[Design] Voidbeast
My first video game character design of my Initiative. Dota 2 can be used as a reference
After making a post simulating a game of Saba, I now put together a design for one of the characters in that game. My designs can be used as reference for my other content.
It also explores my varieties of monsters.
Story
Out of the cosmic space comes Voidbeast. Spectra of galaxies glittering in his sockets, he glides to the place most worthy of combat. The swirling malfacta of Saba consumes worlds, redefinition for the war of Hells and Heavens. He skirts the outskirts, consuming tender morsels of suffering. Stars grow in him, that alien expanse greater than galaxies, in his opinion. Growing glowing eyes seeing those delectable targets, those champions of the time - he will kill, and kill true. Each kill will echo forever, and he will taste the stardust from oscillating waves, flying where it flies, and he will return and grow, it's so unstoppable what comes from this maw, an eternal onslaught of space out of space and time out of time.
He gets closer
Description
A stout cosmic space dragon with a big head and a bony exoskeleton. Has stars within eyes, and they grow within his eye sockets and have a variety of changes as he consumes Star energy. Craggy, glowing body. Darkens the surrounding space, and projects celestial imagery. Glowing light blue maw. Sleek disjointed-space lower anatomy. Boney bat wings constantly beating out of combat.
Passive
Killing units grants star energy. Killing minions is required to power up his first ultimate, and each successive ultimate requires a kill, or two ultimateless kills, to be powerful enough. Extra Star energy can make him extra powerful. Snowballing assassin off-carry and ganker.
Q (first ability)
Howl of the Void - Voidbeast summons an energy pillar around the target. Cosmic constellations project behind Voidbeast, sending light rays towards the target that damage every unit hit.
Damage 10-300 (up to average normal unit kills and character kills) 301-500 (above average to crushing), split over 30 stars
Disabled for: 1/1.4/1.8/2.5 seconds
Stars take 1.6 seconds to reach Target at half distance.
Max range: 1000
After cast, constellations drain the stats of player characters and other major units within area and converts them into Star energy. They remain until the spell can be cast again.
Stat drain: 4/8/12/20
100 stats convert to 1 unit kill
Weakly pulls all units, and the pull can be upgraded with a Cosmic upgrade
Into eternal daylight . . .
W
Burst of Spacedust - Voidbeast launches into the air, spreading clouds of grey nebulae. He can glide around the area of 1500, cursing the land and units below him.
His wing-projected attacks are replaced with nebulae breath, hosing the targeted unit in bursts while moving freely. 40% higher damage. 20% higher speed.
Cursed characters move, attack, use items, and regenerate up to 10/20/30/40% slower. Outside of his immediate area, this effect gradually dissipates. Cursed land prevents dissipation and increases disable time slightly while reducing disable protection significantly. Effects doubled for non-characters.
All items cost an additional gold amount to buy equal to his current star energy. Gradually returns to normal out of nebulae. If a character is killed in his immediate area, up to 1/3rd of death timer is added, scaling up to 30 minutes in. If one is killed by him within nebulae, it is added while scaling to 20 minutes.
Lasts 10/15/20/30 seconds.
Can be reactivated to sweep across to the opposite point of the area, cursing.
Can acquire a Cosmic upgrade so the nebulae fill the whole area on cast.
Let me ruin your memories of living
E
Fangs of the Cosmos - Voidbeast transforms, growing fangs, teeth, claws, and spikes on wings and body like claws. Size and menace of design increases with Star energy.
Can only be used within Nebulae, then lasts for 50 seconds. Cloaks himself in nebulae until he leaves it, and then if he remains still in nebulae for 4/3/2/1 seconds he cloaks again. Cloak evades sight except to special detection and being in a unit's immediate proximity. Teammates cannot share sight of Voidbeast unless they have been hit by his constellations.
Fangs increases his base damage by 10/20/30/40% and his base damage is modified by Star energy. This ability can be reactivated to swipe his Target with a melee attack if in range, doing 200/250/300/400% of total attack damage. If used before Sweeping, Voidbeast will melee attack the first character or other important unit flown past, doing pure damage.
Normal melee attacks stab the unit with all arm spikes using FleshTech. Sweep-attacks stab the unit with all spikes on the front of the model.
