Archos assassin suggestion.

[Deon]

I thought of archos and their assassin UU... As long as the society obeys a spider-mother, I think it should have a unit of spider priestess of some kind. Assassin looks like a good place for it, because of the hunting nature of the spider and appropriate place of the unit.
The background would be that they appear through a dark magical ritual of breeding a spider and a human woman with the death of latter and birth of a twisted semi-human/semi-spider creature.

I was thinking of "silk daughter" unit which replaces assassin and looks like this:

Spoiler :

Just a concept.

With -1 str, +2 poison in comparison to normal assassin and ability to take giant spider promotions.

 

[WarKirby]

not really a fan of that appearance. Looks a bit too far removed from either human or spider.

I like the general train of thought though


Where is that picture from?

 

[Vehem]

Priestess suggests a Llolth/Drow style direction - which the Archos aren't... Their Priests are the Haruspex, which could feasibly be either male or female, but for the sake of the model are considered male.

 

[Deon]

Priestess suggests a Llolth/Drow style direction - which the Archos aren't... Their Priests are the Haruspex, which could feasibly be either male or female, but for the sake of the model are considered male.

What about an assassin hybrid then, without religious side? I thought that idea of spider promotions is quite neat.

WarKirby:
It's a picture from Mount and Blade game, from the editor. I've made this model for "spiderkin" creature. I don't see how it's far from spider: current "spider-like" units have additional spider legs, this unit has 4 additional spider legs as Haruspex and wears a fancy armor, but the main concept is the same (just 4-eyed head is different). Also it has a "spider belly", if you look at it from behind it looks like a spider from top. Also this model is unfinished, I am creating hand-claws for them right now, so all top 6 arms look like sharp pointed legs. The game doesn't feature sharp hand-to-hand attacks (they are blunt, this game is a medieval combat simulator, not a fantasy one, but mods did a lot) so I just replace gloves with sharp blades and give them invisible weapons of the same length with cutting damage.

 

[deadliver]

Hmm. Liking the idea but I think a better name would be Silken Strangler, though prolly not very Archos-like. As far as the model goes...not a big fan of it.

How about a drider style model (spider centaur)?

http://www.elfwood.com/~omarmorsy/drider.3100490.html

http://www.jenwa.org/y/rpg/Exalted/img/www.jaestudio.com/Drider.jpg

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/mm_gallery/Drider.jpg

 

[Vehem]

How about a drider style model (spider centaur)?

Still pretty much Drow-based (Eberron excepted - though I do like the Scarrow). In anycase - the Archos's recon strength lies along the Beastmaster/Druid path rather than the Assassin/Shadow path. The majority of them don't favour subtlety and the Haruspex-based units aren't keen on being on the front line alone (sneaking around assassinishly) - they prefer to manipulate large numbers of Archos warriors and stay behind the lines a little.

 

[Quetz]

Where is that picture from?

A game called Mount&Blade. Lots of fun.

 

[Deon]

It's a bit strange that a civ which has a natural affinity to spiders and poisons doesn't have any advantage in assasination though...

 

[Vehem]

It's a bit strange that a civ which has a natural affinity to spiders and poisons doesn't have any advantage in assasination though...

...until you bear in mind that they gained that affinity by eating them.

Om. Nom. Nom. Nom.

 

[BenjaminEmbarec]

See that I never understood. They gained all their affinity from eating spiders, but they WORSHIP a giant spider? Why didn't the Mother merely eat them instead? Or why didn't they just try and domesticate the spiders instead of worshipping them?

I do like the civ, don't get me wrong, it just doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Vehem]

See that I never understood. They gained all their affinity from eating spiders, but they WORSHIP a giant spider? Why didn't the Mother merely eat them instead? Or why didn't they just try and domesticate the spiders instead of worshipping them?

I do like the civ, don't get me wrong, it just doesn't make sense to me.

It was a gradual process - initially they ate the spiders out of desperation, seeing as they were the only plentiful food source that they could find. Deeper in the caves was Mother - who pretty much slept through the Age of Ice. A few of the Archos began to show outward signs of mutation due to the poisons in the spider "meat", others tended to believe they could communicate with the spiders. Both of these groups inspired fear in many of the others. Using that fear as a method to gain power, the Haruspex began to "worship" Mother.

It is still unclear as to how much of this is genuine worship or how much (if at all) Mother communicates to the Haruspex. It is however a very effective method to keep the others of the tribe in line. Orders from the Haruspex carry more than the threat of mundane/physical punishments, but an unknown, semi-religious weight as well. The Haruspex capitalize on this to keep control - all because Mother said so of course...

 

[BenjaminEmbarec]

Now that I can understand and get behind! The Archos just jumped several notches in my eyes.. particularly the Haruspex.

They Do have to have SOME communication or controll though otherwise the spiders wouldn't listen to them, so that mystery solves itself, but how MUCH controll is... probably limitted.

hm... Flavor wise personally I'd double their spawn rate, make the spawns controlled by the animals without hidden nationality [if it's still on] and then make peace with the animal civ..... or merely have the spiders "Not controlled by player" so that they'll spread out attacking enemies on their own. Ballance wise I think that would be stupid at least how I said it though. Sorry, tired today, hit my knees pretty bad and havn't been able to sleep. True that helped me find exploit after exploit in various mods, but now the tiredness is overwhelming the determination. XD

 

[Vehem]

Now that I can understand and get behind! The Archos just jumped several notches in my eyes.. particularly the Haruspex.

They Do have to have SOME communication or controll though otherwise the spiders wouldn't listen to them, so that mystery solves itself, but how MUCH controll is... probably limitted.

hm... Flavor wise personally I'd double their spawn rate, make the spawns controlled by the animals without hidden nationality [if it's still on] and then make peace with the animal civ..... or merely have the spiders "Not controlled by player" so that they'll spread out attacking enemies on their own. Ballance wise I think that would be stupid at least how I said it though. Sorry, tired today, hit my knees pretty bad and havn't been able to sleep. True that helped me find exploit after exploit in various mods, but now the tiredness is overwhelming the determination. XD

Aye - lorewise that makes perfect sense and I did toy with the idea right at the beginning that they might just act as "Spider-generators" - spawning them wild to cause trouble for their neighbours... It just turned out to be much more fun to control them yourself

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Spiders don't often have a problem eating their own kind, so the Mother may not mind if her adopted human children weed out the weaker of her genetic brood.

 

[deadliver]

Yeah good point. Spiders are pretty cool in RL too. The males literally dance through hoops to try to avoid getting eaten. According to Wiki (Maurice Jarre anyone?) they even will try to fool the female into thinking she ate him by sacrificing body parts!

 

[Vehem]

weed out the weaker of her genetic brood.

That seems to be an emergent theme for the Archos - Daracaat talks about leading the tribe to become stronger through conquest/combat whilst arguing with the Haruspex in his 'pedia entry. The same is now true of the spiders, with the strongest members of the brood being used to make the future generations even stronger. It's the evolution of a better barbarian...

 

[deadliver]

Yeah thats just wonderful news for the world at large Vehem. Where's the Orkin man when you need him.

 

[BenjaminEmbarec]

Which do you mean, Mr. Endain or Ratine, Liver?

 

[deadliver]

Heh heh someone got the pun. Here have a

 

[WarKirby]

It does seem to me that their natural poison strength shoudl lend archos well to using assasins.