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While I was working through the liche wishlist some stuff came up I think might be appropriate for banshees.

From a cosmetic perspetive I traditionally imagined banshees as a sort of wraith with a rude scream, but given the lore makes them more physical I've been thinking this over and 2 things strike me as appropriately thematic for physical magic artistic influence. The first being Voo Doo (or various alternate spellings) and the second being cenobites from hellraiser. Also the model for the character for LoK Dead Sun (Gein) also keeps jumping out at me as kind of a hybrid of these things for visual inspiration. Traditionally banshees also pull from Fae lore, but I'm not sure that's thematically appropriate as the game goes more in the undeath direction.

For power sets I'm imagining obviously first, a sonic scream cone (that could be upgraded to a radial PBAoE) that applies a massive debuff and possibly slows/stuns/damages the living. This should also apply increased damage from banshees to affected enemy targets beyond whatever global debuffs they have, meaning the ability supports the team, but also is inherently better for this class. This is to annotate that banshees are considered to herald the death of a family member, ie, gives them a sort of reaper aspect.

Additionally having a good amount of hexes/curses to debuff enemies, particularly bosses stands out as this fits both the voo doo notions and the notion of traditional Irish cursed banshee legends. Because suffering and banshees are pretty much siblings, some self mutilation mechanics for the spells seems also appropriate, ie, you expend both mana and physical to cast certain effects.

Also chains. Lots of summoned, cenobite, fast moving, hooked and barbed chains. The notion of banshee's and chains resonates strongly. Having an entangle spell and a damage spell for this seems necessary. Importantly, these should not be spectral chains like you might seen on a wraith, but very physical and very real chains. This should be upgradable to include more targets affected and more range.

Traditionally Voo Doo also has raising the dead as well, but that's something that's already put on the liche. I'd suggest considering that they might be able to summon zombies as a type of spec they can go into, but that their top tier summoning is minimal by comparison to a liche that specializes in this.

Thematically betrayal is also a common theme with banshee lore, usually what causes them to take this form. I'm not certain I can come up with a good mechanic for this though, since using an ability that hampers the party will make other players dislike you, and not using it makes it a non choice.

Draining enemies via touch is likely a good animation set for them as this A) keeps them towards the front of the battlefiend and B) is thematically appropriate.

A standard fear spell is likely appropriate as well, but that's probably baseline to wraiths, banshees and liches.

Hatred of the living could make a good passive ability (or set of abilities) in that they gain X bonuses against all mortal humanoids, this wouldn't apply to other meta creatures such as beasts, werewolves, other undead, dragons and other identity tags that may show up later.

In short this sets the banshee apart from the revenant by focusing on battlefield control and debuffing and more or less being a front line spellblade sort, which the revenant is more likely to be more focused on shredding armor, generating threat, and other traditional warrior-type abilities whereas wraiths are likely to be more support DPS casters.

edit: Banshee's feed from the suffering they inflict, banshee mana is restored by damage they inflict including damage over time effects. Consequently abilities that ignore pain like the revenant design I have up, don't trigger this regen.

edit: Banshee movement uses their chains as a speedy grappling hook style traversal. They can spec into levitation if they wish.

Edit: Mist/fog powers should accompany the chains, some kind of AoE summon effect

Edit quick mock ups: (Legal: I do not own the assets, just edited them for personal use)
 

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God I love this. The Banshee class is the one I'm most excited to see and I love thinking about this. MORE CHAINS! Quick and out front causing chaos, and gimme some rogue feels while we're at it. I love the detail you've put into these!
 
That was kinda the idea, make it a supernatural version of a rogue. The thing is, since we have all this supernatural stuff, they don't need "stealth" per se, though that would be a good alt way to spec.
 
Adding an edit in here:

Banshee's feed from the suffering they inflict, banshee mana is restored by damage they inflict and damage over time effects.

Banshee's also have a wind-walk movement ability similar to vampire mist, however during this they can still be targeted but have extra defenses.
 
