This advance review of Nightborn: Coldfire Rising has just been posted on Pat's Fantasy Hotlist:
When C. S. Friedman got in touch with me to see if I'd like an early read of the forthcoming Coldfire prequel Nightborn: Coldire Rising, needless to say I was extremely excited. Not only would we get the story of the founding of Erna, but the book would also include a revised edition of the novella Dominion, which I read and reviewed back in 2012. It's been a while, that's for sure. Crown of Shadows, final installment in the original series, was published in 1995. Since then, the Coldfire trilogy has remained in print and very few SFF works can boast of such longevity unless they're quite good.
Friedman has always been adamant that there would never be a sequel to the Coldfire series. And nearly three decades down the line, it doesn't look like she will change her mind. However, the market for shorter works, especially novellas, has been expanding in recent years. So much so that she realized that the time could be ripe to explore ideas and concepts that, while they lacked enough material to warrant a novel-length project, could be turned into books that couldn't have been published just a few years back. Dominion was the first such project and it turned out to be a wonderful read.
Nightborn: Coldire Rising focuses on the Founding of Erna and what led to the First Sacrifice. Fans might recall that it's a tale hinted at in the prologue of When True Night Falls. Dominion recounts the story of how Gerald Tarrant mastered the Forest and became the Hunter. This novella takes place 613 years following the settlement of the colony on Erna and about six centuries prior to the events of the Coldfire trilogy. Friedman realized that Erna has a rich history that is hinted at in the series and that there was a wealth of material for potential prequels. Mapping out such story arcs, the author envisioned a set of novellas that would also explore the Age of the False Messiahs, the Neo-Gothic Revival and its Unification Wars, the great Rakhene Genocide, the transformation of the Forbidden Forest into Tarrant’s private hunting ground, and the Church’s doomed war against him and his minions. All of which has this Coldfire fan pretty excited!
Some readers unfamiliar with the original trilogy will wonder if Nightborn: Coldire Rising makes a good starting point for newbies. Yes, it is a prequel and efforts were made by the author to make this book a somewhat stand-alone work that can be read and understood without having read the Coldfire trilogy. And yet, why would you want to do that? The Coldfire series is a seminal work of dark fantasy that has withstood the test of time, so why would you want to pick up this one before reading the original material? Though Nightborn: Coldire Rising can be read on its own, without the context provided by the original trilogy you'd be missing out on lots of things and not just a few nuances. You might enjoy Dominion without having prior knowledge of Gerald Tarrant, but if you actually know the story of this fascinating badass character you'll be ecstatic. This new one is slated to be released in July, so there is ample time for you to find out for yourself just how brillant the Coldfire trilogy truly is by starting with Black Sun Rising. Follow this Amazon Associate link to learn more about this title and its sequels. Believe you me: You'll love them! And you'll be up-to-date when this prequel hits the shelves this summer.
Here's the blurb:
A prequel to the lauded Coldfire trilogy, Friedman's latest novel mixes the best of dark fantasy and chilling sci-fi.
A ship full of colonists arrive on a seemingly hospitable planet, only to discover that it harbors a terrifying secret. Soon the settlers find themselves caught up in a desperate battle for survival against the fae, a natural force with the power to prey upon the human mind itself, bringing a person’s greatest fears and darkest nightmares to life.
As Colony Commander Leon Case and Chief Medic Lise Perez struggle to find a way to control the fae before more people die, other settlers have ideas of their own…and they may prove more of a threat to colony than the fae itself.
Nightborn: Coldfire Rising is a tale that blends sci-fi, fantasy, and horror, suspenseful and emotionally intense, as a handful of humans struggle to survive on an alien world that seems determined to kill them. In the end they will have to draw upon both scientific knowledge and mystical traditions to save themselves.
Whether you're just discovering the Coldfire universe through this prequel or returning to it as a classic favorite, Nightborn: Coldfire Rising is the perfect entry point to this unique, genre-blending space fantasy epic.
As mentioned, Nightborn: Coldire Rising is the story of the Founding of Erna. It focuses on the horrors that the colonists had to face when they first encountered the mysterious and all-encompassing force they'll come to know as the fae. Coming out of cryogenic sleep after decades spent searching for an habitable planet, the leading faction of the settlers discover that their ship has been observing Erna for ninety years before waking them up. There are obviously some anomalies that prevented the ship from approving the planet as an acceptable settlement for their colony, but they can't find anything concrete as to why the process took this long. In an essay she wrote for her Patreon, Friedman says that one of the most interesting facets of the Coldfire Trilogy is its science fiction background. The people who landed on Erna were rational, scientifically minded people, from a culture not unlike our own. Yet a thousand years later they would have lost all their technology, mastered the fae (as much as anyone could), and adopted terminology and trappings from mysticism and sorcery. How did they get from point A to point B, changing not only their technology but the very tenor of their society? This is the question that she tried to answer with this newest work. How did the colonists figure out what the fae was in the first place? Fans of the trilogy will know that there were no adepts when the colonists landed on Erna. Hence, nobody could see it without Working their sight, but human beings hadn’t learned to Work yet. According to Friedman, this was the biggest challenge to address. If the colonists couldn’t see the fae, didn’t even know it was there to begin with, and had never encountered anything like it to make them suspect it even existed, how did they figure out how to See it, much less control it? That ended up being the main theme of Nightborn: Coldire Rising: a group of colonists trapped on a planet where a seemingly supernatural force was manifesting their darkest instincts and wildest nightmares, who were struggling to figure out what the hell it was and how to gain a measure of control over it before it killed them all.
And time is running out. When I started reading the book, I believed that the tale would cover the span of several months. Imagine my surprise when I realized that Nightborn: Coldire Rising only covers a period of about twenty days. Less than three weeks, that's how long it took for everything to go down the crapper. This lends a tense and suspenseful atmosphere to the story and forces characters to make questionable decisions as their lives and their chances of survival continue to unravel with each passing day. Though I would have liked for the story to cover a bit more ground and give us more than a glimpse of the colonists' early days on Erna, there's no denying that it is self-contained and ends with the aftermath of the First Sacrifice. You reach the ending wanting more, but this new Coldfire tale does what it set out to do. Understandably, it's more scifi than fantasy, and might feel a little discordant with the original material, at least stylistically. Yet a settlement story couldn't be anything else, and I'm sure that fans will enjoy discovering how it all began.
As for Dominion, well it was a doozy! Even though I read the original version a decade ago, like all Coldfire fans I relished the opportunity to revisit one of my favorite SFF characters of all time: Gerald Tarrant. And even though this one occurs more than six centuries into the pass, Friedman recaptured the feel of the Coldfire books. This makes this one impossible to put down and you'll likely finish it in a single sitting. As I mentioned in my first review, Friedman sets the mood perfectly. The narrative grabs hold of you and won't let go. The prose is evocative and the Forest almost becomes a character in its own right. Sure, some will say that hardcore fans are already won over. But it's no secret that the author knows how to draw readers into her tales and Dominion is no different.
The novella features the POVs of two protagonists. The first is that of Gerald Tarrant, first Neocount of Merentha. Although the thirty pages or so don't provide enough of an opportunity to fully appreciate this chance to see Tarrant in action and witness events unfold through his eyes, I loved every single moment of it. Hot damn, I want more! The second perspective is that of Faith, last survivor of a band of knights of the Church hunting faeborn creatures in the Forest. She possesses a special gift known as the Earth's blessing; the fae does not respond to her. Both characters find themselves in the heart of the Forest; one trying to escape, while the other means to best it. I think Friedman created a good balance between the two POV sections throughout the novella. I also enjoyed how the author introduced Amoril and how he became part of Tarrant's entourage.You reach the end too quickly for my taste, but again this tale is as long as it needs to be.
If all goes according to plan, Friedman says that the next novella will be a tale from the Neo-Gothic era, when a young idealist named Gerald Tarrant brings faith to his world, even as darkness begins to take root within his own soul. The author believes that fans of Gerald Tarrant will love to watch that corruption unfold, as well as seeing parts of his personal history that he hinted at in the original trilogy. So Coldfire fans unite! Unless Nightborn: Coldire Rising is a success, we might never get to read that new story. And I for one cannot countenance such a thing! I also want to read every other planned Coldfire novella, so we need to make it happen!
Original link: https://fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com/2023/03/nightborn-coldfire-rising.html
I'm so excited to read this one!:)

Hello, I have been playing Diablo I since 1997 and am here to review the open beta for Diablo II.
I started the download before I went to bed last night, as the beta was a beefy 150 MB and as excited as I was to check it out, I didnt want to get the download interrupted by my mom picking up the phone, and my 56K US Robotics modem maxes out at 5.4 KBps.
The download went through, and I was able to install the beta without issue. I considered starting before I left for school, but that would just entice me to play hooky for the day and I have a biology test that I dont want to have to make up.
As soon as I got home from school, I immediately connected to the internet and went to jump in. Unfortunately, many other people had the same idea and I couldnt get in.
After a few hours though, I finally got in, and was able to make a Barbarian, as that is the only class available for the open beta. I was most excited to make a Paladin, but that will have to wait.
I stepped out into the Blood Moor with a few other barbarians, some who were already level 3! My first quest was to kill the Den of Evil. This was not as easy as it sounded, as there were several monsters that revived other monsters, and I kept having to kill them. Hopefully these get nerfed in the full game, as it was extremely tedious to have to keep fighting them over and over.
Eventually, I made it to the final boss of the Den of Evil, Corpsefire, a zombie with a pack of minions. I died to Corpsefire and his cronies at least 5 times, although I lost track and almost quit in frustration. He is definitely overtuned, his elemental damage is deadly. I had to ask for help from one of the higher level characters in the game to help me kill Corpsefire, and then when he finally succumbed, his body exploded killing me again. For the first quest of the game this seems way too difficult.
I eventually made my way through the rest of the Blood Moor and found the next area, the Cold Plains. I was very disappointed to find that it had the exact same tileset as the Blood Moor. Just more boring green grass and stone walls. Its a little disappointing that Blizz took the lazy route and just reused the same graphics for an entirely new area, and I think players will eventually get bored of looking at the same thing over and over.
Additionally, there was a "Waypoint" at the entrance to the Cold Plains, which allowed me to teleport back to town without using a town portal. This is clearly catering to newer players as a "save point", which is also very disappointing. Not having to run back to continue your fight against evil kind of takes away from the point of going back to town to rest unless you are using a town portal.
The cold plains had a dungeon called "Caves" which seemed very uninspired, and was the exact same tileset as the Den of Evil, just a cave with a bunch of monsters in it. The Cave had two floors to it though, and the second floor was much smaller and filled with a ton of powerful monsters. After many more deaths and struggling with mana issues, I was able to open the magic chest that contained a "chipped sapphire". I was able to socket this in my helm and increase my mana significantly, which helped me use bash 3 more times before I ran out of mana, greatly increasing my damage output.
I continued my adventures through the Cold Plains and found "The Burial Grounds". Within the Burial Grounds was an absolutely unkillable boss named Blood Raven. This monstrosity raised zombies from the ground to protect her, and ran so fast I could never actually get an attack off on her. After many many futile attempts at killing her, I simply left and made a new game titled "Blood Raven". Some level 7(!) characters joined the game and we all used the waypoint to the cold plains and rushed to find the Burial Grounds.
On the way, we found a Gem Shrine, which one of the higher level barbarians clicked and out popped a Ruby. I asked them what that was and they said it upgrades a gem in your inventory to the next level. I assume this is what the end game will consist of, as these gem shrines seem to be quite rare, and only finding chipped gems (I had found a couple more in my adventures) means it takes several gem shrines to upgrade a gem fully. I am curious to see how much power the gems provide, as they seem to be the focus of items.
These high level barbarians quickly dispatched Blood Raven for me, and a yellow hand axe popped out, which I wasnt even able to loot because they took it. I felt a little miffed because I had spent a lot of time trying to kill Blood Raven, only to have my reward taken by someone else.
I asked the other players what was next, and they replied "ng" and all left the game. Confused, I ran around the Burial Grounds and found no exit, so I went back to the Cold Plains to explore some more. The Cave was still there, but still scuffed from my last adventure into the Cave, I chose to explore more of the Cold Plains. After about 15 minutes I had discovered the whole area and killed all the monsters, only to find there was no exit.
I went back to the cave and was able to clear it out without too many deaths this time, and even found some better items to help, including a yellow quilted armor tha tgave me 2 strength. I also found a LOT of blue items, it seems like they hand out those like candy. Some of them seem super over powered, I found a belt that increased my stamina by 5 which is the most important stat if you are looking for speed, as youll spend all your gold on stamina potions otherwise.
I felt comfortable enough now that I could start farming, so I made a new game and looked for gem shrines. I gained another level getting my bash to level 4, and looked at the rest of the skills. Many of them seem uninteresting. There is a shout called battle orders which increases your life by a %, but my life is only 150 and getting a % increase to life seems to not be worth all the points it would take to get to unlock battle orders. There is a skill in one of the trees called Increased Stamina though, which is probably the best skill, as running out of stamina constantly is a pain. Unfortunately it is level 18 and I dont think its possible to get that high, even when the game is released, as my XP gain really started to taper off after getting to level 6. Only the most dedicated players will make it to that high of a level.
I played for another 15 hours or so over the next few days, farming for gem shrines, which was pretty boring. Eventually I got a Flawless Ruby, but the level requirement on it was level 12 and I wasnt even level 10. I tried the PvP out, and that was really uninteresting, it basically came down to you and your opponent standing their clicking each other until one of you died.
I have to say, after Diablo 1, I was expecting a lot more from Blizzard. Gem Shrines are cool to find, but they are so rare I am not sure how they can classify gem farming as an end game experience. The levels all looked the same, either grass and rocks or a cave. Blood Raven is still too difficult, even at my high level I struggle to track her down and kill her, but she drops good loot, sometimes a yellow item, and I am still trying to beat one of the other barbarians in a duel.
Im not holding my breath on this one, the end game seems boring and repetitive and I am tired of seeing green grass.

Now for the moment some of you have been waiting for... How was The Dominion of Hate? Who did I pick to be the protagonist? How many dungeons did I do? How many superbosses did I fight? Did I have to break the rules to see the true ending? All that and more will be answered here and now!
This chapter took so much research to route correctly, so here's a numbered list of how I managed to complete this chapter:
Part 1 Choosing a Protagonist
If you guessed that Masaru would be my protagonist, you'd be correct! Here's why:
In a standard playthrough this would only matter a little, but here it matters a lot here because to unlock most of the party, you have to beat them in a one-on-one duel. There are some exceptions. For example, Cube and Sundown Kid are free no matter what, fighting Akira is optional, and you can skip fighting Pogo and Masaru if you're playing as Lei and Cube or Sundown Kid respectively. Out of all of the playable characters that were fightable, all but one of them had resistances that were either natural or equipment-based: Lei is resitant to agile and slashing attacks; Pogo is resistant to blunt, divine, and demonic attacks; Oboromaru is resistant to blunt, spirit, projectile, and water attacks; and Akira is resistant to water and spirit attacks. You may have noticed that I said that ALL BUT ONE playable character that you can fight has resistances. This is because Masaru has none and nothing can change that.
With all of this information in mind, here is the criteria for the ideal protagonist to minimize rule breaks in order from most to least important:

1. Protagonist is able to skip fighting Masaru
2. Protagonist is able to fight Lei
3. Protagonist is able to fight Akira

(Being able to fight Pogo and Oboromaru was not a concern because everyone has attacks that play to Oboromau's resistances and Pogo could damage himself with Fly Huge Boom, which is a move that's easy to dodge)
Taking rule 1 into account, that only left me with Cube, Sundown Kid, and Masaru. The problem? Cube could take down Akira but not Lei since he has no agile or slashing attacks, Masaru could take down Lei but not Akira since he has no water or spirit attacks, and Sundown Kid couldn't defeat either of them. There were items that could deal spirit damage in this chapter, but I was worried I wouldn't have enough supply since I knew there was only 1 Solomon's Thighbone. Besides that, Akira himself was the only one who had an unlimited supply of spirit attacks in the form of the Showa Chick Launcher and some of his attacks...
Or was he? I remembered something: Akira may have had the most items that could attack infinitely, but he was not the only one to have them in any capacity: Lei was holding onto a Bottle Gourd that I got in the previous chapter. The Bottle Gourd does, in fact, do spirit damage!
This meant that I could strike rule 3 off of the list, thereby making Masaru my protagonist for the chapter.
Part 2 A Huge, High-Powered, Intimidating Team. The Likes of Which You've Never Seen
Starting in the Castle Dungeon, I had early access to the armory, so I looted it and went off to the Last Hero's Grave. Here, I could grab Cube's Battery and start the quest to get Sundown Kid for later, but the most important part was fighting Lei. After force-feeding her Fleetfoot sandwiches, she was my first official party member.
Heading back down the mountain, I made a beeline for Akira. I was forced to target him with the Bottle Gourd, which unfortunately had a long charge time. This meant that I had to aim where he was going to be instead of where he was standing. Eventually, I drained him of all his health and he became my ally as well as vastly expanding my infinite items, giving me access to more wind, fire, water, earth, projectile, martial, and spirit attacks. Next on the chopping block was Oboromaru, but he went down real easy.
I was fairly certain that this would be the party I would use to fight Odio (I'll get into why later), but I still wanted to get into their dungeons to stockpile items and equipment for them. I would also want to enter the other characters' dungeons because I would possibly want to fight the optional bosses. But before I talk about the dungeons, I can't forget to talk about...
Part 2.5 The Omnipresent Enemies
There are a variety of enemies in this chapter. When I was just playing as Masaru (or even when Lei was in my party), I had to run away a lot because the enemies either could trigger my counter moves easily or just weren't resistant to my moves. But when I got Akira and Oboromaru, I could fight almost anything. I'm not joking when I say that some of these battles took longer than the boss battles. Here were some of the harder battles I had to fight:

1. Dragon Killer and Pistachio or Giant Face enemies (forgot their name): The Dragon Killer is always the leader in these fights. This one took me a while to figure out. The Dragon Killer has resistances to everything. However, I then figured out that you can just kill them with the fire tiles from Oboromaru's Fireflies' Wake. I didn't have to worry about colateral damage either because both the Pistachio and Giant Faces are also resistant to fire attacks.
2. Claustrophilia and Entmophilia: The 2 Entmophilia could be dispatched with wind attacks, but I had to be careful not to counter with Masaru. If I did that, I would have to flee. Meanwhile with Claustrophilia, I had to take it down with martial attacks. Lei would do this ideally, and luckily Claustrophilia had no attacks she could counter, but she did plenty of damage.
3. Grangras: I feel like half of my playtime in this chapter was fighting this mammoth no matter what allies he came with. Grangras's only resistance was water attacks. This meant I had to use both Akira's Cold Day in Hell and Oboromaru's Winter's Chill. I initially also tried using the Katabuki Laquer with the other party members, but I realized that being adjacent to Gangras was a big mistake since that could trigger his Avalanche attack which spawned water tiles that healed him. This meant I had to chip damage off of him from a distance. His ranged attack was weak, thank god, but the fight still took a long time because of his high health pool. To add to the length of this fight, there are 3 types of allies that could spawn with him. The Bulb enemies were pretty easy to deal with, but the Kuu Warrior-like enemies and a second Gangras were not. The Kuu Warriors were easy to kill with Wise Fox's Grace and Cross Slash, but did a lot of damage with Big Bang Boom and were easy to counter if I couldn't kill them in one hit. Meanwhile, another Gangras doubled the length of the already long fight. I don't know why, but I got this enemy more than any other in the chapter.
4. The Chimera-like enemies (Forgot name): These were the only enemies with resistances in this chapter that I could not kill. The problem is that their counter heals them. Combined with my pathetic damage, this made them basically invincible.

Throughout this chapter, I had to fight these enemies, so just keep this in mind as I go forward.
Part 3: The Trials, Remaining Characters, and (Lack of) Optional Bosses
The first trial I decided to go for was Akira's Trial of Heart. I did this by teleporting away from enemies constantly. I had to use a guide to ransack the entire place, still getting lost, meaning I was encountering several enemies, levelling me up little by little.
Once I beat it, I finished chasing Sundown Kid down and picked up Cube to do his dungeon, having him temporarily replace Lei. I bypassed Sundown Kid for now and went to the Trial of Wisdom. After completing that, it was then that I picked up Sundown Kid and went to the Trial of Time. I at first tried to fight the Jaggedy Jacks, but I could barely make a dent in their health. Instead, I just grabbed the magnum and left, getting some extra loot afterwards.
After that, I grabbed Pogo by making him poke holes in himself with Fly Huge Boom. I got into the Trial of Instinct and beat it with ease, again ignoring the optional boss inside. After how bad the Jaggedy Jacks were, I decided to only fight optional bosses if I had to.
After I got done with it, I picked up Lei again. I hadn't gotten her to level 16 yet while the others were already at that level. To get her there, I decided to finally do Masaru's Trial of Power. The fight against Aposphilo was pretty easy since he was weak to Spirit attacks as well as many others, meaning that the Showa Chick Launcher came in clutch. This dungeon had so much equipment to go around.
However, I made it out in one piece and with Lei at level 16. This was when I decided I was ready to do the Trial of Skill. This dungeon was also loot-heavy but the barrier to getting the loot was easy since I had all of Lei's moves as well as only having to fight the Bountiful Heart over and over again, who was weak to spirit. All I had to do was spam Heavenly Peaks Descent as Lei and Showa Chick Launcher as everyone else. Sometimes the Chick Launcher even turned him to stone, killing him instantly. Ransacking this place was a cinch.
You may have noticed that I haven't mentioned the Trial of Keys yet. That's because it's the only impossible dungeon. The Shadows have no resistances, so no need to even bother.
Now that all of the trials were cleared or were impossible, I could enter the final dungeon: Archon's Roost. This location had the most valuable items such as the Golden Burial Gown, which basically made one character resistant to everything. With that item and others, all of my party was heavily resistant to most of the elements. The Shroud of Demons and Bael's Blood would also be essential for the battle against the Sin of Odio. Speaking of which...
Part 4: The Demon, the Myth, the Legend: Odio
Finally, I can talk about why I chose Akira, Oboromaru, and Lei to be my main party members. Besides dispatching the enemies better than most of the other characters, they also also were the best-equipped to deal with Odio's resistances in the his first phase. Want to see how?
I decided to target his first phase one limb at a time just so the other limbs wouldn't attack me on multiple fronts. I started with The Maw of Odio. The Maw is resistant to wind, earth, spirit, and demonic attacks. With Masaru, I spammed Worldbreaker's Wrath. With Akira, I used The Devil's Due. With Oboromaru, I used Phantom Butterflies. Most importantly, with Lei I used Heavenly Peaks Descent. While the others did chip damage, Lei was doing quite a bit. The Maw attacked Lei and Oboromaru constantly and debuffed them, but if that happened, I had stockpiled so many healing items from the many dungeons and enemies.
The Maw went down and it was on to the Eyes of Odio. The eyes were weak to water, wind, spirit, divine, and demonic attacks. Yet again, I only attacked one eye at a time starting on the left. I used the same moves as Lei and Oboromaru but I switched to the Showa Chick Launcher with Masaru and Judgement Day for Akira to heavily debuff it. The Eyes were slightly harder because it used the incredibly powerful Shadow of Despair and Expunge, which could damage my party members and heal itself. Despite this, the first eye went down and I could use the same tactics on the other Eye.
Now it was time to fight Purity of Odio. Unfortunately, Purity of Odio had no resistances or weaknesses. I kept my distance and used the same moves with everyone but Masaru, who switched back to Worldbreaker's Wrath. Judgement Day and Phantom Butterflies were especially potent since they could inflict poison, which I consider Purity of Odio's true weakness. Because I kept my distance, Purity of Odio only used Shadow of Despair and Denial. Denial could interrupt people, so that only made Judgement Day all the more potent since it could also hinder his accuracy. Again, I still had so many healing items. If someone was about to die or had a debilitating condition, I could pull out an Izanagi Scroll and heal everyone. Despite this, Oboromaru fell in this fight because he got overwhelmed. Luckily, I didn't really need him to finish the fight.
After NOT executing Oersted, it was now time for the boss rush. There was nothing of note in these fights because they were literally the same fights I had already done except there were no minions, which was a relief for Sundown Kid's fight with O. Dio.
Now it's the moment you've all been waiting for. Is it possible to beat Sin of Odio while only attacking with attacks he's resistant to? Let's see.
The Arms are resistant to martial and demonic attacks while the Body is weak to just demonic attacks. I attacked the left arm first. With Masaru, I crippled it with Celestial Palm. Lei then used Monkey's Palm to do more damage. From a distance, Oboromaru used the Spring-Loaded Punch Gun to chip at the Arm. Finally and most importantly, Akira used The Devil's Due to hit the Arm and the Body, as he's the only one in the party with unlimited demonic attacks (Cube also has a demonic attack, but it's weak so that's why I didn't consider him). Unfortunately, this put Oboromaru and Akira at the mercy of the Body's attacks, which were pretty powerful. The Arm's attacks were nothing to scoff at either. Because it could easily knock characters back, I purposefully kept Akira out of its range. Luckily, I still had healing items a'pleanty. Even if a character fell unconcious, the couldn't be dealt a finishing blow in this fight. I used the same procedure on the other arm before. After that, I proceeded to only using only The Devil's Due on the Body, keeping more of a distance this time. Lament of the Damned could debilitate everyone pretty badly, but Akira was wearing the Golden Burial Gown, so he only took the damage and not the effects. Overall, half of my area-healing items were consumed.
Eventually, Odio used Absolute Condemnation, locking my primary party members and forcing Cube, Sundown Kid, and Pogo to fight. I'm not entirely sure if all of them have to hit Sin of Odio to proceed or if only one has to, but just to make sure, Sundown Kid and Pogo used Shrouds of Demons while Cube used Force Shutdown (a demonic move). After Cube used Force Shutdown one more time, everyone was freed for the final attack on Odio. I used Akira and Cube's demonic moves one more time each and passed with everyone else (luckily, you don't need to attack Sin of Odio with everyone).
Using Absolute Condemnation one more time, all of the party members were trapped, meaning it was all up to Oersted to kill his dark side. He needed just one demonic attack and this fight would be over! Oersted slayed Sin of Odio the same way Hasshe did all those years ago: Archon's Mark!
Part 5 Enjoy the Ending
What a run this was! Unfortunately, I had to break the rules quite a bit throughout the entire run, but the parts I didn't have to rule break made me play the game differently than I had done in any of my previous playthroughs. I never considered grinding in the first area of the Prehistoric chapter, avoiding countering in Present Day, taking out minions slowly one at a time at a distance in Imperial China, intentionally skipping The Prisoner in Edo Japan, and avoiding the easy encounters in the Near Future.
Another fruitful playthrough of Live a Live in the books. I honestly think I should consider speedrunning this game if I enjoy replaying it so much. Or perhaps I could do another challenge run in the future. If you have any ideas for challenges, leave them in the comments and good day to you all!

