Knox

I, the Demon King, Will Summon My Own Damned Heroes!

The Pool

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@Guy0fV4lor@ReusableSword@Kazemitsu@Knox

Okay, the slime had answered him, which meant that not only could it speak, but that it also understood what Eric had said, they clearly were more intelligent that he had given them credit for. Given that it had refused his gift, Eric went to grab the healing herbs he had put into the floor, since they could still be of some use to him. What he didn't expect would be the green slime coming to where they were, first Eric thought the green slime had come to the rescue of the red one, but instead it seemed to be curious about the fact that the other had talked, even managing to speak some words.

This was an odd situation to say the least, given that the green slime didn't know that they could speak, one would assume that a creature would know if they could make sounds, so it made him curious if there was something strange going on with these two slimes. Unfortunately, before he could get a word out, one of the members of the goblin tribe called for him and asked about the two slimes. He knew that the others goblin probably wouldn't care if the slimes could talk or not, they would just want them as food, so it would be wise to diverge the goblin's attention to another thing. "I'm just collectin' herbs, these slimes are probably restin' or somethin', not like it matters to us so let's go before we're late" he said as he grabbed the other goblin and made his way to the bonfire. He could probably get the chance to meet with those odd slimes in the future, but for now he had to make the other goblin go away.

I, the Demon King, Will Summon My Own Damned Heroes!

Well, that ended up as a tremendous failure. It seemed that obtaining new skills wasn’t as simple as that, which ended up with him locking eyes with the slime. He could try to fight the slime, given that he has enough healing herbs and weapon, but the body of the slime could make it so it ended up eating his only weapon and him, ending up his second life after little more than a week. Running away didn’t seem as much of a good idea as his goblin legs didn’t help at covering much ground, so there was a chance for the slime to catch up with him. What Eric would do to get out of this situation was taking a page from that fight earlier and offering some truce between them.

The green slime seemed to have some capability for reasoning given that it decided to go once he received some food instead of trying to attack the lizard for the other half so trying it and coming out alive didn’t seem that much of a stretch. Still locking eyes with the slime, he raised his hands, dropped his weapon and with only the healing herbs he grabbed he slowly closed the distance between the slime and him. Once close enough, Eric slowly placed the herbs into the ground near the slime and backed some steps away, hoping it would understand that he meant no harm. “I wanted to plant those in a place with more mana, but you can have them as a gift” Eric muttered to himself, not even sure if slimes can hear or understand him.

@Kazemitsu

I, the Demon King, Will Summon My Own Damned Heroes!

Eric’s eyes lit up at the mention of healing herbs, if the system menu he saw earlier hadn’t made it clear, this world was closer to your typical rpg than he had expected. He started grabbing as many as he could, lamenting that his lack of pockets or bag meant that he couldn’t carry many of them. Given that the herbs grew on ambient mana, Eric thought that maybe if they grew in a place with more mana around it could improve in quality. All that was left was quietly leaving the area with the herbs in hand, looking over at the creatures that were fighting before, Eric saw the slime and the fanged lizard sharing the corpse and going into their own ways.

He had hoped for all of them to fight, then the remaining monster would be too tired or satisfied to care about eating a lonely goblin, but even if that wasn’t the case, it still was the perfect time to get out of here. That’s until he saw the red slime consuming herbs not too far away from him. Eric wasn’t too sure how fast slimes were on land or if his stone would to any damage towards an enemy who’s one hundred percent jello, but he had to deal with it before it noticed him. Eric suddenly remembered the system skill he saw earlier when he analyzed the plants, if this world works as an rpg, it would be possible to develop new skills or level up existing ones through combat, so he could use this chance to try to do so.

Plant Analysis I didn’t seem like something that could be used for direct combat, so he would try to obtain an ability that made use of his disgusting face; Intimidation. Eric didn’t even know if there was a skill like that, but the ability to make your enemies flee or stand there paralyzed seemed too useful to not to try to get it. Standing up from his position, he glared at the slime, trying to hide any emotions of his face other than killing intent.

