ARAKASH:

Spoiler: Design Theory

As what is effectively an incubus, Arakash should ooze enough sex appeal to overcome the fact that he is an unapologetic monster. And for the ladies who find the 'serial killer' grade bad boy to be attractive for some incomprehensible reason, let's see if we can make panties break the sound barrier.

Arakash's basic humanoid form should be modeled to look like a young Shah Rukh Khan. His demonic form, somewhat like Goliath of the 90s Gargoyles cartoon, but with a more slender, catlike build rather than the body builder superhero look.

Speaking of Goliath, Keith David would be an excellent selection for a voice actor. My original pick for a voice actor was Tony Jay, but sadly that's not an option anymore.

Theme music: A metal remake of Futile by Lord Lovidicus seems ideal to me.Theme music: A metal remake of Futile by Lord Lovidicus seems ideal to me.

[MEDIA=youtube]DPMdIyGpxD0[/MEDIA]

Spoiler: Basic Info

Class: Plague Lord

"An enslaved demon. What madman thought such a beast could be controlled?"

6'4'' (193cm), Solid black eyes, Dark purple skin, black hair.

Hobbies: Eating young girls (no, not the fun way), being a freakin' demon.

STATS: (Note, stats increase with levels, so what will be listed is a grading scale of A-F suggesting what you can expect of this character compared to equivalent levels).

Strength: B

Agility: A

Vitality: C

Intelligence: C

Perception: B

Willpower: C

Elements: Miasma, Negation.

Combat Style: Stealth, Assassination, Battlefield controlling debuffs

Relies on poison and illusory magic. Fairly effective against most enemies so long as you choose to use the correct abilities. Weak against the undead and "holy" enemies.

Spoiler: Combat Features

BASE ABILITIES: These are natural traits available to Arakash.

Flight- Can fly. Flying counts as movement, even if staying still, and can slow other actions

Immune to Disease, Mind Control, Poison, Darkness, and resistant to cold.

Nightvision- Cannot be blinded by darkness

Vampirism- A weak attack that allows Arakash to heal. Best used against downed or otherwise incapacitated foes.

Vulnerable to fire, holy, and light magic.

No natural healing/recovery. Only recovers via life draining.

Meldcast Effect: Corrosion. The target(s) of a Corrosive Spell get a debuff to their resistance against spells of that element for the rest of the battle. Cumulative.

WEAPON TYPE:

Vilos Parasite- Arakash' weapon is derived from a parasitic organism which has fused itself to his arm. The creature has a unique form of claylike bone substance that it can alter in order to create various weapons. One of the key skills the player needs to master in using Arakash effectively is determining which weapon design is best for which opponents.

Claw- Short range and very fast, 4 blades each deal a small amount of damage (effectively 4 hits), makes it very strong against poorly armored targets, but very weak against armored foes.

Tandem Blades- Twin claws, each dealing about 50% more damage than one claw, but only having two blades. Most effective against medium armor.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Katar- Short range, fast, single blade that does about 50% more damage than one of the twin blades (125% more than a claw). Good for heavily armored foes.

Longblade- Medium range, effectively a longsword, moderate damage and speed- good generic option

Crossbow- Slow ranged weapon that's overall weak- but can be used to attack from the safety of the air.

ARMOR TYPE:

Light or Medium armors. Arakash cannot fly except in light armor.

MAGIC STYLES:

INFESTATION: All these carry a generic feature of infecting a target, or targets, with disease or poison- resisted with Vitality. The AoE and contagious spells of this class are just as capable of hitting allies as enemies. As is RPG tradition: the stronger spells won't be available in the early game.

Nausea- reduces perception and agility (as well as speed)

Paralysis- Base poison, harms accuracy

Neurotoxin- Reduces vitality and strength

Venom- Enchants Arakash' weapon with one of his other infestation class spells granting a chance to inflict the status with each hit, stacks (makes claw type attacks really good for stacking debuffs)

Miasma- Harms the lungs- lowers vitality and agility of all caught inside

Virus- Infects a target with a virus that slowly drains health, damage climbs exponentially over time. Can spread.