If the nearest character drops below 10/20/30/50%, a special button can be used to infest the target's surrounding area with cosmically glowing spikes from his body, spikes concentrated in amount and size behind the Target from Voidbeast's direction.
Nebulae crackle with lightning, doing damage each second to all units equal to 1/8th star count.
The larger spikes block movement.
After expelling spikes, tendrils of space-flesh and nebulae stretch towards target and surrounding dangerous units, binding them. Disables from other abilities & items accelerate tendrils. They are slowed until they lose the ability to attack and move until they lose potential attack damage equal to double Star energy.
The Target receives an extra 13/25/37/50% sure damage from all damage sources from Voidbeast, and half that amount from other characters, and a fourth of that amount from other units.
Cosmic monster faces can be seen in atmosphere above spikes and nebulae.
After being killed, the spikes remain for 5/10/15/25 seconds. All effects end upon disappearing.
2 minute cooldown for infestation.
Can receive a cosmic upgrade to increase size of arms and number of spikes, size of spikes and thus how many block movement during infestation, and doubling melee bonus damage.
Out here no one can scream, only bleed an eldritch dream.
R (Ultimate)
Call of the Cosmos
Upon cast, moves constellations, nebulae, and spikes depending on what is active to the Target, nebulae concentrated around Target, constellations in a ring 1000 from Target, and spikes caging Target. The area of 1500 becomes very low light, removing all shared vision.
A basic effect of each basic ability is cast, disabling the target for twice Howl's disable, sweeping twice, and using a melee attack with double damage each time.
Howl casts double the amount of stars and thereby double the total damage, Nebulae choke area and double their effects in the target’s area scaling down to normal away from the area, Spikes are bigger.
Space monster busts become clearly visible. They move in towards the target's area, and after 5 seconds sure damage is done to the Target equal to five times / 10 times / 15 times star energy over 2 seconds. If the spell reaches infestation range and it hasn't been cast, it automatically casts and adds bonus damage on all further damage. If it is on cooldown, bonus damage is increased by 50% and there are no other effects.
Voidbeast's body bursts open in a craggy legless nebulae seeping form. If tendrils are active, they come from the atmosphere instead and affect the entire area. Voidbeast moves, attacks, uses spells, and depletes cooldown 30% faster.
If Target survives, as long as he's in the area a meter of 1000 fills every second with an amount equal to Star energy. The more the bar is filled the more effective disables and curses are. Once filled, the ultimate damage happens again.
Upon death of the target, it respawns with 15/25/35% less total stats, which is regained over 100 seconds or half the star count, whichever is higher. Attack, movement, and spell speed is slowed by the same amount.
Characters affected by the slow are eaten by floating through the portal in the atmosphere, which is usually not seen. Their bodies dissipating with starlight. Other units can float and be eaten as well
All SFX and VFX are fancier and spookier.
Effects last until Voidbeast leaves the area in any way or dies.
1 minute 20 second cooldown, with refunds if it ends early or without a kill.
Can receive a cosmic upgrade to cause the respawn slow to affect the respawn time as well, spread Target to the closest character on kill, deduct the remaining infestation time from Voidbeast's respawn timer on death, and increase the cost of all items to 9999 while affected by any ultimate effect or the response slow.
An exotic flavor to bring home, a starlight so loyal am I.
Dialogue
On spawn
“Hello world.”
“A million starlights’ greetings.”
“Do my eyes hurt yours?”
“An epoch of desolation awaits the enemy.”
“My stars!”
“Weak we may be, our return comes.”
“Heh…. They still linger in my home.”
“Back with a burst of haste!”
On attack
“See the lights.”
“Angling on target - fly by requested”
“Beauteous wings!”
“Carved ya!”
“Swinging crater arranger--”
“Soaking the eternal despair.”
“My flow urges caution.”
“My flow urges death.”
Howl
“Howl of the eternal abyss.”
“Daylight deranger!”
“Dim the lights, you'll want to see mine”
“Missing is your distant sorrow to see.”
“Not going to stick to the arrangement.”
Burst
“Spruce up the place!”
“Deathmaker starscraper.”
“Take a longer time, so helpful.”
“Spend a little time in my stardust dream.”
“Coming.”
“Smack! Doubled, did you see that?”
“Vrrereeeeeeeee.”
Claws
“Eat you.”
