[Wip idea(not a concrete idea)] kitsune antag

[Nukechicken]

I recently had an idea "what if we had something that was kinda the opposite of shadowlings" so I thought of a kitsune antagonist that can change between human and fox and after eating someone's heart, it revives that person as a skeleton, (or not, not sure if you can really revive a person and keep them alive without a heart) and make them servants to the kitsune, after the kitsune gains 3 servants, they become able to rip anyone's (unless they don't have a heart) heart out, but both the kitsune and victim have to be standing still and it causes the warning "[kitsune] starts digging into [victims] chest" and the victim will start bleeding, but the kitsune also gain a weakness where it glow in the dark, like a kidan's eyes, but produce no area light, making the kitsune very visible in the dark.

After 6 servants are made, the kitsune is able to "allure" enemies, making the enemies in a 3 tile radius move towards the kitsune, and the kitsune is able to use claws instead of punches, but becoming weaker in the dark ( slowed down, allure ability does the opposite of it's usual function, shadowlings bare fists hurt EXTREMELY).

After 9 servants, kitsune starts regenerating health in light, laser weapons heal, fire heals (controversial) (if this is applied maybe the cremator should revive?), darkness starts to cause cold damage, space slowly saps the kitsune of blood.

The max amount of servants a kitsune should have is 9, as to represent "9 tails"

Lore: The spider clan (I believe that's what it was called?) used to have kitsune as pets, but due to them eventually consuming their master and their generally dishonorable actions as they are mostly tricksters, they have all been removed from the spider clan and sold to random places and they've generally spread throughout space, where they eventually ended up on the cyberiad, most of the time either to try and remove shadowlings, or hired by the syndicate to perform various tasks.

This idea I'm still thinking and improving on, and if you have further judgement, or improvements to the idea, please tell me

 

[Nukechicken]

And yes, I am aware of how messy the coding for this would be, since I dont think ckeys are attacked to hearts, so maybe consuming the brain would be better for code

[Gaty]

Snowballing thralling antags are... Pretty awful to play against normally.

[Nukechicken]

43 minutes ago, Gaty said:

Snowballing thralling antags are... Pretty awful to play against normally.

There's a reason why I said servants and not thrall, I was thinking making servants unable to harm, and be more of an "get me places" kind of thrall

[Gaty]

That does not sound that bad, but I wonder if it would still count as "free antag"

[Spacemanspark]

I don't think this really suits the style of the game. 

A lot of antagonists are horror based or at least unsettling/ intimidating. 

[Nukechicken]

39 minutes ago, Spacemanspark said:

I don't think this really suits the style of the game. 

A lot of antagonists are horror based or at least unsettling/ intimidating. 

I find getting my heart ripped out very intimidating thank you, I guess I'll think of something

[Spacemanspark]

That's gruesome, yes, but the overall antagonist just seems a bit out of place. An antagonist's 'aura', I guess for lack of any better word, is also quite important. 

You have the disturbingly dark shadowlings, the expanding, disgusting blob, the classic Syndicate and their operatives, the dangerous space wizards that bend bluespace to their will, the blood/fire/death cults, so on so forth. 

All of these, while some are wacky and out there... are still relatively fitting. 

I imagine the reaction to seeing a 'more dangerous looking fox' would be akin to me respriting a slaughter demon into an Eevee. 

"Oh look it's so cute-oh its breaking my body in half and devouring it ouch." 

If anything, something like this would be more fitting for the Byond game Eternia. 

[thatdanguy23]

Well according to mythology, Kitsune can technically shapeshift, so they wouldn't necessarily have to look like a fox the whole round. 

You could have them take on a human form in order to perform the majority of their actions (opposable thumbs help!), but retain the option to turn into a fox form as a utility of some kind. Perhaps the danger of using this fox form is that the more hearts you consume, the more tails you have, so you'll stand out when people are starting to hunt you down. 

 

I think the servants idea is detrimental to this; we have too many "thrall"-types as is and people generally dislike them quite a lot. Perhaps limit the servant to one person, considering the myths around Kitsune tricking men and women into marrying them, but it acts like a mindslave implant. That way you have to make a very important choice as to who you "befriend" and when, and it encourages the resumption of roleplay if you want your servant to remain inconspicuous. If your servant dies? That's it, no more servants. Protect your tools.

Granted, this idea comes with its own risks, as there are a few players and antag mains who have a large friend pool to choose from, so you'd end up with people willingly being enslaved. You'd also have the problem of people using the servant to murderbone the station, or the kitsune immediately bumrushing someone of high status to enslave. These issues would have to be ironed out and considered if this develops further than a concept.

 

Make eating hearts the ability and goal from the get-go, with the rewards coming at 3 (small), 6 (moderate) and 9. 9 turns your objective into pure survival; get on a pod or the shuttle and book it out of there, ready to do it all over again to some other hapless group.

 

I encourage creative thinking and the utilisation of foreign mythology to make interesting antags for this community; keep thinking and working on it!