Natural Weapon

To top it all off, its Japanese name is just "Spear".

"I keep forgetting that five of his six ends are pointy when he lies like that."

— Calvin on ambushing a tiger on its back, Calvin and Hobbes

What to do when you're without a weapon? Puny Humans must resort to hands and feet (or obtain an Emergency Weapon). On the other hand, non-human races, animals, and aliens tend to have claws, stings, and other such abilities.

This need not involve claws; stingers or even more complex organic weapons count. As long as they're a natural part of the creature's anatomy.

Compare Anatomy Arsenal (which can overlap with this; the arsenal is literally part of the user's anatomy), Living Weapon (when the weapon is part of another creature entirely).

Any of the following could be one:

• Absurdly Sharp Claws: A creature attacks using its own sharp claws.
• Ass Kicks You: A person attacks someone by hitting their opponent with their own rear end.
• Bad with the Bone: specifically, the "superpowered bones" variant
• Bare-Fisted Monk
• Beak Attack
• Beware My Stinger Tail
• Bloody Murder
• Breath Weapon
• Cactus Cushion
• Clam Trap
• Combat Tentacles
• Ear Wings
• Fartillery: Weaponizing your own flatulence.
• Feather Flechettes
• Femme Fatalons
• Grievous Harm with a Body
• Goomba Stomp: Defeating video game enemies simply by jumping on their heads.
• Hair Wings
• Helicopter Hair
• Heli-Critter
• Horn Attack
• Man Bites Man
• Power Pincers
• Prehensile Hair
• Proj-egg-tile
• Razor Wings
• Rolling Attack
• Spike Shooter
• Studded Shell
• Super-Scream: Someone has a loud scream as their super power.
• Super Spit
• Sword and Fist
• Tail Slap
• Use Your Head
• Weaponized Stench
• Wilting Odor
• Wolverine Claws

...but not always.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Dozens of examples can be found in the released forms of Arrancars in Bleach. They carry around swords, but in "resurreccion" mode most arrancars' zanpakuto become natural weapons. They may have claws, pincers, tentacles, wings, tails, or horns that will be used to fight.
• Garyuu of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, who in addition to his speed and strength, is capable of firing mana bullets as part of his biological functions, has retractable blades up the wazoo, and combat tentacles that could slice through Barrier Jackets. These, together with his other natural abilities and human-level intelligence, make him the equivalent of a skilled mage and one of the strongest amongst of Lutecia's insect summons.

Comic Books

• X-Men:
  • Riptide of the Marauders can secrete hardened resin from his skin and fire it as projectile weapons at his foes.
  • Wolverine and X-23's... Wolverine Claws are also made of bone, although they both have adamantium attached to them (Wolverine on his whole skeleton, X-23 just on her claws) to make them much more dangerous.

Fan Works

• The Pieces Lie Where They Fell:
  • Page Turner is the only one of the new Element Bearers who relies completely on her inherent magic, rather than carrying a physical weapon.
  • Being a griffon, Wind Breaker primarily relies on his beak and talons in battle, at least initially. He still uses them as backups even after getting a crossbow.

Films — Live-Action

• The xenomorphs of the Alien series. Extensible teeth, tremendously powerful arms, acid for blood, prehensile tail. Par for the course, since they were created as Living Weapons in the expanded universe.
• Resident Evil (2002): The Licker mutant has huge claws that can rip through solid metal and inflict grievous wounds. Its bite attack is also fairly impressive.
• Starship Troopers: One caste of the Bugs are able to shoot huge bursts of plasma from their backs; their novel equivalents build weapons just like people do.

