Spirit Beast
Spirit beasts premiered at Ebon Gate 2014. Similar to siegery, but with much more depth, spirit beasts battle one another like Pokemon<TM>.
Primer
Topic: Ebon Gate Festival
Message #: 6977
Author: GS4-AUCHAND
Date: 10/09/2014 11:50 PM EDT
Subject: Re: Ebon Gate Teaser: Spirit Beasts
Spirit Beasts: A Primer
Spirit Beasts are the spiritual essences of creatures that have dwelled in a given locale. Enterprising players can bind them to a talisman and make them fight for you to gain levels and become more powerful. The talismans are available off-the-shelf. The work? That's on you.
Binding
In order to bind a Spirit Beast, you'll need a talisman, purchased at my shop, Ilixil's Bestiary. (You may remember Ilixil, the extremely unfortunate scientist, from that time that he got devoured by his pet shade-skinks. He got better.) More than that, you're going to need to prepare that talisman. Preparing a talisman isn't hard if you have a bit of Magical Items Use training, but the good news is that anyone can do the preparation for you. But how do you prepare a talisman?
Blood. Lots of blood. You're going to have to go out and slaughter creatures that have blood. The stronger they are, the better the quality of their blood will be. That means that beasts from the Rift are going to provide you with some amazing quality life-liquid, and kobolds are... well, not. You can collect this blood using syringes and vials that I also sell. Noticing a trend here?
Once you have a vial full of blood, you're going to pour it on your talisman. If you're exceptionally bad with magical items, your talisman's probably going to break at this point. Otherwise, you'll either succeed famously or not do so well. Good news: you can try again. You won't even need to buy a new vial!
Now you're going to have to find a beast. The good news is that common beasts, the first type that you'll be able to bind, are everywhere. Most of the wilds around your various towns have a few different options. Every beast has its own strengths and weaknesses, which we'll go into soon enough. You can invoke your talisman anywhere to see if you can find a Spirit Beast there.
Once you've successfully invoked a talisman, you can attune it to a specific beast. Finally, once you're sure you've found the beast of your dreams (or at least one that's mildly acceptable) you'll offer the talisman to the beast. Only a prepared talisman can be offered. Anyone can bind a beast, but it will definitely help a bit if you have some Spirit Lore - Summoning skill.
Beast Statistics
Every beast has its own strengths and weaknesses, as I mentioned before. They are all competitive, but may require different tactics to be successful in battle. The traits of beasts are as follows:
Power - The strength of a beast's attacks. Defense - The ability of a beast to defend itself. Speed - How fast a beast is. Insight - How well a beast can determine its opponent's tactics. This is important! Accuracy - The likelihood a beast is going to hit with its normal attacks. Health - A measure of the beast's life force.
All of these traits also have different growth rates. A creature may start off with a lot of Power but not grow very much, or may begin with middling Insight but have a quick growth rate!
In addition to these traits are ones that don't generally change:
Special Attack - The type of special attack that the creature does.
Elemental Attunement - The element that a creature is bound to. Attuned creatures will do and take more or less damage from other elementally attuned creatures depending on their attunement.
The elements are as follows:
Fire - weakest against Water, weak against Earth, strong against Air, strongest against Spirit Water - weakest against Spirit, weak against Air, strong against Earth, strongest against Fire Earth - weakest against Air, weak against Water, strong against Fire, strongest against Spirit Air - weakest against Spirit, weak against Fire, strong against Water, strongest against Earth Spirit - weakest against Fire, weakest against Earth, strongest against Water, strongest against Air
Fighting
The entire reason you want to bind a Spirit Beast is so that you can have it fight other people's Spirit Beasts, right? So you'd best get good at fighting. When you summon your beast, it's going to start attacking its opponent at will. But this isn't just a matter of strength against strength! No, sir. You need to guide your beast in order to have it do its best.
Your creature's going to settle into a stance as soon as it begins the fight: Turtle, Wolf, Serpent, Hare, or Crane.
