# **The Path of Thorns**

The Path of Thorns is a new heretic path located between the Path of Blades and the Path of Rust. It's themed around plants, vines, and thorns, and its gameplay centers around the idea of area denial. On this path, heretics gain abilities which allow them to make places hazardous to other people and control where they can and can't go. However, it requires quick and clever thinking to use effectively, as it does not offer much in terms of raw power.

**Design goals:**
* Create a new heretic path that encourages its own unique style of gameplay and rewards the player's cleverness instead of just being "strong".
* Make the path naturally fit between the Path of Blades and the Path of Rust, both thematically and in terms of gameplay.
* Give it an appropriately occult flavor, revolving around the idea of the natural world (and by extension, the heretic invoking it) becoming inhospitable to human life.
* Avoid overlapping too much with pre-existing heretic abilities.
* Make it useful to branch into this path from other paths, especially Blades and Rust.

**Ability tree outline:**

| Path of Blades | --- | Path of Thorns | --- | Path of Rust |
| ----------------- | --- | ----------------- | --- | ----------------- |
| The Cutting Edge | --- | **The Vengeful Earth**| --- | Blacksmith's Tale |
| Grasp of the Blade | --- | **Grasp of Thorns** | --- | Grasp of Rust |
| Dance of the Brand | Armorer's Ritual | **Consuming Fungus** | **Pulsating Seed** | Leeching Walk |
| Mark of the Blade | --- | **Mark of Thorns** | --- | Mark of Rust |
| Stance of the Scarred Duelist | **Thorned Bola** | **[monster summon]** | Mawed Crucible | Aggressive Spread |
| Swift Blades | --- | **Prickly Blade** | --- | Toxic Blade |
| Furious Steel | Lionhunter's Rifle | **Shattered Earth** | **Curse of Miasma**| Aggressive Spread |
| Maelstrom of Silver | --- | **[ascension]** | --- | Rustbringer's Oath |

It's worth noting that, by necessity, this does make it more difficult

# Blade ritual: "The Vengeful Earth"

**Requirements:**
* 1 knife
* 1 bouquet (crafted with 6 poppies / 6 sunflowers / 6 roses)

Creates a **Thorned Blade**. Functions identically to the other heretic blades, but has a unique sprite.

# Grasp upgrade: "Grasp of Thorns"

You can now right click with the Mansus Grasp on an adjacent open tile in order to create a barrier of thorns. This barrier will stretch out across 3 tiles perpendicularly to the user and blocks movement and projectiles, cutting people on contact, but can be destroyed after taking a certain amount of damage. The Mansus Grasp has its default attributes when used on a person.

This serves the purpose of allowing the heretic to block off escape routes, or alternatively make it harder for people to approach them, which could be useful in a chase.

Concerns: What should the limit on how many barriers you can create be, if any, keeping in mind that the Mansus Grasp has a 10 second cooldown and the barriers can be destroyed by anyone?

# Spell: "Consuming Fungus"

A spell obtained near the beginning of the Path of Thorns. Requires a focus. When used, it makes a mushroom sprout from the caster's head for many seconds, which will purge all chemicals other than eldritch potion in the caster's body and heal toxin damage. If the caster is hit by a melee attack while the mushroom is on their head, it will burst, creating a spore cloud full of a reagent which causes toxin damage and hallucinations in non-heretics. The amount of this reagent in the cloud scales with the amount of toxins that had been healed in the caster's body by the mushroom prior to them getting hit. In high enough dosages, the reagent also causes organ damage.

This spell essentially provides both utility and combat functionality, allowing heretics to more readily deal with chemicals that could easily shut them down, including mute toxin if they happen to pre-emptively cast it first. The spore effect helps further the goal of this path being about area denial.

# Utility item: "Pulsating Seed"

**Requirements:**
* 3 seed packets (any kind)
* 1 stomach
* 1 beaker (any size)

Located on the sidepath between Thorns and Rust. Creates a **pulsating seed**, which can be used on a tile with exposed plating in order to create a structure called a **vile flower**. This flower can be filled with up to 100 units of reagents, which it will then gradually inject into nearby non-heretics within a close range. When out of reagents, it will instead inject a weak toxin that causes nausea and dizziness in larger doses. A heretic can right-click on the plant to empty its internal reagent container. The vile flower requires light to work, and will die after less than a minute in darkness. It can also be killed by feeding it Plant-B-Gone.

The open-endedness of this item allows for a lot of potential creativity, especially in the hands of someone who is skilled at chemistry or botany. It can be used for damage as well as for other utility, such as injecting people with mute toxin.

