Lesser demon/saved posts

Necleriine

Category: Game Design Discussion
Topic: Critters and Creatures
Message #: 4472
Author: GS4-VORAVIEL
Date: 3/11/2007 2:01:18 AM
Subject: Re: Description for a "Necleriine"

Yay demon discussion. I'm not really going to comment on where they're from as I'm not the guru.

However, necleriines are quasi-vreenishly inspired (if the silvery-goop that mirrors peoples faces didn't give that away) in that they've got specific spell circles available to them based on the profession of the person they were birthed from, and some associated special attacks that go with that profession. Though whether they're actually related is just left up there in the air, on purpose.

Their 'glow' color denotes what profession they came from.

Since you're probably not going to be seeing these things for a looong time, I have no problem posting some messaging. These are the rarer attacks that are also associated with what profession they are, so they were probably very rarely seen.

Ranger Ability, Hellvine or something like that:

A winged spindly necleriine crosses its arms over its chest as its exposed heart beats with a bilious green energy. It suddenly spreads its fan-like hands and thrusts its spindly, needle-like bone talons into the ground!

A huge black vine dotted with crimson nettles bursts from the ground underneath you!
The vine wraps around you and slams you into the ground, digging its crimson thorns into you!
 ... 35 points of damage!
 Shot destroys eye and the brain behind it!
Voraviel continues to struggle for life.
 You are stunned for 15 rounds!

And then when the vine goes away, it has one little last bit of nasty:

The vine twining around you suddenly bursts open and showers the surrounding with vile acid!
A bilious wave of bubbling acid moves outward from a red-thorned slick black vine.
You are buffeted by the bilious green acid and are pinned in place, unable to move.
Roundtime: 18 sec.
 ... 55 points of damage!
 Acid to the foot forms a pool into which you quickly melt to the hip!

Bard, Hellscream Mass Nightmare Attack:

The spindly necleriine suddenly opens its fanged maw and lets out a piercing scream as its exposed heart bleeds with violet-black tendrils of essence, the waves of hellish sound blurring the air as it ripples outwards!
The scream reaches you!
 CS: +409 - TD: +180 + CvA: +10 + d100: +68 - -5 == +312
 Warding failed!
You shiver as a cold wind suddenly blows through the area. It was probably nothing.

Sorcerer, Bone Bludgeon Mass Attack (using the Hurl system, I think):

The spindly necleriine suddenly begins to spiral around itself, then stops suddenly as its exposed heart pulses with dark incarnadine arcs of energy. It lifts its razored needle-like talons up to the sky and gestures briefly, and thousands of blackened shard-like bones appear in thin air and suddenly explode across the surroundings!
A winged spindly necleriine flings a razor-edged blackened bone shard at you!
 AS: +517 vs DS: +55 with AvD: +28 + d100 roll: +54 = +544
 ... and hits for 114 points of damage!
 Your right leg is mangled horribly.
Voraviel continues to struggle for life.
 You are knocked to the ground!
 You are stunned for 5 rounds!
Momentum carries a razor-edged blackened bone shard past you to land nearby.
The blackened bone shard ricochets away from you, landing nearby.

Empath, Painshriek Mass Attack:

The spindly necleriine crosses its spindly arms across its chest and raises its head upwards, its exposed, black heart pulsing with sickly white energy as it lets out a chilling shriek, waves of incarnadine hue rolling outward from it!
The rippling incarnadine waves wash over you!
 CS: +409 - TD: +183 + CvA: +10 + d100: +9 - -5 == +250
 Warding failed!
You are wracked with painful spasms!

Cleric, Cursewave Mass Attack:

The spindly necleriine slams its skeletal palms together and skitters the razored tips of its needle-like spindly bone talons against one another, its exposed heart pulsing with a green-golden hue. Immediately a haze of spidery sigils explode outward from each talon, forming a rippling ring of swirling sigils that spins outwards from the necleriine!
A spidery sigil whooshes past you!
A thread of brackish blue magic issues forth from the spindly necleriine toward you. It coils itself around your body, whirling malevolently before disappearing within you.
You shake slightly and feel much less protected!

