The Vampire
Hey folks,
Today we’re happy to unveil our worst-kept secret. We’ve teased the Vampire in every one of our livestreams and within a handful of Wednesday updates and countless times across our forums. Get off your rump and start shoveling coal into the engine of the proverbial hype train – it’s about to leave the station.
Unit Spotlight: The Vampire
Upon Kairos, since time untold, a race of bloodthirsty creatures have preyed upon the minds and bodies of those who prefer the supposéd safety of day. In tales only ever told in whisper it is said that these ferocious creatures were born of the first humans who walked the world, yet instead of joining the communities of early man they instead took to the night and evolved to become the ultimate predator of both beast and man. As they aged their forms became more twisted and corrupt – as if a greater evil dwelled within and came closer to realizing its true form with each drop of blood it consumed.
Yet there are those upon the realm of Kairos that have dedicated their lives, sometimes more than once, in order to vanquish the sadistic blight inflicted by these creatures – they roam in small bands to remove the last of this ancient race that plagues their world.
The Vampire, with its sanguine temperament, can be baited to join your cause only by sacrificing several of your own minions. As blood spills across the flagstones of your Sanctuary and the whispered name of the First echoes throughout the chamber a black mist will coalesce into the ultimate predator who returns to feast upon your scarlet offering.
Abilities:
- Immortal (Passive): If the Vampire dies it will instantly respawn at it’s Lair. If it has no Lair or is executed by a Huntress, [Redacted], or another Vampire it will die permanently (like other units, Vampires still fall unconscious before death, allowing them to be captured and imprisoned).
- Vampirism (Passive): The Vampire heals itself for a third of all damage dealt. In addition, the Vampire does not need to eat or sleep.
- Feed* (Active): The Vampire feeds off an enemy unit, instantly killing it and granting the Vampire a significant amount of health and happiness.
- Deadly Strike (Active): The Vampire deals heavy true damage to a single enemy unit.
- Reap (Active, Special): The Vampire deals true damage to enemy units in a cone.
*Feed can only be used on units that are knocked out, in Jail, or in the Torture Chamber. If the Vampire is unable to feed for several minutes it will rapidly lose health and happiness, if this is left unchecked for too long it will rebel and use this ability on allied minions until sated.
Sanitarium.FM Charity Stream This Sunday (July 6th @ 8:00PM BST)
We’re happy to announce that we’ll be joining Sanitarium.FM’s 7th birthday livestream this weekend. We’re going to talk about the game, chat with the staff – all for charity! Check out the event details here.
That’s it for this week folks, in seven days perhaps we’ll rise up again and tease something new.
Until next time Underlord,
– WFTO Team
Cool, thanks for the update. Also: first! Also, also: give patch! 😀
Good work, guys.
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ Give Patch!
Ooooh i like. It’s teeth are a bit long and make it look more like a bunny. But it’s still awesome! Good work! And just what might linger behind the [Redacted] ?
I definitely second the notion that the super elongated overbitten incisors do give more a rodent than a predatory impression, though I can appreciate the Nosferatu homage and I’m loving the concept otherwise so I’m happy to wait and see how it looks on the in game version.
Hmmm it must feed, but does not require food or sleep =O
Kind of confusing!
But I like the idea that it feeds of friendly units if it does not get to feed. Kind of like the name that shall not be mentioned creature form a certain series original =O
It doesn’t feed in the normal sense (piggies do not sate his hunger).
That said, he must eat enemies (or in a bad scenario – your own) in order to stay happy.
Definitely based on the classic Nosferatu design. It’s nice to see another “traditional” monster join the cast rather than another Original creation, not that those are bad, it’s just I and possibly others might start to feel a bit alienated if there aren’t enough traditional monsters about. I’d recommend adding a couple more, like say an Orc, Hobgoblin, Cyclops and possibly the Minotaur.
As for it’s feeding requirements, I assume prisoners count? Does it have to kill them to feed? You could also introduce a Ritual and Potion to sustain the Vampires. Logically Vampires would probably rather make feeding as efficient as possible rather than just depleting the stock and moving on.
Prisoners are valid prey for the Vamp.
The Vampire kills every unit that it feeds upon* (*based on the last time I looked at the design doc — I know a few changes were made recently).
The Ritual that requires sacrifice is both a nice way to summon a vampire and a way to clear out population space so you don’t end up with a load of units. It’s a balance thing (internally we currently require 3 units to be sacrificed, but it may be increased / decreased for the initial summon after balance tests).
Glad you like it!
Cheers,
James
Hey there!
Great work done with the concept of the vampire, I’m too really happy to see a more traditional creature lurking through my dungeon 😀
I just have one concern: Vampires that do NOT sleep? Sounds a little bit odd considering the fact, that in most popular films etc. they have a lair to retreat and sleep to (I really dont want to offend someone, but I would like to have some sort of further information about that fact)
Cheers
From my understanding vampires sleeping out the day in a lair is more of a case of having nothing much else to do when half the day going outside is extremely unpleasant. As undead they don’t actually NEED to. Not as much an issue in a game based entirely underground.
Well if your doing vampires i hope there are wherewolves too.
Will they climb up the walls and attack from the walls? Attacking off the walls could be awesome. It could show how agile and blood hungry they are. The picture makes them look free and flexible.
I’m a bit skeptical about the way these Vampires feed, killing the unit it feeds on is a bit much. Here is an idea I had.
Vampire’s can feed on Prisoners, but when they do so, they instead apply a debuff to the prisoner which doesn’t go away for a while. This debuff stacks, and when it reaches a certain number of applications on the same victim, like say, 3 stacks, the prisoner dies. The Vampire will feed on a victim that does not have any instances of this debuff if they can.
This represents the Vampires taking care of a renewable feeding source, but also means the Underlord needs to keep a large store of Prisoners or “Stock” to feed their Vampires, and adds extra purpose to the Prison. This system can become unviable with a large Vampire population, meaning you’d have to put in work if you want multiple vampires.
You could also dump your own minions in the prison to become stock, but you could have it so that doing this upsets the other minions, as they worry that they could become Vampire Stock at any moment while working for you.
This concept sounds very good to me. So we can avoid possible problems in battlebalance and it works well with the lore of some vampires I know from different systems.
(Sry for this ugly sentences – I hope my words can be understand.)
Like this concept too. Vampires could be a problem if they constantly run out of food, and I hate it when a game gives me nice toys wich I cannot use!
Another problem is, if vampires kill all your minions and there is no more food then they would have to feed on each other wich negates their inmortality (Vampires are one of the units that can kill vampires for good) so u can end with no units at all.
Is there a chance the Vampires could gain the Bram Stoker wig when they gain lvls or as an unlockable ? I would just love it lol.