[Design] Vandalarian Warrior
A 2023 entry in the SABA project proceeding out of my metaphysical and spiritual conflict.
Now I create a new design. This is the SABA version of Autospear, who is a swirling Phantom of my effort to expose the true nature of Black Culture.
A neutral carry character with a special form of scaling over time. May switch to humans or the Void.
Story
He lived in the iron obelisk for what seemed like all of his life. A sleek shaft cast in mysterious light, where others knew family or Nature or Gods he knew the implacable wrath that lied behind failure to defend his hide. When he was a child he was beaten against the wall by punches of energy until he broke open a chunk of it, and from a shaft of that chunk he crafted a crude spear. As the years passed he used pieces of the walls to gradually hone and sharpen his streamlined spear crafted with curling stories in a “world” that knew none. He moved from defending himself with whirls and hefts against the assailants of energy to seeking and striking weak points where there were no weak points. With the energy golems gone, his weapon was electrified, and he sliced and stabbed the iron obelisk as it broke into one formation after another glowing lines of pale yellow. Then he found the heart of the construct, and it collapsed at his feet.
He took the cube as a whirling decoration for his sphere, and knew that nothing out of that chamber could stop him; having carved himself into a legendary warrior. He marched into the forest plains to find the first figure decorating his storied weapon.
Appearance
Scolken is a caramel brown tribal spearman whose possessions seem carved with metal. He is lanky with muscles concentrated where he needs them most. Sharp eyes that hardly betray his inner state. His tribe of Vandalar honors his adventures after he finds it in his storyline, already ready for him. This tribe decorates things associated with him. His associated color is dark bronze.
Passive
Vandalarian receives half income from all sources, and instead makes gold by filling the story scrawled around his spear. An image of the spear is on the right of the interface and gradually glows as it is filled up. When it overcomes the threshold signified by an illustration, he receives a large payout and also receives passive income overtime defined by the story meter.
The illustrations can include every character, boss monsters and other things like items to purchase.
Stats
He has high base damage, high health, low armor, excellent magic defense, decent regeneration that is accelerated when he gains story points.
Q
Iron Box Scolken, if he has possession of the box, projects it at the Target character or other major enemy. If it hits, it forms a cage around the character model with a translucent wall towards the camera.
A swirling light blue Decoration is formed on the ground, and it glows brightly as he defends the area from the enemy while the boxed Target remains impervious to damage and only causes passive abilities. If the decoration is filled, it transforms into an Iron Maiden and deals massive damage, 11/16/22/27% of max health + 3x attack damage.
After triggering it, all of his further attacks deal damage to the Target, the spears striking again without a visual effect. The Iron Maiden deals 1/8-1/4- -1/2-1/1 of his attack damage scaling up based on how many other opponents are in the battle. If there are no other opponents or they aren't close, he can attack using the Iron Maiden to deal his normal damage at range.
The Target must attack, use spells and items to escape the Iron Maiden, and story points are converted into hit points for the box. Levels of skill give it a lot of armor and some magic defense.
Vandalar Port if he does not have the box in possession, he can use this skill to teleport towards an illustrated goal like a character, boss monster, or item holder. 1000/1500/2000/2500 range. Can vary where he lands slightly in a narrow cone. If he is close to the goal, he can teleport anywhere around the goal within 1000 range, dealing damage to everything in the way for 1/8th story points.
Box cooldown: 60 seconds, or 10 if it misses.
Port cooldown: 18/16/14/12
Box give story points for hitting and ramping story points for Iron Maiden length. Port gives story points for big damage and reaching goals.
W
Weapons of the Vandalar
Block if the box is in possession, he brings up the handle to block damage up to 1/4 of his story points, and casting off 50% / 60% / 70% / 80% of the blocked damage onto the area in the form of bronze plates. Walking over a plate turns it into a spear, damaging the unit for 1/4 - 1/3 - 1/2 - 1/1 of the blocked damage. 3 or 4 plates are formed depending on angle.