@Kazemitsu@Zeroth

I, the Demon King, Will Summon My Own Damned Heroes!

Phone posted it twice, sorry for that.

I, the Demon King, Will Summon My Own Damned Heroes!

The first week of Eric's life felt oddly familiar to the one he had before, with him doing everything in autopilot, and just like before he managed to truly feel in control, this time much faster than before thankfully. Now with all his mental faculties, it was time to do some exploring. At his current form it would seem foolish to go too far given that the whole cave was filled with numerous and possibly deadly creatures, which combined with the fact that he didn't know the area, meant that it could be pretty easy to get lost and end up as food. Limiting himself to the things near him, two things caught his attention; the blue crystals or “shinies” as they were called by his fellow goblins that were.on the walls of the cave and the green herbs that grew around the pool of water. How they grew in a place with little to no light piqued Eric’s curiosity and so he decided to grab some herbs and examine them.

Before he headed out, Eric grabbed a small rock with a sharp end, just in case he would need to defend himself. Very cautiously and slowly he made his way down to the herbs. Briefly seeing his face in the reflection, Eric realized he wasn't the prettiest goblin around. Eric knew that goblins weren't good looking, but he was painful to look at. One of the few things he remembered from when he was born was that his brother looked better than the average goblin, so Eric thought that being brothers, he would share his looks.

Eric was brought to reality by the sounds of a wisp throwing an orb of light. Immediately crouching and hiding between the herbs, he tried to find the attacker. Not too far away from him it seemed that a wisp and a fanged lizard were fighting amongst each other, with a slime exiting the water and joining the fight. They hadn't taken notice of him, which was a good thing, but he was in a position where moving would probably attract their attention of at least one of them, so it was a better idea to wait for them to tire themselves and then run away. For the moment he would try to examine the herbs to see if they have any special properties.

I, the Demon King, Will Summon My Own Damned Heroes!

Eric

Image

Name:
Eric

Theme:
youtu.be/KaRZaZ5_LVU

Gender:
Male

Species:
Goblin

Appearance:
Standing at the impressive height of 3'2", Eric has a face only his goblin mother could love. He's completely bald, with a set of crooked teeth, a large crooked nose, pointy ears, and two small red eyes.

Goals:
Eric intends to get strong enough to be able to leave the cave and don't get killed instantly. Next, it would be looking for the Demon King's palace and find out what's the reward he has for him, as well as if finding why did the Demon King decide to give him a second life. Another not so important objective would be to evolve into a form that isn't hideous or at least one that is taller than a child.

Past Life:
Eric didn’t have a very interesting life, not having many friends, spent his days studying or playing video games and found himself with a boring office job. It wasn’t until he was thirty years old that he realized that he had no grand aspirations, no friends, nothing accomplished and was basically living his life on autopilot. Deciding to get his life back in order Eric decided to fix his weight problem first, and upon doing that he would find his passion for both hiking and camping. In two years he went from an overweight guy who had anxiety problems to an all-around healthier and happier guy.

Eric’s death came from being at the wrong place at the wrong time, by deviating a little from his usual hiking path, he found himself in front of a bear finishing eating the corpse of a deer. While he knew what someone had to do if you encountered a bear, panic quickly set in and made him run, which ended with the bear chasing and subsequently mauling him to death. He accepted the chance of being reincarnated by the Demon King, with some reluctance, given that he was the Demon King, but the offer of a second life was too good to pass up.

Abilities:
Use Light Equipment

Transformations:
Goblin

Inventory:
N/A

I, the Demon King, Will Summon My Own Damned Heroes!

Eric

Image

Name:
Eric

Theme:
youtu.be/KaRZaZ5_LVU

Gender:
Male

Species:
Goblin

Appearance:
Standing at the impressive height of 3'2", Eric has a face only his goblin mother could love. He's completely bald, with a set of crooked teeth, a large crooked nose, pointy ears, and two small red eyes.

