As we head into the final 24 hours, we've managed to clear our final achievement: 15,000 backers! That is a tremendous achievement. Thank you all so much for supporting us, especially on this new crowdfunding platform. I guess you might say that sometimes, when you take a risk, it can pay off big. ** segue time! **
“Protect the weakest link, and it will protect you.”
The Undaunted Aegis is a reimagining of a hero drafted while designing Alliances. We were looking to make an anti-hero, someone who dabbled in the dark side by playing with corruptions as a resource. Eventually that theme became the Haunted Recluse, but there’s plenty of room on the brink of despair, so we kept tinkering with the idea of a character that could center on corruption and playing close to the edge.
Who will like this character: People who like to protect other players and are comfortable playing at some risk.
“The edge between life and death cuts both ways.”
The Aegis’s playstyle revolves around acquiring and benefiting from extra corruptions. Since gaining corruption involves going critically low on resources, typically warriors, the Aegis’s banner ability allows them to quickly bounce back, and keep enough warriors to be able to avoid corruption when they need to. Carefully managing your corruptions and warrior supply makes for some interesting choices throughout the game.
Players losing the game upon getting the third corruption proved a tricky restriction when building a character centered around corruption. The Iron-Willed virtue gives the Aegis player a little extra wiggle room to play with when building up corruptions. Now you can sit at two corruptions without being quite as risky, or go up to three if you really want to push your luck.
Since the Aegis frequently wants to enter battle with the intent of picking up a corruption, we opted to depart from the traditional advantage-based starting virtue. Instead, the Ascetic virtue gives you an additional reward for not using advantages, which is frequently what you want to be doing anyway.
“Each burden I bear is a link in the chain I wield against my enemies.”
The Aegis’s other virtues let you gain corruptions more easily and benefit from them. In the late game, you may find it difficult to pick up new corruptions. Steeled can let you extend your protection to other players, and gain extra corruptions to fuel your abilities along the way.
Gritty will let you harness your corruptions for a discount, picking up other virtues quickly, or even acquiring treasure and extra warriors for free. (We recently renamed this to "Resolute" to avoid confusion with the gritty play mode.)
Emboldened will literally let you turn your corruptions to your advantage, letting you stave off even the most threatening foes … if you're already near to death anyway, that is.