Counter if the block is successful, he can cast the cube up to 1000 range away, ragdolling all enemy units in the area 200/300/400/500 away. It remains there for 3 seconds, slowly magnetizing bronze plates.
Spear Strike If the box is not available he makes an electrocuting thrust of his spear, which extends according to how much of the scrawl is filled. 200/300/400/500 range with 0-200 extend range. Deals damage across the length to all units, decreasing by 5% of total across every unit hit. 1/1.25/ 1.50/1.75 of attack damage.
9/8/7/6 cooldown, separate cooldowns
E
Honoring the Vandalar
Box Shop Scolken can deploy the box while it is in possession into the shape of a shop. While deployed, it is not in possession even when he is shopping.
Onslaught Scolken magnetizes all his metal possessions against the target, sliding the shop / iron box / Iron Maiden, flying the bronze plates, and anything else he has in play. While the magnetization happens over 2 seconds, he can leap towards a character or boss monster, pulled by magnetic energy. Three different targets can be clicked over the Target, deciding the angle of his attack as well as the status effect, disarming, crippling movement or bleeding.
Vandalize after the magnetization period, casting E again breaks the box structure, pulls the highest damage weapon from a character or boss, converts all his field objects into up to 1/2/3/4 spears + up to 10 spears based on his story meter, disables neutral or enemy shops for 15 seconds except for himself, and pulls out 2/3/4/5% of all nearby character gold.
Vandalized box shop gives half the story points gained that combat as gold, refreshes consumables and has a chance to drop a special spear with a useful effect against a random enemy character, deploying against that character. Iron box has one of the walls broken open, dealing damage for that amount and allowing the boxed character to be attacked from that angle. Iron Maiden sinks the spikes, causing a bleed for that amount and allowing the spikes to be used as 4/5/6/7 Spears. The Counter box rapidly magnets bronze plates and spears to its placement, up to 20 according to the story meter.
The pulled weapon is wielded by his model and can be thrown for the same damage as the stolen character, dealing all the on-hit effects and passives. Scolken can remain mounted during Onslaught to stab with this weapon instead, dealing double damage and possibly a special status effect.
Spears are launched with every attack dealing 50/100/150/200 damage +1/8 of story meter in the direction of his Target from where they lie using magnetic energy.
Pilfered gold piles turn into Spears after all other sources if there are more remaining and can be collected by him after successful combat. If he is slain Ally and enemy players can collect their gold.
Gains critical chance for 15 seconds with a 10/13/16/25% chance to deal double damage.
Onslaught 50/40/30/20 cooldown. Vandalize 1 minute 30 sec cool down with 10 second refund for every 200 story points gained by its effects.
Ultimate
Pain of the Vanllani Sky
Scolken summons a 1000/1100/1250 area cube of metal objects and Spears, projecting all his field objects into the sky and growing their size 3x. At the top of his UI are a variety of metrics like highest damage instance received, highest damage received in 2 seconds, highest damage blocked in 2 seconds, most healing done by enemy team, and possible others. Possibly they can change every game. When any of these metrics are exceeded, the cube Spears attack characters involved with up to 1/2/3 levitating Spears if they are in range, doing triple the damage of a normal spear. 100/200/300 range + 0-200, doing half damage to any enemies in the way.
Bronze plates turn into armor on his body starting on his waist and going mainly up his sides, up to 20. These add armor according to the block value of each plate, reducing magic defense by 5%. When the armor blocks damage equal to the block value of a plate starting with the strongest, it is cast off and the magic defense is returned. They fall at his feet and function as normal but with 3x effectiveness.
Any other levitating field objects are 3x effective.
When each metric is surpassed, that adds a status effect to the triggered Spears, and all other objects for 1/2/3 seconds. Debuffs include 25% damage bleed for Scolken surpassing his damage metric, -10% damage output for the enemy team surpassing their highest damage, 3 second silence for magic damage, 30% anti-heal for 5 seconds for healing, -15% armor for Scolken’s blocked damage, etc. Field objects apply half as effective debuffs and they last 5/10/15 seconds unless otherwise specified.