**DISCLAIMER..**This won't be a guide, but an interesting and build enabling interaction. I play a lot of minion builds in the HC version of the game.
First Part
Rallying Cry
Counts total Power of Enemies and Allies in RangeBuff grants Added Attack Damage equal to 3% of the Damage of your MainHand Weapon per 5 Power, up to a maximum of 20%Buff has 100% more Effect on your MinionsExerts the next 5 Melee Attacks you performExerted Attacks deal 5% more Damage per affected Ally, to a maximum of 25%
Divergent version got 40% more Effect on your Minions per 20% quality. This can be increased by enhance, Ashes of Stars, Dialla's, + level of socketed gems (for enhance) and other quality % increases. You want to get as high % qual on the divergent rallying cry as possible
Second part
A very high damage weapon, attack speed does not matter. Examples: Marohi, Winds of fate, A well crafted rare, also Atziri Disfavour(if you can make use of the support qual %)
The Divergent rallying cry will take a large portion of the weapon damage and turn it into flat weapon damage, and give to your minions. Picking the right minion will make their damage increase by a large margin.
Third Part
Picking the right minion; This tactic is best with minions that scale well from gaining additional added flat. Skeletons (would be good if they didn't nerf the 50% added dmg), dominating blow and zombies already got a decent chunk of added flat, the added flat from the weapon with rallying cry would still be good just not borderline OP on some minions.
Good minions to use this tech on:
1. My favorite, Animate Guardian with Chains of Command (Voidforge). The 800% physical as extra elemental damage makes the added flat scale incredibly well.
2. Spectres, use a melee spectre with low base damage but good scaling (Primal crushclaw is very good, also many similar options)
3. Summon Raging Spirits, they scale incredibly well with added flat. Each level also makes SRS scale better.
4. Animate Weapons, got a pretty low base flat. The large amount added will help them out.
5. Temp minions (More experimental; grave enchant on gloves, wolves from ring/claw and permanent white SRS from essence)
6. Uncertain if it works, Ranged minions. (Blink Arrow, Skeleton Archer, Spectre (SO and similar) Further testing is required.
Tested Char
https://poe.ninja/challengehc/builds/chaMaximus2905/LuciousMagebloodMinions?i=1&search=name%3Dluc
This is my char I played to 100 in HC trade Sanctum. The AG used Voidforge, and my char used Winds of Fate. You can use it as inspiration for your own build. Bossing with this char is questionable at best, and need quite a bit of changes.
Feel free to comment,Lucious

So here are some datamined unique items (build 0.8.0.39517). *Please note: These may not be final and there could be additional unique items added, or powers/names changed. I don't believe this is the final list, in fact, I've seen screenshots of many other uniques that aren't listed here. You'll notice a few fan-favorite uniques returning in the list from previous games along with uniques that are completely new.
*posted in the diablo reddit but was told I should post here as well.
In beta we got to see only a tiny part of charactebuild customization. Once we combine legendary powers, affixes and stats on gear, paragon boards, glyphs (socket these into paragon boards), uniques, skill trees, and the class-specific systems (enchantments, book of the dead, spirit boons, etc) we should be in a great place which should be enough to satisfy even the most veteran arpg fans out of the gate.
So uniques have the following:

• static affixes, any drop of that specific unique will always have the same affixes (although they still roll within a range, 5-15 strength for example. So it is possible to find a "perfect" rolled item).
• the affixes may be something that don't normally show up on that slot. For example, a helm could have 30% movement speed. Movement speed doesn't normally roll on the helm slot.
• There could be a unique affix on the item that doesn't appear on any other item in the game. For example, the Harlequin Crest has the affix "+45% crafting material find". I haven't seen that stat on any other item so it may be just exclusive to it. This list doesn't show those unique affixes.
• the number of affixes on the item don't have to follow rares/legendary. Could be more/less.
• the value of affixes can be unique. For example, if the max roll for a specific affix on a rare is 25%, you may find a unique that has a range going up to 50% instead. They don't follow any rules.
• Uniques are tied to lore/maybe have a tiny backstory or flavor text

Normal/Sacred/Ancestral tiers
Something that I've also not seen much discussion on are sacred or ancestral tiers of items. If you don't know what these are, they are similar to ancient items in D3. As you go up in difficulty (world tiers) you unlock the chance for any item that drops to be sacred or ancestral. All items; white, magic, rare, legendary or unique have a chance to roll as sacred or ancestral. Sacred items roll higher values and item power than normal tier, and ancestral items roll higher values and item power than sacred tiers. Finding an ancestral item at the highest world tier is actually pretty rare, so you can imagine that finding an ancestral unique or legendary item will be very rare and add to the actual endgame loot hunt.

Unique Items

Barbarian specific uniques:

Item Name	Type	Power	Flavor Text
Ramaladni's Magnum Opus	1h Sword	Skills using this weapon deal x% increased damage per point of Fury you have, but you lose x Fury every second.	"Without him the wine is less sweet, the hearth less warm, and our blades less keen. Our blood brother is gone, but Bul-Kathos willing, we will meet again one day." - Sorrowsong for Ramaladni *this is a tribute to Travis Day, a Blizzard developer who passed away.
Ancients' Oath	2h Axe	Steel Grasp launches 2 additional chains. Enemies hit by Steel Grasp are Slowed by x% for x seconds.	"Weapons wielded by the fiercest warriors often catch the eye of the Ancient spirits. If the wielder is worthy, the spirits may bless the steel with their strength." - Gerti, Oxen Tribe Forgemaster
Hellhammer	2h Mace	Upheaval ignites the ground Burning enemies for an additional x damage over x seconds.	The demon prince Ikonoth slew hundreds of the Heavenly Host with this infernal hammer before falling to none other than the Archangel Imperius himself.
Overkill	2h mace	Death Blow creates a shockwave, dealing x% of its Base damage to enemies. Enemies who die to this effect also reset Death Blow's Cooldown.	The malformed snake creatures that live in the swamps are not content with simply killing their prey. They seem to take a malicious pleasure from inflicting as much suffering as possible before death.
Fields of Crimson	2h Sword	While using this weapon, damaging at least one enemy with Rupture creates a blood pool that inflicts x Bleeding damage over x seconds. Enemies standing in the pool take x% increased Bleeding damage.	"We've been fighting these flesh-eaters for so long, been soaked in so much blood, that after a while it's difficult to tell what side you're truly on." - Daelyr, Crane Tribe warrior
Battle Trance	Amulet	Increase Frenzy's maximum stacks by x. While you have maximum Frenzy, your other Skills gain x% increased Attack Speed.	"The change that overtook my brother in battle was terrifying. His eyes turned hard like diamonds, and the way he moved... it was like he was dancing to music only he could hear." - Captain Dervin
100,000 Steps	Boots	After gaining the final damage bonus from the Walking Arsenal Key Passive, you automatically cast Ground Stomp and gain x Fury. This cannot happen more than once every x seconds.	"While many Barbarians remained in the Dreadlands, small groups from the Oxen, Crane and Bear tribes instead chose to search the land for a new home." - A History of the Children of Bul-Kathos
Rage of Harrogath	Chest	Lucky Hit: Up to a x% chance to reduce the Cooldowns of your Non-Ultimate Skills by 1 seconds when you inflict Bleeding on Elites.	Harrogath, the final bastion of resistance against Baal's assault on Mt. Arreat was destroyed along with the Worldstone. The survivors never forgave the betrayal that led to the loss of their home.
Gohr's Devastating Grips	Gloves	Whirlwind explodes after it ends, dealing x% of the total Base damage dealt to surrounding enemies as Fire damage.	"The brutish construction of these gloves belies the strength they bestow. Gohr was clearly no craftsman, but it would be foolish to ignore the triumph of his work." - Barrett's Book of Implements
of Hammering *(this is listed as unique test, but the name reads more like a legendary.)	2h Mace	(PH) Consecutive Hammer of the Ancients increase the next cast's damage by x% its radius by x%.	-

Druid specific uniques:

Item Name	Type	Power	Flavor Text
Waxing Gibbous	1h Axe	Gain Stealth for x seconds when killing enemies with Shred. Breaking Stealth with an attack grants Ambush which guarantees Critical Strikes for x seconds.	The nights preceding the full moon are sometimes far more dangerous than the event itself. The frenzy has begun to rise, yet the night is just dark enough to obscure a hunter from their prey's sight.
Greatstaff of the Crone	2h Staff	Claw is now a Storm Skill and also casts Storm Strike at x% normal damage.	"She has existed in Scosglen since before Fiacla-Géar walked the land. Her purpose is a mystery to us all. However, approach her with deference; she may grant you her counsel." - Airidah, to Donan
Mad Wolf's Glee	Chest	Werewolf form is now your true form, and you gain +2 Ranks to all Werewolf Skills.	"He was not a victim of the curse - he sought it out. As his skin split and his bones cracked, his laughter never ceased." – Tale of the Mad Nobleman
Insatiable Fury	Chest	Werebear form is now your true form, and you gain +2 Ranks to all Werebear Skills.	When the Days of Ash began, the great druid Nafain reminded his disciples that nothing, not even the loss of their humanity, was too great a sacrifice to protect Túr Dúlra from Astaroth's flames.
Tempest Roar	Helm	Lucky Hit: Storm Skills have up to a x% chance to grant x Spirit. Your base Storm Skills are now also Werewolf Skills	"Listen, child, to the music of the storm. It has its own rhythm. Its own melody. Hear how beautifully it sings, and perhaps one day you will be able to join in its harmony." – Airidah
Vasily's Prayer	Helm	Your Earth Skills are now also Werebear Skills and Fortify you for x.	"Roots from the Great Oak growing at the seaward statue of Vasily will, on rare occasions, be found twisted back upon themselves, suffused with ferocious magic." - Barrett's Book of Implements
Storm's Companion	Pants	Your Wolf Companions are infused with the power of the storm, dealing Lightning damage and gaining the Storm Howl ability.	"The storm's rage is my own, brother. I call, and the skies roar in reply." - Vasily, to Bul-Kathos
Hunter's Zenith	Ring	Gain a bonus when you kill with a Shapeshifting Skill: Werewolf: Your next Non-Ultimate Werebear Skill costs no Resource and has no Cooldown. Werebear: Your next Werewolf Skill will Heal you for x when damage is first dealt.	"By fang, claw, spear, or sword - send the bastards back to the flames from which they crawled! Soak the peat with their blood! For Fiacla-Géar! For Scosglen!" - Nafain, during the Days of Ash

Necromancer specific uniques:

Item Name	Type	Power	Flavor Text
Black River	1h Scythe	Corpse Explosion consumes up to x additional Corpses around the initial Corpse, dealing x% increased damage and with a x% larger radius per additional Corpse.	"The scrolls describe a river of tar that separated the living from the land of the dead. Any unfortunate soul who tried to cross would be dragged down into oblivion." - Notes of Scholar Kamien
Bloodless Scream	2h Scythe	Your Darkness Skills Chill enemies for up to x%. Lucky Hit: Your Darkness Skills have up to a x% chance to generate x additional Essence against Frozen targets.	"My companion swung her odd weapon in a wide arc, and our pursuer stopped short. The look of horror on his face as his body fell to pieces will haunt me forever." - The Ebon Pages, Canto II, Verse XI
Deathspeaker's Pendant	Amulet	Blood Surge casts a mini nova on your Minions, dealing x damage. Damage is increased by x% per target drained by the initial cast, up to x%.	Once a sanctum for Rathma's studies, the Temple of the Deathspeaker became a proving grounds for potential leaders of his priesthood. Its halls are filled with the corpses of those who failed.
Greaves of the Empty Tomb	Boots	Create desecrated ground beneath your Sever spectres as they travel, damaging enemies for x Shadow damage over x seconds.	"The massive door to my family's crypt, which had taken a dozen men to close, was thrown open. Had I known the horrors to come I never would have set foot inside!" -The Ebon Pages, Canto I, Verse VII
Blood Artisan's Cuirass	Chest	When you pick up Blood Orbs, a free Bone Spirit is spawned, dealing bonus damage based on your current Life percent.	"The infamous Necromancer Gaza-Thul's mastery over blood magic was indisputable. Many suspect that upon his death, his skin was used to fashion this eldritch armor." - Barrett's Book of Implements
Howl from Below	Gloves	Instead of detonating immediately, Corpse Explosion summons a Volatile Skeleton that charges at a random enemy and explodes. Corpse Explosion's damage is increased by x%.	"Can you not hear it? That endless scream from the cold earth beneath your feet!? They are down there, trapped, blind with rage! Waiting to drag us down into the sod!" - Ravings of Madman Gustav
Deathless Visage	Helm	Bone Spear leaves behind echoes as it travels that explode, dealing x damage.	"Rathma is endless. He was the first Ancient, and will remain at the end. He is the master of the Great Cycle of Being. When Death comes for him, why should he fear it?" - Vauntus, Acolyte of Rathma
Ring of Mendeln	Ring	While you have x or more Minions you gain: Lucky Hit: Up to a x% chance to empower all of your Minions, causing the next attack from each to explode for x Physical damage.	The signet of Mendeln ul-Diomed, the founder of the Priests of Rathma and the first Necromancer, was lost for over 3,000 years. The immense power over death held within, however, has not diminished.

Rogue specific uniques:

Item Name	Type	Power	Flavor Text
Condemnation	Dagger	Your Core Skills deal x% increased damage when spending 3 Combo Points. Your Basic Skills using this weapon have a x% chance to generate 3 Combo Points.	"I've never seen such ruthless butchery. He deserves to be be shipped off to die in the swamps with the rest of the godless murderers." - Witness to the murder of Sergeant Walcot
Asheara's Khanjar	Dagger	Hits with this weapon increase your Attack Speed by x% for x seconds, up to x%.	When Caldeum's gates closed, Asheara led her Iron Wolves out of the city knowing full well they would never return. Instead they roamed Kehjistan pledging their blades to any who were in need.
Skyhunter	Bow	The first direct damage you deal to an enemy is a guaranteed Critical Strike. If you had maximum stacks of the Precision Key Passive when you cast the Skill, gain Energy, this can only happen once per cast.	"Genai took up her bow and aimed at the sun itself. The light burned her eyes, but her arrow flew true. Wounded, the sun hid, and brought forth the first night. - Fable of the Great Sky-Hunt
Windforce	Bow	Lucky Hit: Hits with this weapon have up to a x% chance to deal double damage and Knock Back the target.	"There have been numerous world-shaping conflicts throughout history. This bow has been found on the battlefield of every one, and always in the hands of the victors." - Barrett's Book of Implements
Word of Hakan	Amulet	Your Rain of Arrows is always Imbued with all Imbuements at once.	"Let the great gates of Caldeum be sealed. Let its proud walls stand fiercely defended. The rest of Kehjistan may suffer this plague, but my city, and my people, will not." - Proclamation of Hakan II
Grasp of Shadow	Gloves	Lucky Hit: Damaging a Vulnerable enemy with a Marksman or Cutthroat Skill has up to a x% chance to summon a Shadow Clone that mimics your attack.	Dark wisps creep hungrily across these gloves, like an assassin's blade seeking a life to steal on a moonless night.
Cowl of the Nameless	Helm	You gain x% increased Lucky Hit Chance against Crowd Controlled enemies.	"He is banished from the Guild, his name stricken from the Book. His punishment is to never have been." - Excerpt from a burned parchment
Eyes in the Dark	Pants	Unless it hits a Boss or Player, Death Trap will continue to re-arm itself until it kills an enemy. However, Death Trap's Cooldown is increased by x%.	"And so, when the sun dipped behind the hills each night, he knew that Ashen Jack would soon be near. Watching, and waiting." - Greenslade's Tales, Chapter 2: "Each Long Night" name*:* Eyes in the Dark

Sorcerer specific uniques:

Item Name	Type	Power	Flavor Text
Flamescar	Wand	While Channeling Incinerate, you periodically shoot embers that are attracted to enemies, each dealing x Fire damage.	The burn may heal, but the pain is eternal.
Staff of Endless Rage	Staff	Every 3rd cast of Fireball launches 2 additional projectiles.	"Leaving even blackened bones for your kin to mourn is too good an end for you." - Josiah
Staff of Lam Esen	Staff	Charged Bolts pierce, but deal x% less damage.	"Also known as the Greatstaff of the Old Religion, this powerful relic is one of only a small handful of Skatsimi artifacts that have survived to this day." - Barrett's Book of Implements
Esadora's Overflowing Cameo	Amulet	Upon collecting Crackling Energy, there's a x% chance to release a lightning nova, dealing x Lightning Damage.	The only thing more potent than Esadora's magic was her endless hatred of humanity. As she lay dying, the pale amulet around her neck drank in both.
Esu's Heirloom	Boots	Your Critical Strike Chance is increased by x% of your Movement Speed bonus.	"While scholars have proven these boots were not created by Esu herself, it is noteworthy that they have been passed down since the formation of the Mage Clans." - Barrett's Book of Implements
Raiment of the Infinite	Chest	After using Teleport, Close enemies are Pulled to you and Stunned for x seconds, but Teleport's Cooldown is increased by x%.	The power you have is never enough.
Gloves of the Illuminator	Gloves	Fireball now bounces as it travels, exploding each time it hits the ground, but its explosion deals x% less damage.	After Inarius returned to Sanctuary, he sought a way back to the High Heavens. His first step was to reignite the religion he had abandoned millennia before: the Cathedral of Light.
Iceheart Brais	Pants	Enemies that die while Frozen have a x% chance to unleash a Frost Nova.	The mad artisan saw his fingers turn black from frostbite as he worked the cloth, but refused to stay the needle and thread for even a moment.

General (used by all) uniques:

Item Name	Type	Power	Flavor Text
The Butcher's Cleaver	1h Axe	Lucky Hit: When you Critically Strike an enemy you have up to a x% chance to Fear and Slow them by x% for x seconds.	A nightmarish amalgam of blood, bone and steel, this axe is as horrific, and as deadly, as its creator.
Doombringer	1h Sword	Lucky Hit: Up to a x% chance to deal x Shadow damage to surrounding enemies and reduce their damage done by x% for x seconds.	Whenever this ancient sword has reappeared throughout history, it portends a time of great strife, as well as a devastating loss of life.
The Grandfather	2h Sword	Increases your Critical Strike Damage by x%. The other properties on this weapon can roll higher than normal.	An unbroken lineage of unwavering strength.
-	2h Sword	-	-
-	2h Sword	-	-
-	2h Sword	-	-
Melted Heart of Selig	Amulet	Gain x% Maximum Resource. In addition, when you take damage, drain x Resource for every x% of Life you would have lost instead.	"Do not allow your passions to become obsessions. Fuel the fire that burns within you, but it is madness to allow yourself to become ash to please an uncaring universe." - Last words of Master Selig
Penitent Greaves	Boots	You leave behind a trail of frost that Chills enemies. You deal x% more damage to Chilled enemies.	Remorseful devotees of the Cathedral of Light must undertake a grueling pilgrimage, journeying across the frigid glacier known as the Serac Rapture. Only then may their gravest sins be forgiven.
Razorplate	Chest	Gain x Thorns	Crafted by the cannibal Armoda, each piece of this interlocking armor has been sharpened into a knife's edge. Even a century after death, the plate remained on her corpse, unable to be removed safely.
Fists of Fate	Gloves	Your attacks randomly deal x% to y% of their normal damage.	"Will you let fear cheat you, or will you risk everything to find understanding? After all, death is simply the coin with which we purchase life." - Zurke
Frostburn	Gloves	Lucky Hit: Up to a x% chance to Freeze enemies for x seconds.	A touch so frigid it stops the heart and chills the very soul.
Andariel's Visage	Helm	Lucky Hit: Up to a x% chance to trigger a poison nova that applies x Poisoning damage over x seconds to enemies in the area.	The horrific whispers of the Maiden of Anguish flicker through your mind, pushing you ever closer to madness...
Harlequin Crest	Helm	Gain x% Damage Reduction. In addition, gain +x Ranks to all Skills.	"This headdress was once worn by an assassin disguised as a court mage. Her treachery was unveiled, but not before she used its magic to curse the king's entire lineage." - The Fall of House Aston
Temerity	Pants	Effects that Heal you beyond x% Life grant you a Barrier up to x% of your Maximum Life that lasts for x seconds.	"The revelation that master tailor Callas was in fact a witch only served to further fuel the desire for her uniquely enchanted legwraps." - Barrett's Book of Implements
Mother's Embrace	Ring	If a Core Skill hits x or more enemies, x% of the Resource cost is refunded.	"Every tome, every scroll, every book in this temple produces the same answer. The only being willing to stand against the Eternal Conflict, against the Prime Evils, was Lilith." - Elias
Ring of Starless Skies	Ring	Each consecutive Core Skill cast reduces the Resource cost of your next Core Skill by x%, up to a maximum of x%.	"Yours is the power to pluck the stars from the heavens with the ease of a child gathering fruit from the bough." - Unknown

