scorpions, wolf spiders and harvestmen.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Skyler's Gogon delivers one to Ben's Jagaldie in the first chapter.
- Eldritch Abomination: Played with. The exact nature of K-matter(the stuff that gives kreatures their power) is poorly understood, and many kreatures utilize it in ways the defy our understanding of biology - and for that matter, the understanding of people whose job it is to mould DNA like playdough.
- Everyone Is Bi: Unless explicitly confirmed otherwise.
- Fluffy Tamer: More or less a prerequisite for becoming a kreature tamer.
- Flying Car: Ben drives one, and Ben is motivated to work for the Wyldcard team when he crashes it.
- Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: Sortof. Genetic engineering is a boon to Dimentiara's society and almost all kreatures are treated as living things who have the right to exist, and who deserve to be happy when fulfilling their purpose. Buuuuuut there are still one or two rampaging hellbeasts created in wartime running around.
- Healing Factor: Standard for all kreatures. It's such an integral part of them that battle kreatures don't even register pain in the same sense we do, so much as a form of 'strain'.
- Kaiju: Many of the higher ranked kreatures are essentially this.
- LEGO Genetics: Battle Kreatures are designed in such a way that their genomes can be easily modified via "genetic patches".
- Lowered Recruiting Standards: Wade is reluctant to hire Ben because he'd rather hire a tamer with more experience, but Dennis and Kristy point out they can't afford to be picky.
- Mon: The comic's genre of choice.
- Olympus Mons: Rank A Kreatures are portrayed as such, particularly Zictroe, which is stated to be rare and powerful even compared to other Rank A's.
- Reinforce Field: Every Kreature has one, which grants them Nigh-Invulnerability to almost everything but each other.
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent: VERY averted. All of Dennis' kreatures are reptile or amphibian-based, and many other perfectly sympathetic tamers have at least one reptilian kreature.
- Starter Mon: Slash the Jagaldie is Ben's. However, Dennis, Kristy and Wade have been Kreature Tamers for long enough that their starters have since died of old age.
- Takes One to Kill One: the reason Kreature Taming exists in the first place.
- What Measure Is a Non-Cute?: Aggressively averted. Tamers love their kreatures no matter what they look like, and they can look pretty damn ghastly!