Literature

• Animorphs:
  • Andalites have a scythe blade at the end of their tails, and Hork-Bajir are covered head to toe in blades and spikes. Humans are considered particularly vulnerable in large part because we don't have any, and the protagonists all acquire various animal morphs suitable for close combat, e.g. tiger, grizzly bear, or rhino.
  • A bit of a subversion with the Hork-Bajir — despite appearing to be a walking knife factory, they're a peaceful race and use the blades to cut and eat tree bark, but this made them a target for enslavement by the Yeerks.
• The tripodal Puppeteer race in the Known Space universe have hooves on their rear legs. Although pacifist by nature, one badly frightened Puppeteer in Ringworld takes a level in badass when he instinctively uses his rear hoof to kick a man's heart through his spine.
• When she's in her Cat Girl form, Danielle from Mind Games has claws on both her fingers and toes that count as System weapons, which means that they're more dangerous than bullets to most System-empowered beings.
• Moreau Series: Many flavors of moreaus have these, mostly claws and teeth. Angel Lopez' legs may count; as an engineered rabbit the size of a small human, she has a kick that can shatter bones.
• This happens frequently in Redwall, since most animals have at least some natural defenses that they can bring to bear. Examples include:
  • Redwall: Constance the badger, who uses her sheer bulk to overpower the cutlass-armed Redtooth. Asmodeus Poisonteeth, being an adder, and therefore legless, has no choice but to use his fangs and coils as his main weapons. And the sparrows attack with beak and talon alone.
  • Mossflower: Tsarmina, unarmed and confronted by a fully armed and armoured Martin the Warrior, attacks him with only her teeth and claws. Since she's a wildcat and he's a mouse, she damn near kills him anyway.
  • Lask Frildur and his monitor lizards in Pearls of Lutra who use only their claws and fangs.
  • Rakkety Tam has Gulo the Savage, a wolverine who fights using only his claws, teeth, and size.

Live-Action TV

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In "Fool for Love", Spike says that one advantage a vampire has over a Slayer is that while the Slayer needs to reach for her weapon, a vampire is always armed with their fangs. The episode in question demonstrates this by having Buffy suffer a near fatal encounter with a vampire in which he uses her own stake against her.
  Spike: Lesson the first, a Slayer must always reach for her weapon. [vamps into Game Face] I've already got mine.

Mythology

• In Classical Mythology, Prometheus was given a bag full of gifts to distribute to the various new creatures populating the earth. Said gifts pretty much amounted to this, and that's why dogs have fangs, snakes have venom, lions have claws and fangs, and so on. But when it came to humans, Prometheus was out of gifts, and he decided to gave human fire that he stole from the gods. Thus, humans lack a Natural Weapon, but are granted a mind capable of reasoning. For this act, Prometheus was chained to a rock where an eagle would tear out his liver, he would suffer in pain all day, regenerate by the next day, and the process repeats.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons: "Natural weapon" is a special ability for monsters (with some ways to gain access to them for non-monster player characters). Some special abilities that don't fall into the natural weapon category could also qualify (in 3e/3.5 natural weapons are specifically weapons in the game-mechanical sense that are part of the body, so more mundane breath weapons, poison secretions, etc. aren't natural weapons so far as mechanics are concerned).
• Fading Suns: Defied by the Vorox. They are ten-foot-tall six-limbed alien bear-lion-wolves, but many of them shave their claws as a mark of being "civilized".
• GURPS: Innate Attack is the most common (since it can represent thousands of different things) but the list includes: Strikers, Claws, Teeth and Spines.
• Hc Svnt Dracones: All Vectors have a bite attack and a tail attack, bites are fairly weak but harder to parry than fists and deal lethal damage, while tail attacks only distract the enemy from parrying except reptiles whose tails are heavy enough to deal some nonlethal damage. Lateral Vectors also have claws. And the Reclaimed Venom surgery adds venom to bite attacks.
• Hunter: The Vigil: One of the most basic implants a Cheiron hunter can get is the Weapon of Last Resort, a catch-all term for physical weapons implanted directly in the body, such as razor-sharp claws or demonic fangs. They give their new owners reliably accessible just-in-case weapon if they're disarmed of their tools, and also have the added bonus of leaving wounds that most people won't associate with a human assailant, which makes cover-ups a fair bit easier.
• Ironclaw: Everyone has at least one, how effective it is depends on their brawling skill and their species stat.
• Legend System: Present and very desirable. They gain something of a power boost from the fact that they — and, by extension, their properties — are always active and available even with another weapon drawn. This allows you to have an active weapon loaded to the gills with defensive properties while still having a strong attack freely available. Most tracks that grant them are also built around supporting them.
• Myriad Song: Some Legacies can take gifts that give them natural weapons. Adhilians can have a blade on one of their tails. Elvers can constrict or generate electricity. Ishato can have stinging tentacles. Morphirs can develop thorns, sticky sap, or disorienting spores. Rhax a poisonous bite and/or webs. Towsers can have a toxic bite and hardened alloy claws with the same gift.
• Pathfinder: Natural weapons are any melee weapons that are a natural part of a creature's body. Claws, fangs, pincers, stingers, and tentacles all count, but things like breath weapons and natural magical abilities don't. Note that unarmed strikes don't count either, as it refers exclusively to appendages meant to do damage and not a bunch of fingers curled into a crude ball and used as an improvised bludgeoning weapon. Despite this, you'd be hard pressed to find a defensive ability that inflicts a penalty on attackers using natural weapons but not on those using unarmed strikes, or vice versa.
• Rocket Age: Many creatures have natural weapons, including the Venusians. It is a trait in the character and monster creation system and can be taken to either give a creature something like Absurdly Sharp Claws or Super Spit.
• Warhammer 40,000:
  • The Tyranids. Besides various types of claw weapons, several units have organic projectile weapons integrated into their bodies.
  • Some Space Marines are capable of spitting acid and eating concrete. The Space Wolves go even further, with some mutations making them more wolf-like (grey hair, yellow eyes and long fangs).
• Many monsters in Yu-Gi-Oh! have these, some more extravagant than others. Barrel Dragon has oversized revolver cannons on its hands and head.