Neth'Zar Rivelon’s Revenge Champion Design
Lore: Neth'Zar, Formerly known as Blaze, Blaze and Rivelion were once inseparable siblings who shared a passion for creating powerful weapons. They worked together on many projects, but their most ambitious one was a liquid inferno cannon that could harness the power of fire in a way that had never been done before.
One fateful day, during a test of the cannon, something went terribly wrong. Blaze got the idea to test the plasma cannon by utilizing void plasma. This caused an unexpected explosion which fused Blaze and Rivelion into one being. In the explosion, the void plasma mixed with Blaze’s DNA causing the cannon to fuse with Blaze’s arm enhanced by the void's plasma energy. The tragedy left Blaze dismayed and he changed his name to Neth'Zar with a burning desire for revenge and a newfound power that he would use to pursue his goals.
Neth'Zar named his liquid inferno cannon "Rivelion's Revenge" in honor of his fallen sibling and as repentance for toying with void energy. His new abilities and connection to his cannon drives him to become a formidable opponent, and he quickly gained a reputation as a powerful and feared champion.
Visual appearance: Blaze's appearance is a reflection of the power he wields as a being infused with Void plasma. His skin has taken on an obsidian hue, and his eyes glow with a deep purple light. His hair, once a fiery red, has been transformed into ethereal tendrils of white energy that radiate from his head.
His body crackles with energy, and pulsing veins of Void plasma are visible beneath his skin, giving him an otherworldly appearance. The plasma seems to have merged with Blaze's body biologically, almost as if it were a part of him rather than a separate entity. Whenever he uses the plasma cannon he is reminded of his brother Rivelion, who inhabits the gun.
Here are some base stats for Neth’ Zar as a high risk, high reward ADC:

• Base Health: 550
• Health Per Level: 80
• Base Attack Damage: 60
• Attack Damage Per Level: 3.5
• Attack Range: 600 (Senna)
• Base Attack Speed: 0.625
• Attack Speed Per Level: 2.5%
• Base Armor: 30
• Armor Per Level: 3
• Base Magic Resistance: 30
• Magic Resistance Per Level: 1.25
• Base Movement Speed: 330

As a high risk, high reward ADC, Neth’ Zar’s base stats are on the lower side compared to other ADCs, as he relies on his unique Overheat mechanic to deal high damage. However, his lack of reliance on mana and his ability to generate Heat through his basic attacks and abilities make him more versatile and allow him to take risks that other ADCs cannot. These base stats should reflect his playstyle as a champion who is designed to thrive in high-pressure situations where risk-taking can pay off big.
While not manaless, his mana costs are much lower compared to other spell-based adcs this is because of his unique Void Plasma mechanic (inspired by Rumble’s heat mechanic) and added current health cost of some of his abilities.
Passive:
Neth’ Zar’s basic abilities coat his target with void plasma, dealing a small % of DOT based on the target's current hp. Basic attacks and his W abilities on marked targets absorb the dot and generate Void Charge, which is displayed by a Heat bar above his health bar.
When the Void Charge bar reaches 100, Neth’ Zar enters Overheat mode, augmenting his basic attacks and basic abilities.
While Neth'Zar is in Overheat mode, he gains increased attack speed and his attacks automatically consume the Void Plasma DOT effect on the target instead, dealing the damage the DOT would have done and heals him for a % based on his level and lifesteal stat. Attacking Enemies while overheating also damages enemies through enemies in a cone that scales with his critical strike chance.
While Neth'Zar is in Overheat mode, his basic attacks also splash through affected enemies, dealing a percentage of their damage to nearby enemies within a certain radius, allowing him to absorb the DOT on affected enemies allowing him to stay in this mode longer. The radius and damage percentage scale up to a cap based on Neth'Zar’s critical strike chance and level Fuel Cells.
Additionally when Neth'Zar uses a basic ability during Overheat mode it consumes a fuel cell that corresponds with the ability. When consuming a fuel cell Neth'Zar loses a % of his current hp and the ability has additional more powerful effects. (still debating if this aspect should come online at level 6 or not)
Basic Abilities overview:
Q Ability: Void Plasma Burst
Neth'Zar unleashes a blast of plasma in a cone in front of him, dealing physical damage to all enemies hit, coating them with void plasma and reducing their armor for a short time. Blaze can hold down the key to charge it, increasing its cone radius and initial damage. At max charge it has a slight slowing effect in the center of the cone. During overheat mode it automatically uses the max charge effect and creates a lingering void plasma zone on the ground.
W Ability: Void Shield Surge
Affecting enemies with his Void Plasma allows Neth’ Zar to absorb all nearby void plasma to activate a shield. Scaling with the amount of Void Plasma he absorbs, the shield absorbs damage taken and increases his movement speed towards enemy champions or allies. and scales based on the amount of Void Plasma he absorbs. At the end of its duration it explodes, coating nearby enemies in void plasma. During overheat mode, he can activate this ability to expend a fuel cell and steal a small amount of attack damage/ability power from those affected by void plasma.
E Ability: Plasma Dash
Neth'Zar dashes in a straight line, passing through minions and champions and dealing damage to any enemies hit, and coating them with liquid void plasma. When activated during overheat mode, it expends a fuel cell, increasing the width of the damaging area of the dash and resets his Q cooldown if he hits a champion.
R Ability (ultimate): Rivelon’s OVERCHARGE
Neth'Zar consumes all of his available Fuel Cells, losing a % of current health based on the # of fuel cells consumed, immediately entering Overheat mode for the duration of the ability. While in Overheat mode, Blaze's basic attacks splash through affected enemies, dealing bonus physical damage to nearby enemies within a certain radius. Additionally, Blaze gains increased attack speed and movement speed, and increased healing from his passive, but takes increased damage from all sources.
While RIVELON'S OVERCHARGE Surge is active, Neth'Zar can use his abilities without consuming Fuel Cells, and use their empowered effect without draining his health.
Here is void charge scaling based on based on level thresholds:
Level 1-5: Neth’ Zar absorbs 1 Void Charge per minion affected by void plasma (with a cap), and 10 void plasma per champion.
Level 6-10: Neth’ Zar absorbs 2 Void Charge per minion affected by void plasma (with a cap), and 15 Void Charge per champion.
Level 11-15: Neth’ Zar absorbs 4 Void Charge per minion affected by void plasma (with a cap), and 20 Void Charge per champion.
Level 16 and above: Neth’Zar absorbs 8 Void Charge per minion affected by void plasma (with a cap of 6 minions) and 25 per champion.
With this scaling, Neth' Zar will find it easier to generate Void Charge in the later stages of the game, allowing him to enter Overheat mode more frequently during team fights. This should make him more effective as an AD Carry in the late game, where team fights are more common and a successful Void Charge activation could mean the difference between winning and losing.

2)
In addition to making a trip between 3 different "(star) systems" without FTL within at most a few months, and clearly having the ability to pick between all kinds of systems to choose to go to without FTL (even if limited by "somewhere around here", of course), as highlighted in this earlier thread:
https://old.reddit.com/MauLecomments/11hki5e/ot_discontinuity_thread_number_3_schroedingers/ ""OT discontinuity" thread number 3: Schroedinger's gigantic space distances"
, an additional aspect of this scene here:

"With the rest of the garbage... Then what?"
"Then we gotta find a safe port somewhere around here... Any ideas?"
"No, where are we?"
"The Anoat system."
"Anoat system, there's not much there..."
"No...
Oh, wait - this is interesting... Lando!"
"Lando system?"
"Lando's not a system, he's a man; Lando Calrissian. Card player, gambler - scoundrel, you'd like him."
"Thanks..."
"Bespin, it's pretty far, but I think we can make it..."
"... A mining colony?"
"Yeah, a tibanna gas mine. Lando conned somebody out of it... We go back a long way, Lando and me."

is that this is the 1st time traveling to Lando ever occurs to Han - does he just pop into existence (with a fully (or partially) formed past) in that very moment?
They're looking for a place "somewhere around here", a place they could reach without hyperspace within a reasonable amount of time or something (or perhaps without losing their fuel) - and the place they've found themselves at here, the "Anoat system", also isn't that far away from Hoth;
so if all it took Han to learn / be reminded of the fact that Lando is residing "nearby", was to spend like 10 seconds looking at his blue display screen, why hadn't they looked around who was residing near their new rebel base all this time - and learned that Lando was among them?
This would've certainly been some kind of potential fact of interest, given the Rebels' as well as Han's unstable position and possible need for refuge or assistance or who knows what, if particular situations were to arise.
And that's provided Han did learn new things from that screen, as opposed to just being reminded of what he already "knew" - in which case his years-long obliviousness would be even less explicable, since now all he would've had to do was just think of Lando, without even having to go through space charts for 20 seconds.
That's whom he got his current spaceship from... something one would think ought to have been closer to the surface of his mind this whole time.
(And it's really quite impossible to tell from the scene which parts of what he tells Leia about are his own additional knowledge, or new information he's seeing on the screen - which may or may not be reminding him of further knowledge that he already has - but Leia is struggling to catch for some unclear reason.
Is the text on the screen encrypted / in a different language/alphabet?
Or is it no text and just graphics/maps/images that Han for some reason gets more information out of than Leia is able to?
She manages to see that it's a "mining colony" - but he clarifies that it's a "tibanna gas mine"; is that also explained on the screen but only comprehensible for him, or is he already familiar with this mine? Or this "type" of mine?
He says "this is interesting" as if he did just see something that was news to him - but what could that be? The fact that Lando happens to be nearby running this mine that he's already familiar with somehow?
Or did he see something that made him indirectly recognize that Lando's involved? But how would that work?
It's rather clear that there are no words on this screen that Leia can read, because:

Han: "Then we gotta find a safe port somewhere around here... [blue light...] Any ideas?"
Leia: "No, where are we?"
Han: "The Anoat system." [.../blue light]
Leia: "Anoat system, there's not much there..." [blue light...]
Han: "No..." [.../blue light]

Somehow they have no idea which system they're in (just how many star systems did they cross on their way from Hoth to the asteroid field to now?), and need the information from that blue viewing screen to learn that they're in the "Anoat system";
and Leia is apparently unable to read this information from the screen despite looking at it intently, since she asks "where are we" while it's beaming blue light into their faces - however Han can read it and learns that it's the Anoat system. (Which she then turns out to already have been familiar with, enough to know "there's not much there.)
All in all it's not entirely clear why Leia is lagging behind him in reading that screen - while Han is seemingly getting some kind of unclear combination of new information, things he recognizes, and/or things he's being reminded of.)
Although more precisely, he doesn't mention he got the ship from him either (only saying "they go way back"), that's only "revealed" in their subsequent meeting when Han tells him the ship is damaged - so does THAT piece of history also pop into existence at that very moment?
Just like Lando hadn't existed before Han opened that particular slide on his blue viewing screen?
Can an old friend with a history + a gas mine pop into existence in the middle of a scene, the way a man can pop into existence inside a casino's prison cell?

"We go back a long way, Lando and me."
"D-d-don't let the wrapper fool you, friend... Me and the First Order codage... - go way back. And-t-t-t-the.... ..If the price is right... - I can break you into old man Snoke's boudoire."

And there are two additional questions arising from this pivotal scene:
2a)
Aside from the question what would happen to the Falcon if their Stardestroyer had gone into hyperspace with them on the hull (without warning, and without having dumped the garbage first in accordance with their protocol, giving them the opportunity to detach unnoticed) - what makes Han think the Stardestroyers are gonna go into lightspeed?
And why are they going into lightspeed?

"Lord Vader - our ships have completed their scan of the area and found nothing. If the Millennium Falcon went into lightspeed, it'll be on the other side of the galaxy by now."
"Alert all commands. Calculate every possible destination along their last known trajectory."
"Yes, my Lord. We'll find them." "Don't fail me again - Admiral."
"Alert all commands. Deploy the fleet."

Does "deploy the fleet" mean go into hyperspace, and why would the do that? Either the Falcon had jumped into hyperspace and could now literally be anywhere, or it didn't and is still somewhere around here.
And Vader said to calculate their trajectories.
So why are they jumping into lightspeed, where are they going?

"The fleet's beginning to break up.

Does that necessarily mean they're gonna go into hyperspace? As opposed to splitting to go search for the Falcon in the surrounding area?

"Well, if they follow standard Imperial procedure, they'll dump their garbage before they go to lightspeed, and then we'll just float away."

Well, if it was just a guess and then it turned out they weren't jumping to lightspeed, at least nothing bad would've happened - however Han seems really sure that it'll happen, and then it does. How and why again?
2b)

"Transfer circuits aren't working."

Has anyone confirmed that this means they now definitely can't fix their hyperdrive on their own, and need external help now?
They noticed that while in the middle of a desperate situation:

"One more direct hit on the back quarter and we're done for."

, but no one said they had no options left if they got out of that hairy situation and could calmly take a look at those transfer circuits?
So now that they've found themselves in this lucky situation with all the Imperial ships having zipped away from the area (for reasons about as inexplicable as the Falcon's success at hiding from them on the hull of the Stardestroyer and no one managing to think of it aside from Boba Fett) - why have they seemingly completely abandoned that line, instead of resuming their work as they're floating among the garbage, or after flying away from it?
If they succeeded, they wouldn't have to rely on "finding a safe port", or Lando fixing it, or any of that, and could head directly to the rebel base....
So why even look through all those charts of space ports when their Plan A should've been

"Well, if they follow standard Imperial procedure, they'll dump their garbage before they go to lightspeed, and then we'll just float away."
"With the rest of the garbage... Then what?"
"Then we gotta find a safe port somewhere around here...

to float away and then start working on their hyperdrive; and then maybe contemplate other options if that completely failed and turned out to be hopeless?
3)
So the Emperor is a "plain man" in Ep4, but is then Vader's Force Master in Ep5 - not much more needs to be said here?
Alongside with this drastic retcon, there's also a general subgenre shift that takes place between ANH and ESB:
in the first, the Empire is primarily a "space fascist" government, militaristic technocracts that have one high-ranking sorcerer-knight among their ranks - he's the last remnant of the magician order that they wiped out in order to get into power;
however in the second, the Empire is Space Mordor led by a Dark Lord and his right-hand Dark Lord Knight, the latter of whom operates from a demonic-looking fortress ship with red lights - and all the admirals and officers are no longer individuals with their own ambitions, agendas and views, but rather glorified minions doing their masters' bidding on the pain of death.
The Ep7-9 trilogy is seen playing around with the juxtaposition between these 2 paradigms, when Kylo takes over as Supreme Leader and now starts pushing all those previously confident and autonomous fascist higher-ups with their own views and voices around and forcing them to follow along.
4-5 don't show such a "development" however - even if one can be assumed to have taken place off-screen.
(Just as it's possible to suggest that the Emperor has revealed himself as a Dark Lord at some point between 4 and 6, after having kept it secret initially - and that this is therefore not a real retcon.
However that's just an interpretation that relies on an huge assumption.)
So then when the ST presents another "subgenre shift" by having lightsabers act more like Excalibur, or the Sith having a forbidden Black Speech language (or having Rey instantly instinctively download new Force powers like the Matrix or Marvel mutants), then yes, that's what's going on here - however it's also true that the OT has pulled this sort of thing before, reinventing its genre and continuity in the very 1st sequel.
4a)

"To protect you both from the Emperor, you were hidden from your father when you were born. The Emperor knew, as I did - if Anakin were to have any offspring, they would be a threat to him.
That is the reason why your sister remains safely anonymous."

Aside from the most obvious question of "why then NOT have Luke also anonymous and instead have him live with his real family, under all their real names, with "Ben" living right next to them also under his real surname" - which of course would've already been the way to go even in ANH's "Luke's father was killed by Vader" continuity - the slightly less obvious question arising from this piece of information is:
If Luke was "hidden" "after he was born", does that mean he was initially born way elsewhere, and then given (as in ""hidden"") to Owen and Beru?
In which case the obvious next question is (which still applies to the RotS ending, even with all its altered continuity issues), why not hide him with Obi-Wan instead - so he can raise him into a Jedi hero from the get go, all in secret and properly anonymous and far away from his family's known home at that?
In addition to properly taking care of the world's "only hope (or one of 2, anyway)", it would've also freed up Obi-Wan to do all kinds of useful things throughout the galaxy, trying to influence things in a positive direction, and available as an asset to the nascent and eventually fully emerged Rebellion;
this way however, he's now stuck on Tatooine, seemingly completely inactive in all of this until Leia's message, because he now has to guard Luke all the time whom his family is emphatically keeping close to home and away from the cause?
Before this line, and within ANH, it seemed like Luke had simply been already born into his family, and Obi-Wan simply didn't want to forcibly take him away from them or even go against Owen's wishes to keep him away from his father's light saber, all the relevant truths, and so on (plus, hey, maybe that was even literally impossible cause it would've "led to the Dark Side" or something - like Gandalf forcibly taking the Ring to do good, or something) - so he had no choice but to stay on Tatooine and prevent himself from being a great asset to the emerging Rebellion.
But now it turns out they apparently voluntarily gave Luke to his family, leading to this outcome? Well, maybe Owen started out with a different attitude but then soured on the idea of exposing Luke to the truth - although he had already been against his brothecousin leaving and getting involved, so wouldn't really much seem that way.
(Of course, the "in order to watch over Luke" reason for Obi-Wan living there as a hermit wasn't ever explicitly stated in 4 or 5-6 - it could be very reasonably concluded to have been the reason, but it still wasn't stated; and certainly didn't have to be the only reason for this choice.
What could some of the other reasons have been? Intending to hide as much as possible from the Empire, lest some kind of "not absolutely crucial and most desperate hour" involvement with the Rebellion compromised him and endangered his potential role in some, well, absolutely-crucial-and-most-desperate-hour task down the line - i.e. like the Death Star destruction? As well as his role as Luke's protector?
Not absurd, except a lot of his behavior in ANH of course isn't consistent with that mindset - from the "real surname" thing, to not thinking about the Empire searching for these droids until seeing the destroyed Sandcrawler, to displaying his lightsaber in a bar with Stormtroopers looking for them outside on the streets;
however those behaviors "inconsistent with the imperative to lead a hidden life" don't automatically disprove the presence of such an imperative outside of these inexplicable deviations.
Some yet entirely different reason for living as a quiet hermit and having cut himself off from the cause? Even having forgotten details from his past active life, like "having owned R2", or seemingly not having even thought about his real name for a long time, in addition to not having heard it?
And of course a related question is why no one had contact him until this moment - was he only known as a potential asset to Leia and her father, and really no one else? Or they knew not to contact him unless absolutely necessary?

"I'm getting too old for this sort of thing..."

Well there certainly was a period where he wasn't too old and would've been of much more help than baby Luke, right? So why was LUKE the "only hope" and not Obi-Wan while he was alive and not too old?
Loads of unresolved questions here.
4b)
So albeit "safely anonymous", Leia was then given to an adoptive father (let's call him "Organa Sr.") whom "Obi-Wan had served during the Clone Wars";
a possibly prominent figure from the Clone Wars, that shouldn't have been unknown to the Empire or Vader (who now is the Skywalker Sr. who fought in the same (Clone) wars as Organa Sr. and Obi-Wan), and someone who'd go on to become an active Rebel (and possibly had been a proto-Rebel from the get go, analogously to Bail) - and Leia then also joins, either raised to do so from the start, or autonomously perhaps even despite her "father's" efforts, who knows.
So was this whole outcome in accordance with the original intention to "protect the children from Vader and the Emperor" (while also having them as the "only hope" to topple them)? Like, Leia remains anonymous, but as a prominent figure of the Rebellion, not "safe from Vader" in any way - except from getting pulled into the Dark Side that is - and in fact almost gets executed.
How much worse would it have been to start training her in the Force, if she was already a prominent Rebel with a huge target on her back?
Or would Organa Sr. also have been against this somehow? No indications for that.
Or was this outcome not in accordance with their intentions, and Leia was supposed to keep a low profile before quietly being recruited into the Only-Hope apprenticeship?
Did Obi-Wan only find out about all this now, having had no clue what's going with that other sibling? Or was he fully aware and up to date (despite having such a buried recollection of his name and active life)?
Questions here as well.
HOWEVER - this is firmly "well duh, of course the Leia=sister reveal was invented on the fly and makes no sense if you go back to 4 - RotJ has big issues after all" territory now, so there's less of a need to keep covering this "a lot more obvious" ground here now;
and I've been told that EFAP are in fact "RotJ skeptics" to at least some extent - so until I know more about that extent, going through more points (and there are quite a few) and potentially getting increasingly redundant might be a bit pointless.
However one further thing probably worth highlighting here, given its high relevance to the ST:
4b.1)
Has anyone noticed how there's essentially 3 different Leias in RotJ?
It's kinda of very similar to Padme/Amidala, who switches between several personas/personalities/attitudes depending on dress/appearance or the chapter in the story - though not quite as extreme, one might think.
There's the almost Blues Brothers like version that shows up to free Han (not quite counting the "bounty hunter role" and "slave" phases of that chapter), there's the "normal" friendly-but-sarcastic-and-assertive Rebel General version, and then there's the emphatically diminutive and vulnerable "Ewok princess" one - before she changes back to the "General" personality in the final act following this scene here:

"If I don't make it back, you're the only hope for the Alliance."
"Don't talk that way - you have a power I don't understand... and could never have."
"You're wrong, Leia - you have that power, too. In time, you'll learn to use it as I have. The Force is strong in my family. My father has it. I have it. And... my sister has it."

So the obvious question here is, is it "RotJ Leia" who's suddenly never had any hint of Force powers and sensed Luke hanging on below Cloud City, or is it just this particular version of her within RotJ?

"Yes. It's you, Leia."
"I know. Somehow... I've always known."

This sounds like a semi-psychic intuition of some sort, or at least it makes one think of psychic abilities since she's supposed to have dormant talent in that area - however since it's described as having been a subconscious kind of thing that she's only realized now, it doesn't really contradict the "I could never have these powers, since I'm definitely not related to your wizard bloodline" from seconds ago.
However this "somehow known that Luke is her brother" is clearly not taking place in the same continuity as "somehow known that Luke is in trouble under Cloud City", just to highlight this point an additional time.
So in TFA, Leia appears to be a "regular" person, knowing much about the Force just like Han but showing no signs of having access to it herself, or seen talking about it in any way distinct from how Han talks about it - except the moment where she senses a disturbance when Han is killed.
Then in TLJ, there are no psychic moments before or after, except the part where she shows powers while frozen in space and floats inside a ship, while an emphatic version of her leitmotif is played - almost as if the movie suddenly remembers how this side of her character has been neglected too much and at least 1 epic moment like this was needed;
at the very end, she and Rey talk about they've sensed Luke's death.
And finally in TroS (but using archive footage, originally intended for the earlier movies I think?) Leia turns out to be a full Jedi Master now training super-Rey, and is also shown in a lightsaber flashback with Luke;
in the movies the way they were released, where was all of that in TFA, or even TLJ? Leia seemed to be slightly psychic there, someone who's never really worked on or developed these sklls after all, but shows being tuned into it at the very least in the most dramatic moments - but who could've guessed she was a full ultra-Master who could've been giving lessons and instructions that whole time, incl. when interacting with Rey?
Lots of off-screen development between these 2 happened at some unspecified point.
However... it'd be prudent to remember that this confusion and cognitive dissonance about just how magical Leia was supposed to be after showing emerging powers in Ep5, started right then and there in 1983, and the Sequels merely inherited this already schizophrenic and contradictory legacy and naturally only continued the confusion, forgetfulness and cognitive dissonance instead of successfully "fixing" it in some way.
(One could say the same also applies to most every other aspect of 7-9 and 4-6, in fact.)
And fittingly enough, the film with the least cohesive seeming vision, TLJ that is, is the one that pulls the bizarre "oh f, we need Leia to be magical, completely forgot that!" moment - while the other 2 movies with the much more coherent tone and approaches are the ones that at least committed to 1 interpretation/version of her character each, respectively, in mostly convincing ways:
TFA to the "almost non-psychic" one, and TRoS to the "full-on Jedi Master" - amounting to a splintered narrative, just like RotJ was, and the 1st 2 films as well (even if not necessarily with Leia's character in particular - although even then, it's clear that ESB decided to leave the whole "princess trope" emphasized so much in the 1st movie behind, in all but name - somewhat justified in-universe by them having been chased off Yavin where they had some kinda old culture and huge throne rooms going on; then again them having been chased out into a cold outpost goes against ANH's sequel set-up, see 1st thread).