Spending story points depletes the metric records according to the percentage of the story meter spent.
His attacks have bonus damage equal to 1/16-1/14-1/12 of story meter, and 3x range.
Lasts 15/25/50 seconds. 2 minute cooldown with refunds for metrics not met, and moving away from the cube. Ends if he leaves cube.
He can use a combination of story points and gold to purchase upgrades and items for himself. They include:
Health potion for 500, 50 gold/50 sp. Mana potion for 250, 60/60. Debuff resistance for 60 seconds by 50%, 100/100. Ancestral spear that causes attacks to bleed for 10% of attack damage over 5 seconds, 200/200. In next three combats with at least two enemy characters, Portal to ancestral underworld opens and chains character hit by all Spear damage, slowing by 5/11/18/26/35% for each increment and then preventing movement for 2 seconds, 10 second cooldown per character, 250/350. Armored spear that deflects attacks made at about a 10° angle and resists ragdoll-type effects by 50%, 500/500. Serrated spear that crushes armor equal to 1/16 story points with each attack, 500/500. Amulet that provides 10% overlapping magic defense, 0/1000. Magical robot dogs that deploy in the next three combats that hit 250 story points, 750/250. Transforms iron box into iron obelisk which blasts enemies every 1.5 seconds while tossing a field object, 0/1250. Double the value of all consumables from box shop, 250/1000. Increases magnetization effect of counter greatly, 0/1250. Speeds up blue Decoration fill, 0/1250. Deploys caltrops with every ultimate and Vandalize, 750/750. Ultimate armor plates stay when it ends, 0/1500. Ultimate doesn't form armor plates and power of normal and ultimate bronze plates is doubled, 0/1500. Increases movement speed by 15%, 1000 /1000. Doubles gold gain from story points, 0/2000. Attacks with fists that project spiritual Spears, increasing attack speed by 150% but reducing total DPS by 10%, applying weapon effects over a short distance in alternating diagonal directions, while rendering him immune to disarm and similar effects, 1250/1250. Replaces spear with magical staff that converts his attack damage to magical damage while applying mute instead of bleed as an option during Onslaught, 1250/1250. Replaces spear with crossbow that increases the range of his attacks by 200 and turns his ability spears into arrows with increased range but slows attack rate by 30% of total to reload, 1500/1500. Port has the same damage as Strike and Strike gains 30% life steal, 2000 / 2000. Ultimate summons a bronze golem that has the same hit points and damage as him but can only attack every 1.5 seconds, lasts until it dies, 2000/2000. Single-use rewind of a combat, returning all units to their state before combat besides cooldowns and other spent things like items, 2000/2000. Increase all stats by 5%, repeatable, 2000/2000
Story points
Maximum story points is 2000. 1/300th of story points is gained as gold every second.
Lane units give one story point, special Lane units give five - 25. Buildings destroyed give 100 - 500. Forest creatures give five-25, monsters give 100 - 1000.
Character kills give 100, killstreaks give 50-1900 increased by 50 with every kill.
A variety of special situations like having the highest damage every 5 minutes or escaping with a few HP give 25 - 100 story points, increasing based on how impressive an instance is.
Going in combat multiplies these amounts by .5% for every 10% swing of health per character, and a successful combat multiplies all story points gained that combat by 5% - 50% depending on how crushing the victory was.
Illustrations gatekeep story point gains every 500 points, and return when SP is spent. He has to kill a character, purchase a certain item, reach a distant place or do other things, then when he gains that amount of SP it swirls around his spear model and UI symbol, activating. He can spend 100 SP to select a type of illustration and receive a random new one. He can also spend 100 SP if he has activated one beyond the current threshold to move it to the threshold. Points are not banked unless he purchases a 1000 SP upgrade.
They give an amount of gold equal to SP value, and when they return gold values are increased by 5/10/15/20% depending on how many illustrations returned from the purchase.
Game design
Like Voidbeast he is a scaling carry, but unlike Voidbeast and similar characters he can reset his scaling for upgrades to his power set and useful consumables.
