# **Abstract** I, Jinshee (hi), had a fateful dream about what a more fun Ashwalker experience could look like while sleeping. This alone has inspired a HackMD to provide a baseline for my ideas. I have near to no coding experience, being solely a hobbyist spriter who got by with the careful, antiquated art of ctrl+c. That being said, I have a will to see my ideas come to fruition, even if I end up working alone the entire way. Here, I intend to gather feedback, provide a baseline for my ideas, gain approval from maintainers, and possibly inspire others to assist me. I propose three parts of changes, that being an expansion of their base, improvements to the ritual system, and a diversification of their arsenal. All of this is in hopes of a more **cool**, more **fun** Ashwalker experience. **Overview** --- Here's what I propose in three parts. Consider it a checklist of sorts, to see what has, could have, or what maintainers deem inappropriate. **Spring Cleaning Day at the Ashwalkers (Coming Summer 2025)** - The lower level of the Icewalker base alone has more space in it (not counting the upper level) than the entire Ashwalker one. This mostly has to due with it being an addition that was ported, but what never came with it were the same maintainers. Novastation, however, maintains a much fresher Ashwalker base, one that I believe would be a welcome addition. - Port the Novastation Ashwalker camp. **They do (better) magic now!** - The ritual system leaves a lot to desire, and I believe that has to due with balance fearmongering. The Cursed Ash Dagger, for example, is just one of the many things you can acquire from rituals that serves no actual purpose. It has an entirely visual fluff effect when clicking on tendrils, instead of actually "cursing" them as the item would suggest. This same problem is seen a number of times; the drake offering ritual, which isn't necessary to actually make offerings to drakes; the incite megafauna ritual, which provides no benefit to the Ashwalkers as they have no idea where the new fauna spawns and mostly just serves to give Miners another target; Share damage ritual; Ash Staff ritual, with underwhelming effects. All of these, and more, are what I wish to re-do, re-work, and make more compelling. These are changes that would better suit their purpose as being the Lavaland's primary antagonist against shaft miners. - New Archetype: Shaman - The Ashwalkers may dictate a tribe Shaman through the use of the Ash Staff, where it binds itself to a user. This means that no other user may make use of the staff, other than the one who is bound to it. - Additionally, I believe the Shaman should be the one and only Ashwalker given the ability to read. This, itself, I consider pretty powerful, given that Ashwalkers are never meant to use computer consoles so they cannot go on station. - New (proposed) uses with the staff: - Localized ash storm in a target 6x6 area (diamond shape?) - Ash wall: Temporary, destructable wall made of ash (3x3?) - Quake: Small area around the user that 1. digs up ash, for farming, and 2. applies a shove (or knockdown?) effect to mobs caught in the area. (3x3) - Burrow: User disappears into the floor. May move up to 3 tiles in any direction and resurface. (Block lava tiles, unless tier 4 evo. Block metal tiles ((yeouch, hit your head!))) - Moving the "Share Damage" ritual function to the staff, on a cooldown with no material requirement. - In-hand "telekinesis" **Improved rituals!** --- - Cursed Ash Dagger: - With a 3 stage do_after timer, may carve runes into a tendril. Each stage accomplishes different things, and applies damage to the user, forcing healing between stages. This is to encourage the use of tendrils for the defense of the Necropolis, and discourage destroying them for loot. - Stage 1: After completion, the tendril will become **temporarily** hostile to **all** other mobs not spawned from it as the tendril retaliates. During this time, spawn caps will increase to 6, an effect that persists. - Stage 2: After completion, mobs lose their hostility. The tendril will no longer provide a chest upon destructon. - Stage 3: The tendril gains empowered variants (custom, with mild effects like legion spawning 1 extra skull) of its spawns, but also guarentees additional mob drops from each. Once the mob strays 50 tiles from the tendril, it immediately dies (No, you may not bring them on station). - Incite Megafauna: - Mostly the same, but will first summon a preview of the fauna in the center of the ritual circle. This will be followed by the fauna teleporting to a random location, and being trackable by the Ashwalkers. - Summon Creature - Replace "Summon Lavaland Creature" and "Summon Icemoon Creature". - The performer of the ritual will be able to choose which creature is summoned from the Lavaland and Icemoon pools. Icemoon creatures will not be friendly and will attack upon being summoned. - Share Damage - Removed. Functionality put into Ash Staff. - Conjure Ash Storm - With a material cost of 50 ash, 1 bone, 1 wood, and 10 units of water, the Ashwalkers may perform a ritual to summon an ash storm. - Drake Offering: (How to Train Your Dragon) - Tame a dragon! - Wait, tame a dragon? - With a much heftier material cost, and the requirement of "Legendary" status in a Brand-New™ skill called "Husbandry", which can be improved by interactions with other tameable critters, you may tame an Ash Drake with **3** offerings. This allows you to issue it commands, as well as **ride it** with a custom saddle. This does not make you immune to its damage, and does not let you use its abilities. It will no longer use any of its flying abilities, and will only bite and breathe fire (D'aww, it doesn't want to hurt you!). - The drake will become passive to all creatures. - Yes, it's still slow as molasses. - This means that, in total, taming an Ash Drake will require a huge time investment with a slowly increasing skill, a material cost in rituals that I'm looking at to be, in total to tame, 6 legion skulls, 6 goliath tendrils, 6 watcher wings, and 12 goliath meat. **So, what was that about new skills?** --- - Animal Husbandry (Husbandry): - A new skill that gains experience when feeding, riding, and taming mobs! For Ashwalkers, this will require them to actually interact with their grubs, which will have expanded features. - An increasing experience in animal husbandry will reduce the cooldown on commands (which will now have cooldowns), and increase riding speed to the creature's current in-game speed. Yes, if you are inexperienced in animal husbandry, you will ride your animals slower than normal. **Improved Arsenal** --- People have been begging for some sort of crossbow for a long time. This, naturally, had me thinking about all of the possibilites. I don't presently enjoy how combat is about "Durr, beeg number good" with how everyone will take whichever does the most raw damage. I want to go the way of the Crusher, and add different niches of weapon for different styles of play. - The beloved crossbow - With three bones, one sinew, and a PKA, you may repurpose the Starwalker's technology for your own gain! This weapon will require you to manually load and rearm it after each shot, but will do a significant amount of damage otherwise. - New bolts may be whittled into shape by using a sharp object on bones. These bolts, however, will not be able to inject or take reagents. - Bone bow - Reduce base damage, to better put it in a position on par with the crossbow but with a different niche of still being able to inject reagents. - Sinew Sling - With different ores, you can sling rocks at people! Some are heavier than others, and some might just have special effects. - In crafting, add "sling ammo" to raw ore. - Improved lasso: now "Sinew Whip" - In addition to being able to lead goliaths as per current behavior, this whip will be able to disarm people when hitting the arms, and trip when hitting the legs. - This barbed weapon will also bleed on hit at the same efficiency as a sword, but have low base damage otherwise. Consider it a supplement to your goliath mount, to make people to fear getting close. - Bone Mace - Blunt, but high in AP with damage less than a forged hammer. - Hits to the head will apply a slight blind effect, similar to what is seen on lasers. - Bone Needle - A long, sharpened bone rapier with a moderate block chance. Less damage than a forged sword, which also has block chance, but with on-par AP. - Yes, less block chance than station sabres.