Neth'Zar Rivelon’s Revenge Champion Design
Lore: Neth'Zar, Formerly known as Blaze, Blaze and Rivelion were once inseparable siblings who shared a passion for creating powerful weapons. They worked together on many projects, but their most ambitious one was a liquid inferno cannon that could harness the power of fire in a way that had never been done before.
One fateful day, during a test of the cannon, something went terribly wrong. Blaze got the idea to test the plasma cannon by utilizing void plasma. This caused an unexpected explosion which fused Blaze and Rivelion into one being. In the explosion, the void plasma mixed with Blaze’s DNA causing the cannon to fuse with Blaze’s arm enhanced by the void's plasma energy. The tragedy left Blaze dismayed and he changed his name to Neth'Zar with a burning desire for revenge and a newfound power that he would use to pursue his goals.
Neth'Zar named his liquid inferno cannon "Rivelion's Revenge" in honor of his fallen sibling and as repentance for toying with void energy. His new abilities and connection to his cannon drives him to become a formidable opponent, and he quickly gained a reputation as a powerful and feared champion.
Visual appearance: Neth'Zar's appearance is a reflection of the power he wields as a being infused with Void plasma. His skin has taken on an obsidian hue, and his eyes glow with a deep purple light. His hair, once a fiery red, has been transformed into ethereal tendrils of white energy that radiate from his head.
His body crackles with energy, and pulsing veins of Void plasma are visible beneath his skin, giving him an otherworldly appearance. The plasma seems to have merged with Blaze's body biologically, almost as if it were a part of him rather than a separate entity. Whenever he uses the plasma cannon he is reminded of his brother Rivelion, who inhabits the gun.
Here are some base stats for Neth’ Zar as a high risk, high reward ADC:

• Base Health: 550
• Health Per Level: 80
• Base Attack Damage: 60
• Attack Damage Per Level: 3.5
• Attack Range: 600 (Senna)
• Base Attack Speed: 0.625
• Attack Speed Per Level: 2.5%
• Base Armor: 30
• Armor Per Level: 3
• Base Magic Resistance: 30
• Magic Resistance Per Level: 1.25
• Base Movement Speed: 330

As a high risk, high reward ADC, Neth’ Zar’s base stats are on the lower side compared to other ADCs, as he relies on his unique Overheat mechanic to deal high damage. However, his lack of reliance on mana and his ability to generate Heat through his basic attacks and abilities make him more versatile and allow him to take risks that other ADCs cannot. These base stats should reflect his playstyle as a champion who is designed to thrive in high-pressure situations where risk-taking can pay off big.
While not manaless, his mana costs are much lower compared to other spell-based adcs this is because of his unique Void Plasma mechanic (inspired by Rumble’s heat mechanic) and added current health cost of some of his abilities.
Passive:
Neth’ Zar’s basic abilities coat his target with void plasma, dealing a small % of DOT based on the target's current hp. Basic attacks and his W abilities on marked targets absorb the dot and generate Void Charge, which is displayed by a Heat bar above his health bar.
When the Void Charge bar reaches 100, Neth’ Zar enters Overheat mode, augmenting his basic attacks and basic abilities.
While Neth'Zar is in Overheat mode, he gains increased attack speed and his attacks automatically consume the Void Plasma DOT effect on the target instead, dealing the damage the DOT would have done and heals him for a % based on his level and lifesteal stat. Attacking Enemies while overheating also damages enemies through enemies in a cone that scales with his critical strike chance.
While Neth'Zar is in Overheat mode, his basic attacks also splash through affected enemies, dealing a percentage of their damage to nearby enemies within a certain radius, allowing him to absorb the DOT on affected enemies allowing him to stay in this mode longer. The radius and damage percentage scale up to a cap based on Neth'Zar’s critical strike chance and level Fuel Cells.
Additionally when Neth'Zar uses a basic ability during Overheat mode it consumes a fuel cell that corresponds with the ability. When consuming a fuel cell Neth'Zar loses a % of his current hp and the ability has additional more powerful effects. (still debating if this aspect should come online at level 6 or not)
Basic Abilities overview:
Q Ability: Void Plasma Burst
Neth'Zar unleashes a blast of plasma in a cone in front of him, dealing physical damage to all enemies hit, coating them with void plasma and reducing their armor for a short time. Blaze can hold down the key to charge it, increasing its cone radius and initial damage. At max charge it has a slight slowing effect in the center of the cone. During overheat mode it automatically uses the max charge effect and creates a lingering void plasma zone on the ground.
W Ability: Void Shield Surge
Affecting enemies with his Void Plasma allows Neth’ Zar to absorb all nearby void plasma to activate a shield. Scaling with the amount of Void Plasma he absorbs, the shield absorbs damage taken and increases his movement speed towards enemy champions or allies. and scales based on the amount of Void Plasma he absorbs. At the end of its duration it explodes, coating nearby enemies in void plasma. During overheat mode, he can activate this ability to expend a fuel cell and steal a small amount of attack damage/ability power from those affected by void plasma.
E Ability: Plasma Dash
Neth'Zar dashes in a straight line, passing through minions and champions and dealing damage to any enemies hit, and coating them with liquid void plasma. When activated during overheat mode, it expends a fuel cell, increasing the width of the damaging area of the dash and resets his Q cooldown if he hits a champion.
R Ability (ultimate): Rivelon’s OVERCHARGE
Neth'Zar consumes all of his available Fuel Cells, losing a % of current health based on the # of fuel cells consumed, immediately entering Overheat mode for the duration of the ability. While in Overheat mode, Blaze's basic attacks splash through affected enemies, dealing bonus physical damage to nearby enemies within a certain radius. Additionally, Blaze gains increased attack speed and movement speed, and increased healing from his passive, but takes increased damage from all sources.
While RIVELON'S OVERCHARGE Surge is active, Neth'Zar can use his abilities without consuming Fuel Cells, and use their empowered effect without draining his health.
Here is void charge scaling based on based on level thresholds:
Level 1-5: Neth’ Zar absorbs 1 Void Charge per minion affected by void plasma (with a cap), and 10 void plasma per champion.
Level 6-10: Neth’ Zar absorbs 2 Void Charge per minion affected by void plasma (with a cap), and 15 Void Charge per champion.
Level 11-15: Neth’ Zar absorbs 4 Void Charge per minion affected by void plasma (with a cap), and 20 Void Charge per champion.
Level 16 and above: Neth’Zar absorbs 8 Void Charge per minion affected by void plasma (with a cap of 6 minions) and 25 per champion.
With this scaling, Blaze will find it easier to generate Void Charge in the later stages of the game, allowing him to enter Overheat mode more frequently during team fights. This should make him more effective as an AD Carry in the late game, where team fights are more common and a successful Void Charge activation could mean the difference between winning and losing.

since we are growing so quickly and running into more and more BS, i thought i’d take the time out to remind everyone of the SUB RULES which includes being banned for complaining about snark material. “but i’m not a minion” isn’t a valid argument after you’ve been banned. you either snark or scroll. if you decide to comment KNOWING it goes against the rules, don’t cry once you’re banned. it’s quite simple. anyways - we are almost at 30k! keep it up our lil roaches 🪳 we love all of you who contribute to the sub and keep it active 🤎 couldn’t do it without y’all! as always please remember to report any content breaking said rules 💋

Encounter an Elite treeEnt
intead of looking like its minions and normal ones.. its Dark brown or Bigger

It could potentially be colour coded based on the affix the monster has
For example

encounter an elite fallen with fire enchantment, It’s crimson. Poison enchantment, it greenish. With stone skin, it’s greyish

But ultimately, random colour or colour coded, just having colours would be great
That would be thematic all while improving combat readability so much!!
i want to know this mob is elite when i see it, dont want to have to read his name to know it
Edit: sorry for my bad English… it’s the same word in Italian, French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese but looks like in English it’s taint = coloucomplexion haha. The world: “let’s make this word about colour!” English: “I’ll make it about smell and contaminate” haha . Fuck Reddit for not having editable titles lol

The results are in for Match 4. The winner is…
“Tell of the storm-tossed manager, O Muse, who wandered long after she sacked the… whatever it was she sacked. Many the monsters whose towns he saw, whose ways she proved; and many a pang she bore in her own breast at sea, while struggling for her life and her Stand’s safe return. Yet even so, despite her zeal, she did not pass through unchanged,” said a blue Stand, watching over the wine-dark sea. A glimmer of sand, of sea spray, of myths told and retold glinted in the ocean sun as Al continued their cross continental journey. Their exaltation faded to naught but a whisper on the breeze.
“Of this, O goddess, daughter of Zeus, speak as thou wilt to us.”

Val Yao, with a score of 80 to Dirty Ghost’s 69!

Category	Winner	Point Totals	Comments
Popularity	Valentine Yao	12 (2.5+2) - 18 (4.5+2)	Voters greatly enjoyed both strats, but ultimately the fates smiled more fortunately upon Valentine!
Quality	Valentine Yao	21 (7 7 7) - 24 (8 8 8)	Reasoning
JoJolity	Valentine Yao	26 (7 10 9) - 28 (8 10 10)	Reasoning
Conduct	Tie	10-10	No length penalties here!

Val Yao and Dirty Ghost would still be at sea for many weeks to come, but Izuru Boniface Marianus had not been completely correct in his claim that none save themselves knew where they were and what they were up to. The spirit of Dead Drop Bay watched their epic journeys across the sea, recording it in their glowing azure coins.
Dirty Ghost lashed their ship against the oncoming storm, knots pulled taut and boards reinforcing the vessel, even as Val Yao’s painting came undone, progress washed away each night by the salt sea. Their initial rations kept both well-nourished for now, but each still would need to restock and prepare for the further challenges awaiting them on the horizon…
If you're not sick of all this water, there's a "friendly spar" between an idol and a figure skater in a desert oasis!
Scenario: Ibiza, Spain — 11:03AM
In a cafe on the shores of the island of Ibiza, Jamir took a sip from his café con leche and let out a contented sigh. A weight had been lifted from his shoulders—for the first time in roughly two years, he was free from the grip of the Millennium Collection and the Atrocity Exhibition. No more evading Frederick’s omniscient gaze, no more babysitting Marione to make sure she didn’t turn into a world-ending monster again, no more Dirty Ghost and…whatever it was doing. None of that mattered. He felt, for the first time in a long time, hope; genuine, no-strings-attached, hope.
His worries weren’t tempered completely, though. Izuru seemed to be slipping closer and closer to the edge by the day, and he had the nagging feeling that something big was coming over the horizon. To borrow a phrase from Izuru, the “final act” was approaching. Jamir did his best to keep a finger on the pulse of Dead Drop Bay, searching for opportunities outside of the reach of the bloodthirsty dogs of the Millennium Collection. At least now he felt better equipped to deal with whatever fate threw at him next.
Speaking of keeping a finger on the pulse, the phone conversation in the next booth over sounded very interesting. The person on the phone, a peacock of a man, appeared to be a part of the Rinascita Artist Collective, judging by his fancy dress, his obnoxious demeanor, and the fact that he mentioned Rinascita by name loud enough for Jamir to hear.
“Yeah, I just watched the concert vid you sent,” he said through a mouthful of food. “Mid as hell. Like someone ate a gallon of rainbow food coloring and took a shit on stage. Complete disgrace to call that horseshit anything close to art.”
Ibiza…that performance with Izuru, Neon and Atlas was only a few months ago, but it felt like years with how hectic Jamir’s life had become. Good times.
“Anyway, you still good to come to the party at Valencia with me?” the artist continued. “Anyone who’s anyone at Rinascita’s gonna be there. I can only bring one plus one, so you better decide quick.”
And just like that, an opportunity. Jamir casually leaned over the booth and tapped the artist on the shoulder.
“I mean it - hold on, I’ll call you back.” The artist glowered at Jamir. “What do you want?”
“Apologies, I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation. You see, I’m an artist, and I believe I saw that performance at Ibiza that you mentioned. Personally, I think it was an artful display of creativity and passion-”
The artist laughed loudly and obnoxiously. “You’re shitting me! You call that consumerist drivel “art”? It’s all just fancy lights and colors meant to appeal to an audience too stupid to appreciate real art. The art world’s going down the fucking toilet.”
“Ah, but who’s to say that a toilet cannot be a piece of art itself?” Jamir wondered aloud. “Take Duchamp’s Fountain—obviously, a piece which an artist like yourself has probably studied a hundred times over. A urinal turned on its side, submitted for an exhibition but banned for its artist’s perceived lack of effort, caused an uproar that shook the foundations of modern art and gave birth to a whole new movement of conceptual art. To evoke an emotion, any emotion, in its audience…is that not the mark of true art?”
The artist stared at Jamir, mystified. “Well, ‘true art’ ain’t worth shit if people aren’t paying to see it, right? I’ve sold a few paintings you could buy a house with.”
“Oh yes, I suppose you’re correct. Though, if I recall, a copy of Fountain sold for $1.76 million in 1999, so someone must have seen it as ‘true art’. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“M-man, you’re seriously pissing me off,” sputtered the artist, his confidence clearly shaken. “How do you know what ‘true art’ is, huh?”
“To tell you the truth, I don’t,” Jamir sighed. “I was hoping to find answers from a more successful artist than I. And that ‘party’ you mentioned sounded like a wonderful opportunity to talk to one.”
The artist huffed. “I’m a member of the Rinascita Artist Collective, dude. You’re nothing. You wouldn’t be invited to the party in a hundred years.”
“I suppose not. What a shame. I was looking forward to learning under an accomplished artist like you.”
The artist tapped a finger against the table, annoyed. Jamir innocently sipped his café con leche.
“Fine,” the artist growled. “You want to see real artists? You got it. The party’s in two weeks. Get ready.”
Jamir smiled thankfully. That was almost too easy.
Scenario: Málaga, Spain — 6:03 AM
10538-2095 found herself back at the scene, the Picasso museum. Last time she’d been here, she’d found herself fused to a teammate into a superior being, a cyborg she and Ninian, at least in the moment, would have preferred to remain. But where this fusion and return had given Ninian answers, even cracked the Scot’s egg, if 2095 understood the metaphor correctly, it had left the android only with more questions. Returning from Type-03’s victory, 2095 had gone catatonic.
After the events in Türkiye and her time on the trail of the information-broker ｢Aerials｣, both for the Sultan of Swing and Ashen Memoriam, she’d found some peace, the ability to focus on moving forward, living in the now, rather than hunting through her data for lost memories. She’d made friends beyond just the scope of the Bastards and really begun establishing a sense of self. But really, 2095 knew she was just running from that overwhelming deluge she’d felt last time she was here, the experience of dozens of lifetimes of sensations all at once.
So why had she been continually drawn here? It wasn’t mere ‘gravity’, the series of coincidences that drew Stand users to one another, but some other, more primal instinct. The urge to return to the scene of a past trauma, overpowering the desire to run away… A biological explanation, but not one impossible to render in code.
2095 would have continued to spiral like this had another figure not entered her field of view, and a familiar one: Doctor Dott, the Rinascita artist who had fused her to Ninian in the first place.
“Hello!” cried the not-actually-a-doctor. “You’re back!”
“Indeed,”replied the android, perhaps relieved her conversation partner spoke in as clipped a manner as herself. “I suppose I could say I returned in search of further understanding of ‘true art.’ Or art at all.”
“It’s an interesting subject,” Dott agreed. “I’ve thought about it many times. After our last collaboration I’ve been considering the nature of ‘shocking art’.”
“Shocking art?” 2095 asked.
“Art meant to bring out a sort of shock or surprise from the audience. It could even be horrifying!” Dott explained. “Our exhibit was probably shocking to some people! Marina Abramović’s Rhythm 0 would be another example.”
The name sounded familiar. Perhaps in her knowledge banks there was something…

Marina Abramović Rhythm 0 was a six-hour work of performance art presented in Naples in 1974. The work involved Abramović standing still while the audience was invited to do to her whatever they wished, using one of 72 objects she had placed on a table. A sign next to the table explained that anyone who sat across from her could do anything they liked with the objects with her bearing full responsibility for their actions. There were no separate stages; the purpose of the piece, she said, was to find out how far the public would go: "What is the public about and what are they going to do in this kind of situation?"

“If I understand correctly, the artist was repeatedly assaulted throughout the night,” said 2095.
Dott nodded. “Her clothes were shredded with razor blades. One attendee even tried to shoot her. They were stopped by another audience member. But even this was ‘art’: if it invokes an emotion in you, it’s art, no matter how shocking it might be. And in this case the emotions were shock, fury, violation.”
“And in our piece, would the emotion I felt be pain?” 2095 wondered aloud.
Dott’s face immediately fell. “I’m sorry. I screwed up. At least Abramović knew what she was getting into. Here,” she continued, thrusting an envelope into 2095’s hands. “It’s an invite to a party. Lots of other Rinascita folks will be there. I didn’t feel like going anyway. Too many people. Too many fake smiles. But maybe it’ll be good for you! Get your mind off things. You know?”
2095 nodded, not completely understanding, but appreciating the gesture. Speaking to Doctor Dott was always a confusing enterprise, but somehow she felt this had given her a bit more self-insight. Maybe the party would be good for her, in some way. Pain refused to be ignored, but in a situation like a party, surrounded by new people…she had to exist in the present moment, process the pain differently than just sitting with it. Meeting new people, making new memories. This would be an anvil on which to undeniably forge her identity.
Scenario: Valencia, Spain — 9:54 PM
In a private ballroom in the Feria Valencia Convention and Exhibition Centre overflowing with laughter, gossip and drink, the wealthiest members of the Rinascita Artist Collective delighted in elegant revelry. The ballroom was a kaleidoscope of colors, each guest’s outfit more extravagant than the last—exotic bird feathers, loud color palettes, and altogether impractical capes and headdresses filled the space like an overgrown jungle path.
For once, Charvet Champagne didn’t feel like the center of attention, and he thanked whomever was watching for that. The anonymous invitation promised a night of fun, food and a private performance from famed Spanish guitarist Carmelita Salmorejo. While Charvet’s connection to Rinascita was tangential at best, he didn’t mind getting away from his hectic schedule. His stomach growled, staring at the plates of fine tapas on display at the all-you-can-eat buffet table. They wouldn’t mind if he sneaked one bite, would they?
“Oh my god, is that Charvet Champagne?” An unfamiliar voice trilled. “Come here, I simply must hear about your skincare routine in person!”
…shit. Next time, then.
He grumbled to himself and brushed past 2095, awkwardly holding a glass of wine with no idea what to do with it. She smiled politely at anyone who stopped to stare at her and did her best to make small talk. Dott was right—approximately 94.7% of all of the smiles directed in her direction were fake. Seemed like the guests weren’t interested in straying outside of their cliques. Time for plan B.
2095 listened intently to the conversations around her, auditory receptors tuned to pick up any common words or phrases that she could link to important figures in Dead Drop Bay. After a few minutes, two names caught her attention. The first was Lucetta Domani, the head of the Rinascita Artist Collective—every single guest at the party appeared to be linked to Lucetta in some way. The second was somebody called “the Czar.” While 2095 didn’t recognize the name, the main topics of gossip revolved around him and Lucetta. According to the chatter, the Czar had been involved in a feud with her for some time, and some theorized that this party was an olive branch meant to be the first step in resolving the feud for good. 2095 stored the information in her memory banks for later, and downed her glass of wine in one gulp.
On the other side of the ballroom, Jamir half-listened to his artist companion’s rambling as he surveyed the crowd himself. Unlike 2095, he knew exactly who the Czar was; he had hoped to meet the enigmatic Erasmo el-Amin in-person, in fact. But he was mysteriously absent from his own party.
“...and that’s how I got my membership in Rinascita,” the artist said through a mouthful of chorizo. “Course, Lucetta helped get my foot in the door, but everything after that was all me.”
“Interesting,” Jamir lied. “I need to go to the bathroom. Excuse me for a moment.”
Jamir weaved through the crowd, making introductions and glad-handing along the way. His artist friend was not alone, it appeared—almost every member of Rinascita present at the party got their start in the Collective because of Ms Domani. Why invite them, and not her?
He gently pushed on the exit door, intending to make a stealthy exit to snoop around some more. Nothing. He frowned and pushed again, more forcefully this time.
“Hm. That’s a fire hazard,” he joked to no-one in particular. A cursory examination of the frame and the hinges revealed no faults whatsoever, at least from this side. The door didn’t seem stuck at all, but it still wasn’t budging…as if it were sealed shut.
Before he could investigate further, the house lights dimmed. Spotlights lit up the stage on the other side of the ballroom, and the party chatter petered to a halt. The performance was about to begin.
The curtains rose, revealing a person sitting on a stool with an ornate flamenco guitar in hand. Their black Cordoba hat was cocked to one side, their wavy brown hair reaching down to their shoulders. He wore a tailored black-and-gold suit vest over a white button-up dress shirt; a long red traje de flamenca dress covered his bottom half. Her dark-skinned features were scattered with vitiligo markings which stretched across her arms and down to her fingers. The party guests applauded appreciatively as she leaned down to speak into the microphone stand in front of her.
“Hello, I’m Carmelita Salmorejo,” she smiled. “I hope you enjoy the show.”
After accepting the next round of applause, Carmelita settled into her stool and began to play. Their fingers danced across the strings, following the quick tempo that they tapped out with their dress shoes. 2095 had downloaded a few flamenco performances before the party to study in case she needed to make more light conversation. This piece sounded like an original song, one which required quite a bit of technical skill required to play it this well.
Suddenly, 2095 sensed movement. All around the ballroom, a dozen humanoid figures shimmered into existence. They appeared to be made entirely of water, with completely blank facial features and deep blue traje de flamenca dresses that flowed behind them like liquid. They stepped forward in perfect time to the music, clapping along to the beat as they advanced towards the unaware guests.
2095 rose from her seat, summoning ｢Yours Truly｣ to her side. Behind her, the only other two guests who could see the figures followed suit—Charvet gasped, the tiny rat units of ｢Freakum Dress｣ crawling onto him, and Jamir arrived at his seat with a wry smile.
“Jamir, where’d you go?” His artist companion swiveled around, wine glass in hand, clearly not his first or even fifth. “This is a hell of a show-”
CRACK!
A flamenco shoe smashed into his jaw, sending his drink flying out of his hand and spilling over the floor.
All at once, pandemonium erupted. Guests screamed and scrambled over tables and chairs to get to the exits, only to be knocked out cold by swift kicks from the watery dancers. 2095 dodged out of the way of one dancer and slammed her fist into its torso—in a spray of water, it burst and disappeared. Strong, but fragile. Good to know.
“Look out!”
2095 ducked, avoiding a crescent-shaped blade of water that sailed over her head and sliced the champagne glass tower on the buffet table clean in half. The dancers twirled and spun and more projectiles shot out of the edges of their dresses. But just as soon as they did, many of the dancers exploded into a burst of liquid, tiny objects speeding through their “heads”. Another Stand?
“Mes Freakums, attaquez!”
She heard Charvet’s voice before she saw them. Tiny mice crawled onto the dancers and began to spin, their pointed noses becoming a drill that they used to dig themselves into the liquid bodies of Charvet’s attackers. The Stand bodies swam into the dancers, forming internal whirlpools that twisted and contorted their once-perfect forms into a mass of collapsing liquid flowing across the floor. Five, six of them collapsed at once, and another few were already disintegrating before Charvet laughed defiantly.
“Oh ho ho ho! That’s right, I defeated you beasts! I, Charvet Champagne, will no longer let ruffians push me around! From this day forward, mes Freakums et moi will blaze a trail forward and set my own path in life!” Charvet proudly declared, beginning to twirl in place. “I will dance to the beat of my own rhyt-”
Charvet’s declaration was cut off, as he stepped forward and slipped on one of the puddles he had so proudly created a moment ago, falling on his face.
With a flourish, Carmelita strummed their final chord and, for the first time since their performance began, looked up at the ballroom. She gazed at the groaning, mangled bodies of the party guests with a look of mild disappointment.
“Tough crowd,” she muttered. Then, a slow applause began, and their expression brightened.
“What a song. What a performance!” Jamir exclaimed as he sauntered to the middle of the dance floor. “I have heard much about the great Carmelita Salmorejo, but nothing compares to hearing you in-person.”
2095 stared at Jamir in confusion. “She almost killed us all. She almost killed you.”
“If it makes you feel something, it’s art. Fear, exhilaration, the thrill of a near-death experience…how could I not applaud a piece like that?”
“Finally, somebody who appreciates my work!” Carmelita grinned, flicking his hair out of his face. “Whenever I perform, I want everyone in the audience to dance along, not just my Bailaoras. Sometimes, they just need a little kick up the backside. Gwee-hee-hee-hee~”
Jamir grinned back. Carmelita bought his ruse hook, line, and sinker. He took a step closer, extending his hand to shake.
“Jamir O’Santos. A pleasure to finally meet.” Internally, Jamir primed ｢Planet Home｣’s fist to strike at Carmelita the moment they got in range.
Smiling, Carmelita extended her hand towards Jamir. But at the last second, she pulled back and strummed another chord on her guitar. In an instant, a line of faceless dancers sprang in front of the stage, forcing Jamir to leap backwards to avoid concussion via shoe.
“Sorry, O’Santos. No handshakes until the end of the set.” Carmelita regarded 2095 with a glint in his eye. “That goes for you too, señorita.”
2095 met her eyes from underneath the brim of her cap, steel in gaze and spirit.
“Ah, but you will not live to see it,” Carmelita sighed melodramatically. “How unfortunate that I am under strict orders to ensure the deaths of everyone in this ballroom. Until you are broken under the beat of my ｢Corazón Espinado｣, this performance cannot end.”
“Unless…we give you what you want,” Jamir called out. “A performance of a lifetime. A dance of audience and artist, merging together as one. Right?”
2095 almost slapped Jamir before she realized what he meant. “If we dance with you, will you let us go?”
Carmelita rested her chin on her hand, thinking hard. “Hm…that does sound like an interesting idea…and if he asks about it, I can always lie…”
He shrugged. “Eh, what the hell.”
A dramatic strum summoned even more Bailaoras, spread across the ballroom floor and around the shattered tables and spilled wine.
“Just to make things interesting, I’ll be ordering my Bailaoras to attack you for the rest of the performance. Whoever destroys the most Bailaoras when my song ends wins…something. I’ll figure it out later.”
Jamir glanced at 2095, noting her grim expression. “Hey, could be worse. Least we don’t have to fight each other for once. No hard feelings?”
2095 nodded hesitantly. “No hard feelings. Best of luck.”
Carmelita spun their guitar, a manic grin spreading across her face. “As the saying goes; dance ‘til you drop!”
OPEN THE GAME! (Shoutouts to u/TreeTurtle_852 for the match art!)
Location: A ballroom, the area here is 32 by 32 meters (2x2 tiles) with 2095 and Jamir represented by their character tokens.
The Brown circles are dining tables and the Brown shapes in each corner of the map are long tables. The tables are furnished with table cloths, chairs, silverware, wine bottles, and small food platters appropriate for the venue.
The Blue faces are Carmelita’s Bailaoras, Stand created constructs/minions made out of water. More info under Additional information.
Goal: Defeat more of Carmelita’s Bailaoras than your opponent before she finishes her performance! The full performance is 10 minutes, or until both players are defeated, whichever comes first. Direct combat between players is disallowed.
Additional Information: The Bailaoras have C Power, B Speed, and D Durability. They all fight and move to the pace of the music, though there is no set tempo given flamenco music’s structure of being able to gradiently and suddenly shift from slow to fast and vice versa. (We highly encourage both teams to listen to a few example pieces to get a general feel for the driving rhythms.) Although they are otherwise objects, they are treated as “non Stand using persons” with respect to ｢Planet Home｣’s and ｢Yours Truly｣’s abilities; specifically they thus cannot be contracted with or rewinded.
Generally their movements follow a choreographed dance routine, moving through the room rather than chasing after players, but they will position themselves in such a way where they can attack players in their dance’s path.
In terms of dancing, the Bailaoras are able to ‘improvise’ to dodge glancing blows and avoid stationary obstacles/obstructions while moving in time to the music. Their choreography is structured in such a way that they do not go past a 5 meter radius of where they initially spawned (though you can expect them to make full use of the area they are given).
Their primary method of attack is to use their feet to stomp and kick at anything within arms length of them with C POW force. They can also spin their dresses to create short ranged water cutter projectiles with C POW cutting force around them, effective up to 2 meters. The sleeves of their dresses can also fire these projectiles with their movements. They always attack in rhythm to the music, coinciding with major beats and fast paced sections of the song.
Their bodies are composed of a loosely-solid water. If you hit it with a strong enough force, the impact will cause the impacted area to break apart. However all their attacks cannot harm one another.
During slow sections, the Bailaoras enter a flowing state where all physical attacks will harmlessly pass through their watery bodies as they gracefully move and dance around the ballroom.
As the match progresses, Carmelita will summon more Bailaoras on cue to song transitions roughly every 30 seconds. Each wave of additional Bailaoras is more or less evenly distributed across the map and contains 12 more Bailaoras, meaning that more than twelve may be on the stage at once.
For the purposes of this match, the players both effectively have a 2 skill in Flamenco dancing.

