Greetings, night creatures! I'm Luis, a Senior Designer at Triumph Studios, and now that you have journeyed through the sunless lands, I'm thrilled to unveil the new Tomes I've crafted for Thrones of Blood. My aim with these Tomes is to not only complement the new Elder Vampire leaders but also make sure they possess their own unique identity.
Tome of Blood Rite
The first tome, the Tier I Tome of the Blood Rite, focuses on cults, enabling you to damage your own units with spells for powerful effects and make your enemies bleed.
The Blood Cultist is a Tier II Battle Mage whose fanatical duty is to let blood flow. Their Scarlet Plague ability applies Blood Parasite, a new Bleeding effect. This negative status effect acts and counts as bleeding, with the key difference being that most units, even bloodless ones, can suffer from it. If a unit dies while under this effect, the parasite matures and spawns a new unit called a Blood Parasite.
Hemorrhage Bolts facilitate this by dealing extra damage per stack of Bleeding on its target. If that's not enough, the Dagger of the Rite ability increases all their damage by 50%, with the downside of the unit dying at the end of the turn. However, not all is lost, as the Dagger of the Rite also grants the Cultist resurgence; if the battle is won, you can get your cultist back.
The Blood Maggot unit is a Tier I Fighter that spawns from this new status effect. It moves through the battlefield, feeding on corpses and engorging and strengthening itself. When it dies, it splatters all adjacent enemy units, dealing damage and inflicting Blood Parasite, thus restarting the cycle.
Blood Carved Runes is a minor transformation in this tome. It grants all your racial units increased World Map Regeneration and makes their attacks and debuffs ignore 1 point of Status Resistance per stack of Bleeding on the target.
Blood Drinking Blades is an enchantment for your melee units that increases their physical damage and heals them when attacking Bleeding enemies.
Sanguine Focus is an enchantment for your magical units that grants them a chance to make their targets bleed, thereby facilitating your melee units' thirst for blood or the Blood Cultist’s increased damage.
Other Spells and Unlocks:
Rite of Bloodletting and Rite of Lifeleeching function similarly but achieve different outcomes. Both Rites require targeting a friendly unit, dealing a flat, unblockable 5 damage. The Rite of Bloodletting then inflicts Bleeding on all enemy units within a 2-hex radius of the targeted friendly unit. Conversely, the Rite of Lifeleeching grants Strengthened and Life Drain to all adjacent friendly units for 3 turns.
The Blood Altar is a Special Province Improvement unlocked by this tome. It is a Conduit that provides draft, increased per nearby farm, and a flat amount of mana whenever you are victorious in battle.
Tome of Torment
The second new tome is the Tier III pure shadow Tome of Torment. This tome focuses on demoralizing your enemies and transforming your units to benefit from the pain inflicted upon them.
Torment is a new negative status effect that punishes a unit for using abilities, damaging them and causing them to lose morale whenever an ability is used. It can stack up to 5 times, and when it triggers, a stack is removed. It also counters the Grace status effect, acting as its opposite.
To lead your army of torment, we are introducing the Pain Bringer, the first racial Mythic unit in the game and a callback to the Death Bringer from Age of Wonders 3. As a Mythic unit, it cannot benefit from most unit enchantments, but it will still have Transformations applied to it.
It has a free Shadow Step ability it can use every turn to teleport up to 2 hexes, and its melee strikes heal it for half the damage they deal. Together with its Flanker passive, this can be a deadly combo.
Additionally, it also has a ranged Whip ability called Tormenting Lash that instantly applies 4 stacks of Torment.
This tome has a Minor Transformation called Painbound that makes units relish pain. Whenever a Painbound unit is struck, it gains a small amount of Morale and a random status effect.
Tormenting Projectiles makes your battle mages and ranged units apply Torment with every strike.
Other Spells and Unlocks:
Agonize deals Frost damage in a 1-hex radius and has a high chance to apply 3 stacks of Torment.
Lens of Anguish is a throne-only building that grants Mana and Combat Casting Points while making all your combat Damage and Debuff spells inflict Morale Loss.
Basilica of Lamentation is a Special Province Improvement gained when unlocking the tome. It grants Mana, Knowledge, and Stability to the city, gaining more Mana from adjacent Farms and more Knowledge from adjacent Foresters.
Tome of the Crimson Reign
The Tome of the Crimson Reign is a Tier IV tome that centers on a corrupt and eldritch nobility. This tome delves into the sanguine and gory aspects of eldritch monsters, portraying them as a symbiotic force that empowers your units.
The Blood Exarch is the source of this corruption. This Undead unit is an otherworldly monster of flesh and gore that bestows blessings. Its Parasitic Cleave slashes three enemies in front of the Exarch, bestowing them with a Blood Parasite so they may be reborn as maggots.
Siphon Lesser deals increased damage the lower the unit's tier and heals the Exarch for half of the damage dealt. It also connects to its Grant Blood of the Exarch ability, which starts on cooldown. However, if Siphon Lesser kills an enemy, Blood of the Exarch’s cooldown is refreshed. This ability can then be used to target your Tier III or higher units—those who deserve to be part of the Crimson Reign—to grant them increased Damage, Critical Chance, and Critical Damage.
Blood Pull is a free action ability that pulls an enemy unit adjacent to the Exarch.
In addition to these active abilities, the Blood Exarch also has three new passives. Coagulate grants it Bolstered Defense and Resistance once per turn when struck. Its Oppressing Aura passive has a chance to make adjacent enemies lose Morale and gain Misfortune, increasing their chance to Fumble. Lifedrinker heals the Exarch and grants it Strengthened whenever a unit, friend or foe, dies adjacent to itself.
Things get even more interesting and dark with Gift of the Old Blood. This new Major Transformation, a new way to gain the Undead unit type, comes a bit later than Wightborn but offers additional benefits. It grants your units the new Lifedrinker passive ability, seen on the Blood Exarch, which heals and strengthens your units as enemies die around them. It also gives all their attacks a chance to spread the new Blood Parasite status effect.
To help you create your Crimson Reign, there’s the new Mantle of the Blood Noble enchantment. It attaches to all Tier III, IV, and V units, giving them the Exarch's Coagulator passive. When entering battle, the enchanted units gain a small amount of maximum hit points and healing received in combat, scaling with the number of Tier I and Tier II units you bring into combat.
Other Spells and Unlocks:
Crimson Court is a throne-only structure that, once built, grants all your Tier III, IV, and V units increased regeneration on the world map and a small amount of experience each turn.
Additionally, building this structure grants you a passive ability called Crimson Court Magistrate. This ability causes all your Vassals to provide extra Mana based on their population and generates large amounts of Mana when Migrating or Razing cities as well as Pillaging provinces.
Tears of the Crimson Sovereign is a combat spell that when cast and for the next 2 turns damages and inflicts blood parasite to up to 3 enemies and heals and gives fortune to 3 friendly units.
We hope you like what you've seen here; these were very fun to design. Become a cultist of the Blood Rite, a Tormentor who knows a myriad of ways to inflict pain, or a brazen leader who summons an eldritch being of flesh and undeath upon your lands to bless your units and turn your enemies into maggots.
This content pack comes out on November 11th, and we here at Triumph are all super excited to see what you come up with! Join us next week as Elle will show you the behind-the-scenes work that goes into making this content come to life.
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