# Melkathi's Magical Menagerie of the Strange, Fun, Weird and Insane **URL:** \ **Category:** Feature Requests and Game feedback\ **Created:** [August 26, 2015, 9:23pm UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/melkathis-magical-menagerie-of-the-strange-fun-weird-and-insane/377 "2015-08-26T21:23:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![melkathi](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/melkathi/32/131_2.png) [@melkathi](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/melkathi)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 9:23pm UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/melkathis-magical-menagerie-of-the-strange-fun-weird-and-insane/377/1 "2015-08-26T21:23:55Z")
Melkathi’s Magical Menagerie of the Strange, Fun, Weird and Insane Having a gazillion of threads with a gazillion and one good idea will mean that a lot of them will go unseen, pushed out of people’s attention by other good ideas. So here is a collection of some all squished into one! * * * ## **Kingdoms:** While I have ideas for kingdoms (for one I’d like an Atlantis style water kingdom), they need in depth writing, and I am not sure the devs are looking for something so detailed. BUT @Serale is putting a lot of work fleshing out his ideas, so have a look at the [Pinnacle of Frost](http://community.gemsofwar.com/t/kingdom-request-pinnacle-of-frost/352)! Also a lot of work: @Archenassa 's [The Cursed Circus](http://community.gemsofwar.com/t/the-cursed-circus/416)! My own Kingdom suggestion can be found [here](http://community.gemsofwar.com/t/kingdom-troop-request-doppelgangers-shapeshifters/337), far less detailed. * * * What I am more interested in is troop and skill ideas. Looking at skills first then and later at troop ideas using them. * * * ## **Skills:** **Copying / Cloning / Mirroring** Taken from my doppelganger thread, this category of skills would make for a very varied playing experience, ever changing and shifting based on the battle at hand. Troops could be able to use the ability of opponents, exploding the board like Gorgotha, digging for gold like Dwarven Miners (you never know) or strutt their stuff Sheggra style. Troops could copy stats instead of stealing them as they do so far. Gloomleaf managed to reach a stupidly high Attack value? Give him a taste of his own medicine! Sacred Guardian refusing to die, safe behind layers of armour? Annoy him right back! **Shapeshifting / Evolving / Growing** These skills would change the troop when triggered. They’d roughly fall into two types: the were-wolf style shapeshifter who uses the skill to swap back and forth or a Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde mad scientist. Perhaps from a well armoured defensive to a high attack offensive form and back again. This could mean that attack and armour or health are swapped or that they are set to specific values - both with their advantages and disadvantages. The other type would be the evolving troop: a baby dragon growing to maturity, a parasite taking over the host body or an egg hatching. In this instance, when the skill is used it would replace the troop with the evolved version, with its own grown-up skill. **Friendly Status Effects** So far we can affect opponents with nasty statuses: silence, poison and marks. The skills that target friendly troops only have permanent effects: +health, + armour etc. But the same concept of effects could be applied to buffs: Regeneration: for the duration of the effect, the troop would gain some health every turn, giving a little healing even if it was damaged a turn or two after the healing skill was used. Stealth: a troop could be safe from getting directly targeted by abilities. Or safe from damage in general to not make Webspinner even more usefull 😉 Frenzy: a commander could whip his troops into a berzerk fury, letting them deal double skull damage for the duration, just as if the opponent had been marked by a Dire Wolf. **Infections** What do fire and plague have in common? They spread. Not everythign needs to only affect what it does when the skill triggers. The immediate “benefit” would be that targets could re-infect themselves through adjacent infected troops. The real trouble would be to balance such effects with existing effects such as poison - new effects must not make old ones obscolete. Thus a spreading effect would need a downside, so having them wear off with time seems a given. Of course pushing the concept of infection all the way, we’d reach the zombie apocalypse and facehuggers: imagine an infection rapidly ticking down an enemy’s health but when they die, replacing them with a zombie - a reversed summon. And it would become even worse if the troop they get replaced with would fight on your side, not theirs! **Reflection / Absorption / Reduction / Diffusion** A group of effects that mitigates damage, prevents it or does fun stuff with it. _Reflection_ would take the damage dealt to a troop and reflect it or a part of it back at the attacker for the duration or once if it is limited to the next time the troop takes damage. Redirection could be to the specific attacker or defenders choice. _Absorption_ would tkae the damage and channel it into something usefull: health, mana or something similar nice. _Reduction_ would be straightforward, reducing or outright preventing damage. _Diffusion_ would at first sight seem less useful, taking the damage and spreading it out to the whole team. This could lead to a tricksie surprise if it triggered more abilities on the rest of the team. **Upon Death** Following up on infections, the opporunity presents itself to do more with the “if dies” clause already used by troops such as the Dwarven Lord. Changing the target of the upon death effect from the troop using the attack to something else could then cause a poison-like infection to spread if it kills the troop. Or as mentioned above, a summoning could be triggered by the death. Or again, a corpse could explode, causing damage to adjacent troops. On the other hand, upon death effects could be triggered by friendly troops or affect friendly troops. A troop could upon death for example increase the attack value of all allies or deal damage to opposing troops, thus discouraging the opponent from striking them. _( For more troop ability ideas please also see [Archenassa’s thread](http://community.gemsofwar.com/t/new-troop-abilities/396) )_ * * * ## **Troops:** Example troops for the above