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Edit: changing banshee movement to chain/grappling hook style for thematic purposes proposed in a different thread concept by @Livin
 
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As someone who grew up in Ireland, my image of a banshee would be more of a thin pale, slightly glowing, crying and wailing woman.
From a distance it would appear as a simple maiden crying and combing her hair, but upon closer inspection would turn to a Screaming Spirit more akin to a noon wraith in the Witcher series.
Not sure where the Hellraiser and chains come into that to be honest, Saying this as a Massive Clive Barker fan myself.
In Irish Lore, the Fae lore has a lot of death and similar themes, it's not just Disney pixies. I also think Mixing the Voodoo and tradition Celtic ideas would not mix very well.
Just my 2 cents...
 
As someone who grew up in Ireland, my image of a banshee would be more of a thin pale, slightly glowing, crying and wailing woman.
From a distance it would appear as a simple maiden crying and combing her hair, but upon closer inspection would turn to a Screaming Spirit more akin to a noon wraith in the Witcher series.
Not sure where the Hellraiser and chains come into that to be honest, Saying this as a Massive Clive Barker fan myself.
In Irish Lore, the Fae lore has a lot of death and similar themes, it's not just Disney pixies. I also think Mixing the Voodoo and tradition Celtic ideas would not mix very well.
Just my 2 cents...
I'm aware of the Irish folk lore and in that respect you are correct.

When designing something though, I'm not about to force a representation that "Sorry, this is an Irish lore thing, no black people, no men". Those are cosmetic things, and specifically are left up to the player, and in many ways will be reimagined through various kinds of skins. Additionally Cenobites wear black and are very often pale, so, not a huge discrepency there, not that I am saying they should be all chopped up, but having that as a skin option sounds nice.

Instead when designing this I looked towards the theme and the trinary configuration, as well as what was needed to create a unique playstyle.

Themes utilized are: Suffering, harbinger of death, hatred of the living. These are all consistent with Irish folklore, as well as more modern iterations such as pathfinder and dungeons and dragons.

Side note: while many might scoff at drawing from modern iterations, I think is a mistake, because modern fantasy RPGs are the reason most people know about this sort of lore around the globe in the modern age, so while it's not "historical legend", it's not like I'm counting on legends of ghosts to be scientifically accurate either. Stories are stories, modern ones that make major propagation count as well, and additionally, these things don't conflict.

Where do the chains come from?

To design a powers set you can't have a banshee scream and call it done. That's not enough to make a functional progression of a character in an ARPG, it just doesn't cut it. 1 power and done? Compared to something like a vampire that has a giant list of potential abilities? That's a bad idea. As such moved in the direction of making choices that weren't historically accurate to legends but made sense from a video game perspective.

The scream is still there as their most commonly used power up front, but it's not the only thing in the kit because it can't be.

I also had to cross index with other designs I had and decide precisely "what is going to make this fun to play, unique from the other designs and fill a niche and play style that isn't already represented?" because game design concepts are important. Additionally we're mixing up a bunch of lore from a bunch of different cultures here, presumably to remain faithful to concepts, but also create something new and fun.

Traditionally banshee spirits from my research mind you, not that I'm the most senior expert, nor Irish born, but they are perceived as spirits. They also are shown in the trinary config as being between arcane and physical. The physical aspect puts a hampering on it being straight up ethereal, and we already have wraiths that define that role very well and Liches and wights that they have overlap with.

The banshee however, has overlap with the lich and the revenant. So I had to sit and think... what elements of dark fantasy and horror speak to me as physical and magical? Which I stated was both voo doo and cenbobites.

Voo doo has a lot of lore around death and undeath, so no problems there. cenobites also while not explicitly, can be perceived to hate the living and are closely associated with suffering. So we just found our next two closest reference points to fill out the power set. Plus both of those things are pretty cool and fit thematically in the universe.

