Demigod: Void Blade

Backstory, as promised.

The legend of Void Blade:

Translation and foreword courtesy of the University of Magic,
Wellington.


FOREWORD:

The Void, known to scholars as The World Beyond The Worlds, is largely
a cold and dead place, for there is no heat or light outside the
Worlds of Light.  But while it has no energy in the normal sense, the
Void is bursting at the seams with Mana.  This is no metaphor: the
barriers between the worlds and the Void are constantly breaking down,
tiny leaks across a vast membrane, and it is from these leaks that
wizards and other practitioners of the arcane arts draw their power.

It is also from these leaks, combined with its abundant Mana, that the
Beings of the Void draw their life.

Contrary to the beliefs of the ignorant, the Beings of the Void are
perfectly harmless.  In fact, the vast majority are similar to the
plankton of our world, congregating passively at leak-points to feed
on the small trickles of energy that flow into the vast Void.  A few
larger Beings feed on these, larger ones eat those, and so on, as is
the nature of things.  And alongside them, there are the People of the
Void.

That is of course our translation of their name for themselves (which
cannot be written down in any human language).  No-one knows where
they came from, and they know least of all, but they have been there
for as long as mages have been probing the boundaries of reality.
They live a difficult and nomadic life, moving from one reality leak
to another, following the vast shoals of voidfish, and they appear to
be largely unaware of our existence.  A few intrepid arcanists have
managed to communicate with the People of the Void, and that is how we
learned the legend of Void Blade.  It appears to be known to every
member of this race, and for a widely dispersed story is remarkably
consistent in its content.

1.

Poya was a young Person of the Void, born to a modest household.  (ed:
some variants of this story suggest a scandal around his birth, but
the reports are too confused to form a coherent account) From birth he
was the most playful and inquisitive child that his village had ever
seen, and they loved to watch him chase the e!Kza in the evening as
the Leak began to dim. (ed: Void People seem to mark time according to
the local time of whatever leak they are currently occupying)

It was expected that when he reached his twenty-ninth ey'on, he would
inherit his father's wagon, as is customary, and take his place in the
great caravan (ed: this is some sort of conveyance or vehicle, but it
is unlikely the inhabitants of the Void have a use for a wagon as we
know it).  But Poya loved to roam the fields, exploring the vast open
spaces beyond the Leaks.  One day, while the caravan was traveling, he
saw a distant line of re'akla (ed: unknown).  He asked an elder of the
tribe (seated opposite him, eating his meal of dried bolfish) what
they were.

"Ah," said the elder, "that is the Great Divide."  "What's beyond it?"
asked Poya.  "We don't know, and you'd better not try to find out, you
little rascal," said the elder, knowing Poya well, but not well
enough.  "Of the last three people to head off in that direction, two
never came back, and the other one was so hungry when he returned that
he ate his own mother when she tried to welcome him!" (ed: it is
unclear whether the elder intends this as a figure of speech or a
literal statement of fact)

Poya considered this at great length.  For three days he sat staring
across the Great Divide.  On the fourth day, he stole several days'
rations of ra'qa nuts and dried skitterfish.  He felt bad about the
theft, but he figured that he might be gone for a day or two, and he
didn't want to devour his mother by accident.  He set off for the
Great Divide...

(ed: in every account there now follows a different collection of wild
adventures and escapades, most of which can barely be translated
due to an abundance of words with no direct correlates in any known
language.  It is assumed by scholars that these are invented by
storytellers among the People of the Void who feel that the true story
is too boring)

2.

On the thirteenth day, Poya saw a light in the distance.  It looked a
great deal like a Leak, but the closer he got the farther away it
seemed to be.  He traveled in that direction for one day, then
another.  On the third day after spotting the light, he ate his last
ra'qa nut.  Now, he reflected, he had better not go back, lest he eat
his own mother.  On the fourth day, the light appeared brighter and
larger than any Leak he had seen, and a few lufa-birds flew past. (ed:
we believe that lufa-birds are a flora of the Void that only appear
near Leaks; Poya's sighting would be like a sailor, lost at sea,
spotting shore-birds)

On the fifth day, he reached it.  It was huge!  Most Leaks Poya had
seen were the size of his small ey'akla, but this was nearly as large
as Poya himself!  But although he was famished, there were only a few
small skirters around; the schools of voidfish were feasting elsewhere
at the moment.  He stared hungrily at the Gap (as he now called it in
his mind), wondering what was on the other side.  Pressing up against
it, he was trying to peer through what suddenly he felt something give
and he fell *through* the Gap and into the light.

Light!  Poya had never seen so much of it at once in his life.  His
ar'gals reeled in confusion for what seemed like an ey'on.  When his
sight cleared, he could see that he was in a small compartment of some
kind.

