Whismur

Murmurs. That’s what it does most of the time, and at such a low volume that the Pokédex entries insist it’s hard to hear even when you’re paying attention. The change comes when it senses danger: then it shrieks, and the shriek goes over 100 decibels, leaving anyone who hears it with a headache that can last a whole day. One of the entries compares it to a jet engine.

The best part is how the episode ends. It gets scared by its own scream, screams even louder because of the fright, and keeps going until it runs out of energy and falls asleep. The other way to make it stop is for it to manage to close its ears.

Those ears are the centrepiece of the design: two yellow-tipped flaps that work as both plugs and ducts. At 60 centimetres and 16.3 kilos, almost everything else is a pink spherical body with cross-shaped eyes. The official category, Whisper Pokémon, describes the calm half of the animal and completely ignores the other one.

It opens a line that turns the volume up twice more, through Loudred to Exploud, and it’s the only one of the three that still tries to go unnoticed.

The 240-point spread is broken in the same place on both sides: 23 Defense and 23 Special Defense. With 64 HP behind it, any reasonably strong attack knocks it out in one hit, whichever side it comes from. Attack and Special Attack tie at 51, a figure that doesn’t kill anything, and 28 Speed ensures it moves second.

Soundproof, its standard ability, makes it immune to sound-based moves. That includes Screech and Supersonic, as well as Roar, so it can’t be forced out of battle. It’s a narrow immunity and rarely comes into play. Rattled, its hidden ability, raises its Speed when it’s hit by a Bug-, Ghost- or Dark-type attack; starting from 28, one stage leaves it just as slow as before.

Pure Normal typing gives it a single weakness, Fighting, and an immunity to Ghost. Offensively, it hits nothing super effectively and runs into Ghost types. Its own attacks come late: Stomp at level 21 with 65 power, Uproar at 35 and Hyper Voice at 45, both with 90. Since it evolves at 20, the last two only appear if you manually cancel the evolution.

It isn’t a serious battle Pokémon, and there’s no way to hide that. Where it works is in a normal Hoenn playthrough, between the second and third Gyms, and above all as a required step towards Exploud. Its best available attack before evolving comes from a TM: Facade, with 70 power and double that if it’s poisoned or paralysed.

It belongs to the Monster and Field Egg Groups, two of the most populated, so finding it a partner is no trouble at all. The gender split is 50%, which saves you the hunt for females required by other lines.

Twenty hatching cycles are about 5355 steps. Ten Egg Moves can come from the egg, and the worthwhile ones are precisely those that cover what Normal doesn’t: Hammer Arm, with 100 physical Fighting-type power, and Circle Throw, with 60, give it something to do against Rock and Steel. Extrasensory, an 80-power special Psychic-type move, is its answer to Poison types. Disarming Voice adds 40-power Fairy-type coverage. Endeavor is on the list too, although with 23 Defense it rarely survives the turn in which it would be useful.

It evolves into Loudred by reaching level 20, with no stones, times of day or friendship involved. It grows at a medium-slow rate, so reaching that level 20 takes a little longer than it does for a Pokémon on a fast growth curve.

In the wild, it lives in caves. Its catch rate is 190, one of the comfortable ones: a regular Poké Ball is almost always enough, and it sometimes carries an Aspear Berry.