Video Games

• Taokaka and the rest of the Kaka clan from BlazBlue have organic magitek claws that can absorb and use Seither, something for which most of the other characters need weapons.
• In Castle Cat, the titular cat can shoot cannonballs out of his head.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • The Khajiit Cat Folk have natural razor-sharp and retractable claws. They have numerous fantastical martial arts styles which revolve around their use of these as a primary form of defense. Gameplay-wise, they get a bonus to their unarmed skill because of their claws. Game Mods extend this to Argonians as well and boost the effectiveness for both races with each gain in level.
  • Most forms of were-creatures come with some form of claws and/or fangs. These are even able to harm creatures which are otherwise immune to normal weapons, such as ghosts and some forms of lesser Daedra. Given that they themselves are supernatural beasts in service to the Daedric Prince Hircine, this is rather justified.
  • Scamps, the weakest and smallest known form of lesser Daedra, have claws at the end of their Creepy Long Fingers which act as their primary weapon.
• All of the weapons you can get in Evolva. The genohunters' limbs (sometimes the neck or the back) transform each time you select a weapon, as you shoot at the enemies using the transformed limb.
• EXTRAPOWER: Attack of Darkforce: The parasitic Bem organisms only require their Panzer Arms to attack, hardening their hands into sharpened knife edges.
• Fire Emblem:
  • The Mamkutes use Breath Weapons.
  • Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn: The Laguz use claws, beaks, etc.
• Half-Life:
  • Half-Life: Xen aliens have "natural" weapons galore. Vortigaunts can produce huge bolts of directed electricity. Grunts have hornet guns, which seem to be some sort of insect hive that they've managed to turn into a weapon. Controllers can shoot balls of energy (ball lightning?) and the Nihilanth shoots these as well as teleport portals.
  • Opposing Force: The Race X aliens: pit drones, which shoot some sort of biological darts from their forehead, the shocktroopers, which like the Xen grunts use two more forms of biological weapons (shock roaches and spore launchers), voltigores, which like Xen vortigaunts can shoot massive charges of electricity, the pit worm, which can fire a laser from its eye, and the gene worm, which can fire a chemical stream from its mouth.
• Hollow Knight: The Mantises use their bladed claws as weapons; the flying Mantis Nymphs use their stingers instead. The only exception are the three Mantis Lords, who use spear-like blades instead.
• Knights of the Old Republic: Interestingly defied. Wookiees have claws and they use them as tools and to climb, but are not allowed to use them as weapons, because only animals do that. Any wookie that fights with his claws is branded a mad-claw and banished.
• Mortal Kombat: Baraka is a member of the Tarkatan race, which have retractable blades in their arms. These blades serve many violent purposes, such as chopping off heads and impaling Torsos.
• Pokémon: Several species base moves around their anatomy. Bulbasaur is famous for moves like Vine Whip and Bullet Seed, which use the bulb on its back; Octillery's signature move is Octazooka, which uses its mouth as an artillery piece, and so on. A full list would take up the entire page.
• Prayer of the Faithless: The Hopeless Vagrants of Confinement seem to have their Wolverine Claws be natural, given that they're colored the same as their skin.
• Pretty much any creature more powerful than a zombie in Resident Evil will have these; various formerly human T-Virus mutants (from Crimson Heads to Tyrants) tend to grow claws as they mutate. G-Virus and Nemesis mutants gain Combat Tentacles. Las Plagas have their own natural weapons when they leave their human hosts. Animals infected by any of these naturally keep their own examples as well.
• Shantae: Shantae (2002), Shantae: Risky's Revenge, Shantae and the Pirate's Curse: Shantae's hair whipping attack is due to her hair, which is natural.
• The creatures in Sipho fight through various parts grown on their bodies, from extending spikes to poison-spewing pods.
• StarCraft:
  • The Zerg are a fearsome species whose swarm seeks to devour and assimilate other forms of life throughout the Koprulu Sector, particularly their arch-enemies the Protoss. The Zerg use no inorganic technology; in addition to the more animal-like creatures who serve as their foot soldiers, every building, spaceship, point defense weapon, etc. is some kind of Zerg creature evolved and designed to perform that role. In general, the natural weapons of Zerg creatures are at least as capable and deadly as the inorganic weapons of their opponents.
    • Most Zerg units such as Zerglings naturally grow fangs, mandibles, claws, horns, etc. which are sharp and durable enough to tear through Powered Armor, tanks, and just about anything.
    • Ranged attackers such as Hydralisks and Queens can use powerful muscles to launch organic spines from their bodies, whose range and damage are sufficient for shooting down enemy aircraft and spacecraft.
    • Roaches spit acid at their enemies.
    • Banelings are zerglings that mutate to incorporate bulging sacs of acid. They serve as suicide bombers by charging into the enemy and bursting apart, splashing them with acid.
    • Spore colonies and spore crawlers serve as anti-aircraft cannons by spitting projectiles called spores. In the campaign, the Zerg have larger spore cannons which are especially effective against capital ships.
    • Brood Lords are giant fliers which continuously produce smaller creatures called broodlings, which they shoot down at ground enemies from a long distance. They're basically the Zerg equivalent of heavy bomber aircraft, if the bombs were like ravenous piranhas that nibble the enemy to death.
  • Protoss warriors such as Zealots and Dark Templar can generate energy blades from their own psionic energy. Most use forearm devices to focus and contain the energy, but at least one warrior, Tassadar, could channel his energy into blades without the need for forearm units.