Goals:
Eric intends to get strong enough to be able to leave the cave and don't get killed instantly. Next, it would be looking for the Demon King's palace and find out what's the reward he has for him, as well as if finding why did the Demon King decided to give him a second life. Another not so important objective would be to evolve into a form that isn't hideous or at least one that is taller than a child.

Past Life:
Eric didn’t have a very interesting life, not having many friends, spent his days studying or playing video games and found himself with a boring office job. It wasn’t until he was thirty years old that he realized that he had no grand aspirations, no friends, nothing accomplished and was basically living his life on autopilot. Deciding to get his life back in order Eric decided to fix his weight problem first, and upon doing that he would find his passion for both hiking and camping. In two years he went from an overweight guy who had anxiety problems to an all-around healthier and happier guy.

Eric’s death came from being at the wrong place at the wrong time, by deviating a little from his usual hiking path, he found himself in front of a bear finishing eating the corpse of a deer. While he knew what someone had to do if you encountered a bear, panic quickly set in and made him run, which ended with the bear chasing and subsequently mauling him to death. He accepted the chance of being reincarnated by the Demon King, with some reluctance, given that he was the Demon King, but the offer of a second life was too good to pass up.

Abilities:
Use Light Equipment

Transformations:
Goblin

Inventory:
N/A

I, the Demon King, Will Summon My Own Damned Heroes!

@Knox
The biggest problem I feel insect monsters would have, though, is that right now it's hard to see a niche for them. We have a Tank, a Healer, a DPS, a Status Effecter, a Magic Attacker, and a Jack of All Trades. Not really sure what insects could do that would really give them a strong, purposeful presence when under the control of a Player.

@Zeroth

Agreed, so unless I get another idea, I'll probably go choose the Goblins and have a CS by tomorrow.

I, the Demon King, Will Summon My Own Damned Heroes!

@Knox
I had considered insectoid monsters during my original design phase, and like you suggested thought about making them some kind of "trap master" type of character. But the most common abilities for most insects involving paralyzing or poisonous stings, fangs, etc. which the Fanged Lizard already does. Building traps out of webbing, or digging out pitfalls in the ground, could be an interesting form of combat but it seemed like it would force the players to be too passive--they build the trap, then sit and wait for something to fall into it, and I didn't think players would enjoy waiting around like that. Being speedster types, using guerrilla tactics, could work but then they would be another form of DPS like the Dire Rat, and I tried to avoid having the starter monster roles overlap as much as possible.

Not to mention most "mook level" insects would be things like giant ants, or *Projared voice* BEES, and these creatures are hive-minds controlled by a Queen. Players already have to stand out among their monstrous peers to survive, but when doing so goes against the nature of the monster itself it just seemed like it wouldn't work out.

By all means though let's hear some more thoughts on the subject, maybe someone can help fix the issues I've pointed out.

@Zeroth

Two ideas I had were that they could act as pseudo tanks by using their speed, reflexes, and range of movement to avoid attacks and attract the attention of the enemy. When they deal damage they don't take as much HP as Dire Rats, given that they're smaller and don't have their strong jaws, instead, they would have to rely on a death of a thousand cuts strategy if they wanted to kill a monster by themselves. The problem with this idea is that it kinda overlaps with slimes.

The other idea was to have them specialize in giving debuffs and buffs to their allies, making them akin to a support version of the fanged lizard, but I’m not sure if insects would be the right monster for that, maybe that would be more fitting for an Awakened Shrub monster or something like that.

I, the Demon King, Will Summon My Own Damned Heroes!

How's this for a monster suggestion?

Insect: They’re the most fragile of all monsters, possessing very very low amounts of HP and defense. The only reason most of them are able to survive is that their small size combined with their high speed and reflexes help them avoid attacks. Their small size also helps them at remaining unseen, making them good at hit and run tactics. When they transform they can gain the ability to raise their defense by developing an exoskeleton, create traps and be able to reach objects far away by being able to shoot web, spit poison, etc.

Skills:
Crawl I: Insects are able to move in walls and ceilings for a small amount of time.