Wonder. S
New member
[HERO CONTEXT]------------
YOU MAY NEED TO PAUSE THE VIDEO TO READ, AS IT REVIEWS LORE BITS AND INTERACTIONS WITH MANY CHARACTERS.
Reveal -> Back-Story -> Voice-Lines
Stella was once the class pet at Dynamo’s college, a jackalope kept in one of the campus labs. When the Astral Gate arrived and destroyed Dynamo’s body, the same surge of energy gave the small creature sentience and a new, human-like body. Panic set in as Stella suddenly became aware of himself and the chaos around him, back-logged memories flooding his brain.
In a frantic attempt to hide, he grabbed a professor’s school uniform from a nearby office, clothes far too large, and fled into the sewers beneath the campus. But not before several students caught glimpses of the strange antlered creature in human clothes. Soon, rumors spread across the school about the eerie coincidence: a mysterious being appearing the shortly after Dynamo's misfortune...
[DESIGN PHILOSOPHY]-----------
I asked myself a question. "What would be WEIRD and STRANGE in a world where the occult, magic, and gods exist? Can anything be 'out-of-place'?" and then it hit me. In this world, Jackalopes 100% exist as any rabbit would. Likely hunted, eaten, or kept as pets. With the strangeness that Astral Gates create - turning a mundane run-of-the-mill pet, into a uncanny anthropomorphic talking Jackalope who wields a staff made out of his own antlers might take the cake for weirdness in their world. THAT is the core idea of this character.
Frankly the lore for this character was developed first before any ability was. "How can I help expand this world to add more mysteries?"
[ABILITY PHILOSOPHY]-----------
I don't know much about how scaling works, so the numbers elude me - However, I wanted to create a Spirit-Support character that really has an impact on himself and his team. If you've played Destiny 2, Warlocks create rifts that buff your team and apply different effects. A similar design philosophy is implemented here that embodies how the best defense is an offense that relies on your team to land their shots, be present FOR you, while not removing individual agency of Stella when alone.
Based on the ideas here, you'd want to play around Orion's Belt to get heavy value out of debuffing your enemy and turning fights back on their head. Underdog type ability with snowball potential with itemization.
These abilities were created NOT out of necessity to any existing meta, but because i thought it would be cool.
(I have no idea how this would actually play, so the numbers listed aren't theory crafted for Eternus 6 players. Sorry!)
[NEW MECHANICAL ADDITIONS]-----------
IMMOVABLE
A new status effect that is like Unstoppable, but not immune to ultimates like Doorman's
ORION STACKS
More stacks = more effects. A take on Haze's ability, but requires more damage to cause the effect, and has a pay-off when all stacks are 'Popped' past the damage threshold required. Giving your teammates the ability to add stacks when given Asterism so Stella can benefit and stay alive is also a unique type of mechanic we do not see in similar effect.
HEALTH SCALING -> DAMAGE NUMBERS
This currently is not utilized and is generally left for individual hero's to figure out, but since Stella is a "Fate-Changer" he goes from Back-Line Support to being a Front-Line Tank that focuses on buffing his team at the cost of his own health.
WEAPON DAMAGE -> SPIRIT DAMAGE
In looking at the abilities of other characters, lots of characters have enhanced or modified versions of items you can buy. Stella's Asterism is much like Mercurial Magnum but allows for multiple teammates to dip into the benefit, requiring Stella players to be present for fights, picks - this gets the most value, as characters that WOULD buy Magnum may have an additional slot available for other Counters. Inherent value is made with Stella on your team.
ENDLESS ULTIMATE
How do you design around this? I dunno, but the point is to itemize health items to stay alive long enough for you to "Pop" the enemies Orion Stacks so you can stay in the fight. The bleed won't kill you, but bring you down to 1HP like Pocket's Affliction. This forces you to strategically choose when to go in, when to leave, lest you die, and make your team mad for why you popped your ult when no teammates were around to benefit from it. Could be broken, but it doesn't exist yet and I'd be curious to see how Valve could balance something like this.
DUAL FUNCTIONS
Meteor Pool heals teammates and deals damage to enemies, although not a lot unless you leverage the T3 upgrade in your Ultimate form
GATE KEEPING T3 ABILITIES
You'll see that the T3 ability points are ONLY AVAILABLE WHILE USING YOUR ULTIMATE. This was inspired by Shiv's rage meter, which develops different effects on his abilities while procced to get amplified effects. I wanted to REALLY make it broken while forcing you to choose wisely to maximize either area denial, post mortem to help your team, or increase your own survivability to steam-roll. Stella isn't weak with only T2, however, in my mind you aren't winning fights unless you're actively leveraging the T3 abilities.
If I were to choose, I'd choose to unlock the T3 in this order: 1, 4, 2, 3
If you think about it, his ultimate has 3 additional abilities only available while using his Ultimate.
ALT FIRE UNLOCKS
I feel like a character like this who's gun only has 7 ammo, with slow, swiping swooshes to launch slow wide projectiles, needs an alt-fire. Who needs to zoom in with that anyway? If it isn't clear, the alt fire unlock with Orion's Belt T2 allows you to throw out even wider bullets which travel at a snails pace, which then stop for a short time before exploding on their own - think of land-mine, but floating in the air. If you touch it, it explodes. If you don't touch it, it'll explode anyway. This level of area denial I feel is CRUCIAL to be relevant in early to Mid-game when you don't have your ultimate abilities. I had ideas for how to scale something like this, like larger explosions, but honestly wasn't sure how to think about that, or how its itemized. Would be cool to see more alt fires!
[Closing Thoughts]---------
I am a LORE FREAK. This game has brought a level of intrigue to me that's been missing for me since the first Destiny game. I would love to inspire, even just a little bit, to give a piece of myself to this game. I've dedicated nearly 700 hours, and although I am very bad still, I enjoy it and continue to enjoy it!
If you're curious, yes, I voiced my own lines in the video. Bit of a hurdle to say "here I am" to a community, but I'm doing it anyway! I am not fishing for kind words, and frankly if you voice act i would LOVE to talk with you because it's something I'd like to do more and get good at.
Side note, but the song used in the video is from Sherlock Holmes, orchestrated by Hans Zimmer. A genius musician, and to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if the Valve team was inspired by his work for the key themes for Deadlock! It fits perfectly!
Anyway, time for some links I guess.
Artist: @snowsie on Telegram and @snowsotigee.bsky.social for Bluesky (Hit them up they are AMAZING!)
Voice, Editing, Character Design, Ability Philosophy, Lore: Me
If you want to keep up on my artistic endeavors and travels, you can hit me up on Discord @Stellabyte or visit my Telegram channel https://t.me/bunnybungalow where, y'know, there's art that i do, travels, and other random stuff i guess idk. Sometimes that's interesting to people! If you do you may expect a shonen-esque web-comic with inspiration from ethereal concepts and of course JoJo themes. Not promising its coming out soon, but I'm in story-boarding phase!
View attachment StellaCharacterPitch.mp4