Additionally, spirits haunt things. Chains are generally associated with spirits, less so in modern times, but in folklore in general, the idea being they are held back from crossing over.

We also need something that plays like a scrapper archetype (traditionally a rogue type for MMO types) and that just happens to fit perfectly into the balance of physical and magic, because it's either that or physical and essence, which I opted to put ghouls in a different sort of bracket.

Does that clarify better?

Additionally there's nothing stopping you from making a noon-wraith style banshee. Put your focus on the hexes when allocating points and use the scream a lot, color it however you like.

The only reason I opted not to add hovering/flight here is because that A) wouldn't play like a scrapper anymore. B) I wanted everything to be unique-ish in how it plays, so alternate methods of specialization and movement were opted for, in this case the grappling hook method because that wasn't used elsewhere as a traversal type, also fits with the scrapper-like idea and added themes, and we have hovering and flying covered better elsewhere. That said, these are outlines with stuff I considered essential and I don't think it's unreasonable to assume you couldn't adjust points in such a fashion to alter your powers set since that's fundamentally exactly what I'm suggesting.

I would ask also, do you have a better design to offer that will have a full power set, fit between the arcane and physical space, and will also play uniquely differently than other classes? I'm absolutely not against changing my suggestions when people have a better one.

I specifically did that with the movement type already. And again, these are just suggestions, I'm not the design team ;) I'm just trying to throw out some things I think make sense and would be cool to make skins for and fun to play.

Consider that the noonwraith style skin is likely going to be the default and adding in stuff like cenobite and voo doo themes are likely to be premium paid skins.

Anything that deviates from the traditional mythos in any of the designs I put forth is likely explained as follows:

1) is there a full powers set?
2) where does it sit on the trinary?
3) what related references can I look at that fit that theme of the trinary to try and reimagine this thing and still make it unique in playstyle?
 
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I would like to clarify a few things so that you may point your ideas in a direction more aligned with what they already have done in Deadhaus and better help them so.

Chains are most definitely a thing reserved for the Wraith. They say as much in the class description of the Wraith. I do not believe they'll be using the same elements on multiple characters because that would make them less asymmetric, and asymmetry is a key aspect of their game.

Their position in the Trinary Archetype does not dictate their state. Liche is at the full Magickal side, and yet it is not Ethereal, its main state is Physical. Banshee and Wraiths have their main states as Ethereal, and Wight is unknown but I presume will be Contained.

They have also considered having Banshees as the only class that is gender-locked as female, not just because in Irish folklore they are always female (and their name indicate as much), but because Banshees are not just undead in this universe, they are also special beings that serve as communicators between the world of the living and superior realms. They are messengers. We can tell that from the main story in the Necroliberatas. And I believe their powers will be attached to them being all women. Lore-based powers and settings is important for them, which is also why you may not have immersion-breaking content in the game.

Finally, I don't know what the Banshee should play like, but I know that the Wraith is the assassin-type class. Again, the class description says as much and I don't think they'll be repeating styles. Not that you can't make a character with a focus on killing enemies fast, I'm sure others will be more than able to, but this is the way they classify it. Wraiths are not warlocks, but assassins and spies in Deadhaus.

EDIT: Some time ago I had done research on the Banshee to help them form the character in DHS. You can check out the
post here. Maybe it will have something that will give you interesting ideas to share.
 
@Golden Xan

Thank you for sharing! I'm admittedly not completely caught up on all content on the forums, though I'm sifting through it.

My intention with sharing what was going in my head was to provide some thoughts I had rather than instructions, I'm not so bold as to presume what I'm offering is anything more than ideas that I think will work as I understand them, and clearly I'm ignorant to a lot of what has gone on. Obviously the devs will do what they are going to do, but I tried to think about something that homage'd the myths, but was more centered around gameplay mechanics because I was looking at the mechanics specifically.

Lore or not, 1 ability (banshee scream) does not a playable character class make. Like I said my goals were to approach from a player standpoint, the lore being very important, but not only factor. Ultimately if the lore is super accurate but the game isn't fun to play the game is dead, so that was a bigger priority to me.

