Progress update

Hi there, community!
Since the last update most of the code for the rituals has been implemented.
This means that we now can go a bit more in-depth with the information for this brand new system.
So today we show you some new spells and teach you all about rituals, Tupilaks and Death Steeds. Enjoy!
As usual, keep in mind that everything written here is still very much work in progress and may get scrapped or changed during development.

Rituals and Tupilaks

The first step to getting yourself a brand new animated pet is to get your hands on a Ritual stone.
Ritual stones are placed just like campfires but have their own neat animation when they are placed. You can see our current draft of the animation right here:


First drafts of the placement effect

Once placed any player may interact with the summoning circle, doing so will bring up a UI with 5 slots.
In 3 of these slots the necromancer may place carcasses. Each carcass will contribute to the stats that will be generated for the new Tupilak. So placing terror bird carcasses will increase speed, bears will increase strength etc.

The first of the remaining two slots takes any type of gem or currency. Each of the gems in the game will modify the damage output of your Tupilak. Some may raise melee damage but reduce magic damage for example.
The last slot will take any artifact. These will once again modify the defense and HP of your Tupilak, some artifacts may for example increase defence but slightly reduce HP.
Once all stats have been calculated by the system it will give your Tupilak attacks from an attack list based of those stats.
More intelligent Tupilaks will get more magic attacks, stronger Tupilaks will end up with more melee based attacks etc.

VERY early concept art of the Tupilak.

Tupilaks currently do not cost any pet points BUT will eat any other pet with flesh that you have with you.
This means that it will indeed eat your poor rabbit friend, donkey or your mount. This brings us to our next topic: Undead Steeds.

Rituals and Undead Steeds

Necromancers will be able to animate their own Undead Steed by using the same summoning circle that they use to summon a Tupilak.
The system is very similar but to raise a Steed you will need to place ONLY different types of horse carcass in the summoning circle.
These carcass are then combined in a similar way to how breeding works and out comes your very own skeleton steed.
Since the steed is made completely out of bones this is the only mount your Tupilak won’t eat.

Early version of an Undead Steed.

New spell effects

The spell effects are still being worked on but we decided to share with you what we have at the moment to get some feedback on the direction of the effects as well as some of the new spells.

Death Hand
This is a very short range spell that deals a fair amount of damage to the target and then heals you for some of the damage you dealt.

Unnerve
Unnerve is a debuff that will reduce the target’s mana regeneration while active. This spell also works on mobs and reduces the chance that a mob will cast magic.

Death Link
This spell can only be cast on your own pets. While active part of any damage dealt to you will instead be dealt to your pet.

That’s all for now!

We are very interested to hear your thoughts on all these new spells and our current iteration of the rituals.
Please leave any feedback on the forums, happy midsummer!