Dev Diary #31 - Eldritch Sovereign and Tomes
Hello everyone! My name is Luis and I am a designer here at Triumph Studios. This is the second dev diary for our Eldritch Realms expansion that is coming out on the 18th of June.
Hope you have made your tributes to the elder gods because we will be talking about the new leader type, the Eldritch Sovereign. After that I will give a quick rundown of the new tomes you can unlock and some of their content.
Eldritch Sovereign
The Eldritch Sovereign is a new leader type you can play as in Eldritch Realms. When a Wizard is banished to the Astral Void they must endure the Torment of Shadows. Those who fail the trial are doomed to become Lost Wizards, husks of their former selves. But some manage to continue growing in power and regain a twisted sense of sanity. Eventually they manage to pierce the planar veil and find their way back from the Astral Void, where they enthrall whole populations to do their bidding in order to fulfill their corrupt ambitions.
At the start of the game you will pick what your Eldritch ruler looks like and what Relic they use in battle. Each Relic is tied to a concept for this leader, defines their starting damage type and gives one of the initial hero skills from their new Eldritch Sovereign skill tree.
The Eldritch Sovereign starts with 3 abilities:
- Spike: This is a long range low damage ability that allows this ruler to stay at the back while their enthralled race protects it.
- Rebuke: When an enemy gets too close, this magical rebuke is an excellent option. It deals decent damage and can finish off injured enemies.
- Eldritch Mind Control: This allows the leader to mind control an enemy unit for 1 turn, turning an adversary into a temporary stepping stone to your victory in battle.
[h2]Thralls and Ritual Spells[/h2]
They also have another trick up their tentacles in the form of Ritual Spells and the new Thrall resource. As an Eldritch Sovereign ruled faction, battles will gradually gather Thralls to be used in ritual sacrifice to cast powerful and unique strategic spells. The Eldritch Sovereign doesn’t even need to be in those battles as their servants will gather the Thralls for them.
They can also harvest Thralls from their own population or vassalized Free Cities with the Spell Enthrall Population, which converts 1 Population into 3 Thralls.
Once you have the Thralls, ritual spells are easy to cast as they only require Thralls and Casting Points. Here’s some examples of ritual spells:
- Clairvoyance Ritual: All Eldritch Sovereigns start with this one; it lets you sacrifice a Thrall to reveal the closest Infestation or Ancient Wonder.
- Phantasmal Ritual: This spell deals 20% of an army's maximum Hit Points as damage as well as reducing their status resistance for the next battle.
- Mage Bane Ritual: Summon a Mage Bane! This costs 10 Thralls to summon and comes after needing to unlock 2 other hero skills, but having a Mage Bane at your side is a very strong option for this leader.
Thralls can also be used (or sometimes gained!) in events. You can sacrifice thralls to permanently dominate an enemy, give a boost to relations to newly found Free Cities or bypass difficult options.
[h2]Signature Skills[/h2]
Signature Skills for the Eldritch Ruler come in two flavors.
- Specializations: These give a more defined role to your Eldritch Sovereign by giving new abilities and passives.
- Forgotten Tomes: Like Lost Wizards, they can get powerful abilities that have endless range in combat.
[h3]Specializations[/h3]
Minor Specialization
At level 4 the leader picks a Minor Specialization gaining a new active and passive ability. The Minor Specializations are:
- Madcaster: Focus on spellcasting and random effects. They gain:
- Chaos Pulse: Applies an effect to a group of enemies, from turning them to animals, making them Blind until the end of combat or, if you are unlucky, healing them. Each unit in the area of effect has a chance to roll one of these effects.
- Expert Channeling: A passive that reduces the mana cost of certain spells.
- Chaos Pulse: Applies an effect to a group of enemies, from turning them to animals, making them Blind until the end of combat or, if you are unlucky, healing them. Each unit in the area of effect has a chance to roll one of these effects.
- Mindbreaker: This one focuses on mind status effects and damage. They gain:
- Eldritch Truth: An ability that places the new Madness condition which, until the end of combat, makes the unit Insane while also sustaining damage each turn.
- Eldritch Breach: A passive that bypasses up to 3 Status Resistance the target has.
