The Black Knight (an antag idea)

[Theunsolved-puzzle]

While watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail, it struck me how many wildly different interpretations of black knights there are in media, from the easily delimbed black knight in Monty Python, to using a shovel in Shovel Knight, being a walking warping wall of death in Fire Emblem, and even Star Wars with Darth Vader using the force to choke people out, there's tons of various unique and interesting interpretations of the archetype!

The archetype is one I like a lot, a mysterious warrior who repeatedly shows up to challenge or take the hero down, a constant looming threat over the cast, it all makes for incredible interactions! Given all of this, it struck me how SS13, for all of the various sources to be inspired by, doesn't have anything close to a black knight, given this, I wanted to make this suggestion; add in a black knight antag, even if it's only available through admins.

Black Knights are usually more than just a menace to the main character, typically they have some degree of honor and have reasons they're fighting besides simply loving to fight. Sometimes it's being just for petty spite, other times protecting someone else, sometimes it's simply revenge, some even take up the mantle of antagonizing someone else so that they can become stronger through the struggle. Regardless of their reasons, Black Knights should be an antag where RP with others carries a personal edge to it. Given all of this, they could make for excellent RP antags, and in non-RP servers, could be great rampage antags like wizards, possibly even taking inspiration from them and having their own station to rest and heal between attacks.

Inspiration for play for these antags could come from those discussed at the beginning of this post, Monty Python, Shovel knight, Fire Emblem, and Darth Vader, personally I think it would be best for the class to take from all of these, and use requisition tokens for players to select which kind of black knight they want to be. I would also argue that this class would as a baseline, require the ability to recall their weapon to them, much like how wizards can with the Cthulhu staff. 

Starting first with the most ridiculous, The Black Knight in Monty Python, despite his lack of special abilities does have one that could make for a interesting antagonist, his near unending endurance! A Monty Python black knight could either have a bleed-based or katana-like sword, delimbing and bleeding opponents while they themselves have incredible durability and endurance, their main weakness could even have a chance to randomly loose limbs upon taking damage, requiring them to return to their base to heal it. This would make a Monty Python Black knight, while simple, a looming, reoccurring bad guy to take down limb by limb! A loadout inspired by this knight could call to their endurance, calling them "the survivor" or something similar.

Secondly is The Black Knight from Shovel Knight! Perhaps the most agile of all the knights here, they'd also likely have the least amount of armor, this being supplement by their extremely fast movement, and large variety ranged attacks and spells. A Black Knight inspired by the Shovel Knight take on the archetype could have a shovel they could use to uproot tiles on the station as a pseudo-ranged attack, along with having an incredibly large amount of spells they could use, like the ability to use magic to dash from side to side, summon purple projectiles to, or manifest wings to fly! These spells could either be tied to a cooldown, or a magic pool they slowly regain, but are otherwise forced to return to their base for. Their main weakness however is also their strength, with such a reliance on spells, running out of spells could be a death-sentence for a Shovel Knight inspired black knight, requiring them to return to the knight's base between their attacks. A loadout inspired by this knight could call to their shovel or perhaps simply their spells, calling them something along the lines of "The Shovel" or "The Spellblade".

Third is The Black Knight from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. This Black Knight would be easily the slowest of all the possible inspirations, with their armor and sword making them a. A Black Knight inspired by Fire Emblem would have a extremely powerful sword with the ability to send out magic ranged attacks, extremely durable heavy armor, regeneration, and the ability to warp from place to place. Being in such heavy armor, their ability to warp would be necessary to their success, as otherwise the crew could simply run away from them before they could engage, in particular this ability to warp could be used to either close gaps, or warp into the safety away from sec! Like the other black knights mentioned here however, their greatest ability is also their greatest weakness, as their ability to warp saps their strength, and eventually The Black Knight would be forced to return to their base like the others. A loadout inspired by this knight could call to their durable armor, or simply allude to their game by referring to them as something like "The General".

Finally is Darth Vader from Star Wars. Yes I know, he isn't named "The Black Knight" but despite they are a archetypal black knight. Honestly I don't even think I have to talk about this much, you all know who Darth Vader is and what abilities inspired by him could be, force choke/pull/push, throwing his lightsaber as a boomerang, deflecting attacks, ect. A Vader inspired Black Knight could be required to return to the base in order to heal from their wounds, or they could have some injury slowly hurting them that requires them to take time to heal at base, much like how Vader must take Bacta Baths in Star Wars. A loadout inspired by this knight could be called something along the lines of "The Forceful".

NOTE: Truth be told I'm doubtful this idea will go anywhere, but it was an idea I had and wanted to share

[Lefinch]

I do actually like this concept: The unknowable implacable entity in visor'd helm that appears to challenge the crew in noble but vicious melee combat. If it helps, the rare experience of "The Slasher" Antag can very well be like this (admittedly less from an honour perspective but certainly mysterious and melee!)
There's nothing from stopping you as any other antag taking up this role in an RP sense too: Traitors using a a voice changer, some kind of mask and being The Green Knight challenging foes at station crossroads to a duel for lady/lord Cairngorn's favour. I've had a boxing match as a ling where I less-than honourably custom emoted dancing around the ring doing old-timey boxing handrolls while sneakily stinging the challenger. People seem to enjoy the mentality of being called to a duel with an antag as well, it can be a nice way to wrap up an antag round to call the HoS for a showdown (and in my case, get thoroughly steamrolled)

I say this because I feel like you have a concept of something you want to try as antag and while I love the idea I love that you've conceptualised a potential RP approach and think you could apply it to a round with other antags normally too, and it would be nice to see that!

[meaow589]

Most people trying to do gimmick with sword before
I have see Gundum with C-saber , samurai with katana , chainsaw man with chainsaw arm. Poison Ivy with thorn arm. most of them is never need any stuff more than effort and time. So your idea about knight normally happen even there is no role of that now.
Last but not least these antag look like rampage antagonist like other non-human antag that has ability and weird costume or stuff that make people very notice you.so it like obviously antag that tend to be rampage more than interactive.and sword is the gimmick of this antag which is erh contraband stuff. Easy to notice,easily got beat by beebsky. Imagine you become dark knight when spawn next to beebsky and notice you have contraband of C-saber and got arrest at start. Also your main weapon need tool which is sword and what happen if you lost it you screw up.
My conclusion is your idea for antag with sword is cool and many people trying to mimicking it.however in gameplay might not be good to make it happen due to obviously antag.