Concerns: The amount of reagents it injects into within a certain timeframe should be carefully balanced. The flower itself has weaknesses that allow it to be destroyed with a bit of work by people who know how, so this should be kept in mind.

# Mark upgrade: "Mark of Thorns"

When used on a person, the Mansus Grasp now applies the Mark of Thorns. When a person with the mark of thorns is hit with a heretic blade, they will become entangled in thorns for several seconds, keeping them on the ground for slightly longer and make it so they take brute damage whenever they try to move. This makes it risky for them to try to escape, while still having it be a possibility.

Concerns: The thorns should have visuals to indicate what is happening, and there should be feedback that the target is being damaged when they moved.

# Monster summon

**Requirements:**
* 4 nettles (any kind)
* 1 shovel/spade
* 1 rake
* 1 heart

Summons a monster played by a ghost. This monster should tie into the theme of area control by making it easier for the heretic to get around and harder for non-heretics.

**Monster abilities:**
* **Maw of the Earth:** Allows the monster to create a linked network of two portals which look like holes surrounded by razor-sharp, toothy vines. People and monsters can use these to fast travel between any of the portals. Heretics will take some brute damage; non-heretics will take more, receive slash wounds, and become dizzy when they emerge. Left-click will place/replace/destroy the first portal, while right-click will do this for the second. Both portals will be destroyed when the monster dies.
* **Grasping Thorns**: Places a thorny trap on the ground that applies the same effect as the Mark of Thorns on non-heretics who walk over it. Used for area denial. Each trap only works once, and there is a limit to how many can be placed at the same time.
* **Vine Grab**: A targeted ranged spell that pulls the target towards the monster and automatically bites them when they get near, in a manner similar to the changeling tentacle ability.

Concerns: How much health should the monster have, how much damage should it deal, and how fast should it move? I sort of imagine this one as being more about utility, but it should still be able to hold its own in combat.

# Combat item: "Thorned Bola"

**Requirements:**
* something plant-related? (representing the thorny stems)
* 6 planks of wood (regular bolas require 6 metal sheets)

Found on the side path between Blades and Thorns. A variant of bolas, one of the common makeshift weapons. These can be thrown at someone in order to ensnare them, requiring them to be resisted out of or removed by a friend. This can be done very quickly, but doing so will injure the person removing the bola if done without plant protection gloves. In addition, when the target is hit by the bola, it will erupt into vine tentacle projectiles which will drag nearby people towards the target and briefly knock them down in a manner similar to the Void Pull spell. The bolas are destroyed when removed, or if they miss the target.

Heretics can use this to reposition groups of people, which can form a clever synergy with the Grasp of Thorns - throw the bola at someone far away, and then quickly create a thorn barrier between you and them. It's also useful for mass disarming. Plus, even on targets who are alone, bolas are pretty useful.

# Blade upgrade: "Prickly Blade"

Upgrades the heretic blade so that when it strikes a target, it shoots out thorn projectiles over a very short distance in all 8 directions, which do a small amount of brute damage but completely bypass armor. This makes it more hazardous for people to attack you up close in groups.

# Spell: "Shattered Earth"

An AoE combat spell with a long cooldown, the penultimate ability of the Path of Thorns. Sends out a shockwave around you that deals brute damage, wraps them in vines like the Mark of Thorns ability, and throws them away from you, knocking them down for a short time. Doesn't deal as much damage as Void Phase, but maybe causes some slash wounds? Synergizes well with the Mansus Grasp thorn barrier ability.

# Curse: "Curse of Miasma"

**Requirements:**
* 3 mushrooms (any kind)
* 1 stomach
* something else?

Ritual on the tier 3 Thorns-Rust sidepath. Functions similarly to the other curse rituals, those being the Curse of Corrosion and the Curse of Paralysis. For a few minutes, the target will emit a toxic aura which causes disgust and vomiting in non-heretics, and gradually increasing amounts of toxin damage the longer someone stays nearby. This aura effects anyone who can see the target, but not the target themselves. This can be used to isolate a target by making them undesirable to be near, and could potentially be very useful in certain situations, such as when a target is being operated on in the medbay.

Concerns: The aura should be visible and come with a warning message so that people nearby might get scared into running away.

# Ascension

**Requirements:**
* 3 humanoid corpses who have a certain amount of any toxic reagent in them

Arguably the most important part of this path, as how cool and powerful the ascension is is going to have a huge impact on how often people will want to use it. Note that it does need to be cool *and* powerful - something visually impactful in some way that makes it clear just how much of a threat the heretic has become.