Turtle is strong against Hare and Crane; is weak against Serpent and Wolf. Wolf is strong against Hare and Turtle; is weak against Crane and Serpent. Serpent is strong against Turtle and Wolf; is weak against Crane and Hare. Hare is strong against Serpent and Crane; is weak against Wolf and Turtle. Crane is strong against Wolf and Serpent; is weak against Hare and Turtle.
Your creature's Insight may give you a glimpse at what stance your opponent's beast is in, but otherwise you're going to have to watch the fight and try to adjust your tactics accordingly. If it seems like your beast is taking a lot of damage and doing very little, you may want to switch to an opposing stance.
Oh, but it's not as simple as that. If things are going especially bad, you can tell your creature to guard, which means that it will take much less damage at the cost of being poor at attacks. This can be a lifesaver if you're taking a pounding and need some time to figure out how to turn things around. When you're ready to go back on the offensive, tell your creature to strike.
And then there are special attacks! Every beast has a special ability. You should only tell your beast to attack when you're certain that you're in a stance stronger than your opponent's, as special attacks are much more damaging then. They won't do much, and some won't work at all, if you're in a same or inferior stance!
Customizations
You can customize a lot about your beast! There are potions for sale in my shop that allow you to improve the traits of your beast. These can help you improve already good traits (like making a beast with a lot of Power really, really strong) or shore up ones that your beast lacks (such as enhancing the Insight on a beast that's not very aware). There's a limit on how much potions can do, but I might be convinced to do a little more for you. Wink wink, nudge nudge.
I can also work on your beast's appearance. You want your twitchy giant rat to look like a snarling fanged rodent? I can do it. Want it to look like a snake? Probably not. I can change its basic appearance and the greater detail when you look at it while it's fighting for you. But that's not all! I can even change what its special attack looks like, within reason.
Onward and Upward
Once your first beast reaches its twentieth training (don't worry, that will take a bit) you'll be able to bind your first uncommon beast. Uncommon beasts are a bit harder to find, lurking in special locales. And once you've gotten one of those to its twentieth train, there are rumors abounding about legendary beasts that only exist in a single place. These will obviously take some serious hunting to find, but the good news is that you have pleeeeenty of work to do before then, now, don't you?
Q&A 1
Topic: Ebon Gate Festival
Message #: 6991
Author: GS4-AUCHAND
Date: 10/10/2014 2:13 PM EDT
Subject: Re: Ebon Gate Teaser: Spirit Beasts
How many different spirit beasts are there totally; including common, uncommon and legendary? We need to know how many pokeba... erm talismans to buy to collect them all.
There are currently 107 Spirit Beasts. Of those, 39 are common, 16 are uncommon, and 52 are legendary. If you want to be a Pokem--er, Battle Pet--er, Spirit Beast master, well... that would take quite a bit of time. Each talisman holds three Spirit Beasts: one common, one uncommon, and one rare. You have to reach max level with the common to bind an uncommon, and max level with the uncommon to bind a rare. Yeah, I know the numbers are a little skewed if legendary beasts make up a plurality of the system. This is because legendary beasts are found in individual rooms. Uncommon beasts are found in parts of areas (and no, not giving hints!) Common beasts are realm-wide except in towns.
Are there kobolds with katanas?
No, but if you're clever, you can use the system to find out exactly what happens when a kobold attempts to use advanced armor and weaponry. It's... not pretty. I'm only half-joking here.
What is the benefit of having high quality blood?
It makes offering a talisman to a beast a bit easier.
Off the shelf. Since there will be possibly some folks who cannot take all their characters to EG, is it possible to pick up talismans at EG to give to another character?
Yup!
Creature types. Does the talisman picked up affect the creature that can be summoned with it? So far, I've seen rat and roa'ter - will there be a list of creatures (common/uncommon) that we can find, or is that now an in-game puzzle and left to discovery?
As an immediate next project, I'm thinking about doing some sort of enchiridion (let's not call it a Pokedex) for people who'd like to collect information on beast locations. Finding all the common beasts should be relatively easy, as you can step outside a town and start attuning. Common beasts are available in the surroundings of Wehnimer's, Kharam Dzu, Solhaven, River's Rest, Icemule Trace, Zul Logoth, Pinefar, Ta'Vaalor, and Ta'Illistim.