Team	Combatant	JoJolity
Bastards of Barcas	10538-2095	"Four steps...Five steps." You’ve watched others dance and socialize, now it’s time to put what you’ve learned into motion. Express yourself through dance, movement, and positioning!
Atrocity Exhibition	Jamir O Santos	"Wait. Why did he take only 5 steps?" There’s style to be had in simplicity and reservation! Express yourself through dance, movement, and positioning!

Link to Official Player Spreadsheet
Link to Match Schedule
As always, if you would like to interact with the tournament community and be among the first to get updates for the tournament, please feel free to PM a member of our Judge staff for an invite to our Official Discord Server!

A/N: Home and family matters have held my attention for the past couple weeks. Add in rewrites because I wasn't happy with the clunkiness of things, and generally out of sorts feeling over stumbles I've been making and I'm just plain overdue here. To be blunt. I don't want to talk about a lot of it because personal, and then there is my fear of just plain not measuring up. Yes yes it's not a contest with anyone but yourself and fishing for complements and on and on. It's just I'm wrapping the main story up on mine after essentially forty or fifty chapters. The guy that got me going is on effectivly chapter 150 if you count strange opprotunity in with dungeon life while I'm feeling out of gas already and I still need to do draft edits to try fixing at least SOME of the mistakes i've been making.
Sorry for the delay guys.
Also for those wondering: This is the music I had in mind for this chapter since after this it focuses very hard on the personal scale. This is the last huge scale thing to go on til the very end. So. One last bit of ham.
I have many more thoughts, but I'll save those for later. For now. On with the big battle thing.
- - - -
Midroi fumed as it watched an entire company that was intended to be the hammerblow of force to show the library that whatever lies Damala's heir told, they were better served by Midori's banner. Instead? Midori peered through the eyes of their Ogre commander as the whole lot were caged in interlocking vines and trees.
​
Mana was spent to force them to stop panicking and Obey.
​
Then, one by one, they died. Dust drifted from the living prison of trees and vines as Midori saw the Company shuffle out of their respawners. He was not angry with them. They had followed their orders admirably and had behaved professionally.
​
The Ogre knelt as Midori addressed him. "You did well with what you were faced against."
​
"Thank you lord." The Ogre's rough voice was almost reverent as he addressed the dungeon he served.
​
A ball of black the size of a grape formed in front of the Ogre. More mana was spent and the Ogre took the orb in his left hand, and ate it.
​
Similar orbs appeared in front of each creature as they stepped from their beds, stumps, debris, and other markers where such creatures spawned from.
​
As one they marched wordlessly back to Midori's borders to relieve the forces pulled from the elfin and dwarven camps that served as buffer between his lands and where this Metis had served as his first obstacle.
​
None of his fliers were close enough in enough quantities to provide anything more than a distant image of the party at the edge of the baby dungeon's holdings.
​
Why weren't they pressing forward faster? these mockeries of champions long dead. Midori knew the form each were based on. Damala's Heir, this Lonely Hill. It somehow knew how enough of the prior age to do this.
​
The Library it could excuse. He knew the person the automata was based on would have loved working at a library. Had it not fallen for this monstrous deception, Midroi might have felt fondness for their choice in avatar to meet with.
​
As his armies marched Midroi's anger grew. The black threads crept into its vision as it saw the second Company engage.
​
This time they spread out. Archers paired with lumbering ogres to act as shield walls. Shamen countered attempts to use the local vegetation either to snare, or to turn the sculpted plants into weapons by withering them, sapping their life and channeling it into defending the melee skirmishers.
​
Something felt off here even as Midori could feel several of the enemy being infected with spores. Normally their minds should be open and clear. Even the ones that fought would give him useful data by what they chose to hide and what they chose to throw aside.
​
Here? An armored figure fell while shielding a white haired goblin rogue with its body. Midori tore into it's mind without bothering with the usual subtile touches he had with prior instances. There wasn't time, and so Midori hemorrhaged mana to sprout the invasive growths into something that could force past any mental barriers the animated armor might have held.
​
He heard three words before the armor dropped, its component pieces seperating as the animus holding them together dissipated.
​
Cole Protocol Initiated.
​
There? An automata manning a brass and gem encrusted ballista that fired huge bolts of magical energy was infected by an orc that ran into enemy lines before its body burst into contagion spores.
​
Instead of answers Midori heard the dozen or so voices in near unison speak.
​
Cole Protocol Initiated.
​
That name tugged at memory. Midori knew it from somewhere, yet couldn't grasp where.
​
Again, another fell. This one just after throwing the goblin rogue it had almost tagged out of harm's way. Again that damniable phrase.
​
It shouldn't have mattered. Each enemy unit infected landed in the deepest hole Midori had constructed. One who's only exit was guarded by a hall of traps and gates such that any attempt to break out by anything that had not yet been pacified was doomed to failure.
​
Midori was winning. It was slow and measured by the dozens or in one instance of some truly inspired spellwork by whomever was on the tower, several hundred at a time. Yet each of their losses was permanent. Each minion they lost might have been theoretically replaceable, but it would be unskilled and untrained, making it near useless in this kind of battle.
​
Yet Midori felt unease. The units that got near to quartet that advanced on his position died without being able to get into range for infection. Worse still. Metis was claiming territory. It was a thin strip of road between claimed dungeons, but it was ground that Metis held and Midroi's enemies were defending.
​
His unease grew into rage when Metis revealed its water avatar.
​
^HER.
​
Deceiver. Devourer.
​
Liar. Destroyer.
​
Midori felt stupid. This had been HER play. that hateful woman.
​
Made midori focus all its efforts and plans into a boogyman while she had been quietly ignored just beyond his doorstep.
​
A memory flashed. Brief. A flash.
​
Ami's souless eyes stared down into Midori's as she held an obsidian blade covered in blood. Breathing slowed as Ami knelt to whisper words that couldn't be remembered. Gloating that she had finally won. Then. For the briefest moments. Just before black took him. Midori remembered a man standing there in mute suffering grief. Someone who was dead yet lingered.
​
Threads of black etched through Midori's vision.
​
SHE was here.
​
Surrounded by puppets designed to look like the people she murdered.
​
There were whispers now, as there had been ever since Midori had started using magically infused fungus to ensure troop loyalty. Those whispers had always been easy to ignore.
​
Now. They whispered the words Midori wanted to hear most. Revenge. Retribution. Remaking this world so She wasn't part of it.
​
Midori drank in the poisoned lies because in his heart he knew it made what was going to happen easier to live with if he wasn't truly in control anymore.
​
Vision blackened as mycelial threads wrapped almost tenderly around Midori's core, and then everything came into sharp focus. This fungus. It was everywhere. It couldn't act everywhere, but where even a piece of it existed, Midori could tap into its senses.
​
"Metis!" Ishida dove as a water whip from meti's avatar sliced into a wulfen Midori had inherited from the same dungeon Corwin had served.
​
Ishida rose, sword in hand, using the momentum of her roll to slice the straps of an armored opponent apart. "He's already starting to cycle infected units in!"
​
A grunt from Bonehead as he pushed back an elf that tried to step inside Hotaru's effective bow range. "Plan stays the same. Ami, how're you holding up?"
​
This got a grumble from Stone Soup. "Oi. Dead Naming."
​
"Right, my bad." Bonehead looked to Meti's water construct. "Sorry."
​
"No worries. I'm still on my land. Inflow is exceeding outflow." Metis paused to spear an elfin duo that were carrying what looked like lit bombs. "You?"
​
Midori howled. Mana torrented out as he forced Bonehead's guard to drop. The skeletal fighter repositioned. Midori forced him to leave Taru's side.
​
This caught Taru's attention. "Talk to me."
​
Bonehead let go of his sword even as he swung at the orc he had intended to stab.
​
Midori laughed as he made Bonehead turn. the amount of mana spent was above and beyond what he had to spend on anything else, but he was forcing this new unit to bend.
​
Bonehead picked his sword up as he looked to Taru. "Keys. Jacob."
​
"No." Her voice an order as she started running to him. "You can fight it off."
​
"Captain." Bonehead brought his weapon to a guard position. The blade trembled as it swung, meeting taru's bow as she brought it up to block.
​
Midori's laughter grew wild as he forced Bonehead to press. Even with a prodigious outflow just to control one unit this was the crack needed to stall out this desperate thrust by his enemies.
​
"Service Number...." Bonehead tore away from Ishida's grip. "Oh... One Nine Two Eight."
​
His hand snaked out, snatching her sword even as Stone Soup kicked his away. "One... Nine Nine...."
​
Midori's laughter turned to screams as the blade turned, its tip touching Bonehead's sternum.
​
"You. Will Not." Bonehead's voice was labored, as if spoken through gritted teeth. "Have Me."
​
Bonehead's body dissolved almost the moment Ishida's blade pierced his chest.
​
Midori saw Taru's bow raise, and from that point until almost up to his very borders his eyes were put out.
​
Yet he could not help but give a low sinister chuckle as Bonehead spawned inside the vault he kept newly squired and not yet loyal.
​
"I already do."
​
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So here are some datamined unique items (build 0.8.0.39517). *Please note: These may not be final and there could be additional unique items added, or powers/names changed. I don't believe this is the final list, in fact, I've seen screenshots of many other uniques that aren't listed here. You'll notice a few fan-favorite uniques returning in the list from previous games along with uniques that are completely new.
In beta we got to see only a tiny part of charactebuild customization. Once we combine legendary powers, affixes and stats on gear, paragon boards, glyphs (socket these into paragon boards), uniques, skill trees, and the class-specific systems (enchantments, book of the dead, spirit boons, etc) we should be in a great place which should be enough to satisfy even the most veteran arpg fans out of the gate.
So uniques have the following:

• static affixes, any drop of that specific unique will always have the same affixes (although they still roll within a range, 5-15 strength for example. So it is possible to find a "perfect" rolled item).
• the affixes may be something that don't normally show up on that slot. For example, a helm could have 30% movement speed. Movement speed doesn't normally roll on the helm slot.
• There could be a unique affix on the item that doesn't appear on any other item in the game. For example, the Harlequin Crest has the affix "+45% crafting material find". I haven't seen that stat on any other item so it may be just exclusive to it. This list doesn't show those unique affixes.
• the number of affixes on the item don't have to follow rares/legendary. Could be more/less.
• the value of affixes can be unique. For example, if the max roll for a specific affix on a rare is 25%, you may find a unique that has a range going up to 50% instead. They don't follow any rules.
• Uniques are tied to lore/maybe have a tiny backstory or flavor text

Normal/Sacred/Ancestral tiers
Something that I've also not seen much discussion on are sacred or ancestral tiers of items. If you don't know what these are, they are similar to ancient items in D3. As you go up in difficulty (world tiers) you unlock the chance for any item that drops to be sacred or ancestral. All items; white, magic, rare, legendary or unique have a chance to roll as sacred or ancestral. Sacred items roll higher values and item power than normal tier, and ancestral items roll higher values and item power than sacred tiers. Finding an ancestral item at the highest world tier is actually pretty rare, so you can imagine that finding an ancestral unique or legendary item will be very rare and add to the actual endgame loot hunt.

Unique Items

Barbarian specific uniques:

Item Name	Type	Power	Flavor Text
Ramaladni's Magnum Opus	1h Sword	Skills using this weapon deal x% increased damage per point of Fury you have, but you lose x Fury every second.	"Without him the wine is less sweet, the hearth less warm, and our blades less keen. Our blood brother is gone, but Bul-Kathos willing, we will meet again one day." - Sorrowsong for Ramaladni *this is a tribute to Travis Day, a Blizzard developer who passed away.
Ancients' Oath	2h Axe	Steel Grasp launches 2 additional chains. Enemies hit by Steel Grasp are Slowed by x% for x seconds.	"Weapons wielded by the fiercest warriors often catch the eye of the Ancient spirits. If the wielder is worthy, the spirits may bless the steel with their strength." - Gerti, Oxen Tribe Forgemaster
Hellhammer	2h Mace	Upheaval ignites the ground Burning enemies for an additional x damage over x seconds.	The demon prince Ikonoth slew hundreds of the Heavenly Host with this infernal hammer before falling to none other than the Archangel Imperius himself.
Overkill	2h mace	Death Blow creates a shockwave, dealing x% of its Base damage to enemies. Enemies who die to this effect also reset Death Blow's Cooldown.	The malformed snake creatures that live in the swamps are not content with simply killing their prey. They seem to take a malicious pleasure from inflicting as much suffering as possible before death.
Fields of Crimson	2h Sword	While using this weapon, damaging at least one enemy with Rupture creates a blood pool that inflicts x Bleeding damage over x seconds. Enemies standing in the pool take x% increased Bleeding damage.	"We've been fighting these flesh-eaters for so long, been soaked in so much blood, that after a while it's difficult to tell what side you're truly on." - Daelyr, Crane Tribe warrior
Battle Trance	Amulet	Increase Frenzy's maximum stacks by x. While you have maximum Frenzy, your other Skills gain x% increased Attack Speed.	"The change that overtook my brother in battle was terrifying. His eyes turned hard like diamonds, and the way he moved... it was like he was dancing to music only he could hear." - Captain Dervin
100,000 Steps	Boots	After gaining the final damage bonus from the Walking Arsenal Key Passive, you automatically cast Ground Stomp and gain x Fury. This cannot happen more than once every x seconds.	"While many Barbarians remained in the Dreadlands, small groups from the Oxen, Crane and Bear tribes instead chose to search the land for a new home." - A History of the Children of Bul-Kathos
Rage of Harrogath	Chest	Lucky Hit: Up to a x% chance to reduce the Cooldowns of your Non-Ultimate Skills by 1 seconds when you inflict Bleeding on Elites.	Harrogath, the final bastion of resistance against Baal's assault on Mt. Arreat was destroyed along with the Worldstone. The survivors never forgave the betrayal that led to the loss of their home.
Gohr's Devastating Grips	Gloves	Whirlwind explodes after it ends, dealing x% of the total Base damage dealt to surrounding enemies as Fire damage.	"The brutish construction of these gloves belies the strength they bestow. Gohr was clearly no craftsman, but it would be foolish to ignore the triumph of his work." - Barrett's Book of Implements
of Hammering *(this is listed as unique test, but the name reads more like a legendary.)	2h Mace	(PH) Consecutive Hammer of the Ancients increase the next cast's damage by x% its radius by x%.	-

Druid specific uniques:

Item Name	Type	Power	Flavor Text
Waxing Gibbous	1h Axe	Gain Stealth for x seconds when killing enemies with Shred. Breaking Stealth with an attack grants Ambush which guarantees Critical Strikes for x seconds.	The nights preceding the full moon are sometimes far more dangerous than the event itself. The frenzy has begun to rise, yet the night is just dark enough to obscure a hunter from their prey's sight.
Greatstaff of the Crone	2h Staff	Claw is now a Storm Skill and also casts Storm Strike at x% normal damage.	"She has existed in Scosglen since before Fiacla-Géar walked the land. Her purpose is a mystery to us all. However, approach her with deference; she may grant you her counsel." - Airidah, to Donan
Mad Wolf's Glee	Chest	Werewolf form is now your true form, and you gain +2 Ranks to all Werewolf Skills.	"He was not a victim of the curse - he sought it out. As his skin split and his bones cracked, his laughter never ceased." – Tale of the Mad Nobleman
Insatiable Fury	Chest	Werebear form is now your true form, and you gain +2 Ranks to all Werebear Skills.	When the Days of Ash began, the great druid Nafain reminded his disciples that nothing, not even the loss of their humanity, was too great a sacrifice to protect Túr Dúlra from Astaroth's flames.
Tempest Roar	Helm	Lucky Hit: Storm Skills have up to a x% chance to grant x Spirit. Your base Storm Skills are now also Werewolf Skills	"Listen, child, to the music of the storm. It has its own rhythm. Its own melody. Hear how beautifully it sings, and perhaps one day you will be able to join in its harmony." – Airidah
Vasily's Prayer	Helm	Your Earth Skills are now also Werebear Skills and Fortify you for x.	"Roots from the Great Oak growing at the seaward statue of Vasily will, on rare occasions, be found twisted back upon themselves, suffused with ferocious magic." - Barrett's Book of Implements
Storm's Companion	Pants	Your Wolf Companions are infused with the power of the storm, dealing Lightning damage and gaining the Storm Howl ability.	"The storm's rage is my own, brother. I call, and the skies roar in reply." - Vasily, to Bul-Kathos
Hunter's Zenith	Ring	Gain a bonus when you kill with a Shapeshifting Skill: Werewolf: Your next Non-Ultimate Werebear Skill costs no Resource and has no Cooldown. Werebear: Your next Werewolf Skill will Heal you for x when damage is first dealt.	"By fang, claw, spear, or sword - send the bastards back to the flames from which they crawled! Soak the peat with their blood! For Fiacla-Géar! For Scosglen!" - Nafain, during the Days of Ash

Necromancer specific uniques:

Item Name	Type	Power	Flavor Text
Black River	1h Scythe	Corpse Explosion consumes up to x additional Corpses around the initial Corpse, dealing x% increased damage and with a x% larger radius per additional Corpse.	"The scrolls describe a river of tar that separated the living from the land of the dead. Any unfortunate soul who tried to cross would be dragged down into oblivion." - Notes of Scholar Kamien
Bloodless Scream	2h Scythe	Your Darkness Skills Chill enemies for up to x%. Lucky Hit: Your Darkness Skills have up to a x% chance to generate x additional Essence against Frozen targets.	"My companion swung her odd weapon in a wide arc, and our pursuer stopped short. The look of horror on his face as his body fell to pieces will haunt me forever." - The Ebon Pages, Canto II, Verse XI
Deathspeaker's Pendant	Amulet	Blood Surge casts a mini nova on your Minions, dealing x damage. Damage is increased by x% per target drained by the initial cast, up to x%.	Once a sanctum for Rathma's studies, the Temple of the Deathspeaker became a proving grounds for potential leaders of his priesthood. Its halls are filled with the corpses of those who failed.
Greaves of the Empty Tomb	Boots	Create desecrated ground beneath your Sever spectres as they travel, damaging enemies for x Shadow damage over x seconds.	"The massive door to my family's crypt, which had taken a dozen men to close, was thrown open. Had I known the horrors to come I never would have set foot inside!" -The Ebon Pages, Canto I, Verse VII
Blood Artisan's Cuirass	Chest	When you pick up Blood Orbs, a free Bone Spirit is spawned, dealing bonus damage based on your current Life percent.	"The infamous Necromancer Gaza-Thul's mastery over blood magic was indisputable. Many suspect that upon his death, his skin was used to fashion this eldritch armor." - Barrett's Book of Implements
Howl from Below	Gloves	Instead of detonating immediately, Corpse Explosion summons a Volatile Skeleton that charges at a random enemy and explodes. Corpse Explosion's damage is increased by x%.	"Can you not hear it? That endless scream from the cold earth beneath your feet!? They are down there, trapped, blind with rage! Waiting to drag us down into the sod!" - Ravings of Madman Gustav
Deathless Visage	Helm	Bone Spear leaves behind echoes as it travels that explode, dealing x damage.	"Rathma is endless. He was the first Ancient, and will remain at the end. He is the master of the Great Cycle of Being. When Death comes for him, why should he fear it?" - Vauntus, Acolyte of Rathma
Ring of Mendeln	Ring	While you have x or more Minions you gain: Lucky Hit: Up to a x% chance to empower all of your Minions, causing the next attack from each to explode for x Physical damage.	The signet of Mendeln ul-Diomed, the founder of the Priests of Rathma and the first Necromancer, was lost for over 3,000 years. The immense power over death held within, however, has not diminished.