On a different note I would say I don't think anything should be gender locked because gender is cosmetic entirely when it comes to undead, and my general feelings is cosmetics should always be 100% divorced from mechanics. This would be doing the opposite, but gating an entire class behind a cosmetic choice, and I don't think that's good at all.

I believe it's good to homage lore and legends and myths, but Deadhaus specifically is also it's own new IP that can/should/will interpret some things differently, and generally speaking leaving purely cosmetic choices as purely cosmetic is something I strongly stand behind.

Additionally not all banshee's are female.

I will also add too that I know your sources are looking more into historical mythos, but as I mentioned above, I believe modern pop culture references are just as valid, and historically likely will be seen as more so, because of how widespread they are. Additionally there's very little "factual" difference between an old legend and something printed in dungeons and dragons, both are stories, unless you want to make the argument that supernatural things are real, which, that's a whole separate discussion I'll be happy to avoid if you will allow it.

To add more credibility as well, wraiths as assassins I'm pretty sure is strictly a DnD thing ;) I don't believe that comes up directly in historical myth.
 
That's all good. Keep doing what you're doing. My motivation is helping you adapt your ideas to the things the developers want to have in their game. But a great part of the fun is thinking about and writing those things down.
 
That's all good. Keep doing what you're doing. My motivation is helping you adapt your ideas to the things the developers want to have in their game. But a great part of the fun is thinking about and writing those things down.
Much appreciated. I think what I'll need to really do before I can integrate that is understand what they have presented so far, and also what they consider "hard lore" like stuff that should not be changed. If you have more resources about other classes to point at I'd be happy to take a look. I really appreciate someone with more experience helping me get caught up, so thank you for that.

If I can understand that better I can adapt.

I will also admit that I like the notion of having build concepts as a baseline and allowing players to custom tailor them via point buys in general to tailor the experience not only to their playstyle, but also create something that fits their personal RP fantasy.

This whole series of suggestions was basically started by me griping about how I don't want a liche necromancer pet build only option, but rather a pure caster version.

I don't particularly enjoy pet classes outside of a leveling experience because generally they either don't hold up late game, or steam roll everything, and both are equally unfun, plus pure casters are my jam. Yes, a Liche should have the option to have a skeleton army, but I'd much rather take my personal build in a very different direction.

I think ultimately from a design perspective each should have a baseline they fit into that includes stuff like:

1) feeding/regen mechanic as undead kinda need these things (though my revenant design is a bit divergent from the other 6 in this regard)
2) all but one of the designs I put forth has at least one movement ability and that's because that class is super potent by virtue of it's lore (the wight) and also where it sits on the trinary. Wights are super powerful creatures at a baseline as they quickly suck your essence out, and also just spawn more of themselves making fights against them super hard, so to balance that out and looking into draugr lore I decided a movement ability could be sacrificed there and still made good lore sense.

From there I think having options to custom tailor their abilities is really important, the stuff I was suggesting is more "stuff I think should be available" but also I don't think should be the "final say on ONLY what is available" but rather, a starting point and from there let people branch out and do weird things.

I mean like, Idont' want a flying revenant, but maybe someone else does, and if they are willing to sacrifice in other areas to get it, then great! Play what you want :D that's the genius of point buy trees.

Also I'd like to think in an abstract way "The Crow" is also a sort of banshee as well. If you consider the guitar wails that are essential to the character to be his "wails" and also he has a hatred of "certain members of the living". He could also be seen as a revenant though, admittedly. Also the other crow movies never happened according to my headcannon (because they were incredibly inferior without remorse), so they aren't relevant to be referenced ;)
 
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I'm just gonna provide a link to an earlier thread about the banshee.

 
@Golden Xan

Thank you for sharing! I'm admittedly not completely caught up on all content on the forums, though I'm sifting through it.

