Soul Stones (Friendly/Antagonist Chaplain Item)

[TheOnlyRyan]

I'm probably about to open a mini can of worms of people opposed to the idea and opposed to me using a wiki of another server, either way here it is.

www.ss13.eu/wiki/index.php/Construct
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity_Gems

With the introduction of contracts with chaplains it's obvious to me Goons trying to make chaplain more interesting, as a traitor or otherwise. So here's my take on what could improve the Chaplain as a none antag and antag. 

Soul stones  are given to the Chaplain at spawn, using one of these stones on a dead body would take the soul and being of that body and turn it into a shade.


A few things were wrong with the Soul Stone on the other servers I used to play on, one of these problems was the dead guy had no choice in the matter and once you got turned into a shade, your body evaporated, which made it super trolly. This would need to not be a thing.

A dead guy would need a popup asking "The space gods have requested your soul to serve them eternally!" or something cheesy like that, who knows. Given the choice they could become the shade, or what ever kind of ghostly creature staff users or sprite designers can come up with. 

Shades  can, or used to be only able to do one thing, drain life out of people, per click/cycle on someone you would take 5-10 of their life energy (brute damage). 

I feel that would need to be changed, by either making the shade more "humany", letting him use his hands and serve more of a purpose then a weak body guard for the chaplain. Something I must make clear about shards or anyone thinking it will be abused is that the purpose of shards is strictly to serve it's master, the chaplain or whoever controls the soul stone.

With the introduction of soul stones or something else like a soul stone, perhaps just a different sprite would also allow Chaplains to get more soul stones from their Syndicate PDAs and or ?mining?

Syndicate stones or stones tainted with the power of an antag chaplain could be used to make more spooky scary and powerful beings. 

  Taking the life force out of critters/animals around the station, turning them into more powerful deadly versions of themselves, friendly towards the chaplain. 

Perhaps this could even lead to a new antagonist all together? some kind of higher evil power. Giving a whole new spooky side to Goonstation, making use of the spooky sprites, effects, music and sounds hidden away and no longer used.

[misto]

it should be for making a gross occult alchemical homunculus minion made of blood and meat, like a meatcube with a working arm sticking out

[atomic1fire]

it should be for making a gross occult alchemical homunculus minion made of blood and meat, like a meatcube with a working arm sticking out

TBH I think it would be funny if the minion was just a meatcube with beefy arms. Call it a buff cube.

Cthulu's eldrich horror is actually just a cube of meat with muscular arms that punches people and flexes while screaming about it's "otherworldly six pack"

No wonder people wanted to keep that guy off this plane of existence.

[Frank_Stein]

A literal beefcake

[TheOnlyRyan]

I thought people would actually like the idea of having soul stones in goon

3':

[Noah Buttes]

Doesn't really seem that useful now that we have ghostdrones.

[atomic1fire]

Still think the beefcake would be a funnier way to do it.

Goon players have been reluctant to copy TG's cult system both due to player shenanigans (let's make a stupid pretend cult in chapel and use it as an excuse to murder the clown) and presumably game balance.

That's not to say I don't think it could ever happen, it's just gotta be introduced and designed in a way that the admins and players actually like it. And in my experience people tend to shoot down suggestions about a cult mode on sight.

I think the idea you have is cool, but I don't think it will happen for that reason.

[misto]

i dont think this is a cult mode thing, it seems like just a traitor item.

it has already been established with the presence of infernal contracts that the syndicate has literal underworld connections

the mechanism of respawning dead volunteers as something else seems quite well-pioneered

perhaps we could test it with minimal overhead by making the minion something currently available ingame such as bloodlings or those spirit things that haunt the dan's factory in the void(for sacrificing some monkeys or a shitty bill style npc or something, kind of like botany's maneaters), or a vampire or wraith if the soulstone is used on a player corpse.

i think that using a stone on a player's corpse shouldn't slave that particular player or else you run a great risk of hitting braindeads or uncooperative ones. instead it should broadcast to deadchat for volunteers in a similar way as random event antags.

if its too mystic for peoples' liking, perhaps it could be reimagined as a scientist traitor item that you attach to the telesci pad that causes it to bring in higher amounts of dangerous creatures

[Frank_Stein]

In regards to cults, I think one of my best Sec rounds was infiltrating a player driven cult that had holed itself up in the chapel. The leader had contracted a disease that was turning then into a clown. At first they were just filling the room with all the clown masks that kept spawning on them, but then they got idea to give people "the sacrament" in the form of syringes filled with their diseased blood.

I spent some time in an owl suit disguise to pick out the leader, occasionally whispering over the Sec channel until the HoS gave me the go ahead to make the bust

[TheOnlyRyan]

Just to make it clear I'm not looking for a cult game mode, I knew using that link was a mistake.

As for accidentally resurrecting a brain dead, that's where the idea of the dead guy getting a pop up asking that his soul has been demanded to serve a new master.

If you give dead chat an option and forget all about cult I don't think this would be a bad idea at all, and I'm sure as its goon we can come up with some better sprites and more powerful traitorous minions too, far more unique then TG.

Possibly using your bible to heal people could tie in with the other thread about chaplains and them having religious or piety power.

Allowing you to recharge the stone by helping the crew. One thing that I really do think there isn't enough of and that's spooky stuff. Let this be a start to a spookier traitor.

[The Grim Sleeper]

Doesn't really seem that useful now that we have ghostdrones.

Ghost drones are just supposed to repair the station though, while these homunculi-beefcakes could fill a niche for more bloodthirsty ghosts.

[Grumpchkin]

In regards to cults, I think one of my best Sec rounds was infiltrating a player driven cult that had holed itself up in the chapel. The leader had contracted a disease that was turning then into a clown. At first they were just filling the room with all the clown masks that kept spawning on them, but then they got idea to give people "the sacrament" in the form of syringes filled with their diseased blood.

I spent some time in an owl suit disguise to pick out the leader, occasionally whispering over the Sec channel until the HoS gave me the go ahead to make the bust

Holy shit I remember that round, I was a cult member and I got arrested together with the Leader.

[Roomba]

As an antag item they could do okay, not so sure about them as a non-antag item. 'Fix the station' is a niche that needed filling, 'murder the shit out of anyone who annoys the chaplain' not so much.

[poland spring]

What if they just got severely limited Wraith powers like just that item throwing one except just with one item