Acid- Cause damage, weakens armor greatly

Zombie Plague- Does health and agility damage over time. If victim dies, becomes a zombified version of the unit that goes berserk and targets the nearest large animal.

Acid Bath- Like acid, but area damage (can destroy terrain)

Manaphage- Infests a target, causes damage to health equal to the mana cost whenever target casts a spell.

Spore- Hits multiple targets. If infected dies, body explodes, replicating the original spell. Causes damage similar to virus and slowly lowers stats.

Lycanthropy- Makes the target go berserk and attack closest living unit, regardless of team. Slowly increases stats and health over time. Can infest via certain (touch) attacks- lycanthropes only target each other when there are no other targets available- this spell actually could be useful to cast on allies on occasion

Manaspores- Similar to manaphage, has the spore effects as well

Ebola- A greatly improved version of virus

ILLUSION: These spells either affect the mind or alter light/sound to create illusory spells. Some are offensive, others defensive. Arakash uses two types of illusion magic: Shadow and Memory.

SHADOW: All create zones where light cannot pass. These black shadows are impossible to see through using normal vision, but are pure illusion with no substance or ability to interact with the world.

Blind- Covers the target's face in shadows. Causes blindness, but no damage

Dark Shield- Creates a cube of pure black that cannot be seen into or out of

Shadow Beasts- Creates creatures and humanoids that are pure shadow. They have high agility, speed, and evasion. They lack substance, so cannot inflict damage and if they get hit by anything, they risk vanishing. Useful as decoys and intimidation.

Prism Eater- A special defensive spell that negates any light based attacks on the shielded. Falters after absorbing its power worth of damage.

Dark Wall- A much wider version of the dark shield

Black Hound- A Shadow Beast upgrade that can kamikaze itself into a foe, inflicting a selected "memory" spell.

Abyssal Night- Covers the ground with a fog of black. Doesn't reach high terrain, but floods most area. Darkness affects all targets and shifts the local magic field two steps toward 'negation'.

MEMORY SPELLS: A special class of mind magic that forces the target to remember emotional events in his/her life. These spells are devastating and can pierce most mental resistance to illusion or mind magic, but short lived. All are single target and short range.

Memories of Fear- Reduces accuracy and speed (unless fleeing), lowers morale.

Memories of Longing- Distracts foe, reducing action speed

Memories of Desire- Decreases Willpower, thus making the target more vulnerability to mind control or other means of persuasion

Memories of Pain- Reduces vitality and strength

Memories of Betrayal- Target randomly chooses one ally and attacks. Duration determined by Arakash' magic, resisted by Foe's willpower.

Memories of Failure- Reduces "luck"- decreasing the odds of success for any action.

Memories of Loss- Reduces perception and awareness- might skip turns

Memories of Rage- Enters a berserk mode. Also boosts strength and lowers agility

Memories of Loneliness- Greatly lowers willpower

Memories of Isolation- As fear, also "forgets" about allies, which means the AI won't support them or try to avoid catching them in AoE attacks

Memories of Nothing- A powerful stun spell that temporarily erases the target's mind

OTHER SPELLS- These generally don't fit in previous categories.

Locate Energy- Arakash senses the combined energy of health+magic of everyone in range- this is valuable tactically and can reveal hidden targets and higher stat foes.

Sense Lust- Arakash can identify sexual desires directed toward himself, and identify some of the subject's desires and motivations.

Paralysis- Stacking agility damage attacks, to keep a victim unable to move for vampiric purposes.

Strip Essence- Uses vampiric drain on a magical construct, reducing effect and duration of many area control spells (mainly forcefield effects)

Charm- Makes the target like Arakash. The target(s) will not attack him if he doesn't attack them, and might cast support spells to aid him. But will not be under control and will attack your other characters.

Consume Essence- A more powerful variant of strip essence and vampiric drain which sacrifices energy for speed. Does more damage, but costs too much to provide much power restoration.

Seduce- Can mind control a target that finds him attractive, grants control during the battle and adds the victim to the "cohort" roster after battle.

Rend Spirit- Does direct magic damage, highly effective against mages

Black Grip- Holds a target with an invisible claw. A powerful binding move, but Arakash cannot take other actions while using this ability