Proposterous? Yes!
Heresy? Most certainly!
But inevitable?
…maybe?
So hear me out…
Victor’s past has returned to haunt him.
The Event
*In the battle at Castle Drachenfels, unbenounced to anyone in the group, Victor Saltzpyre was flanked by a vampire to his blind side, and while Victor managed to slay the fiend almost instantly thanks to his lifelong experience *
with the undead, he did so not before the creature’s fangs burrowed themselves into his flesh.
The Aftermath
*Victor’s mind, while back at Taal’s Keep, did not just wander the path of guilt instilled by Nurgloth’s voice inside his head, but also the biggest fear of a Witch Hunter, especially someone as devouted a follower *
*of Sigmar as Victor Saltzpyre. *
He should not have been surprised to face a Vampire in the very birthplace of the Sylvanian Vampire rule, the home of Otto von Drak himself, who married his daughter to the von Carstain Vampires.
A young girl, corrupted by Vampiric blight, just like back in Skaggerdorf where the aspiring Witch Hunter dealth justice to a girl just like her.
But these events could not be related! Could they…?
Did the little girl’s fate come to hunt him? Or did her undead kin come to revenge her? Who was she to them if not a mere initiate?
Was it all just feberish hallucinations caused by that foul Chaos lord’s mind magic? But he’s mentioned her, has he not?
His righteous zeal and his fears began a war against one another, and for the first time he felt doubt about his own just existence
His conviction allowed for no thoughts as heretical as the idea to become corrupted himself; out of all; not one of the most righteous and devoted Witch Hunters of the Reiksland!
Whatever happened in those mines, it must have been a dream too, the ambush by the Vampires and the Skaven, the merciless murder of a little girl, all of it!
Victor decides it best to lay down, a little rest will surely clear his mind, as he staggers into his room, his head throbbing, his mind racing and the wound where once was his right eye burning.
…Saltzpyre awakes, but it is dark. Has he slept all day? He feels much better now…
The Acquisition
After the purchase of the career, a mini-event unlocks inside Castle Drachenfels which has to be completed alongside the mission itself.
I’d love for it to be an actual vampire jumping him in a scripted attack you can’t avoid, where Saltzpyre automatically reacts with an attack after the bite, killing the vampire, but goes down himself too.
But I guess that might be too elaborate, so instead we could go with mechanics already well-established in the game, something such as:
Pick something up in a corner, maybe a note, your screen turns blurry and red and you hear a thud sound, to simulate the paralyzing pain of a vampire bite, then you go down and need to be picked up, maybe some voice lines too
like “what happened?!”.
- I am sure you have guessed it by now, Victor has become what he most loathed, whether it was his inhuman zeal turning into hatred or his fate dealt by his past, that attracted the corruption, we may never know. -
The Outfit
To go with Fatshark’s system of settling the careers somewhere between the top and the bottom of the class hierarchy, I see Victor the Vampire somewhere below a lord and in heavy plate armor.
For a better picture on how I imagine his armor and armor only, I have added a few links:
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/warhammerfb/images/7/74/Mannfred_von_Carstein.PNG/revision/latest?cb=20150724201838
Maybe less fancy since he is not one of the lords.
The Kit
Playstyle:
The playstyle I imagine will revolve around typical vampire tactics in Warhammer.
I considered including necromancy but I don’t think the work required to add “pets” and the bugs it might introduce would be worth it for a single new career
Instead, I would like it to reward the player for being active and aggressive, but punish them for being passive or too defensive, with balanced damage output, survivability and utility.
The lack of a ranged weapon will severely limit high burst damage but magic helps retain the ability to deal with threats at a distance.
The AoE fear should just be enough to slightly increase the chances of surviving being cornered, with a longer duration than AoE knockbacks but less clutch potential than a dash.
Stats:
- High Armor/DMG Reduction (scaling)
- Medium HP
- Low Stamina
- High Stamina Regen
Equipment:
- Only certain melee weapons like swords and axes, but also sword and shield.
- No ranged weapon slot.
- Magic can be used while holding a melee weapon and blocking or attacking with the melee weapon.
Ultimate
- Winds of Magic Ultimate Bar (behaves like the normal ultimate bar)
- Long range single target spell, costs little WoM (ranged button to activate)
- AoE fear, costs all WoM
Abilities:
- Blood Stacks
Killing an enemy leeches their blood, granting a Blood Stack which charge your blade in a red glow, up to 10 stacks can be stored and don’t decay, each attack only consumes 1 stack to heal you (normal HP, not temp HP)
when stacks are available.
(To explain how the mechanics would play out, if you killed 10 enemies in 1 swing somehow, hitting a monster 10 times would heal you 10 times but not replenish any stacks, whereas if you kill 1 enemy with each attack,
you would simultaneously consume a stack to heal and replenish the stack.) - Mist Form
Upon getting knocked out, there is a very small chance to change into mist form instead, granting a phased state for a few seconds during which you can not be affected by anything
and can not do anything but move at slightly faster speed. When leaving Mist Form you gain some temp HP. - Cloak
After a few seconds of uninterrupted moving, you become slightly harder to detect, run faster and your next attack is a guaranteed crit. Cloak immediately drops when standing still. - Rip (Maybe exclusive to whatever vampire weapon FS might decide to give him.)
Heavy attacks sunder the enemy’s armor by ripping a hole into it (bomb shrapnel effect), including super-armor, lowering its damage mitigation values. (Considering we currently have an anti-armor crisis, especially against bosses,
this value might have to start off really low until the issue is fixed.)
Passives:
- Immune to poison
- Inversely scaling damage resistance, ranging from 0% when at 100% HP to x% when at 1% HP. (x will depend on Fatshark’s balancing)
- Cannot receive healing from potions, med kits or other heroes’ abilities, but also cannot be wounded, but can go down as well as die subsequently. (No healing received to balanced the healing from blood stacks,
no wounds to balance that he can’t receive heals.)
Hero Interactions
Victor’s new abilities and outfit would make the other 4 worry and ask question, but could be waved aside by “Nurgloth’s guilt trip seems to have hit him harder than the rest of us” and “is he actually straying from his path?”,
but without even the slightest reason to consider something more sinister.
However, depending how obvious his new abilities are, Victor might have to find excuses like “after proving my conviction in this test, Sigmar blessed me with these abilities”.
Either way, I think this could be a pillar for interesting new group dynamics where Saltzpyre evolves in his role as the outsider, with the other members infrequently questioning his new actions, words, abilities and outfits,
and him walking the balance between persuasive excuses, maybe even getting personal to push their guilt buttons, and snarky remarks and behavior to signal he does not want to talk.
)