They are both Horrorterrors except that he is a human version. Possibly there could be a mystery for the players of what creature he secretly is.
He has a focus on both big team fight moments as well as forming a unique power set for a game, excelling at producing the unique experiences advertised as making Saba the “game of games”.
Voice lines
On spawn
You will see the pain of my ancestors.
They remember me and so will you.
Do not ask for the spear.
Death is my birthright.
Scream my name! Scolken!
Entering combat
Do you have ancestors to look down on you?
I will make my brethren proud.
My fire screams for a fight.
Let's make a story.
It doesn't look like anybody here will survive.
Stand by or near the non-pointed part.
Mounting during Onslaught
Which one will I pick? Place your bets.
Well? Who here Will survive?
Just a second. Looking for the best organ.
Come. Watch him die.
Iron boxxing a character
Will you survive?
Let's get this one out of the picture.
This looks like it'll be a fun fight. I want to see the blue glow.
Die in pain.
Not going to remain cute for long, aHaha.
Better save your hero before he fails.
Spear strike
Shish kabob.
They will write stories about why you're all standing there.
Bring em back wriggling for the tribe.
Full point!
Delicious pain.
Death has such a ring to it.
Vandalar Port
I've got to follow the picture.
Wish I could stab like this.
Slowpokes.
Behind you.
Yes yes you want to stop the stabbing.
How did they teach me this? That's my story.
Obligatory non-violence.
Bam, that's a lot of stabs.
Bleeding along for the ride.
Onslaught
Time for a party.
I'm. Shopping.
You didn't think your rescue mission would be easy would you?
I hope this impresses like your advanced technology.
They say they're still stabbing in there.
Vandalize
Hahaha, sweet chaos!
Bling bitch!
So many speaaaaahhhhs.
Stab stab stab soon!
Who's going to get stabbed with this?
What do ya think of your sweet thing?
Check my beat.
I'm sorry…. Did ya wanna RESCUE lil HERO? sta sta sta sta~
Monstrous mess.
Ultimate
Look, errrything big as hell now!
Debris field to make things interesting.
I succeed and succeed, try one time.
Ouwch. Ooooh! Stay unda the spears. Oooooh aywch!
Reigning metal wielder.
Reigning damage taker. Pussies.
Shhhhink! Slow down a lil next time.
My natural habitat.
Heal unhealed.
Shopping
Should I buy extra for the 2-5?
New weapon, new story.
Yeah stare bitch, pretty as hell now.
Ya gonna move when I'm out?
Ahhhhh hell yes
Make me me.
No real problems but your problems.
Make my fliers fly.
Make me shine.
Big ass buddy.
Level my ass up.
Pew pew ass crossbow.
Bam bam scrunge paaaaunch powwa.
Extra
Your story is well-worn, mine is told anew and anew, dragon.
We will find your story, little girl!
Get out of here hound.
Your round, warm arena is inferior to my box of boxes.
Support them with fire shots. They need it.
There is no need for camo or “Machina” when you're this sexy.
Don't support my ass fool! What are you doing on my side?
You gonna burn metal? You hot enough?
Breaking breaker.
Hey hero, you gonna inspire legends?
Stupid, ugly ghosts. Get off my team.
Cool teeth. It's like a row of teeny tiny spears.
Damn turtle wants to fight. Turtles damn hard to stab when they know how to move.
Commanding demons? Commanding metal almost as nice, big guy.
Princesses, oooh I like them. Watch me baby.
Ahhhhhhhh know lots of screams from ages of stabbing lots of things.
Got a legion of sharp bits.
Concentrating a lot of justice in this single point.
As the legends foretold, Spear can beat tank.
Not hot enough!! Take ya little lava bath.
Champion, I like the sound of this fight.
Holy crap.
Don't give a damn where you came from cuz. Go back to your sky lights, you boring me.
Hell yea cuz, let me respawn little quick… gots to make sure this store gets empty.
This fight ain't dyin! Thank you man!
Juz gotta watch it squirm… maybe sap a little energy for my moment….
Associated song