ideas: **Phoenix** The phoenix starts as an Egg with low health, 0 attack and high armour. Its _Hatch_ ability uses Green and red mana. When used, the egg shatters and the Phoenix emerges. It now has an ability that uses red mana and deals fire damage that sets targets on fire, burning them over time and having a chance to spread to nearby targets. Trickier to code special: _Rise From the Ashes_: when the Phoenix dies while in Phoenix form, it changes to Egg form instead. To defeat it the egg needs to be destroyed. **Voracious Salamander** The salamander starts with the _Feeding Frenzy_ skill: destroy X gems of target enemy’s mana colour, very low chance to swallow enemy whole boosted by number of gems destroyed, become _sated_. The **sated salamander** has reduced attack, being drowsy from overeating but a boost to health. Its new ability is _burp_: create X gems of the salamander’s mana colour, deal very low fire damage to target enemy, become _voracious_. **Goblin Kamikaze** Having failed to read the safety warnings, this goblin is playing with things he shouldn’t. _Light the Fuse_ starts a countdown, if this countdown reaches 0, the goblin blows himself up, dealing significant damage (and freeing up a space for your summoners to fill!). **Martyr** The Martyr shields others with his/her body. The _Noble Sacrifice_ ability puts a ward on an ally. While it is active, all damage dealt to that target is redirected to the Martyr. Increase Martyr’s attack value by the damage redirected to Martyr. ---
**Author:** ![Gems-of-War](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/gems-of-war/32/2281_2.png) [@Gems-of-War](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Gems-of-War)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 12:38am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/melkathis-magical-menagerie-of-the-strange-fun-weird-and-insane/377/2 "2015-08-27T00:38:17Z")
Amazing work here as well, so impressed! ✨✨✨✨✨✨ _SPARKLING INTENSIFIES_ ---
**Author:** ![melkathi](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/melkathi/32/131_2.png) [@melkathi](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/melkathi)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 6:22am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/melkathis-magical-menagerie-of-the-strange-fun-weird-and-insane/377/3 "2015-08-27T06:22:44Z")
> [@CrowdedWorlds](#): > > Amazing work here as well, so impressed! ✨✨✨✨✨✨ > _SPARKLING INTENSIFIES_ Thanks! edit: OP updated with Upon Death section and the Goblin Kamikaze. more stuff incomming as I come up with code names. ---
**Author:** ![Archenassa](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/archenassa/32/153_2.png) [@Archenassa](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Archenassa)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 2:57pm UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/melkathis-magical-menagerie-of-the-strange-fun-weird-and-insane/377/4 "2015-08-27T14:57:47Z")
I just love the infection idea. GoW meets Resident Evil! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![melkathi](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/melkathi/32/131_2.png) [@melkathi](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/melkathi)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 3:18pm UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/melkathis-magical-menagerie-of-the-strange-fun-weird-and-insane/377/5 "2015-08-27T15:18:39Z")
> [@Archenassa](#): > > I just love the infection idea. GoW meets Resident Evil! 🙂 I have a troop idea for it, something egyptian/mummy themed using a scarrab swarm to attack an enemy. The beetles would burrow underneath the troops skin, dealing damage every turn and, if the troop died to beetle damage, then chew their way back out and spread to adjacent targets. ---
**Author:** ![Archenassa](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/archenassa/32/153_2.png) [@Archenassa](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Archenassa)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 4:03pm UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/melkathis-magical-menagerie-of-the-strange-fun-weird-and-insane/377/6 "2015-08-27T16:03:21Z")
That… is… AMAZING 😃 ---
**Author:** ![melkathi](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/melkathi/32/131_2.png) [@melkathi](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/melkathi)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 7:40am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/melkathis-magical-menagerie-of-the-strange-fun-weird-and-insane/377/7 "2015-09-30T07:40:23Z")
Oh, I haven’t posted here for a while. **The Mad Scientist** (Sparkgrinder likes to tinker with machines? This person likes to tinker with colourfull liquids and syringes and lighting) Runs around with a big syringe and a lighting generator, shouting **It’s Alive!!!** (though has a penchant to electrocute themselves while doing so). Blah blah yellow gems: inflict x + magic damage to self. Revive one random friendly troop with as much health as damage dealt. * * * On another note, game mode ideas are being kept [separate](http://community.gemsofwar.com/t/pve-survival-mode/771) 😄 ---
**Author:** ![melkathi](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/melkathi/32/131_2.png) [@melkathi](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/melkathi)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2015, 11:10am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/melkathis-magical-menagerie-of-the-strange-fun-weird-and-insane/377/8 "2015-11-15T11:10:25Z")
It’s ALIVE!!! Newest troop idea for the menagerie: The… **Bone Imp** Instead of gaining mana from colour matches, it fills up by matching skulls. Remove/Explode (balance question there) X skulls, deal the usual impy damage to target enemy, gain magic if enemy dies. ---
**Author:** ![DonBoba](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/donboba/32/25457_2.png) [@DonBoba](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/DonBoba)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2015, 11:25am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/melkathis-magical-menagerie-of-the-strange-fun-weird-and-insane/377/9 "2015-11-15T11:25:56Z")
Troop idea: Why not adding some pasiv: For example a troop that heals 20%-50% of the dmg it deals with skulls. Also it can have some active skill besides like some small increase in armor/hp/attack