Monstriends

Monstriends, short for “Monster Friends”, singular just “Monstriend”, are creatures in the Monstriends Project Story. They are creatures which can be tamed by humans to fight, play, perform, and otherwise help humans throughout life. There are a wide variety of Monstriends in this Story, with various ways of finding and capturing them, and many different elements and forms they can have.

History
Monstriends have existed in the Monstriends Project Story since the very beginning. Some Monstriends were powerful enough to have shaped and created the world in certain Storylines. Most Monstriends aren’t much different from regular animals, being companions but also sources of food, resources, and strife.

People can battle with Monstriends, but they also just be friends with them, helping them and letting them help humans in return.

Generally, Monstriend intelligence can range from being not too different from regular animals, to being on par with humans. Much like with actual humans, this intelligence can vary from Monstriend to Monstriend, as well as things like personality, preferences, allergies, conditions, and so on.

Growth
Monstriends have no evolutions like in other Mon series. Instead, most Monstriends act like real world animals and plants, slowly growing and sometimes changing from a Child to Adult form, or Child to Juvinile to Adult, and so on. Some Monstriends just grow in size rather than appearance, while some don't really grow at all and stay the same, such as Spirit and Alchemy Monstriends. All Monstriends may also have slightly different appearances than the 'standard' appearance, but mostly in coloration (and some rare ones like piebald, albinism, etc) or other cosmetic features.

Monstriends cannot breed with any other Monstriend outside of their own species, and most can’t breed at all, such as Spirit, Ego, and Deity Monstriends. However, they can learn new moves/abilities/etc. if they are friends with other Monstriends of different types. This is why “friend” is part of their name, because their friendships with both humans and each other help them grow in new ways.

Monstriends don't just grow from battles alone. There is also just general training activities that Monstriends can do, like training animals to obey commands or learn tricks. Some people choose to simply clean and care for their Monstriends, but this also helps them grow as well. These training activities thus range from things similar to Pokéathalons to Super Training to Pokémon Refresh.

As mentioned earlier, Monstriends grow and get stronger as they become friends with a wide variety of other Monstriends. This also includes becoming better friends with their own owners, hence why even just caring for Monstriends without battling with them helps them grow.

Elements, Origins, and Forms
All Monstriends have an associated element and origin. Element represents an actual elemental “type” that affects the Monstriend’s strengths and weaknesses in battle. Origin refers to where the Monstriend can be found and captured, or otherwise how it can be made. There are also Forms, which are different shapes and appearances that Monstriends can take. There are specific Forms associated with each Origin type.

For further details on elements, see the Monstriend Elements article. For further details on Origins and their associated Forms, see the Monstriend Origin article.

Battles
Monstriends can be used to fight others, usually in friendly battles but never lethal. There are also official tournaments, competitions, and so on that limit battles between only one type of Monstriend (usually by Origin, but sometimes by Element and even strictly by Form). Outside of these sanctioned battles, people are free to battle however they want with whatever kind of Monstriend they want to use.

Battle Statistics
Each Monstriends has certain statistics or “stats” associated with each one. These represent thinks like attack power and health points. These values vary between individuals, but generally they are within certain ranges for a particular species. The Monstriend stats are as follows:


 * Strength = offense/attack power
 * Fortitude = defense power
 * Health = health/hit points, endurance, stamina
 * Acumen = like Wisdom in Dungeons & Dragons or Final Fantasy; magical/spiritual/special attack
 * Insight = like Intelligence/Knowledge in Dungeons & Dragons or Final Fantasy; magical/spiritual/special defense
 * Quickness = the basic speed/agility stat
 * Luck = actual measurable luck for critical hits
 * Karma = affects whether the Monstriend can dodge attacks; higher karma means more likely to be hit
 * Randomosity = may or may not do anything special, such as boosting or lowering one of the others at random during battles, causing random events or effects, etc.; Research into this stat is ongoing

The first six stats can be improved with regular training and battling. Luck and Karma can only be raised or lowered in very specific ways, while Randomosity continues to be a mystery as to how it works.

Special Classifications
Besides elements/origins/forms, there are also special classifications that can be assigned to certain Monstriends. Most of these Monstriends are very rare and hard to capture (if they can be captured at all). See the Monstriend Special Classifications article for further details.