Creeper (Minecraft)

Creepers are creatures which are found in Mojang's Minecraft franchise.

Description
Roughly the same size as a human, Creepers appear as a patterned pillar of green, plant-like material with what look to be four small feet at the bottom and a rudimentary face with downturned mouth. They will detect players within a certain radius and move silently towards them, attempting to get in range to use their suicidal attack. When the Creeper gets close enough to a player, it will begin hissing; a short time later, the creature will explode, causing high levels of damage to anyone or anything in its blast radius. This act will also destroy the Creeper. For some unknown reason, these beasts fear cats and will run away from them if encountered; therefore, having a tame cat follow a player around will provide a measure of protection from Creepers.

If a player is able to kill a Creeper (due to their explosive tendencies, this is usually done from afar, such as with a bow and arrow), then the beast will drop gunpowder, a key component in crafting TNT. If the player is able to get a Skeleton to kill a Creeper with its archery attack (an extremely difficult manoeuvre as Skeletons will not attack other mobs; the player must simply dodge the arrows and hope that they hit a nearby Creeper), the creature will instead drop a Music Disc, a collectible item in Minecraft.

Variations
Rarely, a Creeper may be hit by a bolt of lightning; when this happens, a Charged Creeper is created. Charged Creepers have the same appearance as a regular member of their species but are surrounded by a glowing blue aura. These monsters also display a significantly more powerful explosive attack than their regular, uncharged counterparts.

Trivia

 * Creepers were actually the result of a coding error when creating the model for pigs. Rather than delete the mistake and start again, the designers kept it and developed it into the creature it is in Minecraft today.