Rogue specific uniques:

Item Name	Type	Power	Flavor Text
Condemnation	Dagger	Your Core Skills deal x% increased damage when spending 3 Combo Points. Your Basic Skills using this weapon have a x% chance to generate 3 Combo Points.	"I've never seen such ruthless butchery. He deserves to be be shipped off to die in the swamps with the rest of the godless murderers." - Witness to the murder of Sergeant Walcot
Asheara's Khanjar	Dagger	Hits with this weapon increase your Attack Speed by x% for x seconds, up to x%.	When Caldeum's gates closed, Asheara led her Iron Wolves out of the city knowing full well they would never return. Instead they roamed Kehjistan pledging their blades to any who were in need.
Skyhunter	Bow	The first direct damage you deal to an enemy is a guaranteed Critical Strike. If you had maximum stacks of the Precision Key Passive when you cast the Skill, gain Energy, this can only happen once per cast.	"Genai took up her bow and aimed at the sun itself. The light burned her eyes, but her arrow flew true. Wounded, the sun hid, and brought forth the first night. - Fable of the Great Sky-Hunt
Windforce	Bow	Lucky Hit: Hits with this weapon have up to a x% chance to deal double damage and Knock Back the target.	"There have been numerous world-shaping conflicts throughout history. This bow has been found on the battlefield of every one, and always in the hands of the victors." - Barrett's Book of Implements
Word of Hakan	Amulet	Your Rain of Arrows is always Imbued with all Imbuements at once.	"Let the great gates of Caldeum be sealed. Let its proud walls stand fiercely defended. The rest of Kehjistan may suffer this plague, but my city, and my people, will not." - Proclamation of Hakan II
Grasp of Shadow	Gloves	Lucky Hit: Damaging a Vulnerable enemy with a Marksman or Cutthroat Skill has up to a x% chance to summon a Shadow Clone that mimics your attack.	Dark wisps creep hungrily across these gloves, like an assassin's blade seeking a life to steal on a moonless night.
Cowl of the Nameless	Helm	You gain x% increased Lucky Hit Chance against Crowd Controlled enemies.	"He is banished from the Guild, his name stricken from the Book. His punishment is to never have been." - Excerpt from a burned parchment
Eyes in the Dark	Pants	Unless it hits a Boss or Player, Death Trap will continue to re-arm itself until it kills an enemy. However, Death Trap's Cooldown is increased by x%.	"And so, when the sun dipped behind the hills each night, he knew that Ashen Jack would soon be near. Watching, and waiting." - Greenslade's Tales, Chapter 2: "Each Long Night" name*:* Eyes in the Dark

Sorcerer specific uniques:

Item Name	Type	Power	Flavor Text
Flamescar	Wand	While Channeling Incinerate, you periodically shoot embers that are attracted to enemies, each dealing x Fire damage.	The burn may heal, but the pain is eternal.
Staff of Endless Rage	Staff	Every 3rd cast of Fireball launches 2 additional projectiles.	"Leaving even blackened bones for your kin to mourn is too good an end for you." - Josiah
Staff of Lam Esen	Staff	Charged Bolts pierce, but deal x% less damage.	"Also known as the Greatstaff of the Old Religion, this powerful relic is one of only a small handful of Skatsimi artifacts that have survived to this day." - Barrett's Book of Implements
Esadora's Overflowing Cameo	Amulet	Upon collecting Crackling Energy, there's a x% chance to release a lightning nova, dealing x Lightning Damage.	The only thing more potent than Esadora's magic was her endless hatred of humanity. As she lay dying, the pale amulet around her neck drank in both.
Esu's Heirloom	Boots	Your Critical Strike Chance is increased by x% of your Movement Speed bonus.	"While scholars have proven these boots were not created by Esu herself, it is noteworthy that they have been passed down since the formation of the Mage Clans." - Barrett's Book of Implements
Raiment of the Infinite	Chest	After using Teleport, Close enemies are Pulled to you and Stunned for x seconds, but Teleport's Cooldown is increased by x%.	The power you have is never enough.
Gloves of the Illuminator	Gloves	Fireball now bounces as it travels, exploding each time it hits the ground, but its explosion deals x% less damage.	After Inarius returned to Sanctuary, he sought a way back to the High Heavens. His first step was to reignite the religion he had abandoned millennia before: the Cathedral of Light.
Iceheart Brais	Pants	Enemies that die while Frozen have a x% chance to unleash a Frost Nova.	The mad artisan saw his fingers turn black from frostbite as he worked the cloth, but refused to stay the needle and thread for even a moment.

General (used by all) uniques:

Item Name	Type	Power	Flavor Text
The Butcher's Cleaver	1h Axe	Lucky Hit: When you Critically Strike an enemy you have up to a x% chance to Fear and Slow them by x% for x seconds.	A nightmarish amalgam of blood, bone and steel, this axe is as horrific, and as deadly, as its creator.
Doombringer	1h Sword	Lucky Hit: Up to a x% chance to deal x Shadow damage to surrounding enemies and reduce their damage done by x% for x seconds.	Whenever this ancient sword has reappeared throughout history, it portends a time of great strife, as well as a devastating loss of life.
The Grandfather	2h Sword	Increases your Critical Strike Damage by x%. The other properties on this weapon can roll higher than normal.	An unbroken lineage of unwavering strength.
-	2h Sword	-	-
-	2h Sword	-	-
-	2h Sword	-	-
Melted Heart of Selig	Amulet	Gain x% Maximum Resource. In addition, when you take damage, drain x Resource for every x% of Life you would have lost instead.	"Do not allow your passions to become obsessions. Fuel the fire that burns within you, but it is madness to allow yourself to become ash to please an uncaring universe." - Last words of Master Selig
Penitent Greaves	Boots	You leave behind a trail of frost that Chills enemies. You deal x% more damage to Chilled enemies.	Remorseful devotees of the Cathedral of Light must undertake a grueling pilgrimage, journeying across the frigid glacier known as the Serac Rapture. Only then may their gravest sins be forgiven.
Razorplate	Chest	Gain x Thorns	Crafted by the cannibal Armoda, each piece of this interlocking armor has been sharpened into a knife's edge. Even a century after death, the plate remained on her corpse, unable to be removed safely.
Fists of Fate	Gloves	Your attacks randomly deal x% to y% of their normal damage.	"Will you let fear cheat you, or will you risk everything to find understanding? After all, death is simply the coin with which we purchase life." - Zurke
Frostburn	Gloves	Lucky Hit: Up to a x% chance to Freeze enemies for x seconds.	A touch so frigid it stops the heart and chills the very soul.
Andariel's Visage	Helm	Lucky Hit: Up to a x% chance to trigger a poison nova that applies x Poisoning damage over x seconds to enemies in the area.	The horrific whispers of the Maiden of Anguish flicker through your mind, pushing you ever closer to madness...
Harlequin Crest	Helm	Gain x% Damage Reduction. In addition, gain +x Ranks to all Skills.	"This headdress was once worn by an assassin disguised as a court mage. Her treachery was unveiled, but not before she used its magic to curse the king's entire lineage." - The Fall of House Aston
Temerity	Pants	Effects that Heal you beyond x% Life grant you a Barrier up to x% of your Maximum Life that lasts for x seconds.	"The revelation that master tailor Callas was in fact a witch only served to further fuel the desire for her uniquely enchanted legwraps." - Barrett's Book of Implements
Mother's Embrace	Ring	If a Core Skill hits x or more enemies, x% of the Resource cost is refunded.	"Every tome, every scroll, every book in this temple produces the same answer. The only being willing to stand against the Eternal Conflict, against the Prime Evils, was Lilith." - Elias
Ring of Starless Skies	Ring	Each consecutive Core Skill cast reduces the Resource cost of your next Core Skill by x%, up to a maximum of x%.	"Yours is the power to pluck the stars from the heavens with the ease of a child gathering fruit from the bough." - Unknown

​

Please let me know if you're interested in bundle deals, willing to work price down for multiples. Cash App/Venmo/Paypal (No FF unfortunately) accepted! Price firm for single codes
Prices and format are listed in the post and can be hard to view if you are viewing from the mobile app, please scroll over to view them
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My Universal Rewards movies available at $3 a piece or 2 for $5, please check here for the available movies, this changes monthly.
​

Name	Price	Format
Aladdin (2019)	$5	4K
Aladdin (1992)	$4	HD
Alien	$4	HD
Aliens	$4	HD
Alien 3	$4	HD
Alien Resurrection	$4	HD
Alien: Covenant	$4	HD
Prometheus (Alien)	$4	HD
Annihilation	$3	HD
Apocalypse Now	$4	HD
Aqua Teen Forever Plantasm	$5	HD
Avengers	$4	HD
Avengers Age of Ultron	$4	HD
Avengers Infinity War	$4	HD
Avengers Endgame	$6	4K
Back to the Future Trilogy	$15	4K
Bad Grandpa	$3	HD
The Bad Guys	$6	4K
The Batman	$4	HD
Batman V Superman Dawn of Justice	$6	4K
Batman and Superman Battle of the Super Sons	$5	HD
Bee Movie	$3	HD
Belly	$6	4K
Black Adam	$8	4K
Black Adam	$6	HD
Black Panther	$6	4K
Black Panther Wakanda Forever	$7	4K
Black Panther Wakanda Forever	$5	HD
Blacklight	$5	HD
Bob's Burgers Movie	$4	HD
Bohemian Rhapsody	$6	4K
Boss Baby Family Business	$6	4K
Bros	$5	HD
Bullet Train	$4	HD
Casablanca	$6	4K
Captain Marvel	$6	4K
Cars 3	$6	4K
Chaos Walking	$6	4K
Chaos Walking	$4	HD
Clerks 3	$5	HD
Clockwork Orange	$6	4K
Cold Pursuit	$4	HD
Coco	$4	HD
Conjuring Devil Made Me Do It	$6	4K
Conjuring 3 Film Collection	$12	HD
The Croods: A New Age	$6	4K
Cruella	$6	4K
Cruella	$4	HD
Daddy's Home 2	$3	HD
DC League of Superpets	$4	HD
Deadpool	$4	HD
Deadpool 2	$4	HD
The Dentist (1996) & The Dentist 2 Brace Yourself (1998)	$8	HD
Devotion	$6	HD
Dirty Dancing	$6	4K
Doctor Strange	$4	HD
Doctor Strange Multiverse Of Madness	$6	4K
Doctor Strange Multiverse Of Madness	$4	HD
Don't Worry Darling	$5	HD
Downtown Abbey A New Era	$4	HD
Dreamwork 10 Movie Collection	$20	HD
Dumbo (2019)	$5	4K
Dumbo (2019)	$3	HD
Dune	$6	4K
E.T The Extra-Terrestrial	$6	4K
Elvis	$5	HD
Empire of Light	$5	HD
Escape from LA	$6	4K
Eternals	$6	4K
Fast & Furious 8 Film Collection	$16	HD
Fast & Furious 9 Film Collection	$20	HD
Fast and the Furious	$5	4K
Fate of the Furious	$3	HD
The Forever Purge	$6	4K
Finding Nemo	$4	HD
Finding Dory	$4	HD
Friday the 13th (1980)	$4	HD
Frozen	$4	HD
Frozen II	$4	HD
Game of Thrones House of the Dragon Season 1	$10	4K
Game of Thrones House of the Dragon Season 1	$6	HD
Ghosts Season 1	$6	HD
Ghostbusters	$4	HD
Ghostbusters II	$4	HD
Ghostbusters Afterlife	$4	HD
God's Not Dead A Light in the Darkness	$2	HD
The Good Dinosaur	$4	HD
Guardians of the Galaxy	$4	HD
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2	$4	HD
Haloween (2019)	$6	4K
Halloween Ends	$7	4K
Halloween Kills	$6	4K
Hellraiser Judgment	$3	HD
Highlander	$6	4K
Hitman's Bodyguard	$6	4K
Hitman's Wife Bodyguard	$6	4K
The House with a Clock in its Walls	$4	HD
How to Train Your Dragon	$3	HD
How to Train Your Dragon 2	$3	HD
Hunger Games	$2	HD
Hunger Games Mocking Jay Part 1	$4	4K
Hunt for Red October	$6	4K
Incredibles 2	$5	4K
Incredibles 2	$3	HD
Infinite	$6	4K
Invisible Man (2020)	$3	HD
Jacob's Ladder	$4	HD
John Wick 1 & 2 Combo Pack	$6	HD
John Wick Chapter 3 Parabellum	$4	HD
Jojo Rabbit	$6	4K
Judy	$4	HD
Jungle Cruise	$5	4K
Jupiter's Ascending	$5	4K
Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom	$6	4K
Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom	$4	HD
Jurassic World 6 Movie Collection	$18	HD
Jurassic World 6 Movie Collection	$25	4K
Justice League (2017)	$6	4K
Justice Society World War II	$6	4K
Kin	$6	4K
Leon the Professional	$3	HD
Lightyear	$6	4K
Lion King (2019)	$5	4K
Lion King (1994)	$6	4K
Lion King (1994)	$4	HD
The Little Mermaid	$3	HD
Live Die Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow	$3	HD
The Lost City	$4	HD
The Lost City	$6	4K
Luca	$6	4K
Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile	$4	HD
Maleficent Mistress of Evil	$4	HD
A Man Called Otto	$4	SD
A Man Called Otto	$8	HD
Man on the Moon	$4	HD
Matrix 4 Film Collection	$12	HD
Matrix 4 Film Collection	$8	SD
Matrix Resurrections	$6	4K
Monster Hunter	$5	4K
Men	$5	HD
The Menu	$6	HD
Minions The Rise of Gru	$7	4K
Minions The Rise of Gru	$5	HD
Minions 2 Movie Collection	$8	HD
Mission Impossible: Fallout	$6	4K
Moana	$4	HD
Moonfall	$4	HD
Morbius	$5	4K
Morbius	$3	HD
Mulan	$3	HD
Mulan 2	$3	HD
Mulan (2020)	$6	4K
The Mule	$5	4K
The Mule	$3	HD
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation	$6	4K
Neighbors	$3	HD
The Nevers Season 1 Part 1	$6	HD
No Time to Die (iTunes only)	$5	4K
The Northman	$5	HD
Old	$4	HD
Onward	$6	4K
Paranormal Activity The Ghost Dimension	$3	HD
Pete's Dragon (2016)	$3	HD
Peter Pan Return To Never Land	$3	HD
Peter Rabbit 1 & 2	$5	HD
Pitch Perfect	$3	HD
Pitch Perfect 2	$3	HD
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes	$3	HD
Rise of the Planet of the Apes	$3	HD
War for the Planet of the Apes	$3	HD
Predator 4-Pack	$12	HD
Pretty in Pink	$3	HD
Prey for the Devil	$5	HD
Puss in Boots 2 Movie Collection	$12	HD
Puss in Boots The Last Wish	$9	HD
Rambo 5 Film Collection	$15	HD
Raya and the Last Dragon	$4	HD
Reservoir Dogs	$6	4K
Rocky 4 Film Collection	$22	4K
Ron Gone Wrong	$4	HD
Rumble	$4	HD
Secret Headquarters	$5	HD
Secret Life of Pets	$3	HD
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings	$6	4K
Silent Night, Deadly Night Collection	$10	HD
Sing	$3	HD
Sing Two Pack (Sing 1 and 2)	$6	HD
Sing 2	$6	4K
Smile	$5	HD
Sonic the Hedgehog	$4	HD
Sonic the Hedgehog 2	$6	4K
Soul	$6	4K
Snake Eyes GI Joe Origins	$6	4K
Snow White & The Huntsman	$4	4K
Space Jam A New Legacy	$5	4K
Spider-Man	$4	HD
Spider-Man 2	$4	HD
Spider-Man 3	$4	HD
Amazing Spider-Man	$4	HD
Amazing Spider-Man 2	$4	HD
Spider-Man Homecoming	$4	HD
Spider-Man Far From Home	$4	HD
Spider-Man No Way Home	$4	HD
Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse	$2	SD
Spirit Untamed: The Movie	$4	HD
Star Trek (2009)	$3	HD
Star Trek Into Darkness	$3	HD
Star Trek Beyond	$3	HD
Star Trek The Motion Picture	$6	4K
Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan	$6	4K
Star Trek III The Search For Spock	$6	4K
Star Trek IV The Voyage Home	$6	4K
Star Wars The Last Jedi	$4	4K
Straight Outta Compton	$3	HD
Strange World	$6	HD
Suicide Squad (2016)	$6	4K
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)	$3	HD
Thor Dark World	$4	HD
Thor Ragnarok	$4	HD
Thor Love and Thunder	$6	4K
Thor Love and Thunder	$4	HD
Till (iTunes Only)	$5	HD
Top Gun	$4	HD
Top Gun Maverick	$7	4K
Top Gun Maverick	$5	HD
Toy Story 2	$4	HD
Toy Story 4	$4	HD
Top Gun	$4	HD
Top Gun Maverick	$5	HD
Training Day	$6	4K
Transformers	$6	4K
Transformers Age of Extinction	$6	4K
Transformers Revenge of the Fallen	$6	4K
Transformers The Last Knight	$6	4K
Transformers Dark of the Moon	$6	4K
Trolls	$3	HD
Trolls 2 Movie Collection	$6	HD
Turning Red	$4	HD
Uncharted	$6	4K
Underwold Rise of the Lycans	$3	HD
Venom	$4	HD
Vivo	$4	HD
Voyagers	$6	4K
The Walking Dead Season 11	$10	HD
War of the Worlds (2005)	$6	4K
Wayne's World	$6	4K
West Side Story (2021)	$6	4K
Wolf of Wall Street	$4	HD
Wonder Woman	$6	4K
Wonder Woman 1984	$6	4K
Wreck It Ralph	$4	HD
Wreck It Ralph: Ralph Breaks the Internet	$6	4K
A Wrinkle in Time	$3	HD

The following movies are the current Universal Rewards and are $3 each

Bring it On	HD
The Break Up	HD
The Bourne Ultimatum	4K
Cat in the Hat	HD
Charlie St Cloud	HD
8 Mile	4K
Get Him to the Greek	HD
Liar Liar	HD
Mallrats	HD
Meet the Parents	HD
Popstar Never Stop Never Stopping	HD

​

This has been my experience with a full playthrough and endgame with the following:

• Xbox seris X (internal ssd)
• Entirely Co-op (west coast Server)
• Deluxe edition for both of us
• All other games and apps completely closed / quit
• Elite 2 controller, except when bug testing
• Fiber internet (1 Gbs hardwired for both of us)
• No prior PC game interaction for both of us.

Main campaign (Acts 1-3), story and lore was top notch throughout. Could do with a bit less side dialog imo. Quest following was pretty straight forward and easy to navigate. Side areas (green stair symbol) was almost never worth going into, with the exception of the travelling vendor. Enemies had a nice variety of visuals and skills, and most were well telegraphed.
Act 4; story was good, but not as much as first 3 acts. Enemies need to be more telegraphed like previous ones. Progressing through quests here was not well navigated for those new to this game. Basically you have to run missions from the war table until the bar at the top is full, to spawn the boss. Now that boss, while the fight is fun, it is completely unrewarding. You get 0 loot from the final boss and unlock the endgame.
The endgame grind, you basically do the same as act 4 with more construction projects, but you start with enemies level 30. These projects do many things like more gold, random gear, upgrading things, etc.. And yes, you do have to fill up that bar again, fight that boss, and get 0 loot again ad infinitum. I don't foresee this being engaging for long. (see edit 4).
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And now the bugs in no particular order, most of which I have submitted via the google form (which is way out of date) linked in the sidebar:

• Cutscenes during transitions - usually between acts but also when a new quest begins; you would be staring at black screens for ~2 mins. The non-host players scenes would start first by ~30 sec. After both have watched or skipped, you would be back to black screens, then one of two things would happen:
  • A random cutscene, usually from act 2 would play; then load in.
  • Sounds from skills / minions for ~20 sec, then load in.

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• Lag / desync - This caused a variety of issues like enemies t-posing or sliding around the map, no skill effects but still dealing damage although delayed, loot dropping long after things are dead, etc.
  • You will be practically unable to loot anything off the ground when lagging.
  • Co-op level 125+ you will start to fall through the map and fail missions.
  • Solo 140+ you will start to fall through the map and fail missions.
  • After selling ~100 items, even when not on the buyback screen; would add a 3-6 sec constant desync until you make a new lobby.

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• Audio / visuals long after skills end - There is one skill I noticed more than anything else, this sticky ball lightning enemies use. It will stay attached to a minion forever, even after death. After ~8 mins it will start to create a feedback loop stacking the sound. You can get the ball to drop in town only by removing your weapon or off hand, but it will remain there until you make a new lobby.

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• Random achievements - less then 20% of the achievements I unlocked were for doing what it says. They are not consistent between players also. For instance, when we beat act 3; they got the correct chievo and I got level 90 without dying.

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• Side areas not spawning the required objectives - some would task you with eliminating a single specific thing or finding something, but it would never spawn. Multiple run throughs and even re-entering the zone would not work.

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• Random character points - After grouping on the main menu, upon loading in; some players would be awarded 10, 20, or even 30 extra points. 10 being the most common and usually awarded to the non host. We were both the same level and build though they were ~70 points higher into toughness with none on gear. Unable to find the exact cause for this, did not notice during campaign only endgame.

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• Invisible items in inventory - Found to come from picking up items with messed up names like unid_name_c3 which often came from enemies with the same issue in their names. You could get he item to show with some manual item moving, but could do nothing with it. Only fix was to make a new lobby, go directly to vendor and sell them. If you viewed your inventory without selling in anyway, you would need to make a new lobby.

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• Timed interactives - things like picking up a player, town portal, some gates in a particularly long quest, etc; have a loading bar. You must stay completely still and not have any other interactable object move past you, like minions or other players. If any of the above happens, the bar will stop. While fun to troll at first by running next to someone doing this, became extremely unfun. Tested on 3 known working non-drifting controllers also.

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• Consumable items at war table - I assume it is supposed to be a drop down menu of sorts to choose map like items. Only the first 2 lines are visible, with the 3rd being extremely stretched out text and no way to see what is below it.

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• Disappearing loot - typically during a long cursebreaker mission. Easy to replicate and see. Having killed a scarab / beetle / loot goblin it would drop a legendary, leaving a star icon on the mini-map. Doing so in the first 10% of the map and unable to back track into the darkness. Finish the mission and back track. Not only would the legendary be gone, but any other loot dropped. I assume there is some kind of active item limit the removes the oldest. I have a lot of things hidden by the loot filter that I leave.

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• UI display of minions - after duplicating a minion skill (archers or railgunners) and selecting the secondary nodes that add +1 max minion, they would always display on the main skill in top left of screen. Main would show 5 while dupe showed 3. Funny when this is combined with the lag bug, it would show 15-30 of each minion on the UI; though there would be none on screen.

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• Pathing not complete - there are multiple areas in the game where enemies and minions can go through, that are clearly wide enough; but the player can not. Often looks like a split path around a circular hole, you can not traverse the left side from top or bottom of screen.

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• UI display on war table - when adding modifiers to missions, it still says press X to fight lieutenant.

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• Lost loot in jeweler - player 2 is changing sockets on an item via jeweler, player one starts new quest with cutscene = lost gear.

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• Player name text staying present in a locked position on screen - player 2 runs anywhere on my screen, while his name will start above his character, it will eventually just stop moving with him and stay present for 3-7 mins. Most commonly direct center and top right inside of minimap.

