Willowofwish
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This set has some similarities in aesthetics to the supernatural creature known as the Wendigo in Native American myths and folklore. As a preface in no way am I attempting to trivialize the Native American myths and their history, I am merely borrowing some aspect of their legends for inspiration. Secondly I really haven't thought about balance and game mechanic, this is more of me going over my thought on how the Wendigo relates to the Veywild and how these two can combine in some way that does not blatantly disrespect their culture. Thirdly while I do not have the armor I feel like it is a good starting point to go in and then later on I'll think of some more interesting design for the other equipment.
A basic google search for the Wendigo in Google image shows up with similar results: a giant, emancipated creature with the distinct deer skull as a face. Skimming through notes describing the Wendigo, one can find common motif among the different tribes, with one scholar from the Ojibwe tribe presenting a vivid portrayal:
"The Wendigo was gaunt to the point of emaciation, its desiccated skin pulled tightly over its bones. With its bones pushing out against its skin, its complexion the ash-gray of death, and its eyes pushed back deep into their sockets, the Wendigo looked like a gaunt skeleton recently disinterred from the grave. What lips it had were tattered and bloody ... Unclean and suffering from suppuration of the flesh, the Wendigo gave off a strange and eerie odor of decay and decomposition, of death and corruption."
The Innui tribe gives further explanation of the corruption of the Wendigo: Whenever a wendigo ate another person, it would grow in proportion to the meal it had just eaten, so it could never be full. Therefore, wendigos are portrayed as simultaneously gluttonous and extremely thin due to starvation.
Therefore, looking at these tales and folklores, I personally find three common motif that Wendigos share among different tales: corruption of mind and body, immense strength, and an insatiable desire to consume everything. As such, I think the Veywild set should reflect these three themes in a unique way.
Corruption of mind and body: We have a status effect called War-Torn Mind, shown in burning Solstice. *1.2 in outgoing damage. This in turn can also cover the immense strength theme if the armor is FO as well. So it'll be cool if this is one of a passive the armor has
Insatiable desire to consume everything: Here I'll go ahead and introduce a new status effect, called Gluttony. In essence as a penalty for having such immense strength, not only are you corrupted, but you must pay a certain amount of resource in SP every turn as you are getting hungrier and weaker. If possible, your SP cost increase with every turn. Failure to do so will result in you having the Granny monster effect where your level, and in turn your HP,MP and SP are reduced(this will be permanent in each battle). Alternatively, you will have to pay a hefty HP cost.
I haven't given much thought about the other equipment but feel free to offer suggestion and constructive criticism for my idea haha. In the end, Veywild just remind me of the Wendigo and I just wanted to make it revolve around that idea.
Pet: While wendigos are indeed supernatural beings of malicious force, their origins in certain mythos are mundane. The First Nation Algonquian tribe depicts malicious spirits possessing human beings, ultimately turning them into a wendigo. Thus they are a fusion of spirit and flesh, mind and matter.
As we give in to the madness and corruption of the Wendigo armor and lose our own spirit, we affect not only affect those around us by taking their life, but can also possess, alter and mold them into our chaos, thereby creating more Wendigos. The end result of this influence, as described by the Athabaskan people, is called a Wechugu. In their mythos (the Dane-zaa), wechuge are people "overwhelmed by the power of the ancient giant spirit animals", related to becoming too strong. Similar to the Wendigo, an outside force taking control of a human or a human willingly breaking a taboo could result in the creation of a monster. As such, the pet is eventuality of being in contact with a wendigo for too long- a Wechugu, having stayed too long in the shadow of greed, power and destruction, serving as as a motif to caution against human greed.
The pet, therefore, is an eventuality of our allies being too close to the Veywild: as they stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back. Being this close to the Veywild armor distorts and warps our pet's mind, matter and body, leaving them as a mere hollow shell of what they once were. Thus it fits, as we the Veywild/Wendigo creates more subjects for our own greed and desire. Thus our pet, the Wechugu, has no choice but to follow our commands as they are possessed eternally.
While it would be easy to further elaborate on the Gluttony status and give it to the Wechugu/Pet as well, I feel like there are other aspects in Native American lore depicting the Wechugu that could be used for the pet. Legends vary between the different tribes, but after reading through them, I again found some themes that are interesting and worth mentioning: the Beaver Nation describes them as being made of ice; they are associated with Winter, the Night and the North; the tribes with these Wechugu legends are geographically located in Northern region of the Americas where it is cold and dark. Finally(and most importantly), to completely destroy the creature one must throw it into a fire and keep it burning overnight until the Wechugu has melted.
Thus the theme of Night and Cold seems to be the most prevalent within the legends. Therefore I think the pet should either inflict the Cold or Asleep (I don't think it should get the Everslumber treatment because Everslumber heals you, which is counterintuitive for a beast that is constantly in hunger). The Cold makes sense thematically. As the pet is emotionally manipulated to our bidding, they in turn gain our power, allowing them in turn to sow chaos in the world. They are Cold, and in turn they inflict the Cold to others, making them unable to defend themselves, hence the -BtH and -Blocking.
Asleep could also be a good alternative for the pet to inflict . although the lore will be a bit more of a stretch: one often associate the Night with sleep, and Winter have long nights, which leads to more time spent sleeping rather than going outside to do activities. But most importantly, if one is asleep overnight while burning the Wechugu, this would give it ample time to escape and cause more destruction once the fire has died out. A sleep-centric theme could be a better alternative mechanically than the Cold as we already seen that implemented. I'll think of some more ideas for the weapon, shield and misc later on, but I think in general the pet should be either sleep inflicting or something to do with the Cold.
< Message edited by Willowofwish -- 9/1/2020 14:30:49 >
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