In front of him were two of the strangest Beings he had ever seen.
They were not like proper Beings at all, in fact: they were *hard* and
*dense* and did not seem to be able to change their shape even a bit!
Each one had five appendages.  Two pointed down, two waved around
wildly in the air, and the fifth was small and knobby and pointed up.
A hole in the fifth appendage opened and closed rapidly, as if the
Being was attempting to filter sustenance out of the air.  And to make
matters even more peculiar, each of these Beings was draped in a
strange, thick material, and its fifth appendage was capped off with a
conical object made of the same material. (ed: this description is
repeated verbatim in every account, but we have been unable to make
sense of it)

Poya watched them in astonishment.  How did they eat?  How did they
move?  Before he could ask them, both Beings pointed their top
appendages towards Poya.  Within seconds, pure, delicious energy
appeared in their hands and sped towards him.  Gratefully, Poya
devoured his first meal in days.  He swelled in the proper gesture of
appreciation and thankfulness, although he found it to be difficult in
such a constrained space; he nearly filled the compartment, and it was
only with difficulty that he avoided consuming the odd but friendly
Beings.

The two Beings stood completely still for three beats of Poya's
all'thalix.  Even their bizarre upper appendages stopped moving.
Then, they began moving even more wildly than before, turned
themselves around, and moved rapidly through a hole in the side of the
compartment.  "Well," thought Poya to himself, "the Beings here have
very strange habits and are not very polite, but they serve a good
meal."  He set off to explore this new world.

In the years to come, Poya learned the speech of the strange Beings.
He learned how to compress his arj-Essence into the hard form that
they favored, and how to go about their world.  They were strange
creatures, deaf to the music of the Void, but hungry for the
Void-Essence that Poya's people breathed freely.  He set out to make
his place in their world, becoming a great warrior and champion whom
they called the "Void Blade".  One day he shall return to lead his
People from the Leak to the Gap and into the Light.

AFTERWORD:

Although structured as a transparent Messiah-myth, the consistency and
detail of this story have led scholars to believe that it reflect some
real event.  Perhaps a Void Person fell through a particularly large
leak and was trapped in a World of Light?  However, those same
scholars doubt that a Void Person could survive in a high-energy world
such as ours; presumably the "happy ending" is simply a nice gloss
over the quick and gruesome demise that such a Being would suffer in a
world to which it was not acclimated.

i think void blade is the coolest hero to be made in demigod, 5 stars from me, this dude will onwz right on nigger

This is great, definately one of the best suggestions yet.  My only concern is he sounds a bit too much of a niche role-player.

This guy sounds pretty sweet. But would he be able to kill mobs effectively?

I do like how he focuses on draining mana which will make him a pain to deal with even if he can't kill effectively.

You speak to my heart  

Wow, you've got really good ideas and i like the mysterious background

Sounds like a bit of a mix up between Illidan and the other Night Elf from DotA that mauled your mana. Either way a few comments as I like the idea:

1. The background story is nice, you've put a lot of thought into it.

2. I know you probably didn't take much time to work out mana costs and such, but the costs you have now are way too high. His standard nuke starts off about twice as expensive as any other skills in the game at that level.

3. I like the idea you have going, but perhaps you could mix it up a bit since I can see some design flaws. First of all the mana drain when his "true form" is ranged seems strange, he wont be getting much out of it as he wont be in the thick of it. Instead of focusing around this "true form" perhaps think of a design more like the Torchbearer, where his "normal" form doesn't do as much damage, but is still a viable option due to the numerous side effects of his other attacks. His "normal" form could be an anti-magic style class, where he drains mana with his attacks as a passive buff, maybe has a silence as well and a direct hit that drains mana and interrupts? He wouldn't have any inherent burst damage but he'd be good at rendering opponents useless and bringing them down to a slug-it-out style of fighting, which he may be better than most at. Alternatively the "True Form" could be more of a direct damage dealer.

You've got a good concept, I like it, but the variation of what you can do with the character seems a bit limited and some of the numbers seem pretty far fetched.

Yeah, I don't have expertise in game design and I figured whatever numbers I attached to my ideas would be wrong.   Regarding the Mana costs, my initial idea was that he would have some strong innate ways of getting extra mana, so slightly pricier spells would be a good idea.  I agree, though, that I overdid it, and once I started putting numbers on his mana-acquisition abilities they got toned way down.

That's a good point.  My initial idea was that his mortal form, with the sword, would be more focused on damage-dealing and messing with mana, and his true form would be more about support and healing abilities (the excuse being that he's too insubstantial to be very effective in combat).

Hmm, that's a point.  I do like the idea that he's basically about forcing people into a slugfest; that was kind of what I was thinking about when I put him together.  So, his mortal form has Void Strike and Hungry Blade, along with World Wound, to do a modest amount of damage and drain Mana (while also forcing enemies to stay in the fight).  I like the idea of giving Void Strike an interrupt ability -- I was avoiding it a bit because we already have a lot of direct-hit-and-interrupt skills, but it fits very nicely into his overall feel.  (then at level 15 it would be extended to also silence)

Also, maybe his other passive skills (Ethereal Vengeance and Voidal Hunger) should be form-independent.  That would make them a lot more useful; as you noted, he shouldn't be getting near people in the true form anyway.  Then the true form would be more about chasing fleeing enemies and finishing them off (or running away himself).

One more thought: I think Mana Storm is the least interesting ability in his mortal form -- maybe it could be merged with Mana Fountain and moved into his true form (push enemies, damage them, *and* restore mana of nearby allies, OP enough? ).  That would free up a slot for another active skill, if I can think of one.