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Minor frustrations and possible QOL:

• Stop targeting summoned minions - want to go through a door or talk to an npc? Good luck, minions #3 and #7 are right there.
• Let me through doors - even without the minions in the way, trying to go into a door or portal was extremely difficult.
• Bulk sell - one at a time is a slog.
• Dye all or dye similar - did you know some gear pieces have 3-5 different dye slots to set? Give us a primary, secondary, maybe a 3rd to set and apply to all as another option.
• Picking up the loot you want fast - if you say have 3 pieces of gear drop together, there is no way to pick just the one you want. Sure you could fine tune your lootfilter (which I have), but maybe you know you are getting full and only want that one piece.
• Move or hide the NPC pop up chat - you literally can not see 1/3 of your inventory or war table when these people are telling you nothing, even after you have completed the game.
• More customizeable controls - while I enjoyed the 2nd layout for more active skills, looting was a nightmare. Had to create a custom profile on my elite to play comfortably.
• Split audio sounds into more categories - I want to hear my loot drop easily, but not the stuff I have hidden. And when I turn up the sound for that it turns up my minions who I never want to hear.
• 3 sec countdown when leaving a completed mission - what is the point of this? multiple pop ups telling you it is counting down and it displays at the bottom of screen.
• Map / waypoint navigation - this is a stuttery mess trying to move the cursor. There appears to me no coordination smoothing at all.
• D-pad to select items in vendor or inventory - how was this completely left out? It has been around forever, like console controls 101.
• Target lock - I have found zero use for this button, with our without minion skills. Even if you are targeting an enemy, as soon as you hit your skill it's going to jump to a breakable object off to the side.
• Hide known dyes - find 2-7 dyes per mission and I know 90% of them. Please allow an option to hide all known or maybe add a vendor trade 3>1 guaranteed not learned, or both preferably.
• Highlight loot by affix - let us choose maybe 5 things like % damage, life, move speed, etc; to always show for rare+ gear. Even if hidden on our filter.
• Legendary loot color mismatch - background appears red but item text on ground is more orange, while the star on minimap is more a burnt orange / brown color.
• Hunt trails to dim - there are many map layout where this trail is almost invisible and can only try to follow the corpses. Please make this visually more distinct. Maybe add some bright color whisps or balls of light. I feel it may be too low to the ground and under certain terrain types also. Could also have this shown on the map overlay.
• Hide minions from mini-map. Could add a toggle option for those that do want it, but I feel all they do is clutter.

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I apologize for such a lengthy write up that may not be formatted for easy reading and plethora of typos, but felt I had to put this out there for those on the fence. I try to buy the deluxe version of most ARPG's that make their way to console in hopes that we get more in the future, as they are my favorite genre. Base game is worth $30, going $40 was a bit of a stretch imo. Items in the deluxe were 100% not worth. You get a gold pickup pet maybe 30 mins into the game for free. There are many different cosmetics to unlock that I feel are better looking.
Edit 1 -
This is what it looks like when you desync and fall through the floor.
This is what it looks like after 5 mins of desync and already killed the boss without being in the arena and then your minions go ham.
This is the invisible item bug.
I can probably grab more videos or pics of things if anyone needs.
Edit 2 -
Forgot about this bug and have no video. If there is a side area (green stairs) with an entrance less then 2x characters height away from a solid object (wall, rock, ice crystal), when exiting you will be stuck in that solid object. Blink spell, ultimate form moves, dodge roll, etc; will not free you. You can only run in place. Having this occur during an endgame mission, you can not tp or warp to player. Only fix was to have 1 player quit to menu and load back to town, then enter starting portal. Player 2 would then do the same, and you both have to walk back to where you were.
Edit 3 -
Another bug I forgot. Occasionally when entering a zone, the entire map and any icons (shrines, side areas, etc) were all shown. They would reset back to normal on zoning anywhere (town, side area, etc). Only remember encountering this 3 times.
Also working on converting my clips from Xboxclips to YouTube due to some errors. Fixed
Edit 4 -
Possible spoiler - You must fight the lieutenant and press Y after defeating when choosing an option. This will give you loot when defeating Ahriman. We had been doing X to weaken skills in co-op. Have not tested if it may only be broken in co-op. This>! is how loot looks solo and pressing Y after all lieutenants.!<
Edit 5 -
Willbreaker weapon has no image.
Consumable drop down menu bug.
Possible bug - magic find repeatedly stacking after each mission. Could be display only, did not notice much.
Name bug for enemies.
Do not do Sabotage missions 80+ with minions. You will lag a lot, everything will disappear except the shield around monolith. We stopped doing this instantly before and just remembered why.

I am The Bard, who must admit some certain fondness for some of my subjects over others. Any historian naturally becomes attached to some characters, and obtains a bias towards them. I am no different in this regard.
It hung like the bones of an ancient lizard king, awesome even in its deiscation. Highest of the high places, casting forth the dying light of the age, and covering the cosmos in an intense metaphysical shadow. None were beyond its antumbra, and heaven and hell alike were bound within its deepest umbra. The weight of history pressing down on reality was bound up here. Here, amidst the ruins of what had once been the seat of the first and greatest king of the age, where dragons first caught fire in their breaths, where they sang and the world was changed. Here, in ruined majesty, lay the breathless word of awe and mournful nostalgia. A kingdom who’s shadow was graven onto the name of the world itself.
Akar. The first and true Akar. The plane of Io. The birthplace of Bahamut and Tiamat, and where the king of heaven died, and the end of the age began.
Many were the treasure seekers, pilgrims, historians, and other sundry who wandered those halls. Many more were the defenders. The servants of Bahamut and Tiamat alike, agreeing only in this, that the ancient palace, their once true and perfect home, should not be defiled by pillagers and scoundrels. So, suffice it to say the presence of the Black Hound Scoundrels was not welcomed.
Raymond’s sword was broken, again. He’d liked that one too, an ancient ilithid weapon, projecting a blade of light though a psionic focusing crystal. It had served him well, right up until the point where the blue dragon’s lightning bolt had overloaded the arcane technology and blown it up in his hand. He was also missing a limb again, but this was less troublesome than when he was alive.
He hit the ground hard as he fell back, rolling over and over on the black marble floor. Several things were definitely broken. They had found themselves near to their goal, in what had likely been a planetarium of sorts before the fall of Io. The room was filled with great orbs, each one depicting in full a different plane of existence, and how they moved and danced around one another in the great cosmic game. Each globe was about three times the size of a man in radius, and formed of material from the plane it depicted. The floor was graven of marble quarried from the negative energy plane itself, malefic energies safely disapated, and opposite it, a ceiling of glowing hypermatter from the positive energy plane supplemented the light of what appeared to be a miniature star in the center of the room.
That light was quickly obscured as the earth shook from the impact of an ancient blue dragoness landing in front of it. One of Tiamat’s consorts, fair and terrible as the sea and stars. The room crackled with static electricity, a storm system building within the confined space from the raw elemental power of the ancient dragon. She stalked forwards, reading another blast fit to reduce Raymond to ashes. As she opened her mouth, something hit her in the chin. The lightning backfired, and blew dragoness and defender alike back.
Pure angel-white armored boots tore up the surface next to Raymond as Elsior ground to a halt. Her wings flared, tensing for another burst of motion. Aegis snapped to the side in a ready position as the white lion guarded her friend. “Ray, you doing okay?”
”Fine. Just give me a moment.” Raymond replied. He focused, charging the depleted stone around him with his power, awakening a fragment of its prior energies. Once charged, he drew it up around himself, reforming his lost limb from the planar material. “Right. Good to go.”
”We cannot afford to be delayed by this guardian overlong.” Aegis warned through their shared mental link. “It must be removed rapidly.”
”Cualli can’t hold her. That’s how the last one broke.” Lamora warned. The changeling flashed into being, emerging from the form of a microscopic bacterium, only to deliver a devastating slash across the dragoness’s face. Her silver blade slashed horn and eye alike, sending the dragoness reeling with an eye cut out and a horn crashing to the floor. The shapeshifter goddess caught the blood from the wound in her palm, then in a crash of thunder, there were two dragonesses in the room, grappling with one another with fang and claw, tearing up the room in their struggle.
”Well best figure something out soon, we’re running out of zombies.” Keelah replied. The kobold, well, not exactly a kobold any longer, reported from the entrance to the room. Beyond it, the corridor was filled with the sound of clashing blades. She snapped around the corner, twin crossbows raised. Demonic energies began to charge from her weapons, then snapped out in a howling chorus as a rain of hellfire burst from the twin weapons. Tiamat’s lesser forces felt the sting of Avarice and Arrogance, as they rained amidst their ranks. She heard the chant of an Abashai sorcerer, and focused. The chanting devil had their spell cut off midway as Keelah fired a focused blast that punched through the sorcerer’s bodyguards and into his skull. The demonic energy exploded, rending the sorcerer to pieces and covering the nearby minions with gore. She fired another shot, this one a scything wave, and bisected a trio of white abashai that had managed to break through Raymond’s wall of zombies.
Despite her efforts, the undead were flanked, and annihilated. “Correction.” She updated. “We are out of zombies.”
”This necessitates a mightier minion.” Raymond remarked. “Cover me!” He pressed his hand to the black surface of the floor, and began to channel. At the same time, Lamora lost her grapple with the blue dragon, who threw her down with her teeth upon her throat. Unfortunately for the dragoness, biting a changeling is somewhat less than effective, as Lamora flowed like mercury away from the bite, taking on her true form and landing a devastating counter-slash along the dragonness’s wing. It turned towards her, roaring in anger, only to be checked and knocked back by a brilliant white flash.
As several of the dragoness’s teeth fell to the ground, Elsior landed, blade directed at the dragoness. “I’ve never fought a dragon before. Have to say, you’re disappointing.” This enraged the dragoness, who focused her fury upon the white lion, and the chamber shook with their battle.
As Raymond focused, the ground began to raise up into an arch. The sorcerer remained focused utterly on his work, defenseless as he chanted a ritual of awakening and binding. The minions of Tiamat surged forwards towards him, but then there came the sound of the unbreakable breaking. With a chime of shattering time, Keelah re-entered the fray. The fourth dimension cracked about her, as the demoness of time channeled the power of the abyss into the gears of the cosmos themselves.
She was about them and untouchable, fragmented across a dozen parallel worldlines, each one tangled in a gordian knot as reality bent at her whim. Her enemies were slowed, moving in molasses as no speed could avail them, and she likewise was a blur, her newfound abyssal power amplifying her speed, and time accelerating around her to push demonic enhancements even further. She was a one-woman platoon, single-handedly trapping the forces of Tiamat with enfilade fire, sniping their commanders into paste, blasting, ripping, and tearing the horde with a storm of abyssal energy.
Then, it was done. Raymond’s ritual completed as the gate stood ready. With a shout of warning, he activated it. The weak died instantly, reduced to their fundamental elements as the power of the negative energy plane ripped into the planetarium. A singularly unfortunate dragonborn was too near to the gate when it activated, and was pulled through, his body stretching out weirdly as the dimensional distortion inflicted a status scientifically know as “spaghettification” upon him.
Then from the gate came winged death, or perhaps death in the shape of wings. It came with an unsound, an unshriek, and an unboom. Its form perhaps suggested a vulture, or some other kind of carrion bird. But it was an impression, an image in the mind which tried to attach something known to the unknown thing. It was a storm of many black wings, and many eyes. About it was an unflame, an echo of the silence before the first words were spoken. The men of Akar called these creatures Nightstalkers, for they were the hunters and the dragons of the deathly plane. The shape of death, with it antithetical resonance, fell upon the brightest source of life, the blue dragoness. The two forces ripped against one another, lightning flashing desperately as silence smothered the thunder.
The scoundrels ran. “Minion.” Keelah grumbled as time wearily mended itself around her. “Minon. Minion implies you can control that thing!” She growled.
”Theoretically, I can.” Raymond replied. “Though I’d rather not try to put theory into practice right now.”
”So, in other words, you aren’t controlling it.” Keelah said.
”Why do you think I’m running too?” Raymond replied, and Keelah started running faster.
Then, they were there. They knew it at once, the presence of the place was palpable. A wrongness, a sorrow, a stain and scar upon the fabric of the world, invisible but impossible to miss or ignore. Raymond and Lamora felt their stomachs churn, their hair stand on end. Their senses screamed at them that this was a place nobody should be in, a place that should not exist. An absolute defilement hung upon the area, an abomination of desecration so severe that the world screamed around then.
Elsior fell to a knee, struggling to breathe from the overwhelming pressure of the area. Even empowered by Aegis, the dragonborn felt it more strongly than any of them, a death so profound its mere memory was enough to cause her heart to briefly stop, fitfully start, and then stop again. If she remained overlong, it would kill her. The effect upon Keelah was less severe, but without an artifact to protect her, she suffered terribly. The kobold was not a kobold any longer, her shape was formed from the material of the abyss, held together by her sheer ego more so than by any natural law. In this place, her scales screamed, writhed, and began to rip off her body into a twisting coil around her. Her skin boiled under it, her crossbows reknit themselves into her flesh. She retained her shape, her size, but more and more she leaned further away from the draconic heritage and into her new demonic nature to desperately avoid the ancestral agony gathered in this place.
It was odd, one of the simpler rooms in the great planetary palace. A dining room, with three chairs suited for draconic beings. It hadn’t been touched in centuries, nothing had even been here to shed the dead skin cells that would produce dust. Whatever meal they had been eating was long since rotted away, but the table was still half-set, broken plates and cookware scattered. It was as though it might have been left only a few minutes ago. If not for the blood, so much blood. It painted the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the furnitutre. Dried and set like stone into the fabric of the world, the blood of Bahamut, of Tiamat, and of their father.
This was where Io had died. This was where Bahamut and Tiamat’s war began, where they ripped their father’s heart from his chest and tore it in twain, split between them. It still carried the echo of Io’s dying scream, a memory potent enough to bring those with draconic blood to their knees. A memory potent enough to help fuel the birth of a new god of the dead.
”Ray. Grab it. Quickly.” Elsior ordered. “We aren’t meant to be here. Nobody is meant to be here.”
”On it.” Raymond replied, setting down his staff. It began to flicker, grey light sweeping out from it and scanning over the room again and again and again. Ghostly images began to form, memories of the room, playing back in reverse across the centuries. It had been so long that the process would take some time. “It’s set.” Raymond said, and placed a charm on the staff to return to him when it had captured the memory sufficiently. “Let’s get out of here.” He said, moving quickly back towards the planetarium. Everyone knew what waited for them there, it was better than this place.
”I just hope that your staff can get you the memory fast enough.” Keelah grumbled, piecing herself back into her false form. “There’s been trouble enough with-“
”Keelah, if you jinx us I’m going to kick you halfway back to the abyss.” Elsior cut her off.
Lamora stiffened. “Too late. She’s coming. Ray, timeline on that memory?”
”No idea.” Raymond replied. “At its current rate, maybe five minutes.” He started to sprint, and the others continued, Elsior picking up Keelah to bear her along more swiftly. “Maybe the nightstalker can slow-“
He went silent as they emerged back into the planetarium, and the world rent. An overwhelming dominance threatened to stop the hearts of everyone. The nightstalker turned its many-eyed gaze towards the rift and what came through. Drawn like a moth to a flame, it turned its gaze from the desiccated remains of the ancient blue dragoness and hurled itself towards the coming prismatic light. There was a sound like an earthquake, like a hurricane, and like a meteorite impacting as pure chaotic energy ripped it apart, blasting the apex predator of the Negative Energy Plane to dust in an instant.
The ground shook, as a thing unmatched in beauty and in horror stepped through. Five heads snaked on five necks, built upon a powerful body. The very magic of the room trembled as an impossibly powerful aura made the strands of the universe quiver. Five voices spoke in one, in absolute rage and fury, as Tiamat, queen of dragons, made her presence and displeasure known. “YOU DARE. YOU DARE, TRESPASS UPON MY HOME, IN THE PRESENCE OF MY PAIN? YOU COME, CRAWLING AMIDST THE TOMB OF GODS, AND THINK TO ROB IT, TO DARE TO STEAL FROM THE QUEEN OF DRAGONS?”
Lamora covered the scoundrels in a spell of invisibility, but Tiamat turned her gazes upon it and stripped the spell away with all the ease of a mother throwing away a sheet a troublesome child was trying to hide under. “I SEE YOU THERE, LAMORA, FALSE GODLING, PATHETIC LITTLE EXCUSE FOR A DEITY. EVEN IN YOUR MIGHTIEST FORM YOU WERE NO MATCH FOR ME. DO YOU THINK THIS LATEST MORTAL YOU USURPED WILL AVAIL YOU?”
Another head turned towards Elsior, towards Aegis. “I SEE YOU ALSO, DEVIANT, REMNANT AND REGRET. HOW MUCH THE TRUE YOU FEARS YOU, HOW ALIKE YOU ARE IN YOUR COWARDICE AND WEAKNESS. DAUGHTER, TRAITOR, CHILD OF THE USURPER. THAT TRINKET WILL NOT AVAIL YOU. BOW DOWN AND WORSHIP ME, AND I MAY SHOW YOU MERCY.”
Still another, full of wrath, gazed upon Raymond and he quietly thanked Adonai he no longer had a digestive system. “THE SAME WILL NOT BE SAID OF YOU, SORCERER, PARASITE, THIEF. HOW MUCH I REMEMBER YOU, BROKEN AND IN AGONY BY A MERE FAMILIAR, A CONCUBINE, AND NOW YOU THINK TO AVENGE YOURSELF UPON ITS MASTER BY OBTAINING GODHOOD? BY STEALING AWAY THE MEMORY OF MY GREATEST AGONIES TO EMPOWER YOURSELF? HAH. YOU, A FAILURE MORE TIMES THAN EVEN MY TREASURES CAN COUNT. FAILURE AS A FATHER, AS A LEADER, AND NOW YOU THINK TO BE A GOD? THE PUNISHMENT FOR YOUR ARROGANCE WILL BE LEGENDARY. YOUR SCREAMS WILL ECHO THROUGH THE MILLENIA, AND YOUR PAIN WILL BE ETCHED UPON THE STARS, SO THAT EVEN HELL SHALL GAZE UP AND SHUDDER. THEN ALL SHALL KNOW THAT I AM TIAMAT, HIGH GODDESS OF THE HIGH GODS, MY WRATH IS MIGHTY, MY VENGANCE SURE.”
”AND AS FOR YOU.” She finished, snarling at Keelah. “Who’s familiar are you again?”
Keelah grinned. "I am the goddamn eggshell caught in the universe's gears, holding it back from sheer spite even when I should be broken. I am the demoness of time, the greatest thief in the cosmos, the abyss couldn't hold me, and heaven can't keep me out. I am Ordani, a godslayer, and a true daughter of Io. In other words bitch, I'm your worst nightmare!"
There was a moment of stunned silence as Tiamat processed that she’d just been defied in the midst of her holy fury. Furthermore, that she’d been defied by a kobold of all things. A slave race dared to defy the queen of the universe? She was simply stunned by the audacity. Then, she ceased to be stunned, and became enraged. All five heads focused on the kobold, opened their mouths, and the battle was on.
A wave of annihilating prismatic energy roared towards Keelah, only to be intercepted by Lamora. As perhaps one of the most powerful attacks in the cosmos bore down on her, Lamora simply raised up her blade, and cut. The wave of destruction parted like the red sea, as Lamora stood, framed by the light of her blade and the apocalypse crashing past her and her party. She may have been the weakest among the gods, but to underestimate the heroine with a thousand faces was the utmost folly!
Elsior roared a battle cry and rocketed forwards, blade set to pierce the dragon queen’s adamantine hide. Only for her to miss, entirely. She paused, confused for a moment as Tiamat seemed to utterly vanish. However, as she looked down, and beheld a prismatic dragonborn, it was clear she had only changed her shape. A blast of supercooled acid hit the white lion, beginning to melt through her armor as it froze her solid to the ceiling.
Time shattered around Keelah as she took cover behind the planets, opening fire with a dozen piercing shots. They shattered in the air a meter from Tiamat’s form, and she calmly waved a hand. One of the planets Keelah was cowering behind exploded into corrosive gasses, instantly melting two timelines to goo. The gas rapidly spread, forcing Keelah to cover her mouths and hold fire, lest she risk igniting the gas.
Tiamat raised her hand, and fired a blast of fire. It was no stream as with a normal breath weapon, but a concentrated ball of heat and death, more akin to a fireball than a normal breath weapon. Raymond hurled a singularity at a nearby planet, dragging it off course and into the path of the fireball. The fireball hit it, and ripped the planet apart, sending magma spraying throughout the room. Irritated, Tiamat glared towards Raymond. A moment later, a bolt of lightning ripped out of nowhere and slammed into the mage. He went sprawling, body ablaze. As he rolled, he lifted his hand, and redicrected the energy. The power was still enough to blast his directing arm to ashes, but he managed to send the majority of the attack back at Tiamat.
The queen of dragons didn’t even deign to block the attack, letting the bolt of lightning pass harmlessly over her. She was the daughter of chaos itself, and no elemental magic could harm her, not even her own. The blade of Lamora on the other hand, could. As Tiamat was blinded from being inside a lightning bolt, Lamora struck, landing a glancing blow on the dragon queen’s arm. The hero’s blade slashed open the virtually indestructible scales, drawing a goddess’s blood. The dragon queen’s eyebrows suddenly raised, and she retreated away from Lamora, teleporting to the other side of the room and firing off another blast in her direction.
Keelah moved clear of the gas, and began hammering Tiamat’s position with fire. Tiamat once again blocked it, only for one of the bolts to vanish, replaced with a now one-armed mage. Raymond held a spike of pure negative energy in his remaining hand like a spear, and drove it into the wound Lamora had opened. The spear drove in, and wrapped itself around the dragon queen’s arm like a shackle. Tiamat’s eyes went wide, and she smiled briefly before moving in to rip Raymond’s head off. He shouted an alert. “Her magic’s sealed! Now!”
Tiamat’s foot swung with enough force to reduce the mage’s torso to paste, but it didn’t connect with him. Raymond vanished, and the dragon queen’s heel instead connected with the brilliant white armor of the White Lion. Elsior grunted, but she had traded blows with Ascalon, Tiamat was still murderously strong, but she wasn’t a fighter. “My turn.” She replied, stepping in and answering with an attack that hurled Tiamat across the room.
Tiamat landed on her feet, scales smoking but unbroken. Even a full-powered attack from Aegis could only bruise her scales, not break them. The power of a trueborn goddess was not something any mortal weapon, even an artifact, could overcome with simple brute force. That didn’t seem to stop the scoundrels though, as Elsior charged, Keelah opened fire, and Raymond hurled another singularity, this one aimed directly for Tiamat’s throat.
Tiamat smirked, and reality bent. Elsior found herself suspended in the air, dangling from invisible threads. A wall of crystal interposed itself between Keelah’s bolts and their target, and Tiamat conjured a staff of similar crystal, using it to focus a blast at Raymond’s singularity. The miniature black hole froze solid, fell to the floor, and shattered.
”Magic sealed my as-gh!” Elsior swore, as Tiamat crossed the distance and struck her. Her armor unraveled, and the dragonborn lost her grip on Aegis. She hit the ground sprawling, chest caved in and body starting to tear itself apart. It was like she was coming apart at the seams, body fraying like a damaged tapestry.
”It is sealed, this is something else entirely!” Aegis shouted, blade struggling in the threads before Tiamat casually picked the greatsword up in one hand to examine it like a child studying a new toy.
”Indeed, oh treasure mine.” Tiamat mused. “I am Tiamat, axiomatic to dragons. Where they are, I am also. All dragons, and all things that are called dragons. Do you understand? Besides, I could hardly call myself the greatest sorceress in the cosmos if I limited my self to only a single continuity’s power.”
Aegis tried to fight back, forming armor to restrict the dragon queen’s movements, but he could find no purchase. Every time he tried to manifest the restricting plates, he found his progress blocked by strange structures, as though the underlying threads of reality had been woven into armor for the dragon queen.
Lamora struck, and was deftly parried by Aegis. The two goddesses clashed for a few seconds. Lamora was far more skilled, but the gap in raw power was too much. Tiamat was toying with her. Keelah circumvented the wall of crystal and prepared to fire, but the wall collapsed into eyes, which intercepted her bolts with freezing rays of their own, before turning towards her. Raymond reformed his arm, and shaped a singularity into a staff. He swapped with Lamora, giving to buy the cleric time to heal Elsior.
With a two handed blow, Tiamat shattered Raymond’s staff, staggering the mage. Then, she drove the blade into his stomach, and twisted. Raymond was a spirit, not a man, but this was still a ruinous blow, and he fell forwards onto the blade. Still, he grit his teeth, and vanished, taking the blade with him. Lamora reappeared in his stead, and in a single motion, slashed open Tiamat’s throat. The dragon queen staggered back, before her blood flash froze, keeping her avatar in the fight. Lamora lunged to finish her, but invisible threads caught her blade and redirected it. With a thunderclap, her blade severed the shackle sealing Tiamat’s magic.
In a surge of power, Tiamat resumed her true form and hurled Lamora back. Her power was simply too great for the scoundrels to face even this aspect. Keelah opened fire, piercing the dragon queen’s hide with many bolts, and then ran for cover as Tiamat swept her tail out and threw half the room at the kobold in return.
Raymond leaned on Aegis like a cane, holding his essence in with one hand. He focused, mending himself to the point where he wasn’t about to disapate, but the effort left him weakened. He was practically out, and nothing was even slowing Tiamat down. He looked about, and gaze focused on the sun in the center of the room. He had one more gambit.
”I have an idea. Give me a moment, and time moving as fast as possible on that star.” He requested.
”I hope this one works Ray.” Keelah warned, and then fired a bolt. The sun began to spin faster. Elsior took back her blade, and with a roar of challenge, once more faced down the queen of dragons. Her brilliant blade met the fang, claw, and crushing tail of the dragon goddess, their blows shaking the ground, before Tiamat focused another prismatic blast and hurled her back. She advanced, as ruin came to the planetarium around her. The orbs were desiccating, falling back to their component elements and being drawn irrevocably to the star in its center, which began to swell and turn a sickly red.
Tiamat advanced on Raymond as he chanted, focus entirely on his spell. Keelah bombarded her but her attacks were only pinpricks. She prepared a blast to finish the mage, only to be intercepted by Lamora’s fist, and the bellowing roar of a Tarrasque. The sight of that monster drove Tiamat into a berserk frenzy, and she threw herself at Lamora’s mightiest form with an animalistic rage. She bit and tore and rent, tearing massive chunks off of the changeling. Her magic and breath weapons seemed forgotten as she screamed in utter rage and hate for the thing in front of her. All Lamora could do against the onslaught was defend, and not to protect herself truly, but to simply die more slowly.
”There’s not enough mass!” Aegis warned, as the last of the planets were dragged into the swirling maelstrom of the star.
”Then we’ll have to use acceleration as a substitute!” Raymond retorted, and hurled a singularity into the heart of the star. “Elsior! Throw the sun at her!”
Elsior looked at Raymond like he was crazy, and then shrugged. If this didn’t work, they were all dead anyways. She hurled herself into the heart of the star, trusting her armor to protect her from the incredible forces at work. With a cry, she threw the dying sun at the queen of dragons. “ORDER ON ME!”
Raymond threw the last of his power into briefly phasing the scoundrels out of existence, as the star impacted Tiamat and exploded. The queen of dragons was resilient, but even her armor was nothing before the force of a supernova. The planetarium vanished as the power of a collapsing star, even a miniature one, ripped it apart. But as the blinding light faded, Tiamat still stood, smoking and battered, stunned, and breathing heavily, but stood.
But so also did the scoundrels! Emerging back into existence, they attacked with everything they had left. Keelah blinded the dragon queen with an unendring rain of abyssal bolts, giving cover for Lamora to take on her true form and carve a ruinous slash across one of Tiamat’s throats. Elsior took the chance, shedding her armor and moving with enough force to create a sonic boom, she struck the weakened throat with all her might. In a spray of divine blood, the head severed, and with a crash, the red head of Tiamat fell to the ground.
Tiamat’s rage was incalculable. Her wings stirred up a veritable hurricane, throwing the scoundrels off of her as she took flight. The scoundrels looked up, and awe came upon them as the empress of dragons began to cast a spell of incomprehensible power. She wove together ley lines, the very flows of magic through the cosmos, and she wove them into being, not one, but five at once. Then, they began to align, one to each cardinal direction, and one pointed like a targeting beam directly at the scoundrels.
Raymond was unconscious, so Lamora called Cualli to hand and activated it. The scoundrels vanished into the staff, and it vanished into itself seconds before the spell began to activate. A beam of brilliant white light filled the air, and the ley-lines collapsed into themselves, into the directing one, and hurtled downwards. The scoundrels re-appeared on the Astral Hound moments before a spell powerful enough to shatter a planet detonated on the space they had just been standing. Akar’s ancient magics held it together, directing the force outwards. The plane survived, barely, with a seventy-mile wide hole punched through it, straight from one end to the other.
Keelah rushed to the Astral Hound’s helm and swiftly began directing the aethership away from Akar as fast as it could go, supplementing her own power to accelerate it through time and space even faster. They watched with baited breath, as they prayed that Tiamat’s aspect wouldn’t chase them down. Forutnately for them, the damaged avatar was destroyed by its own working. Within Ascalon’s domain, the true dragon queen raged that her prey had escaped her, though privately, she was mildly amused that any mortal had managed to push one of her avatars so far. It was the first time in a very, very long while.
”Did you get it?” Keelah asked as soon as Lamora restored Raymond to consciousness. “Because that was far too close to have been for nothing.”
Raymond focused on the staff, and projected out the memory. “Yeah, and I see why Tiamat didn’t want us to find it.” He replied. The hazy grey memory stood clear, as Io breathed his last, and his daughter wept for what she had done.
”Well that’s a fascinating little parcel of information, beyond simply its use in creating our own deity to counter her.” Aegis remarked. “But perhaps not the most actionable piece we recovered on this expedition. Did any of you notice what wasn’t there?”
”Even as supposedly the good half you’re an insufferable smart-ass you know that?” Keelah replied. “Just fucking tell us.”
”Takes one to know one mini-Mat.” Aegis replied. “There were no forces from Ascalon’s own armies. It was exclusively Tiamat’s.”
”Given her response to us being there, I think she’d have killed him if he tried to add his own.” Elsior replied. “Though, that probably wouldn’t stop him.”
”Exactly.” Aegis replied. “He’d only avoid having his own forces around to monitor the situation, and probably try to kill all of us, if there wasn’t already something else he needed them for. He’s preparing to make his move.”
”Another invasion of Akar?” Raymond guessed. “It’s only been fifty years. He can’t be ready for that so quickly.”
”We don’t take losing well.” Aegis replied.
”Fair enough. Even so, we’re going to need more information, and more firepower.” Raymond considered. “This memory is only a part of what I’ll need, and the energies required will take more than a little while to accumulate.”
”So,” Keelah considered. “What I’m hearing is that we need to break into heaven again.”
”And persuade an archangel to not only avoid killing us, but come with us. Because there’s no way Kazador will come with us without her.” Elsior groaned. “And maybe somehow pick up Matlal on the way, providing he’s not busy on the mortal front.”
”He will be. Can’t keep himself out of trouble that one.” Lamora remarked. “Though as for persuading Senket, I suspect she has words for Ascalon long overdue.”
”No doubt. So, in the interest of not having to ask Kaz to reforge me, please don’t tell her who’s soul is in this sword.” Aegis requested, with not a little fear.