- Eldritch Truth: An ability that places the new Madness condition which, until the end of combat, makes the unit Insane while also sustaining damage each turn.
- Fleshweaver: The support specialization with a flesh modification theme. They gain:
- Possession: Increases the damage of a unit by 40% for 2 turns. The affected unit dies when this effect expires but they come back with low hit points after combat if you win it.
- Fleshweave: At combat start, summon 2 Fleshlings, slimy bomb monsters that can self destruct to deal damage as well as apply Bleed and Status Vulnerability.
- Possession: Increases the damage of a unit by 40% for 2 turns. The affected unit dies when this effect expires but they come back with low hit points after combat if you win it.
Major Specialization
At level 12 the Eldritch Sovereign can pick between two signature skills based on their first specialization.
The Madcaster can pick:
- Cosmic Caster:
- Their Chaos Pulse changes to Cosmic Pulse, which reduces the randomness of Chaos Pulse to instead be more damage oriented, always rolling on dealing Fire, Frost or Lightning damage. The radius also increases from 1-hex to 2-hex.
- Gain a new passive, Forgotten Tome Mastery that boosts the damage of the damaging abilities you can gain from the Forgotten Tome Signature skills.
- Their Chaos Pulse changes to Cosmic Pulse, which reduces the randomness of Chaos Pulse to instead be more damage oriented, always rolling on dealing Fire, Frost or Lightning damage. The radius also increases from 1-hex to 2-hex.
- Havoc Caster:
- These Eldritch Sovereigns go all in on randomness and have their Chaos Pulse become Havoc Pulse. It functions like the original except it applies 2 effects to the affected units
- Gain a new passive, Chaos Channeling. It adds a 90% chance to apply a random negative status effect to all damaging combat spells.
- These Eldritch Sovereigns go all in on randomness and have their Chaos Pulse become Havoc Pulse. It functions like the original except it applies 2 effects to the affected units
The Mindbreaker can pick:
- Enthraller:
- Their Eldritch Truth becomes Enrapturing Truth. This new ability now applies Dominated, Berserk and increases the target’s damage instead of driving them mad. Being Dominated means you can acquire the unit at the end of combat!
- Gain a new passive, Manipulator, which makes some of your mind affecting skills like Eldritch Mind Control target an extra target within a certain range of the original target.
- Their Eldritch Truth becomes Enrapturing Truth. This new ability now applies Dominated, Berserk and increases the target’s damage instead of driving them mad. Being Dominated means you can acquire the unit at the end of combat!
- Mind Devourer:
- Eldritch Truth becomes Mind Shattering Truth, which not only applies the Madness effect but also deals physical damage that ignores the target’s defenses.
- The passive Mindrend: The Eldritch Sovereign deals +70% more damage to any unit that has a Negative Mental Status Effect (Berserk, Insanity, Madness, etc)
- Eldritch Truth becomes Mind Shattering Truth, which not only applies the Madness effect but also deals physical damage that ignores the target’s defenses.
Finally, the Fleshweaver can pick:
- Puppeteer:
- Possession becomes Puppeteer’s Possession, which can now give the damage increase to 3 allies instead of just one.
- Changes the Eldritch Mind Control to Puppeteer’s Domination, which changes the effect from Mind Control to Dominated, which means you can keep the unit after combat for a mana cost.
- Possession becomes Puppeteer’s Possession, which can now give the damage increase to 3 allies instead of just one.
- Fleshsculpter:
- Possession becomes Greater Possession: The damage bonus is increased to 80% while also giving the unit Status Protection so they can rampage until they drop.
- Fleshweave changes to Fleshsculpt. Fleshsculpt makes it so that instead of 2 Fleshlings you summon a more long lasting summon, the Flesh Abomination, a Tier 3 Fighter.
- Possession becomes Greater Possession: The damage bonus is increased to 80% while also giving the unit Status Protection so they can rampage until they drop.
[h3]Forgotten Tomes[/h3]
At level 8 and 16 the Eldritch Sovereign picks from a list of Forgotten Tome Passives. The way these work is that at the start of combat, they give you one of 3 random abilities related to the Forgotten tome you picked and every 4 turns that ability gets randomized and its cooldown removed.
