For me, one of the coolest things about RPG’s and RTS’s are corpses (they always disappear too quickly for my taste!) They are elements of a game that give it flavour (excuse the rather disgusting pun), but are so often overlooked.
I once suggested a hero for Dota that made full use of corpses, so I thought I’d bring that idea across to Demigod. The hero I propose below makes full utility of the corpses left by dead creeps, in both increasing its life and damage, and turning corpses into powerful spells.
It’s an interesting concept for a hero, because corpses are one of the infinite resources in the game – much like gold.
All of this hero’s spells are focused around 1 main ability, which allows the hero to ‘pick up’ corpses and add them to its armour. The decisions of what to do with these bits of ‘corpse ammo’ determine how the hero gets played throughout the game. The hero can’t function without this major ability either, which further cements its reliance on corpses and generates a rather rotten flavour for the hero overall.
I’m not that familiar with the stats for the actual game mechanics, so maybe someone out there can help me populate these parameters, mainly the base stats and ability parameters.
This is the first draft of this hero suggestion – still to come is a complete tech tree for the hero, and (hopefully with some help) balanced statistics and numbers.
Without further a due, my proposed hero is, Corpse Dancer.
Hero Name
Corpse Dancer
Hero type
Assassin
Hero description
Hailing from the torture chambers of Hell, the Corpse Dancer has spent centuries with the dead, fuelling an eternal hatred for all living things. Once a proud Demon General, the Corpse Dancer was deceived by his own power-hungry brother, and eventually demoted to corpse clearer within Hell’s most rotten chambers. Now with a chance to once again prove itself, the Corpse Dancer has honed its bloody skills for battle, and is hungry for revenge.
Look and feel
A disgusting skeleton featuring patches of rotting flesh and filthy rags. Ancient, rusting pieces of armour are worn, but they are nothing more than dented, rusting remains. Long spikes of bone protrude from the skeleton all over, and corpses are impaled onto these spikes. As corpses are added to the body of the Corpse Dancer, it begins to transform into a grotesque surgery of rotten limbs and bones held together by bad stitching. When the ‘Consume the Wicked’ spell is cast, the Corpse Dancer transforms into a slightly less gruesome creature which resembles something of the Corpse Dancer’s glorious past.
Attributes
Attack type:
Ranged
Base stats:
Attack range -
Damage -
Hitpoints -
Mana pool -
Move speed -
Sight range -
Abilities
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Name:
Rotten Armour
Description:
The Corpse dancer reaches for the dead body of a slain creature and impales it onto one of the countless spikes of bone protruding from its rotting flesh across its skeletal body. This addition of meat and bone adds to the Corpse Dancer’s armour and absorbs damage taken by the Corpse Dancer, as well as increasing its damage. The Corpse Dancer receives reduced damage until all the corpses are removed from its armour. Corpses gathered in this way are required for the Corpse Dancer’s other abilities.
Function:
Adds corpse to armour. Each corpse is worth 100hp. A corpse is removed from armour per 100 damage received. Corpse Dancer gets + 8% damage reduction per corpse. Corpse dancer gets +10 damage per corpse.
Level 1: Maximum 3 corpses
Level 2: Maximum 6 corpses
Level 3: Maximum 10 corpses
Parameters:
Mana cost
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Cooldown:
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Spell range:
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
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Name:
Meat fling
Description:
The Corpse Dancer compresses corpses from its armour into a deadly missile of blood, bone and flesh and hurls it at an enemy dealing high damage and stun.
Function:
Removes x corpses from armour, and deals y ranged damage and 2 second stun to target creep, hero or building. (Corpses then appears on ground below target).
Level 1: x= 1, y = 100
Level 2: x = 3, y = 300
Level 3: x = 6, y = 600
Parameters:
Mana cost
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Cooldown:
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Spell range:
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
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Name:
Flesh Flash
Description:
The Corpse Dancer summons explosive energies from the Land of Dead to ignite the oils of dead corpses into an inferno of seared flesh, dealing high AOE damage for a set amount of time.
Function:
(Channeling y seconds) Up to x corpses in target AOE area explode randomly for y seconds at z second intervals, AOE damage = number of armour corpses x 10 at time of casting.
Level 1: x = 3, y = 6, z = 2
Level 2: x= 6, y = 6, z = 1
Level 3: x = 10, y = 10, z = 0.5
Parameters:
Mana cost
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Cooldown:
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Spell range:
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
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Consume the wicked:
The Corpse Dancer reaches into the souls of the corpses skewered to its body, and consumes them with unbridled ferocity, gaining immense strength, speed and vampiric hunger.
Function:
Remove all corpses from armour (they do not appear on the ground) – For 10 seconds, Corpse dancer loses ranged attack and gains melee attack, and gets (+u% movespeed, +v hp, +w damage, +x% chance to stun attack, +y% lifesteal, +z% attack speed) for each corpse removed in this way.
Level 1: v = 25, w = 15, x = 8%, y = 10%, z = 15%)
Level 2: v = 50, w = 25, x = 15%, y = 18%, z = 30%)
Level 3: v = 100, w = 40 , x = 30% , y = 25%, z = 50%)
Parameters:
Mana cost
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Cooldown:
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Spell range:
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
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Thoughts, ideas, criticisms, praise? 
