Hello Stone Story RPG friends! We hope you’re enjoying the event. It’s certainly been very challenging, even for the most experienced of adventurers! Poena was a great opportunity for us to expand upon the game’s world and introduce an interesting new mechanic. [h2]Stone Story RPG's World Design[/h2] The process to building Poena is the same used for the rest of the game’s world design. Various elements from pop culture and mythology fill a bucket that, sometimes, will have ideas that line up together and work well naturally. Take for example Nagaraja, the boss of the Temple location. Nagaraja is constructed from several such pop cultural and mythological building blocks: giant fantasy worms from series like “Dune” and “Star Wars” perfectly aligned with the venomous nature of the Serpent King in Hindu myth. [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//30519309/dc264c39ce0b92039d1c7abbd0d99cbbae256188.png[/img] But it doesn’t stop there! The Temple itself is heavily based on the Red Temple from 1993’s “Prince of Persia 2”. The reveal of the Red Temple can be seen in the way the Temple is revealed in Stone Story RPG: a cinematic landscape approach towards a mysterious towering structure. [previewyoutube=B3bOEBCZcPw;full][/previewyoutube] Funnily enough, the Temple and Nagaraja developed independently of each other until the pieces suddenly fit and made sense: giant worms are traditionally a “desert” character so why not fit Nagaraja into the Temple’s theming? There are countless other examples of this design philosophy at work in the game, but the general idea is that sometimes there’s a gap in Stone Story RPG’s design and it’s our work to fill it. [h2]Creating Poena[/h2] Poena is the most recent product of this design. Lore-wise, we already had a solid base to work from: Xyloalgia is the corrupted remains of Leuce (whose positive aspects remained in Acropolis as a white tree). Thus, if Leuce has been considered a female character then it follows that Xyloalgia would as well! [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//30519309/f615c177afa9029bb91dff10b1046fc0dfe54cdc.png[/img] Expanding upon this, Xyloalgia’s gender reveal took its lead from how Metroid revealed Samus’ gender. We wanted the moment of revelation to have impact, but the initial sketches felt a bit weak. Nothing that fit the personality of the character. [url=https://twitter.com/Polyducks]This was where Polyducks came in.[/url] Polyducks took the idea of Poena and crafted her in a deliberate depiction of the female form twisted by corruption. Poena embodies the spirit of vengeance and punishment. The dark and dirty core of retribution lying deep within Xyloalgia. It’s her very character that also informs how she works mechanically in a boss fight. The Mirror debuff mechanics underscore Poena’s very nature: When you’re fighting her, you’re fighting the negative parts of Leuce. [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//30519309/6202e3f3e2c868ae132b11802190bbbb5bad7db3.gif[/img] You can take a look at [url=https://www.twitch.tv/standardcomb0]how standardcombo animates Poena on his Twitch channel vods.[/url] --- -SSRPG Team [url=https://twitter.com/StoneStoryRPG] Stone Story RPG Twitter[/url] [url=discord.gg/stonestoryrpg]Stone Story RPG Discord[/url]