Or, will this merchant come back in a month or so after we've had time to tinker?
I intend to make customization for the talismans broadly available. I'll probably restrict modification of the beasts themselves (i.e. special attacks, custom look descriptions) to me for a bit, as they're a little tough to do at the moment.
How will one know relative statistics of spirit creature, in order to best make use of stances and/or strategies?
This is a good question. In testing, I found that a high-power, low-intuition creature like a roa'ter could definitely get its butt kicked by even a low-health, speedy creature like a rat if played well. Insight is kind of a fun stat. But yeah, currently you can look at your talisman to get a readout of relative stats. Like this:
look talis
A simple clay talisman is currently attuned to a spectral thrak of 1 train.
Its Power is high.
Its Defense is low.
Its Speed is low.
Its Insight is moderate.
Its Accuracy is moderate.
Its Health is moderate.
Its Power will grow slowly.
Its Defense will grow quickly.
Its Speed will grow at a moderate pace.
Its Insight will grow at a moderate pace.
Its Accuracy will grow at a moderate pace.
Its Health will grow at a moderate pace.
Its Insight has been enhanced by 1 points.
5) Potions for the spirit beast are temporary or permanent additions to creature's statistics?
Permanent. There's not currently a potion for clearing stat additions, but I'm thinking that'll be useful to have.
6) Binding common/uncommon. If I have a 20th level common rat spirit, that will enable my talisman to attract an uncommon creature (which, I assume, will be as powerful as a 20th level common rat spirit?). So.. the talisman can store multiple creatures.. or do the spirit creatures trade places?
The talismans hold three creatures, one of each tier. It's an unlock system, basically. And yeah, it's automatic.
Homelands
Darn, I missed a tick in not making this system like M:TG. Think of all the silver it would have brought in if your beast choice was random on purchase? I didn't do that because I'm not a jerk. Well, I am, but not on that level. Right?
Topic: Ebon Gate Festival
Message #: 6969
Author: GS4-AUCHAND
Date: 10/09/2014 10:11 PM EDT
Subject: Ebon Gate Teaser: Spirit Beasts
>invoke talisman
You focus your thoughts on a small glass talisman, attempting to align yourself with the spirits floes within the area, and a wash of foreign sensation floods your mind.
You detect the presence of a common rat spirit.
Roundtime: 15 sec.
>attune talisman
You tighten your grip on a small glass talisman, willing it to attune to the presence of the rat spirit lingering in the area.
Roundtime: 2 sec.
>offer talisman
You hold out your clay talisman and reach out with your mind, calling to the rat spirit lingering in the area. Sudden warmth draws your attention to your hands, where beads of blood begin welling from the surface of your talisman. The blood rises in a cloud of sanguine mist that illuminates a shrouded form hanging in the air before you. The spirit drifts closer to a simple clay talisman, its outline glowing as it nears. Golden light spills from the surface of the talisman, consuming the spirit. A thrill of satisfaction echoes up your arm and through your body.
Roundtime: 17 sec.
Why, it's almost like I should try and challenge someone else with one of these spirits!
>point talisman at paidreg
You challenge Paidreg to a Spirit Battle, offering your 1st train rat up against his 1st train roa'ter! (Paidreg has 45 seconds to respond by POINTing his clay talisman back at you.)
Paidreg accepts your challenge to a Spirit Battle!
You raise your clay talisman skyward and call out to the spirit dwelling within. The ephemeral spirit of a twitchy giant rat erupts forth in a blaze of energy and begins advancing on Paidreg, who counters a moment later by thrusting his clay talisman toward you. The spectral form of a plump red roa'ter crackles into existence, rising to defend him!
The battle will begin in 10 seconds.
The spirits begin to clash with one another!
Your giant rat snaps at Paidreg's red roa'ter!
A weak strike!
...13 damage!
A twitchy giant rat gathers a bit of energy from fighting.
What do you folks think? Want to know more?