Wizard, Hellpit:

A winged spindly necleriine scythes its needle-like black bone talons across its ribcage, and its exposed heart begins to pulse with a strange viridian energy. Suddenly, it raises its talons up in a swift arc and the ground explodes with hellish flames as a flaming deep black pit appears!

l pit
The pit appears to be a burned out pit in the middle of the ground, its entirety comprised of hellish flames bursting forth from the center of the stinking pit. Growing from the unholy forge of fire and ashes are several hands formed entirely from magma, their black fingers smoking and glowing with trails of white-hot lava.

Hands of magma suddenly burst out from the pit and begin to flail about wildly!
A hand of magma suddenly reach towards you and grasps your body and pulls you to the ground where it grips you in a vice-like embrace!

The roaring flames within the deep black pit spawning the hands of magma flare up brightly!
 ... 15 points of damage!
 Solid chest grapple, you are winded!
 You are stunned for 3 rounds!
Roundtime: 6 sec.

Some generic stuff they do regardless of profession:

EyeStab, generic focused attack:

A winged spindly necleriine tilts its head down and suddenly flies straight towards you, its pair of razor-sharp horns glinting!
The spindly necleriine slams its dual horns into your eyes!
 ... 5 points of damage!
 Minor strike under the right eye, that was close!
 ... 5 points of damage!
 Minor strike under the left eye, that was close!

Tapeworms Tell Me What To Do, focused attack:

The spindly necleriine suddenly spreads its rotting wings and flaps them swiftly, sending forth a tenebrous shroud of shadow to cloak the area!
Shadows converge around you!
 CS: +409 - TD: +218 + CvA: +10 + d100: +35 - -5 == +241
 Warding failed!
The shadows liquefy and sink into your skin!

A sickening feeling comes over you as you feel shards of something crawling within your very skull. A fiery pain shoots down your spine as the presence begins to press away!
You fall to your knees!

Suddenly, the presence stabs painfully against your stomach, and you groan as it seems to split off into four different pieces, each spinning their painful forms around and around mercilessly within you.

A faint whoosh sound filters up from the four painful presences in your stomach, then without warning your body is plunged into an intense pain as slivers of darkness crawl underneath the skin of your arms! They twist and turn violently, and explode in a burst of shadow!
 ... 30 points of damage!
 Well aimed strike shatters bone in right arm!
 You are stunned for 5 rounds!
 ... 25 points of damage!
 Elbow punctured, oh what pain!
>

The messaging happens over the course of about 30 seconds per block of messaging, so the effects aren't immediate.

They and the oculoths probably do some of the weirdest stuff in terms of messaging, attacks and interaction with players. I ludge them.

Vathors are generally just there to fill the void of 'omg big classical thing from hell that is going to splatter my ass'. And abyran'ra were the prototype demons that we first released, so they only do some marginally nifty stuff.

Oculoth

Category: Game Design Discussion
Topic: Critters and Creatures
Message #: 4476
Author: GS4-VORAVIEL
Date: 3/14/2007 4:37:59 AM
Subject: Re: Description for a "Necleriine"

Well, since you guys liked the necleriine stuff, figured I'd post the oculoth stuff since they're, hands down, my favorite demon out of the four I had the extremely fun task of creating.

You might notice I'm kind of wordy with messaging, which is a little weird for creature design. This is mainly because my 'GS upbringing', as it were, was during the time when Romulus and Banthis were planning the whole 750 deal and there was a whole lot of discussion going on about demons, and for a very brief time, it seemed like, y'know, it might actually happen.

So it was basically my wetdream to actually create something that I'd spent alot of years regarding with a sort of forbidden reverence as a player, that dream project you always wanted to work on, but knew would never happen. It was an enormous compliment that Warden allowed me to actually design these things, so I tried to do them justice.

