Character Creation, Gamescom and More!
Greetings
Relentless Pursuers of the Dismal Man!
In this update we'd like to share all the aspects of our
Character Creation System, inform you about Cultic Games' participation to
Gamescom and finally talk about some
dates for the backer demo and release. Get ready for a long and (hopefully) thrilling journey!
Character Creation consists of the following steps:
0. Indoctrination (Optional)
This is the step you say good-bye to your loved ones, shut all your doors and windows, fanatically repeat your "Ph'nglui Mglw'nafh" prayers and fast for weeks until you remove the last traces of your current identity.
1. Gender Selection
The horrors of Stygian do not discriminate based on your character’s gender.
The world of Stygian reacts to your gender. Different genders will have different relations with some NPCs but from a statistical point of view, both genders are identical.
2. Age Selection
In Stygian your character's age is not just a cosmetic element. It plays two important roles. First, your
age changes your starting statistics, second it
changes the reaction of the world to your character.
[OUT OF TUNE SINGING] I know what it is to be young but you don't know what it is...
Young: Young characters are in their physical prime and get 1 bonus point to Physique, Agility or Senses, but due to a lack of experience start the game with 2 fewer skill points.
Adult: Adult characters have the default number of points for attributes and skills.
Old: Old characters are in physical decline and get a 1 point penalty to Physique, Agility or Senses, but in exchange get to spend 2 extra skill points during character creation to reflect their additional life experience.
3. Archetype Selection
Jungian archetypes or Stygian archetypes?
This where you select your Archetype and its related background. You can have more information on Stygian's archetypes from our campaign page,
here. With your support the
Explorer (our first stretch goal) is now added to the roster as well.
We've designed our Backgrounds to give you
more options in defining your characters. What kind of an Investigator are you? An occult detective who specializes in paranormal cases or an ex-cop who earned his living by chasing criminals in the past? It is all up to you. Each Archetype has at least three unique backgrounds to choose from. Let's have a closer look!
Academic Backgrounds
Scientist: Default background for the Academic Archetype. No special advantages or disadvantages.
Physician: You graduated from Miskatonic School of Medicine and spent the last several years away from physical conflict.
+1 Medicine, -1 Melee Attack, -1 Ranged Attack
Psychiatrist: You have a diploma in Psychiatry. For a long time, you believed the supernatural existed only in people’s minds.
+1 Psychology, -1 Supernatural Defense
Researcher: You were a research associate at Miskatonic University. Years of physical inactivity has taken its toll on you.
Faster Scientific and Medical Research, -1 Physical Defense
Aristocrat Backgrounds
Patrician: Default background for the Aristocrat Archetype. No special advantages or disadvantages.
Prodigal: Your inherited a considerably large legacy from your parents and had the chance (or the misfortune) to afford being repulsive.
Starts the game with extra jewellery, lower Sex Appeal
Bankrupt Royalty: Your family went bankrupt and lost almost all of its property. You had to learn the facts of life the hard way.
+1 Survival, starts the game with less Cigs
Cursed Bloodline: A terrible sin committed in the past still haunts your family. You meddled with the occult to lift the curse to no avail.
+1 Occult, +3% Critical Failure Chance
Criminal Backgrounds
Gangster: Default background for the Criminal Archetype. No special advantages or disadvantages.
Thief: You have a past in thievery and excel at moving silently but you often choose to run away when things get hot.
+1 Stealth, -1 Melee Attack
Con Artist: You can persuade people into believing you are the prince of Arkham but often shy away from physical conflict.
+1 Speechcraft, -1 Physical Defense
Hitman: You were a hired gun for the mafia. You carry the weight of the dead bodies you left in your trail.
+1 Firearms, +50 ANGST
Explorer Backgrounds
Adventurer: Default background for the Explorer Archetype. No special advantages or disadvantages.
Big Game Hunter: You were a trophy hunter, seeking glory in conquering the wild. You learned to keep your prey at a distance and shun the opposite scenario.
Higher damage to beastly enemies, -1 Melee Attack
Pathfinder: You used to earn your living as a guide in uncivilized territories. You prefer to move with a lighter load for better mobility.
Lower chance of random combat encounters, lower inventory capacity
Mountaineer: You tested your endurance in the past by reaching the peaks of tall mountains. You rarely leave things to chance and act cautiously.
+1 Athletics, -2% Critical Success Chance
Investigator Archetypes
Detective: Default background for the Investigator Archetype. No special advantages or disadvantages.
Ex-cop: You have a past in law enforcement. The things you witnessed on duty left their mark on your mind.
+1 Firearms, -5 total Sanity
Occult Detective: You encountered the supernatural in some of your past cases. Those experiences still haunt you.
+1 Occult, +50 ANGST
Bounty Hunter: Your bounty hunting past taught you how to approach your targets unnoticed. For the right amount, you brought them, dead or alive...
+1 Stealth. Can only be chosen by Materialistic characters.
Occultist Backgrounds
Secret Society: Default background for the Occultist Archetype. No special advantages or disadvantages.
Depraved Occultist: Like Crawford or Rasputin before him, you have an unholy aura of sexual magnetism but tend to neglect occult studies in favor of carnal pleasures.
Higher Sex Appeal, slower Artifact Research
Alchemist: You are adept at the esoteric art of the alchemy and focused your medicinal studies solely on transmutation.
