Pretender- Spider Queen

[Brownoak]

I thought I would suggest this as a project for some kindly modder…

She seemed to be an appropriate pretender for Machaka (and possibly Mictlan and Arcosephale).

Pretender- Spider Queen

Description

‘The bloated mother of a thousand scuttling offspring, the Spider Queen is a mistress of Blood and Nature Magic. Once Banished to the dark places of the earth by the old Pantokrator she emerges yet again to spin her webs of intrigue and deceit to trap an unsuspecting world…’

Stats

Design Cost- 50 (same as Scorpian King)

Hit Points- 50
Protection- 13
Morale- 30
Magic Resistence- 18
Encumbrance 3
Fatigue- 0
Strength- 15
Move 3/12
Leadership 80
Blood Mage Level 1
Nature Mage Level 1
New Magic Paths cost 50
Weapon Poison Bite, Web (?)
Poison Resistent 100%
Recuperation
Fear
Dominion 2

Let me know what you think

Regards

Brownoak

[Endoperez]

I had a similar idea. I createad an Anansi mod.

There are some differences, mainly in the special abilities and flavour. If you want to do another version, feel free to base it off my mod. Most of the abilities are in there; you just need to remove #secondshape tag, the human form, and replace the unneeded abilities (glamour and stealth) with recuperation etc.

[HoneyBadger]

Brownoak, I'm assuming you're referencing Ungoliant a bit, from the Silmarillion. Anansi is in any case a much different and more complex character than a "Spider-Queen/Great Mother of Spiders". I don't mean that in a bad way, since both are excellent for Machaka and there's no reason why both can't exist as separate and very distinct entities in the game. I would think that Anansi would be more generically useful, while a Spider Queen would be a better combat Pretender. I'd suggest a straight Ungoliant chassis, with her peculiar qualities, but she wasn't really a spider, just had a spider form, and she'd just end up eating everyone and everything in her Nation, anyway. It would be nice if there were a way to mod in a forced Death3 (etc) scale for picking a particular pretender-type, though. Anyway, I'd hate to see Endoperez's Anansi subsumed, or Brownoak's Spider Queen left out of the game because of the presence of Anansi, because I feel both ideas are great and should, separately, be in the game.

[Endoperez]

I didn't notice the Ungoliant theme at all. Wouldn't she be closer to Wyrm or Manticore, or perhaps the Dragons, in that case?

[HoneyBadger]

Perhaps, Endoperez. Admittedly, it's what I first thought of, and the rest was just conjecture. An Ungoliant style Pretender, if true to the Silmarillion, would definitely be very physically powerful and powerful in terms of raw abilities, such as Fear, but zero on magic skill because the creature was just purely driven by hunger to the point where she ended up wandering into a desert and eating herself. Actually, if you could do a Pretender who couldn't learn magic paths (say 80 to learn a new path with no starting paths) and had a collossal magic resistance, like 30, caused fear and had stealth and maybe assassination as well, you'd have something along the right lines. She might also produce giant spiders both within and without combat. She probably would be at the physical power level of a dragon in combat, yes. The type would be rather similar to a spider queen though...the spider queen Pretender could then perhaps be the magic-heavy, calculating type, able to give good bless strategy, decent in combat, maybe somewhere around ***** Queen to Scorpion King. Would produce spiders outside of combat. I also have a thought about an immobile Pretender: Spider Idol. A massive obsidian sculpture of a spidergod with ruby eyes which seem to glow with hate in darkness or at night. The spirit trapped inside...virgins are sacrificed...yadda yadda yadda. The Spider Idol would be immortal, low on magic but not totally bereft, maybe 50 for new paths and 1 level in death and blood, and produce outside of combat some kind of Wraith Spider (not sure if their are or are not something called Wraith Spiders in the game, but the things produced by the Spider Idol would be etherial undead spiders with stealth ability, darkvision, and lifedrain attacks.) Very expensive, maybe 175 ala Vampire Queen (which I think should be increased to 250 and given back Etherialness).

[Endoperez]

Ungoliath-style spider could be a national spell. There are many national spells that summon unique, more or less independent, divine or infernal creatures. Spentas, Mictlan's summons, Pyth/Mari angels, two nations whose spells you haven't seen yet...

After the next patch or so, you can #copystats an "eternal enemy of the sun", with some rather striking powers.

[HoneyBadger]

I think Ungoliant would fit better as a Pretender-chassis than a national summons, just because we're talking about a dark spirit (and one even the mighty Vanir were afraid of) who took the form of the first spider (albeit a size 6 spider) and co-conspired with Melkor on pretty equal terms. Melkor, the mightiest and by far the evilest of the Vanir actually needed to be rescued from her by Balrogs (note the plural) when he refused to give her the Silmarils. It just would, in my opinion, be more interesting to use her as a unique and powerful, but chaotic and difficult, asset to a nation, where you could express her abilities more fully rather than tone the concept down drastically for the purposes of balance. Even with demonlords you know there are three of them. Admittedly, she's one of my favorite characters from the Silmarillion for putting the kybosh on the Vanir's plans for elven heaven and just being seriously scary. Mythological elves are interesting, fantasy elves taste like chicken. Eternal enemy of the Sun sounds REALLY fun!

[Brownoak]

Gentlemen

Thank you for the feedback. I think as per HoneyBadger that there is room for all of these spider-type pretenders in Dominions as it adds to the fun of the game. I think what I had in mind with the Spider Queen was something which would be thematic to Machaka but general enough to be available to other nations as well- kind of a companion to the Scorpian King.

In any event I offer it as inspiration to any modder who would like to create it...

Regards

Brownoak