The Soul-Flayer----------------------------------------------------------------- The Soul-Flayer is a breed of Demon-like creatures that thrive off the pain and death of all creatures below them. They lurk in the darkest depths of the darkest worlds lurking for a misguided adventurer's soul to devour. Every Game needs a Monster to fear. There always needs to be an iconic/legendary creature Mothers and fathers tell their children will "get" them if they don't behave themselves. Seeing as every culture, every religion has form of "Demon" creature, It's only fitting that Soul-Flayer's are given he title of "What goes bump in the Night." Darkness is also something every person has a fear of sometimes in their life. Darkness... The unknown. The blackness of infinite possibilities and loss of control... AppearanceFor the most part, Soul-Flayers refrain from being seen. Few Adventurers know what they look like, for few adventures have survived an encounter to tell the tale. Those that have, however, all claim they look different. Some look like Men, some demons. But, all stories say that it looks as if their skin isn't their own... Like their's either to big or to small to fit in it... One even claims it was half man half penguin... Despite its saggy skin falling off the body... like an oversize suit. In Reality, they do wear the Skin of their prey as a grotesque "Camouflage." They have large teeth and claws used for burrowing to their prey. HabitatSoul-Flayers only live on the darkest, deepest corners of the world. They only venture to the surface on the darkest of nights when resources down in the ground are scarce. They live in small colonies, but only ever hunt alone. They live to serve their queen or "Brood Mother." Which they adore with the old skins of their prey as gifts... Activity / EncountersSoul-Flayers are active during variable times of day. It depends on how scarce the food supply is below ground. If their is s significant amount of food below ground they're NEVER seen above. If they were to manage to get onto earth however... several people would be vanishing from their homes after their entire family being murdered. Soul-Flayers live in the dark so they cannot see, they rend through everything to get to their prey. They hunt using a sense of Fear. Creatures with a low constitution will easily succumb to their "Fight or Flight" sense and the fear will get pumping. For player encounters, it will work as thus: When a player is in a group or even alone and a Soul-Flayer is approaching the lights will flicker and wane depending on the proximity of the Monster. When it gets really close an audible ragged and raspy breathing will be heard. Right when the creature attacks the lights go out and the player's nearby are all frozen. To keep their cool and calm, Each player in the encounter will have to enter a key sequence. Ex: Each player will enter a random Sequence of common control keys used to Move, Attack, jump, and so on. Press: W - A - S - Space -Left Click- Right Click - D This is done in any combination of the above. Forcing the actual players themselves to keep their cool and not panic. Those that do... Well those are the ones who start to flee in panic. The first failing player is the one attacked. If no player fails then the sequence gets harder and harder until either a player fails or the limit is reached and the monster doesn't sense anything there. If a player fails, however the Soul-Flayer attempts to "Possess" that player. PossessionWhen a player fails his "Fear Check" he is the target for attack feeling such, he starts to panic and run around wildly looking for escape... this is out of the player's control. The Soul-Flayer then enters an enethral mode and proceeds to entwine its own existence with the soul of the player. Once in the player, the lights return and the Soul-Flayer uses the body to attack and attempt to kill anything nearby. This can be handled several ways. The First way is the possessed player has to Complete More Key Sequences to Expel the creature from his body. The longer this takes, the more damage the player takes and the longer the player has no control over his own body. The Second way is that the possessed player can on longer see his allies and enters a "Mental Combative" State. Where the Soul-Flayer and the player fight mono y mono to see who gets to keep control over the body. To his allies, he is flailing around shooting at nothing. Except maybe sometimes his own allies. In this state the player can be under several or few status effects. Like slow or bleeding or blind. All depending on the Soul-Flayer. If a player succeeds, the Soul-Flayer is expelled from the player and stunned. During this time is the Ideal time to kill it. If it isn't killed it will burrow and vanish again, to repeat it's malicious process all over again. If the player Fails and Dies, the Soul-Flayer will devour the player from the inside out, and drag his hallowed out corpse back to the Brood Mother. --- There's nothing more frightening then losing control over the only the the player really has to control. Once that happens they have to watch helplessly for a time while their body attacks their allies... and their allies have to make the morally conflicting choice of killing their ally, or watching and waiting until either their friend dies, or they do. I think these would make a brilliant addition to the game. Having some form of fear is a necessity in every adventure game.
Wow, just wow. I think I don't even have to bother, trying to enter the contest. You had me hooked since the first sentence! While the whole "mind control" idea isn't extremely new, you managed to create something thrilling, interesting, and relatively well-balanced all in one! The whole idea, with the light-flickering and breath-hearing thing would be the most thrilling stuff a sandbox-adventure game would feature up to date! I would really see forward to have that in the game, even though it means I will no chance of winning!
Just building this base over here and OH GOD MY MIND *misplacing blocks and flinging stuff around* This sound so dangerous and fun, I'd let myself get possessed just to watch all hell break loose
This thing's mechanics seem like something you would expect from a boss XD I do not think it would work well as a normal monster or even a semi-rare monster I love the idea but it sounds hard to implement for just one monster if it occurred too frequently it wouldn't be scary if it occurred too infrequently players would not be able to do the mini-game properly or expect to have to
That picture kinda reminds me of those ridiculously hard panther head things from Drakkhen. If this does make it in the game, I think I may soil myself.
I like the idea, but not the mechanics. Where would you find this key sequence? If this is regular how is it a threat without being annoying? If it is rare how do you remember the key sequence? The whole "press x to not die" thing in games is not fun in my opinion.