Justice in words! Woooords!

And also, in sort of real horror. Beyond the mechanics of their power and demonic immunity which was thoroughly discussed and hashed out prior to the first combatable demon's release, I wanted to bring forth that kind of terror that would inspire the historical encounters you hear about -- like the Breaking -- in a way that was very tangible to players and went beyond a simple 'You are really scared. Booga booga booga. Stunned a bajillion rounds' mechanic. Something that'd justify the nearly worldwide anathema towards demon summoning. I wanted to get inside you and tickle your brain. In a bad way.

Anyway, enough about that. Onward to the crap they do. Also, description!:

The tenebrous oculoth is an amorphous sphere wrought from pure shadow, its liquid-like mass hovering quietly in the air by some unknown means. Splitting the spherical body in two is a thin line, revealing rows upon rows of jagged, long teeth within its hideous maw. Dotting the surface of the black morass like stars in a purely alien sky are hundreds upon hundreds of eyes of every shape and color, each constantly shifting upon its body like a horrible tapestry of writhing worms. Fixed upon the very center of the oculoth's aqueous body is a massive eye, its iris tinted a deep viridian hue.

One of the neatest abilities oculoth have is Posession. This was before Empathy got introduced, and it's definitely more demonic-themed.

The initial attack, which uses a variety of hidden factors to determine success/failure:

The massive eye in the center of a massive tenebrous oculoth's shadowy mass suddenly stares straight at you, and you find the surroundings becoming blacker and blacker, the only thing visible in the ever-darkening void is the slitted eye of the oculoth, its iris flaring with scarlet wisps of energy.

The eye is all you can see, and then suddenly, the oculoth's body explodes, its shadowy skin filling the entirety of the world, like a blanket of eternally staring eyes that swallows up everything. As the eyes stare at you, unblinking, you find your body stiffening. And then, in perfect unison, each eye closes, leaving you alone in a cold, lifeless void. Voices filter in faintly, but all you can glimpse is blackness...

The player is now Possessed for a short period of time.

When looking at the player:

You see Voraviel Orthael.
He appears to be a Bastard. (it's a secret new race. Shh.)
He has a strange, vacant look in his eyes, and his face ripples with pulsating veins of blackness as they writhe back and forth like dying worms within his flesh.
He appears to be very young. He has crappy brown eyes and tan skin. He has a bald head. (Yes. I'm stylish.)

It stands to note that some very clever people realized that Uncurse could have a chance of breaking this effect when cast upon the afflicted. :)

From the player's perspective:

>
l
[Darkness]
You are in a deep darkness, lost and confused... you can dimly sense the world around you, and voices filter in faintly. Awash in the void, you fight to regain control once again.
Obvious exits: none

Player still sees what's going on around them, but they can't tell what room they're in, they can't move, speak, etc.

So, a little time passes...

You're forced to your feet by the force within you!

You swing a closed fist at Blarg!
 AS: +22 vs DS: -29 with AvD: +25 + d100 roll: +28 = +104
 ... and hit for 1 point of damage!
 Blow glances off Blarg's shoulder.
>
Voraviel jerkily stands upright like a puppet on strings.
Voraviel claws at the air at something unseen, screaming like a wildman!
>
Voraviel suddenly screams in a mix of pain and rage as his eyes bleed with rippling hues!
Voraviel swings a closed fist at you!
 AS: +22 vs DS: -29 with AvD: +25 + d100 roll: +28 = +104
 ... and hits for 1 point of damage!
 Blow glances off your shoulder.

It eventually leaves them, depending on how badly they failed, or if a player breaks it.

Plasma Wave (aka Frickin' Laser Beams Out its Frickin' Eyes):

A massive tenebrous oculoth's hundreds of eyes suddenly widen and flare with crackling wisps of energy, each shooting forth thousands upon thousands of plasma bolts that coalesce in a crackling ring around its shadowy, amorphous mass!