“Out of existence? That's what you think.”
“Shhhh, don't say a word.”
“Horrors beyond time, terrors beyond sight.”
“Missed this face? What about this one?”
“It's too late to make a difference…. They're so far away… become a blink of my eyes.”
“Brerraaarrsaaa!! My stars wants you! You wants stars mean;;!!”
“Grrrr close mace up grace lace face taste maze by laze, grrr haze amaze”
“So weak. Glitter inside it. Let me haves eyes of it. Smelter bit.”
“I don't even have to kill you you know. I can just dust you tighter. You're energy one way or another. Here, my eyes, my home, same state, same fate. My sweet stars. . .”
“Field of dust and space, terrific vista, joyful travel.”
“There is a certainty you're coming into the shine.”
“Die for the camera.”
Call
“A courtesy call.”
“SUMMON US!”
“HOME. LET US HOME”
“Starlit Dreamland. Glitz and pawner. Down the cosmic runway we go”
“The boulevard of broken screams.”
“Nowhere to go.”
“Your stars are bleeding.”
“Pssssssss. Shhhhhht. You seem to be dying?”
“I can't hear them, but their bars are depleting so quickly. I wonder what that's like.”
“Ready for your close-up?”
“Friends on the other other other side.”
“Star hose of star hose of star hose.”
“Death finale.”
“You will die quickly.”
“Just a little tickle…. The lost pain will return with time.”
“Just a whiff, a shimmer of stardust, to me by 5.”
“Hello again, lords.”
“So dreary and slow, let me wrap you to sleep.”
“Sleep sweet thing…”
“Out there in space… one of those five clumps… was that alive?”
Extra
“Such a guardian of the flame, I accept you as Commander.”
“Now now sweet child, you'll find dreams always make their way in”
“I'll wait for the opportune time to wipe you away from your shield.”
“This heated arena is most unnecessary… should we be together?”
“Bone king you are, in a place… a place…”
“One day you will be taken seriously as Captain.”
“Home to papa.”
“Flesh is such a transient thing amongst the stars…”
“I alert myself to your killing assistance, noble hound.”
“I remember the first remake, I will sidestep this one again.”
“Stop… time? If you insist”
“Such a beautiful glow to the bridge…”
“Justice is temporary, the laughter of stars is forever, armor girl.”
“Let us rise together someday, when the heat cools.”
“Stars can survive even in meat obletion. When I learned this I found it interesting”
“My skin is blacker, but a deeper black, WAY deeper … my wings are sleeker, but a functioning sleek. Speech, mine as well. Let's not forget that I'm not troubled by the elderly…”
Game Design
It's proven effective. While making it I had an opportunity to use its powers, showing that this design is somewhat real. Chet worked on Valve projects and what people like him focus on instead of the ideas of my designs goes to show why valve games, and other things, declined.
The idea is to give him a lot of disables since his damage is not reliable. As well aside from disables and a usually limited cloaking skill he has no defensive abilities, making him a ganking off-carry glass cannon.
There's an esports focus for this character as well. In fact he's even stronger for the pros, which can compensate for some of the weaknesses pros could exploit.
His gameplay is a snowballing ganker who shuts out the enemy team to allow his team to finish the game. He can't be a real carry since it would be too easy for him to be ganked himself and deplete his Star energy. But since he is dependent on kills, I took the opportunity to give him a lot of support-type abilities for a lead role.
His design evokes the Void between spiritual things, like the hidden designs of my creativity between things like the Owl House and Steven Universe, unnoticed until I brought them to light.
More design details
Star energy is gained with 1 unit kill = 1 star energy, 1-5 for forest creatures, 2-25 for regular monsters, 50 for a player character kill, 100 for ultimate kills, 50-80 for big monsters, increasing percentage multiplier for kills within his ultimate until it's ended, 1% per second.
Upon death loses 100 Star energy or 1/3 of Star energy, whichever is higher
A cosmic upgrade can be gained upon maxing all skills. Additional upgrades can be gained by completing special quests (like killing 10 characters with ultimate damage) or in possibly other ways
A lot of opportunities to make him look cool with cosmetics. I like the idea of a licensed Chainsaw Man conversion
Some lines are difficult to hear, a deep growling sometimes crackling cosmic voice.
Associated song: