treese
New member
So this is a very loose idea that I came up with since I found it odd that this game doesn't really have a true alchemist character, which is a really cool field of esotericisim, especially in other cultures, in this case Finland.
Character/lore-wise, this character would be, as you could guess, an alchemist who belongs to a highly secretive and powerful esoteric organization in the Finnish government (basically their version of the OSIC). They are carrying the Sampo, a magic device from Finnish mythology that has a lot of interpretations, though I'm going off of the one from the Kalevala (a super important collection of Finnish mythology), which is basically a quern/mill/grindstone that can produce anything. In the Kalevala, the Sampo was destroyed during a clash between gods and lost to sea. In this character's backstory, a fishing boat found the remains of the Sampo, soon after which it was confiscated by the government and reconstructed to ensure it was real. Upon verifying its authenticity, the Finnish government immediately began looking for a way to permanently destroy it, as an infinite source of wealth like that would destroy the world economy, and holding onto it would just make them a target of other countries. Years of testing different methods to destroy the Sampo, including the first nuclear bomb (since I'm pretty sure the World Wars didn't happen in Deadlock's universe) proved fruitless, so as a last resort they are retracing the steps that destroyed it the first time, sending this character to bring the Sampo to yet another clash between gods in NYC, with their goal being to use the Patron's power to eradicate it completely.
Gameplay-wise, this character would probably be a supporty/"control" character like Doorman or Paradox that has a lot of influence over the shape of fights, while also being built around their highly impactful, game-defining ultimate, similar to Dynamo or Pocket. They use the Sampo as their weapon, cranking it like an old Gatling gun to launch coins as bullets, with a similar weapon feel to someone like Viscous or Kelvin in terms of fire rate, dmg, bullet velocity, etc. I can see them having good base movement stats, but maybe 2 stamina bars, since they're a character that needs to rotate around the map a lot but should be vulnerable when caught out. On the ability side, they have a series of character-specific resources representing each of the four primordial elements (earth, water, fire, air), which are obtained by dealing damage to different targets (neutrals/moss, enemy players, objectives/creeps, and idk maybe air just fills over time). These resources can be expended to improve their abilities (which I presently don't have any concrete ideas for, I'd imagine some kind of area damage/slow using transmutation, maybe an ability to summon like a homonculus at the cost of a lot of health, perhaps a wall or some other kind of terrain deformation, I'm super open to ideas), however they are also key for making the character's ult, the Magnum Opus, more powerful.
In alchemy, the magnum opus is effectively a ritual used to create the philosopher's stone, and that would similarly translate into the character's ult. Attempt it without first performing the proper steps (obtaining the materials), and the ritual fails, creating a large, highly powerful explosion around the character, kind of like Infernus' Ult. However, if you have the right amount of resources, the process works, and all targets around the alchemist are turned to gold, which stuns/petrifies them (like Vyper ult) and makes everything afflicted drop more money on death. The specifics would need some tuning, obviously, as I can imagine a bunch of ways in which this could be unbalanced, promote passive/unhealthy play, just not fit into the gameplay loop, etc., but I think the basic concept of a character who has to manage a personal resource, either using it more liberally for personal power or saving it for big team plays, has at least some merit?
But, uh, yeah, like I said, a very loose concept. I don't even have a name in mind, for crying out loud. Regardless, I'd really love to hear people's thoughts, and perhaps we can flesh the idea out together?