The oculoth suddenly blinks in unison, and the plasma boiling around it is suddenly unleashed in a blinding wave!
A boiling wave of plasma moves outward from a massive tenebrous oculoth.
A lithe dark-skinned abyran'ra is buffeted by the boiling wave of plasma.
Blarg is buffeted by the boiling wave of plasma, and is knocked to the ground.
 ... 55 points of damage!
 Muscle and bone blasted to pieces by searing wave of energy!
 He is stunned!
You are buffeted by the boiling wave of plasma, and knocked to the ground.
You are pinned in place, unable to move.
Roundtime: 18 sec.
 ... 50 points of damage!
 Muscle and bone blasted to pieces by searing wave of energy!

Mass Evil Eye:

The tapestry of eyes upon a massive tenebrous oculoth's shadowy body suddenly bleed with an incarnadine hue, each iris turning to slits as they stare forth intently!
A massive tenebrous oculoth looks directly into Blarg's eyes.
 CS: +379 - TD: +11 + CvA: +25 + d100: +33 == +426
 Warding failed!
Blarg turns pale then falls limp to the ground, killed by some inconceivable fear!

Profession Switch:

A massive tenebrous oculoth's central eye suddenly bleeds with a variety of hues, the colors roiling in a shadowy vortex until it finally blossoms with a solid incarnadine hue.

It cycles through these, its eye color denotes its profession. It can either be Cleric, Wizard or Sorcerer.

It also animates the dead in a half-assed fashion. I'd have loved to have it cast some sort of critter version of AD, however, that'd probably require a bunch of rewritten loveliness, and these things kind of had a tight deadline.

A massive tenebrous oculoth suddenly focuses its hundreds upon hundreds of eyes on Blarg's corpse, and a faint crimson haze shrouds the body as its once lifeless limbs rise to strike at Voraviel!
Blarg's corpse claws at you!
 AS: +25 vs DS: +12 with AvD: +27 + d100 roll: +33 = +73
 A clean miss.

It's a one-shot thing.

And the Mind Rot. This was mainly the horror thing. Poison's boring to me. If a demon bit you and drooled its own demonic ick in the wound, something bad had to happen. Somethin' real bad. It also has the side effect of forcing you to a less defensive stance, stun you, and stick you on the ground, which would be bad in an invasion scenario.

A massive tenebrous oculoth opens its massive fanged maw and tries to consume you!
 AS: +466 vs DS: +69 with AvD: +44 + d100 roll: +59 = +500
 ... and hits for 160 points of damage!
 Right leg ripped from socket at the knee!
You fall screaming to the ground grasping your mangled right leg!
 You are stunned for 8 rounds!
You feel a horrible burning sensation as the inky black ichor coating the oculoth's teeth sizzles in the wound left behind! You feel a strange, cold feeling running throughout your veins shortly afterwards.

A couple minutes pass:

The cold feeling in your veins throbs briefly, and your muscles twitch, sending you running like a marionette on strings. The surroundings blur as you run heedlessly, and when you stop you are in a very different place...

[The Eternal Maw]
Teeth surround you on every side as fleshy walls expand and convulse around you as if driven by a million beating hearts underneath. The jagged fangs drive into the surrounding walls, tearing bleeding gashes that pour forth torrents of stinking black blood upon you. It's then you realize you're fused to the walls of flesh, and the teeth bore into you, driving mindlessly into every inch of your body, ripping you to pieces only to have you reform once more to repeat the agonizing process eternally.
Obvious exits: none

You scream and scream as you're eaten alive over and over again, and then a blissful wave of unconsciousness overtakes you...

Another luvverly vision:

The cold feeling in your veins throbs briefly, and your muscles twitch, sending you running like a marionette on strings. The surroundings blur as you run heedlessly, until you're suddenly grabbed around the neck by a clawed hand and held, dangling, in the air.

