Fakemon Designs: Silchick and Silkatrice

Name: Silchick -> Silkatrice
Classification: The Hatchling Pokemon -> The Cockatrice Pokemon
Type: Normal -> Normal/Dragon
Ability: Fur Coat/Petrify
Moves: Peck, Dragon Claw, Glare, Egg Bomb
Evolution: Silchick -(Lv. 34)-> Silkatrice
Dex:
Rarely, a Bird Pokemon Egg that is incubated by a frog Pokemon will hatch into a Silchick. Scientists are still not sure why.

Silkatrice’s long, fluffy feathers keep their eyes hidden, but it is said that anyone who looks into their eyes will be turned to stone.

These fakemon were designed as entries to a contest for the Omnis Region on Tumblr, one of my favorite community region projects. They’re pretty far along in creating their Dex, and I appreciate how well organized it all is — one of the few cases of a democratic region working out. They have some great design prompts and aren’t afraid to mix it up with new, inventive formats. I’ve made a few designs for it in the past (such as this one) but haven’t gotten any designs in the Dex yet. With any luck, this will be the first!

The Design

The prompt for this one was a two-stage line based on a Silkie chicken:

preposterous creatures.

I’m not 100% on this, but I’m pretty sure that the impetus to this was a viral post that went around Tumblr, to the effect of “If this post gets 1 million notes, my parents are getting me a fluffy chicken.” Due to the capricious nature of the viral internet, the post actually achieved its (frankly absurd) goal, and in the process everyone was made aware of how ridiculous Silkie chickens are.

 As for my designs, I thought of a way to make this weird fluffy thing look slightly more badass and also add in mythological references, so I based it on a cockatrice:

From Wikipedia:

the cockatrice was the product of an egg laid by a cock (a male chicken) and incubated by a toad; asnake might be substituted in re-tellings. Cockatrice became seen as synonymous with basilisk when the basiliscus in Bartholomeus Anglicus‘ De proprietatibus rerum (ca 1260) was translated by John Trevisa as cockatrice (1397).^[4] A basilisk, however, is usually depicted without wings.

(…)

t has the reputed ability of killing people by either looking at them—”the death-darting eye of Cockatrice”^[5]—touching them, or sometimes breathing on them.

It was repeated in the late-medieval bestiaries that the weasel is the only animal that is immune to the glance of a cockatrice. It was also thought that a cockatrice would die instantly upon hearing a rooster crow,^[6] and according to legend, having a cockatrice look itself in a mirror is one of the few sure-fire ways to kill it.

It’s a dragon, it’s a chicken, it has special powers, and it’s not a Pokemon yet… seemed like an ideal opportunity! Plus, the introduction of the Silkie chicken allowed me to give a novel twist to this medieval monster.

Designing the pre-evo followed quite naturally from that concept; although I actually think the whole eggshell-as-diaper thing is somewhat played out, I included it since eggs feature prominently in the cockatrice’s mythology. I gave it the little wing-claws that a lot of my designs use; I believe Archen (my favorite Pokemon) is to blame for that.

Since Archen is the ancestor of all bird Pokemon, they’re probably related too.

“Why aren’t they Flying-type?” you might ask. Two reasons: One, they can’t fly. And two, Normal/Dragon is an unused type combination so that’s cool, and Normal-types are underrated. Battle-wise, it would have fairly high Attack and solid defenses too, with dual STAB in Normal and Dragon giving its attacking moves an edge. It’s kind of an early-game mon, but something that could definitely hold its own. Its abilities, Fur Coat and Petrify, are both really good, too.

Oh, Petrify is a custom ability that we implemented in Pokemon Uranium. It’s like Intimidate but lowers Speed instead of Attack.

So, yeah, that’s about all there is to say on these guys. If you’d like to vote for them in the Omnis Region poll so that they can get added to the Omnis Dex, by all means go for it!

Thanks for reading!

~ Oripoke