Slime Squisher
Posts: 365
Joined: Monday, 7th January 2013, 08:22
Silly species idea: Skeleton.
So... Don't take this suggestion too seriously. It started as a joke between me and a friend, but I thought it might be fun to share regardless. Who knows, maybe something can be salvaged from it (pun may be intended).
The Skeleton
Animated skeletons, generally built for protection of some long lost arcane artifact. Since combat is their sole purpose, they have decent aptitudes for melee and ranged combat, as well as conjurations and elemental magic, but lack the finesse to use any of the more subtle magic schools, utilize evocables or communicate their devotion to the gods. Their fragile bodies can be improved with horns, hooves, tails, extra ribs and other goods that they find around the dungeon; but they must be careful not to lose control and start breaking those precious body parts, or even worse, lose their head.
Aptitudes
- High: Axes, Long Blades, Polearms, Armour, Shields, Fighting, Conjurations, Fire Magic, Ice Magic.
- Low: Invocations, Evocations, All other schools of magic.
- Average: Everything else.
- Undead (similar benefits/drawback to Mummy)
- No natural HP regeneration. Instead, the Skeleton recovers HP by salvaging bones from dead enemies. When butchering a corpse the bones will be consumed, returning missing HP, and the chunks will be left behind. In addition, they can gain physical mutations from the salvaged skeleton (such as horns from a dead Yak, robust from the ribs of an ogre, etc).
- At level 5 they gain Dance of Death (active, toggle): The Skeleton lets go and enters a frenzied dance. This ability allows you to enter a hasted state at will and at no cost, but it poses a risk: All of the temporary mutations obtained from salvaging other skeletons may break, and there is an increased chance per turn that thinking too fast will cause your head to fall off.
A Skeleton that abuses Dance of Death may lose its head from mental exhaustion (it falls and is rendered completely unusable). This causes some dramatic changes and can only be reverted by salvaging bodies until a suitable head is found (chance when salvaging any boned corpse, increased if it's humanoid).
- Intelligence drops to 1. You can't cast spells or read scrolls.
- Helmet slot is unavailable (duh).
- LOS is significantly reduced.
- You become unable to use Dance of Death (too uncoordinated). When you lose your head, you'll still have a few Dance of Death turns left.
- Move speed and EV boost thanks to the reduced weight. (Enough to make running away easier)
- For this message the author Steel Neuron has received thanks:
- Cimanyd