Hundreds of hands suddenly whip out from the darkness, digging into your flesh and peeling back your skin to dig into the muscle and sinew beneath. Your veins are plucked out of your musculature like strings and tied to hooks, the pain unimaginable and flaring higher every moment as the claws work to slice open your body, making your skin slough off like a rain-drenched coat. Then, they disappear into the darkness once more, leaving you skinless and hanging like a piece of butchered meat, your intestines trailing down your legs. You let out a pain-filled scream as a blinding light overwhelms your vision...

Roundtime: 20 secs.

Aaaanother one:

The cold feeling in your veins throbs briefly, and your vision swirls with dots of blood-red hue that coalesce into swarms of fiery-hued flies. They descend on you in a massive horde, buzzing, biting and drowning at the world with their incessant task of eating you alive -- you begin to feel them crawling in your ears, in your mouth and up your nose, their bites flowing inward as they ceaselessly and effortlessly devour you. Just as your innards swell, give way, and begin to burst from the bleeding tears in your abdomen, the vision fades, leaving you only with a hazy, blurred sight of the real world as you find yourself on your knees, your hands cupping your face.
Roundtime: 18 secs.

I think this is the last one, and it's kind of really nasty:

The cold feeling in your veins throbs briefly, and your muscles twitch, sending you running like a marionette on strings. The surroundings blur as you run heedlessly, and when you stop you are in a very different place...

[Blood-Soaked Chamber]
The torchlight flickers in the ancient chambers, highlighting the slick, wet blood that is smeared across the walls. The floor is littered with body parts, the dead flesh carved with jagged, bloody sigils. The cries of dying children echo in the darkness, and shadows play against the wall as the damned try fruitlessly to escape their fate.
Also here: Voraviel who is maniacally slicing up the remains of a dead child.
Obvious exits: none

You run once more, clawing at the bloodied walls even as the other you claws at the corpse in its hands like a piece of butchered meat. Then the vision bleeds away and turns into darkness...

If you get bitten 'very' bad, you end up biting your own hand off. This happens over the course of a few minutes:

You notice something wriggling underneath the skin of your arm, like a worm crawling inside your veins. An intensely cold feeling comes over you for a moment as it disappears deeper into your flesh.

The strange thing once again surfaces beneath your skin, rippling and spreading a deep chill throughout your veins. As the chill runs up your arm and into your neck, you feel an intense fury directed right at the worm-like thing currently crawling inside the flesh of your hand, but you soon regain control of yourself.

You suddenly feel an intense, blinding pain that blossoms in the back of your skull, and a shadowy tendril rises from your hand as your skin swells and expands, bubbling like slick oil. As an unnatural rage overcomes you, the you feel yourself driven toward your hand, your teeth clamping around the bubbling flesh and ripping, tearing and gnashing away at it like an animal!
 ... 20 points of damage!
 Shot pierces a wrist!
 You are stunned for 1 round!

Voraviel suddenly twitches imperceptibly as he stares intently at his hand. Then, suddenly, he descends upon it like a ravenous animal, tearing ripping and biting at his own fingers!
 ... 20 points of damage!
 Shot pierces a wrist!
 He is stunned!

Also, I forgot they did this, but every demon has a 'Look, it's an enslaved demon, let's screw with the Sorcerer who summoned it' sort of deal. It basically tries to take your demon away and send it back. This is the oculoth's particular brand of forced dismissal:

A massive tenebrous oculoth turns to regard a pale grey white-eyed grantris with every one of its hundreds of eyes, and each iris turns as black as a starless night.

The oculoth turns its black gaze towards you, its eyes roiling with a faint incarnadine sheen!
You feel a strange presence interfering with the link to your grantris!
You feel the will of the outside presence flooding the link, deteriorating it into nothingness! A haze of pain suddenly lashes at you through the severed link, forcing you back as your body tenses and writhes in agony!

Your current state causes your link to a pale grey white-eyed grantris's valence to snap violently, which opens up a small interplanar rift through which the grantris is pulled.

And you can win!

A massive tenebrous oculoth turns to regard a pale grey white-eyed grantris with every one of its hundreds of eyes, and each iris turns as black as a starless night.

The oculoth turns its black gaze towards you, its eyes roiling with a faint incarnadine sheen!
You feel a strange presence interfering with the link to your grantris!
You manage to push the presence away, and you feel your will once again flow through the link between you and the grantris.
The oculoth whips backwards and writhes in spasmodic pain as the ebon hue fades from its eyes.

And to finish things off, some random messaging:

A massive tenebrous oculoth suddenly turns all of its eyes towards the sky, its central eye suddenly widening in anger as it projects millions of images from every iris, painting the area directly overhead of itself in a haze of illusion. For a few mere moments, the vision is clear - a sheer alien sky ripples above you, both beautiful and horrible all at once. Then the oculoth closes its eyes in unison, and the image disappears.

A massive tenebrous oculoth suddenly expands its body, each eye tapering off into a thin tentacle that swivels about, and for a moment it resembles nothing so much as a twisted sea urchin, en eye tipping each roiling tendril of shadow.

A massive tenebrous oculoth gazes around the area with its hundreds of eyes, their irises bleeding with shadowy hues for a moment.

A massive tenebrous oculoth extends a shadowy tendril from its body, sweeping it across the air in a studious fashion.

A massive tenebrous oculoth slavers its long, black tongue across its millions of jagged teeth.

A massive tenebrous oculoth suddenly expands its body, each eye tapering off into a thin tentacle that swivels about, and for a moment it resembles nothing so much as a twisted sea urchin, each eye tipping each roiling tendril of shadow.

A massive tenebrous oculoth focuses several of its eyes on you, sending forth beams of light that burn a strange, arcane pattern into your chest.

A massive tenebrous oculoth slathers its long black tongue along a broken tooth for a moment, then retracts it. Within moments, a sharp *SH-TINK!* heralds the arrival of a new fang beneath the old one, sending the broken tooth flying out of its maw.

A massive tenebrous oculoth weaves and bobs around the area, its aqueous skin rippling wetly.

A massive tenebrous oculoth slathers its long, black tongue across its teeth as it speaks in a low, fractured speech that reverberates with faint echoes. The other tenebrous oculoth turns its eyes to gaze at the tenebrous oculoth, then replies in its own strange speech.

A massive tenebrous oculoth opens its massive maw wide, its rows upon rows of jagged teeth glistening with a semi-translucent black ichor.

A massive tenebrous oculoth clicks the numerous fangs in its maw together.

A massive tenebrous oculoth extends a piece of its shadowy body towards a massive tenebrous oculoth, the membranous tentacle suddenly connecting to the other oculoth's body. The thin inky black link suddenly pulsates as something is transferred between the two, and then it snaps back into the oculoth and disappears.
(that one's kind of gross, now that I'm looking at it)

A massive tenebrous oculoth flattens its body out for a moment, resembling nothing more than a tapestry of crawling, blinking eyes. It then snaps back into its normal, spherical shape.

A massive tenebrous oculoth swivels its central eye towards the other tenebrous oculoth and *SK-RIIITCHES* its jagged teeth against themselves, producing a horrible sound. The tenebrous oculoth moves in such a way that could be considered a faint nod.

A massive tenebrous oculoth bobs and weaves its spherical body over to the other tenebrous oculoth, and they fixate on each other's hundreds of eyes, each individual iris rippling with a myriad of shadowy hues in an intense display of hazy color.

A massive tenebrous oculoth blinks its eyes in a ripple-like fashion, each opening and closing swiftly.

I don't know if that's all of them, but it's a sizable chunk of them.

Anyway, it's fun revisiting all of this. Hopefully it's informative and fun for you guys too.

Hooray late night posts.

~ V