#starvault

[slushblock]

As the giant suit of sparking, smoldering armor collapses, the chestplate falls off to reveal what looks surprisingly like Lihzahrd machinery, and the much smaller yet nearly identical form of the Starvault tumbles out unceremoniously, falling to his knees. Despite being a construct of metal and spirit, heavy breathing can be heard, the noise resounding through the hollow armor as his shoulders heave.

"Alright... you... got me. You're... better... than I thought," he manages between breaths, "But... you're gonna... have to try... harder than that." Shaky metal joints rattle against one another as he tries to stand up, "Though... maybe... if you're... this strong..," he reaches for his hammer where it fell beside him, "Then... maybe-"

He's not allowed to finish as something grabs him from behind, hefting him up with a loud yelp. It's the Abomination; somehow looking larger, and more menacing. Where once the shining armored knight stood over the twisted fiend, now the opposite is true, with the corruption's herald holding him aloft effortlessly.

<It's about time,> the monster chuckles, tone dark and foreboding, <I've been waiting for this for so long.>

"Y-you won't win!" the Starvault shouts, seeming suddenly pitiful in his weak struggling, "Even... if I'm... not strong enough-! There is-" He holds out his arm, trying to call his hammer to it, but the weapon simply shudders in place on the ground. He's not strong enough after that decisive defeat.

<Oh, I'm sorry... did you want this?> The Abomination seethes with a sinister laugh, grabbing the hammer with one of its gnashing feet and kicking it up to its hand. The holy metal sizzles faintly against the monster’s slimy tendrils, but the rotting purple hulk doesn't seem to notice, <Here. Allow me.>

Without warning, the Abomination turns the hammer around and, with an overly dramatic wind up, thrusts the intricate, key-shaped pommel through the front of the Starvault's helmet.

The screams are horrific, ceaseless and deafening as the knight flails in agonized convulsions, helplessly clawing at the arm that turned his own weapon on him. The monster holds him fast, eyes glinting in the semblance of a  depraved smile.

<Heh,> The Abomination chuckles at first but it soon escalates to a raucous laugh, a sound far more hollow and heartless than even the cold suit of empty armor it's tormenting, <I wish I could see the look on your insipid human face. But I'm afraid I've got better things to do now. Like dealing with a certain little traitor~>

Tensing up, the muscular, rotting beast shifts its tendrilled grip on the hammer and gives it a single, wrenching twist. There's a disgusting, almost wet crunch as the screams cut off abruptly. The flailing Starvault seizes up for just a second before going completely limp. The only sound coming from him is an incredibly soft, pained sobbing as the Abomination lets him fall to the ground like a metal ragdoll.

The moment feels far longer than it really is as the Abomination waits, seeming almost anxious. Suddenly, the joints in the pearly silver and gold armor begin to glimmer in three colors, pulsing, getting brighter and brighter. The armor itself begins to crack beyond the joints as that light struggles to free itself.

The Starvault shatters. Three lights swirl about and the Abomination cackles.

However, before it vanishes, just as the purple light moves to engulf the fell beast, it turns to you, your weapon still in hand, and smiles.

THANKS, WORM. COULDN’T HAVE DONE IT WITHOUT YOU~

[slushblock]

I wanted to throw together some quick shirts for PAX (to wear, not sell, lol), but I’m not sure I really like these, but I think they’re interesting enough to post here.

The weird fades are just meant to work on dark backgrounds, since I was gonna print these on dark shirts, but bleh, idk if I can get them in time.

[slushblock]

Actually... I have another question, if you don't mind. Why Greg is a Face Monster? Not like I have a problem with that. It's just, other Starfallen are fully fan characters, they don't appear in canon, while he does (partly, but still). You could create for him totally different appearance, so why is that?

This is a surprisingly complicated thing to discuss in order to frame a deceptively simple answer, and it really goes back to what the intentions were when I originally created each character.

The Keeper was the first one I made, and was for an official NPC contest at the original Terraria Online forums (the winner was the Stylist, btw). I went for something completely off-the-wall and inhuman because that’s just the kind of person I am, and I always want to inject that sort of thematic into the things I work on.

Aberrant came a little while afterward, upon my first discovering the Crimson, and his design decision was literally and entirely based on the simple idea of “self-conscious Face Monster in clothes”. None of this Starfallen nonsense. That was the idea that struck a chord with me, and it was the idea that struck a chord with everyone else around me at the time.

Abomination came afterwards as a sort of counterpoint (a proud monster), but had to be completely original on the account of there being no humanoid Corruption monsters, and also became a personal design challenge to come up with one.

Anomaly’s appearance and basic theme gelled soon afterwards as a mere attempt to ‘balance’ out representation for the three biomes. Anomaly was originally just a bunch of Chaos Elementals in suits and wigs:

…but I didn’t like that over time and couldn’t draw it in a way that felt good, and eventually decided to go with something more otherworldly.

They sort of existed in the same headspace for a while, and my mind occasionally wandered to the idea of them all being related spirits somehow. I even mused with the idea of them being directly in league with one another, holding pseudo-conferences in much more monstrous forms regarding the state of the world. Even Aberrant looked somewhere between Awakened Aberration and this thing for those ideas, but it never really got off the ground because I couldn’t really justify it under them just being representations of their biomes, and not some other kind of entity merely borrowing those biomes, which is where the Starfallen idea comes from.