The special thing about these is that these abilities have unlimited range in combat, acting almost like Combat Spells (except that since they are abilities they cost no mana). For those who fought the Lost Wizard before, some of these abilities will be recognizable, but there’s a lot more new ones!
That’s all I want to say for now on the Eldritch Sovereign, and I am not even going over all the new Hero Skills unique to the Eldritch Sovereign. (Tentacled Escape, one of the master hero skills of the Eldritch Sovereign, has my favorite animation in the entire game so far!)
And we are not done yet, up next is the Tomes!
Tomes
[h2]Tome of Tentacles[/h2]
This is a Tier 1 tome focused on summoning and using Tentacles to restrain and damage your enemies. It has a new status effect, Constricted, which deals 10 Physical damage each turn while Immobilizing the target. A lot of the units from this tome apply this effect. You can also have your Mages and Support units apply it with their attacks with the Constricting Focus unit enchantment.
Conjure Tentacle and the hero skill Manifest Tentacle let you conjure an otherworldly Tentacle unit in combat which deals damage as well as attempting to Constrict your enemies. These are very good at early game control and protecting your more squishy units from melee trying to rush them.
Next I want to show you the aptly named Constrictor! This is a new and terrifying racial polearm unit that can use its long tentacle arms to pull units closer to them and constrict them in the process. (They give very good hugs).
[h2]Tome of Corruption[/h2]
The Tier 3 Tome of Corruption lets you unleash your inner Umbral Demon while also capitalizing on your enemy’s buffs, removing them and gaining something instead or just outright stealing them.
Gloom Strider lets your racial units become Umbral Demons as well as gaining floating movement. This makes your units immune to the Umbral Malady and gain a powerful passive in Curse Eater, which consumes a negative status effect on the unit and converts it into a heal.
This tome has a new Tier 4 unit in it called the Umbral Mistress, which can chain herself to an enemy and then use her Gratitude, Fury or Surrender abilities to cause different effects on the unit she is linked to. Additionally, while linked to an enchained unit, their Wrack ability can never miss, and since a lot of her skills are Free Actions, you can play with your enemy’s emotions and then Wrack them for damage on the same turn.
Corrupt Boon and the hero skill Boon Stealing both remove positive status effects from your enemies. The first by turning them to their opposite, so for example regeneration would turn into poison. And the second by giving your hero’s attacks the ability to steal them on hit.
[h2]Tome of Cleansing Fire[/h2]
To combat all this darkness, we have a tome that helps you purify it. Cleaning Flame is all about making your units Zealous while burning you enemies with the new Cleaning Flame hazard.
This hazard burns those who aren’t Faithful or Zealous while removing negative conditions from those who are. Additionally, Condemned units lose their positive effects when they are burned by the flames of righteousness.
The hero skill Cleansing Flameherald not only creates Cleansing Flames as your enemies dies, but any Burning hazard created in combat become a Cleaning Flame hazard instead, making it a powerful combo for those who picked the Tome of Pyromancy or have other abilities that place burning hazards.
The Pyre Templars not only look amazing but they are the Cleansing Flame come to life and were tailor made to fight the corruption of the abyss! This Tier 4 Polearm unit has a Fire Cleave that mows down enemies in a 1-hex cone, while the Pyre Cloak burns all adjacent enemies and creates Cleansing Flames all around them while putting the Templar in defense mode.
To let your other units in on the fun of purifying the darkness, Pureflame Staves and Flame Blessed Champions both allow your units to create Cleaning Flames hazards. In addition, the former allows your mages and support units to Condemn your enemies and the latter lets your melee units Burn them to a crisp!
There’s a lot of content to explore in this new expansion and I couldn’t go into detail on everything with this dev diary, but I hope you liked reading about it! The Eldritch Realms expansion comes out on the 18th of June, so make sure you don’t miss out on all this content!
[h2]Wishlist Eldritch Realms:[/h2]
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2401860/Age_of_Wonders_4_Eldritch_Realms/
I love you, you love me, we're all one Eldritch family~