Webcomics

• The characters from Dogfight use their claws, fangs, horns, and hooves for unique martial arts fights.
• In Schlock Mercenary, species with abilities along these lines (as well as sheer size) are in high demand for private security (legal or otherwise) in places like Dom Atlantis (the capital city of Earth) where even non-lethal weapons outside the local law enforcement are heavily restricted since they can't be regulated.
  Not-Garcia: Captain, where is your weapon?
  Landon: If you're referring to the M3 "Tater", I don't carry one. Speaking frankly, as one to whom nature has given a nice tooth-and-claw package, I don't consider the M3 a weapon. And speaking as an armed agent of J.S.C. Internal Affairs, I ask the questions.

Web Original

• Some of the anthropomorphic animals in Darwin's Soldiers have natural weapons. Most of the time, it takes the form of teeth, claws and muscle, but Snake People possess working venom glands.
• Psycho Gecko of World Domination in Retrospect realizes that he can use his Nanomachines to give himself these, and immediately installs a set of fangs, and zirconium fingernails that may as well be claws.

Western Animation

• Most of The Herculoids have at least one of some kind.

Real Life

• The cone shell can fire a neural-toxic laced harpoon. Seriously.
• Skunks have a well-known natural chemical weapon, spraying a substance that smells so foul that other animals fear it. Bombardier beetles take this even further, spraying a boiling chemical to severely burn targets.
• The Pistol Shrimp can use its claws to create shockwaves that hit with the equivalent force of a .22 caliber bullet as its main weapon (it's been known to shoot its way out of aquariums this way). Mantis shrimps have a similar mechanism that is used in the same way, being able to "punch" things with a similar amount of force.
• Venomous snakes and monitor lizards have natural Poisoned Weapons.
• Sawfish are so named for their barbed, sword shaped noses which they use to dig up and then impale fish and small crustaceans.
• Several herbivorous dinosaurs had various natural weapons to deal with carnivores, such as Triceratops' horns, Stegosaurus' thagomizer, Ankylosaurus' tail club, Therizinosaurus' long claws, and such.

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