Starvault/Excelsior came MUCH later, once I finalized the idea of them being Something Else and needing an excuse for them to have not been Giant Monsters All Along, and even he’s not 100% original, just being a suit of possessed (if slightly modified) Hallowed Armor with connections to the Paladins. To the point where when I first had the idea before putting it to paper and illustrating it, I didn’t even sprite it originally because it would have JUST been a player sprite with the Hallowed Set (with Mask as the helmet), and Angel Wings. I made it different because I wanted to.

Over time, anyone who changed from simpler roots did so to reflect changes in atmosphere, intent, and preference. There’s no lore reason; just personal.

Aberrant didn’t change because he didn’t need to.

[slushblock]

I’m not usually one for using existing game music to establish character themes (since that music was made for other characters or events in mind), but every time this song comes on my playlist I imagine it’s sort of the general style I’d expect the entire Starfallen encounter chain to have as boss music. IE, they’d all have sort of the same general feel and leitmotif, but with additional layers depending on who it is, and this is the sort of style I’d want them to have (sort of a dirty, heavy synth, but with layers of choir and/or orchestra).

0:00 - 0:36 > Aberration 0:36 - 1:08 > Starvault 1:08 - 1:40 > Anomaly 1:40 - 2:29 > Abomination

I’m sorry this is just how I brain. Plus, Intestines is one of my favorite songs from any game and I’m just happy to share it (even though I was never any good at Shattered Soldier).

Oh, and because: bonus Trophies

...which I probably shouldn’t design without actual boss sprites but I don’t feel like making those yet because they’d be huge and I still don’t have the Terraria style down lol

[slushblock]

“Always remember; if you need to unlock something with a key, it first had to be locked with one.”

This has been something I’ve been tossing around in my head for a while now, but I never really thought of how to discuss it here without just being a textwall, so I threw this together. Bear with me, I’m out of practice with making sprites in the game’s style.

Basically, the subject is the Starvault’s/Excelsior’s hammer. Wasn’t sure what to call it as a drop (like Anomaly’s sword, it’s one of the few obvious boss drops associated with the event that I actually thought about), since Starvault’s Hammer just feels clunky despite not being much longer than many of the existing hammers. One obvious one was Keyhammer, but I think for these purposes, Vaulthammer would be better, so as to not want to draw comparisons with a certain other famous key-themed weapon that’s already got an homage in the game.

The idea is basically that, in spite of its key motif, the hammer only has the power to seal things, not open them. As a drop, apart from its basic attack and/or hammer abilities (which implies breaking more than opening/unlocking), it could be used to re-lock chests. I don’t know what use this could have other than trolling, but maybe it could be used by people who want to use locked chests in builds without using an external editor. Idk. Like Anomaly’s sword, it’s mostly just a weird niche mechanic that exists more for theme than function.

More important is actually not how the player would use it once acquired, but what the theme means when it comes to fighting the Starvault as a boss.

You see, while he’s not particularly strong (intended to be more or less immediately post-Golem), the majority of the fight difficulty would revolve around his hammer-based attacks inflicting the player with a debuff called “Locked”, which randomly locks two hotbar slots every time it’s applied (3 in Expert; two random, plus always locking the slot that’s selected at the time of application. Depending on how annoying this is, Normal mode may also force the active slot to Lock + one random, instead of both being random).

Thankfully, it doesn’t stack, but naturally items in locked slots cannot be used, nor can anything be moved to or from those slots during the debuff duration. The random element means this could be inconsequential, or completely debilitating depending on weapon reliance, and the debuff itself would have a fairly short duration and thus be reapplied frequently for a shuffling effect.

In Expert, the Locked debuff would disable one accessory slot at random in addition to the locked slots on the hotbar. Have fun when your wings stop working.

[slushblock]

The stupid things I do when I’ve got a block and am otherwise too occupied to write or draw actual stuff

[vrnewstoday]

STARVAULT 正式版推出：VR MOBA 與英雄射擊混合體走出 Early Access

STARVAULT 在經歷三個月的公開測試與三個月的 Early Access 後，現已於 META HORIZON 商店邁向完整版本。這款由 Theia Games 開發的作品，以 VR 第一人稱視角重構 MOBA 與英雄射擊的核心玩法，在正式版中加入更完整的英雄陣容、更穩定的伺服器體驗、改良的配對系統，以及更多能讓玩家長期投入的進程設計。STARVAULT 雖然仍維持完全免費，但遊戲整體的完成度、打擊手感與視覺穩定性已明顯優化，給予初次體驗者遠比早期版本更順暢的節奏。 Theia Games 將 STARVAULT 定位為「第一人稱視角的 MOBA」，而這樣的結合本身就帶來挑戰。傳統 MOBA 通常以高空視角讓玩家同時掌握整體戰場動態，而 STARVAULT 則要求玩家站在英雄的視角上直接投入對線、穿越叢林或在地形高低差中尋找掩護。在 VR…

STARVAULT 正式版推出：VR MOBA 與英雄射擊混合體走出 Early Access