Considerably higher Medical Research Rating. Medicine skill can’t be used in game’s challenges.
Demonologist: You summoned a daemon in your past and learned forbidden knowledge from this infernal being.
Starts the game with “Children of Pazuzu” spell, -5 total Sanity
Mesmerist: You were a practitioner of Mesmer’s magnetism techniques and learned a lot about psychology from your former patients, along with their darkest secrets...
+1 Psychology, -5 Total Sanity
Performer Backgrounds
Actor: Default background for the Performer Archetype. No special advantages or disadvantages.
Juggler: You earned your living as a juggler for a long time. Your moves tend to be more flashy but also riskier.
+2 Throwing, +3% Critical Failure Chance
Busker: You were a busker in your past and know how to survive in the streets though you never had much of a wealth.
+1 Subterfuge, starts the game with less Cigs
Movie Actor: You had some roles on the silver screen. You have “it” but also have a tendency to fall into addiction easily.
Higher Sex Appeal, lower Addiction Threshold
Soldier Archetypes
Private: Default background for the Soldier Archetype. No special advantages or disadvantages.
Marine: You served as a member of the Marine Corps. Screams of your fallen squad mates still echo in your mind.
Starts the game with “Aimed Shot” ability, -5 total Sanity
Military Intelligence: You served in the Military Intelligence. Your position kept you away from active duty for the last few years.
+1 Subterfuge, -1 Physical Defense
Sniper: You served the US Army with your marksmanship in numerous situations. In combat, you take your time but you eliminate your targets eventually.
+3% Critical Success Chance with Rifles, -1 Reaction
4. Belief System Selection
Think like your character, act like your character.
As you probably know, Belief Systems determine how your character gains her lost sanity in the doomed Arkham along with providing you new ways to role-play your character. You can have more information on them
here.
5. Portait Selection and Character Identity
You'll be able to choose the portraits of some Stygian backers. Devoted cultists they are...
All of our portraits will be open to both genders.
6. Stat Allocation
Please roll three six sided die and write the results to the back of your character sheet.
This is the step you finally get into the fantastic world of numbers and shape your character's attributes and skills according to your taste. Only the skills your background contributes to can exceed 2 points at this stage.
7. Character Summary
At this final step, you'll be able to have a look at all your choices one last time and make the necessary changes if the need arises. We're good to go now. Let's begin our journey of </HORROR, LOSS and MADNESS!
</voiceofmadnessfont>
Good news everyone! Stygian will be on
Gamescom with a
playable demo this year. Sorry to inform you this late but we've been tackling with visa problems lately and didn't want to give any false hopes until it's %100 certain.
You can visit our booth in
Bahcesehir University stand and try our Gamescom build at
Hall 10 / Floor 2, area E-033. Come visit us so we can talk about the dreams we've been collectively seeing... We're thrilled to communicate with our community once again and would love to hear your opinions on Stygian! You know the best ideas are the "borrowed" ones
This brings us to another important topic, our
backer demo. The demo is ready and in internal testing for some time now but we've decided to give it more time in external testing to be sure it'll work smoothly on different systems.
We're bringing our own hardware to Gamescom which guarantees better stability within a controlled environment but we want to be sure about the performance and experience on different hardware and operating systems through more testing before we share it with you. This will also give us more time to polish some systems with the help of Gamescom feedback.
So we've decided to share the demo with you on
25th of September. It takes between
one to two hours to complete depending on your approach and curiosity (we see you completionists!) and
showcases all the major systems including character creation, exploration, combat, dialogue, inventory management, journal, spell-casting, panic states, in-game cinematics and more.
But, if you'd like pay a visit to our backyard (without digging out any corpses of course!) and
help us with the demo testing, feel free to send a mail to
culticgames@gmail.com with "
KS Tester" and
your Kickstarter user name written to the subject section. Our esoteric operators will return to you with details in September.
Last but not least, we'd like inform you about the
current state of the project. You pay our bills after all, don't you?
From the engineering perspective, we've completed almost all of our
core systems along with the several tools we need to breathe life into the world of Stygian. The rest mechanics have still some way to go, coding for crafting has not yet begun and the voice of madness dialogues will have a systematic overhaul in the following months but the baby steps are far behind us. This beast can run now and its hungry!
The stage is set and our actors are playing their roles.
The whole content of the first chapter is complete. Thousands of lines of dialogue have been written with alternative approaches exclusive to certain archetypes and belief systems. Hundreds of characters have been designed with modular heads and outfits enabling more variation. All the animations of the male player model are complete along with hundreds of NPC and enemy animations. Lighting, shaders and environmental effects are working beautifully. Almost a dozen tracks have been composed for different situations and areas. We've been recording our own foley effects for months to meet the unique sound needs of the project and the list goes on.
We've updated all of our background graphics after the Kickstarter campaign.
We are proud of the work we've done so far and believe that we're achieving what we've been longing to play as gamers ourselves. On the other hand, we've also realized that Stygian, with all its intricacies and interconnected systems, will take some time to complete. With our current attention to detail and quality standards, it seems unlikely to see the release before
the end of 2018.
We will continue to do our bests to make Stygian retain its unique identity. We believe that it will worth the wait, but after all, you'll be the ones to decide.
We want you to see Stygian in its best shape: Our beautiful doom among the stars...
Until we meet again...
Team Cultic
inducing) character creation video in it too, please? That meaty Kickstarter update should warrant it.