https://preview.redd.it/u0r1vqyh5woa1.jpg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a6aa9e91b78b57c64857f1045bd47777027ad9c8
Spoilers - definitely. If you haven't seen this movie it is available on many streaming platforms.
This is a sequel to the first Jumanji movie and it is such a wonderful movie with a brilliant cast and was just as good if not better than the first Jumanji movie. I don't know though. Robin Williams was pretty great in the first one.
This is our story - we all play Jumanji - all the time.
In 1996, teenager Alex Vreeke receives the original and cursed Jumanji board game after his father finds it while jogging on a beach, but puts it aside, noting that nobody plays board games anymore, instead playing a video game involving motorcycles.
God wants to play with you so he changes it so you will play. He updates it. Come on!! Let's go play the game of life!!
Overnight, the game changes so that the box's contents are now a video game cartridge, but when Alex puts it in his console and turns it on - he vanishes.
Twenty years later, high school student Spencer Gilpin is sent to detention for helping his former best friend, Anthony "Fridge" Johnson, with his homework by writing Fridge's essays for him. Spencer is afraid of life, Anthony is afraid of his brain and not being popular,
They are joined by Bethany Walker, a beautiful girl who was caught talking on her phone during a quiz, and Martha Kaply, a socially awkward girl who objected to being made to participate in gym class. Bethany only has eyes for herself and Martha could give a caca what anyone thinks. She would love a boyfriend but doesn't really give a caca.
For detention, they are charged by Principal Bentley with removing the staples from discarded magazines in an old storage area, but Spencer discovers the console containing the Jumanji game and convinces the others to play it with him. They are unable to access one of the five-player options, a pilot, but once all four others have been selected, the game draws them all inside it.
Your higher self is on a mission and he will entice you to come join him. He can't be freed until you do so he will call to you to come help him. He will give you desires - to play the game. He helps you gain those desires but he teaches you about life as you do so you will free him one day.
Finding themselves in a jungle, all four are shaken to realize that they have become the avatars they chose for the game. Each one of us is an avatar for God playing the game of life with him. Love binds us and despite our differences we forget the ugly in life we saw and start to work as a team. They soon all discover the world of men is nice but being in love with living life is so much better. It comes down to you would give it all away, including your own life, if it would save another so they could live life. All for one and one for all.
Spencer finds himself turned into Dr. Smolder Bravestone, a muscular archaeologist. Fridge arrives into the game as Franklin "Moose" Finbar, an expert zoologist. We change to be what we wish and to face our fear. Spencer is afraid he is not big and strong. Fridge is afraid he is not smart and imaginative.
Fridge is upset that his avatar is a foot shorter than he normally is. Kevin Hart in his juju is hysterical.
Martha becomes Ruby Roundhouse, a beautiful dancing babe and "killer of men". Martha fears no one will think she is pretty and want to be with her. She doesn't believe she is coordinated enough to be good at sports.
Bethany is now Dr. Shelly Oberon, a cartographer that Bethany mistook for a woman because the description read "curvy genius" and she becomes horrified upon seeing her reflection. Bethany has been nothing but vain until now and has a perfect body. She is shocked and dismayed she is not only fat and round she is a man.
The four freak out as they realize they are inside the game. Almost immediately, Bethany is suddenly eaten by a hippopotamus that emerges from the river, but she swiftly reappears after falling out of the sky.
This is the story of us. We are thrown together with others who are not our family but become our family as we learn together. We discover we are in a game. The name were given is but an avatar for the one inside us to act out our thinking and feeling.
God's in charge and he puts them into avatars they never dreamed they could be. We die and return but eventually we are told this is it - the game is ending for you. Finish.
Fleeing from a stampede of hippos, the group encounter Nigel, whose repetitive responses help Spencer identify him as an NPC (non-player character) who tells them that they have come to Jumanji in response to a letter Nigel wrote to Spencer's avatar. The letter explains that Nigel was part of an expedition by explorer John Hardin Van Pelt to claim the legendary gem, the "Jaguar's Eye" - the eye of God - removal of the gem from the large jaguar statue granting Van Pelt control over the animals of Jumanji.
In order to complete the game, the players must return the gem to the jaguar statue and call out "Jumanji". For us to complete the game we must return to God, and call out Victory. Just as they stop the bad boys we too stop the bad boys by returning to love/life/God - we are the pearl - the gem.
With those instructions given, the group are dropped off outside a forest, where it is revealed that Bethany alone can read the map Nigel gave them, the map directing them to the next stage of their quest. Everyone has their own role to play - their own talent to share.
They are attacked by Van Pelt's men on motorbikes, but manage to escape by fleeing through the trees and jumping off a cliff into a river. After emerging from the river, Martha realizes that she has been shot, but returns to the group immediately after her avatar explodes. They determine that the line tattoos on their forearms, which originally consisted of three bars, Martha and Bethany now only have two, Spencer realizes that these bars indicate the number of lives they have in the game, guessing that they will die for good, both in the game, and in the real world as well, once they lose all three lives.
There is a lot of the devil talking and walking and I don't want to spoil it too much but it is great and exciting.
The fifth playable character introduces himself as the pilot Jefferson "Seaplane" McDonough, who says his real name is Alex. He leads them away from the danger.
Alex takes the four to a treehouse that once belonged to Alan Parrish - Robin Williams character in the original.
He makes margaritas for the gang, and Fridge gets drunk. Alex mentions that he has been stuck in the game for months, and he hasn't been able to get to the transportation shed to get himself out. Alex has used up two of his lives and been unable to progress further without the others due to his limited skills, but has identified the transport shed where they will acquire the means to move on. While Bethany teaches Martha how to flirt to distract the guards, Alex's dated references lead Spencer and Fridge to realize that he is Alex Vreeke. Alex is shocked to learn that he has been trapped in the game for over twenty years. Although Alex suffers a panic attack, the team are able to gain access to the transport shed after Martha taps into her character's strength of dance combat. Alex has been afraid to live - to give up that last life but Marth's courage helps Alex recognize that they can complete the game by working together.
Put aside your BS and know all are on your team.
There is a brief panic when damage to the helicopter traps it in a canyon in front of a rampaging herd of white rhinoceros, but Spencer is able to repair the damage and help them ascend. Unfortunately, they lose the gem in the process when it falls out of Fridge's backpack. Spencer is able to reclaim the gem after using Fridge as a 'sacrifice' to draw the rhino herd's attention, subsequently ordering Alex to spin the helicopter in time to catch Fridge as he 'respawns'. Needless to say Fridge is a bit upset. He had lives to spare in Spencer's mind. It's hysterical!
Once they land, Alex is stung by a mosquito and begins to die due to his avatar's weakness, but Bethany saves him by giving him CPR, which passes one of her remaining lives to him. As they prepare for their next step, love starts to work it's magic and Spencer and Martha admit that they have feelings for each other in the real world, while Bethany begins to bond with Alex.
Making their way to the jaguar statue, they find themselves confronted by actual jaguar guards, which cost Spencer one of his lives when he attempts to take the gem along the path to the statue alone. With Fridge's support, Spencer implements a plan where Martha takes out Van Pelt's approaching minions while the other three provide a distraction for the jaguars, leaving Spencer to take one of the minion's motorbikes and continue to the statue.
Van Pelt represents the objective thinker and attempts to gain the advantage by taking Bethany hostage, but Fridge is able to drive the jaguar guards away by befriending an elephant, only for the players to lose the gem when it is thrown away. While the others distract Van Pelt's minions, Spencer takes the bike to the top of the statue while Martha retrieves the gem from a pit full of snakes, using her character's weakness to venom to sacrifice her second life and 'respawn' in a position where she can pass the gem to Spencer as she falls. With this action, Spencer places the gem in the statue and calls out "Jumanji!", ending the game and restoring the jungle to peace. With this victory, Nigel appears to congratulate the group, shaking their hands and returning them to the real world.
We have adventures when we face our fears, when we begin to love, when we begin to love life. Then back to the old objective world but everything has changed now.
Back in the storage room, all four have returned to their true forms, but are saddened to find that Alex is not among them. As they walk home, they witness the Vreeke house - which had fallen into disrepair as Alex's parents had no answer as to his fate - has been fully restored. As a car parks outside the house to release a family, the father sees the former players and confirms that he is Alex, who emerged from the game in 1996 and changed his history, also revealing that he named his eldest daughter after Bethany.
He honors the one who saved his life. Wish fulfilled. All is restored back - better than before. It's perfect.
The following week at school, Spencer and Fridge are friends once again, and Bethany is making plans to go backpacking, while Spencer and Martha start dating. When they hear the drumbeats of Jumanji, they take the console out to the back of the school and Fridge drops a bowling ball onto it, each intending that this will end the game once and for all.
Yet Jumanji it is an allegory for the game of life. They all got their wishes, dreamed, started to believe they were that, acts of faith doing it, and some grew up - no longer vain and now loving life. All of it not just themselves.
At the end of the end credits, Jumanji's menacing jungle drums play once again, suggesting the game still exists in some form to play another of its games.
It's forever and day - God's game. Life - so beautiful and the game is too in it's own way.

If you're interested in supporting my blog,click here to read today's roundup there. Otherwise, read on below!
I'll admit that I had a hard time trudging through most of this, what with half of the top four fogging off to the FA Cup. Thankfully, there was enough to enjoy at our end in most of the results regardless of the competition to keep me interested if not engaged. This will be our last roundup for a few weeks as everyone jets off to international commitments of varying degrees of importance. Between now and the resumption of normal activities in two weeks, we get to enjoy an eight-point cushion over our nearest rivals, long may that last. Enough throat-clearing. Let's get to it.
1. Arsenal (22W 3D 3L: 69 pts.) This one almost felt unfair. I stress the "almost". Aside from one or two early glitches that saw Zaha hit the post and Edouard getting through (but from an offside position), we flowed and danced and sluiced past Palace with more aplomb than we've seen in some time. While it's Saka's brace and assist that will seize all the headlines, we can't overlook Ben White, who not only pocketed Zaha for long, long stretches but also sprung (sprang?) Saka innumerable times, sometimes with long balls in behind and between Guehi and Mitchell but also with small short ones of no more than five or six yards. Saka feasted all day on that backline, but it was from White's service that the feasting was on offer. On a larger level, it started to feel like we were ought to vindicate Vieira, under whom the Eagles at least offered resistance. We're eight points clear with 10 to play. Still too early to be planning parades...
2. Man City (19W 4D 4L: 61 pts.) Pep's minions took a break from Prem action to abuse Burnley in the FA Cup to the tune of a 6-0 scoreline. They may yet reel us in, but their fixtures are starting to pile up. No one looks remotely capable of stopping them in the FA Cup, and they did get a tricky UCL draw (Bayern). They'll play no fewer than nine matches in April, once every three or four days, and our 26 April visit may feel somewhat less daunting by then. Then again, when you have a squad as deep and as honestly bought and paid for as City's, fixture congestion is about as real a problem for them as FFP is. They now have a game in hand over us, which temporarily inflates our lead to eight points, but that match against West Ham will have to wait until May, by which point we may very well know who's won the Prem. We each play four Prem matches between now and 26 April when we visit the Etihad. Tick...tock...tick...tock...
3. Man U (15W 5D 6L: 50 pts.) Before you scoff, remember that Man U have played just 26 matches and could close the gap to Man City to only five eight points if they win that game in hand. To be real, though, they're just treading water in the Prem while Spurs are like that drowning child in the swimming pool meme (more on that hot mess in a minute). To be even more real, though, it's a bit mad to think that they have a chance at winning a treble and will make sure to remind us all of each step they take towards winning the FA Cup and Europa League...which will make it all the more delicious when they fail on one or both fronts. At home against Fulham, they needed Willian, Mitrovic, and Silva to all get sent off before they could turn the tide in their favour. With Rashford's purple patch having ended, one has to wonder where the goals will come from against full-strength sides.
4. Tottenham (15W 4D 9L: 49 pts.) Normally, I dread this section. It's like scrubbing a toilet or flossing one's teeth after neglecting the task for a few months. You know it's necessary, but that doesn't ease the distaste. Thankfully, the news is all of the delicious sort after Antonio Conte offered a mild and even-tempered assessment of the club's prospects in this season and into the foreseeable future. His mindset was in no way altered by the fact that his squad squandered a 3-1 lead, at home, to cellar-dwelling Southampton. I kid, I kid. The Italian made "scorched earth" look positively genteel, going off on a ten-minute diatribe in which he excoriated the club's history and culture, sparing no one except the fans themselves. It was truly astonishing, even for a man who's been trying to get sacked for weeks now. He really only said when almost all of us take to be true, but the truth may get lost in the hurt feelings he's inspired. It may have been a calculated attempt at lighting a fire under this players, but it felt more like taking a blowtorch and burning the whole place down. I might prefer a slower burn, but to each his own, I guess.
5. Newcastle (12W 11D 3L: 47 pts.) Newcastle seem to have given up on their quixotic campaign at finishing in the top four with more draws than wins, based on their late-ish winner against Wolves last week and their very late winner against Nottingham Forest, Isak scoring from the spot in stoppage-time to again seize victory from the jaws of, uh...um...drawdom? You know what I mean. Don't make me work so hard for it. With two matches in hand over Tottenham, they have a better than even chance at climbing the ladder to fourth, all the more so now that the goals are more or less flowing, a relative term for a side that has only scored 39 goals, the lowest among the top-eight sides. If they can continue to score more than once per match, they'll surely overtake the flaming dumpster fire that currently occupies fourth.
6. Liverpool (12W 6D 8L: 42 pts.) I honestly don't know what to make of this squad, and I challenge anyone else to make any sense of them either. Just a few weeks ago, an historic obliteration of Man U seemed to announce the Reds' resurrection. However, they then followed up on that with a meek 1-0 loss to Bournemouth. It's only a creditable second-leg 1-0 loss away to Real Madrid and the fact that they have also have two games in hand on Tottenham that I bother to write about them (and, let's be honest: Real didn't have to do much after winning the first leg 5-2 at Anfield). At a risk of reverse-jinxing myself here, I know that we have to go to Anfield ourselves soon. If I were to leave them out, I'd expose us all to some serious voudoo mindgames. We've seen what they're capable of when everything clicks as it should; this is still the side that came very, very close to a quadruple just a season ago. Woe betide those who underestimate them.
That's where we're leaving off for now. I think it's safe to say that we don't have much to fear from Brighton, Brentford, of Fulham even for as good as they've done for themselves. I feel like there used to be some other club, some other erstwhile rival that I've forgotten about, but I can't for the life of me recall its name. It feels like it's on the tip of my tongue. Ah well. If it were relevant, I'm sure I wouldnt't have such trouble. Until next time, then...

The final challenge of the set, which ended up being a bit anti-climatic because no real 'boss' type mobs show up.
Video Link: https://youtu.be/i5xODOOfGtU
Basic Information:
5 heroes, 20 turn time limit. The time limit isn't really an issue for longtimers, like the previous two challenges this map is basically another set of minions to stomp while using all the tile mechanics.
This time around, however, there are no chunky boss mobs, and you start split up, which can easily be rectified by Odin.
You'll be fighting the following minions, none of which have any immunities meaning they could get active and passive silenced.

• Harpy - Same thing as the Harpy in the previous challenge
• Cuttlefish - Same thing as the previous challenge
• Wilderness Hunter - Same thing as the previous challenge
• Leviathan - Same thing as the previous challenge
• Lobster - Same thing as the previous challenge
• Spider Demon - They're fragile as they were in the previous challenge, didn't bother looking.
• Guard Mercenary - Same thing as the third challenge
• Medic - Same thing as the third challenge
• Artillery - Same thing as the third challenge
• Redeemers - New
  • Deals 100% increased damage when fighting enemies with less than 3 buffs.
  • Roar
  • Advanced Gospel - Gospel that also provides an AA.
  • Battle Cry - Dispels 2 buffs when entering combat (not just on attack).
• Zealot - New
  • If ending action on enemy tile, gains 2 buffs.
  • Gale Shield - Buff that gives a free AA for two turns.
  • Body Boost - If the unit has more than 3 buffs, gains 80% DR.
• Golden Knight - Changed
  • If ending action on enemy tile, gains 2 buffs.
  • Chivalry
  • Strike
  • Flurry - Passive Leon 3c aoe.
• Alchemists - New, but fragile also.
• Giant Zombies - New, the chunkiest enemy in the fight
  • Gains 10% stats per buff on allies. Talent based.
  • Gains an AA if he didn't attack.
  • Sword Dance
  • Roar
• Goblin Knights - New, but fragile.

The enemies start with the initial wave, second wave spawns on T3, the third wave spawns on T6, and the final wave spawns in on T9.
Second wave has 3 groups, RedeemeGoblin Knight/Zealot on the right, Harpy/Golden Knight on the bottom, and Guard Merc/LobsteMedic on the bottom left.
Third wave has 4 groups, Giant Zombie/Wilderness HunteLobster on the left, Alchemist/Spider Demon/Zealot on the bottom left, Giant Zombie/Cuttlefish/Goblin Knight on bottom right, RedeemeHarpy on the right.
Final wave has 2 groups of four. Artillery/Cuttlefish/Spider Demon/Zealot on the left, Golden Knight/Harpy/Leviathan/Alchemist on the right.
Strategy Info:
Mass debuffs for the most part are the name of the game here, because there are a lot of enemies, and their offensive power is severely neutered by bringing a bunch of silences, both active and passive. Wettham can trivialize a lot of the map mechanics by spreading passive silences around.
I would suggest in general situating around the most dangerous spawns in each wave, and letting the remaining enemies walk to you, as most of them can't cross the map in one turn, giving you plenty of time to wipe the enemies at your leisure while getting AAs on the level 3 tiles.
I dropped Bozel/SP Lana/Wettham/Lucretia/Florentia for this map. You shouldn't need a tank if you end up debuffing everything, because nothing will have high enough stats to threaten you towards the later waves when you have a bunch of buffs from the level 2 tiles.