My intention with sharing what was going in my head was to provide some thoughts I had rather than instructions, I'm not so bold as to presume what I'm offering is anything more than ideas that I think will work as I understand them, and clearly I'm ignorant to a lot of what has gone on. Obviously the devs will do what they are going to do, but I tried to think about something that homage'd the myths, but was more centered around gameplay mechanics because I was looking at the mechanics specifically.

Lore or not, 1 ability (banshee scream) does not a playable character class make. Like I said my goals were to approach from a player standpoint, the lore being very important, but not only factor. Ultimately if the lore is super accurate but the game isn't fun to play the game is dead, so that was a bigger priority to me.

On a different note I would say I don't think anything should be gender locked because gender is cosmetic entirely when it comes to undead, and my general feelings is cosmetics should always be 100% divorced from mechanics. This would be doing the opposite, but gating an entire class behind a cosmetic choice, and I don't think that's good at all.

I believe it's good to homage lore and legends and myths, but Deadhaus specifically is also it's own new IP that can/should/will interpret some things differently, and generally speaking leaving purely cosmetic choices as purely cosmetic is something I strongly stand behind.

Additionally not all banshee's are female.

I will also add too that I know your sources are looking more into historical mythos, but as I mentioned above, I believe modern pop culture references are just as valid, and historically likely will be seen as more so, because of how widespread they are. Additionally there's very little "factual" difference between an old legend and something printed in dungeons and dragons, both are stories, unless you want to make the argument that supernatural things are real, which, that's a whole separate discussion I'll be happy to avoid if you will allow it.

To add more credibility as well, wraiths as assassins I'm pretty sure is strictly a DnD thing ;) I don't believe that comes up directly in historical myth.
but like, Wolverine isn't a real Wolverine though... the same way Cyclops is not a cyclops and well....
 
I'm just gonna provide a link to an earlier thread about the banshee.


So I read through that.

I think the freddy kruger thing isn't too terribly difficult to be comparable to the scope I've presented. it would just require speccing differently, but still be in the same ballpark.

My major criticism is that mind control... generally speaking, sucks in ARPGs.

It's a worse form of a pet class (which has severe problems of it's own in that it's either too OP or terribly useless in most all cases), and that's assuming AI isn't completely braindead and that it actually knows how to deal damage to other enemies (usually there is a disparity of eHP and Dmg output for players vs AI to compensate for solo players).

The only positive mind control has is that you can potentially remove a piece from the board temporarily, and usually speaking, it's the suckiest trash mob, because the bigguns with the most power are gonna make a save... and that means you probably could have cleared two trash mobs in the time it takes you to enchant one. I won't say there are definitely no good examples, but I've yet to see it be a functional and comparable thing in 3 decades of video games.

I'm not saying it doesn't have it's place, but with my designs it falls under the vampyre, the reason being is that the vampire has diversity advantage while not being able to reach the extreme heights of other classes. This means charm for them, lets them play a crappier form of pet class and allows that fantasy should the player choose it.

Even in a single player game, usually the only time you'll fuss with this is if your HP is in the trash at the moment and you're out of pots so you can enchant the enemy to fight each other and keep a safe distance, and wait the ten years it takes them to resolve the situation... and that's only in games where death has harsh consequences, which like... ceased being a thing in the vast majority of games in the early 2000s. In modern games you'd just charge in, clear what you can, respawn at town, sell your trash, restock and head back out.

I want to point out this is a video game problem, not a lore problem. As a lore thing, mind control is just as cool as any other power allowing subjectivity to be a thing.
 
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Not that you can't make a character with a focus on killing enemies fast, I'm sure others will be more than able to, but this is the way they classify it. Wraiths are not warlocks, but assassins and spies in Deadhaus.

I get that the Wraiths have the chains from the whole ritual, but they are never described as quick-moving anywhere. My interpretation could be wrong, but the fact that they can nearly be invisible was why I thought they were spies/assassins. They aren't tethered to either realm, so to be behind one and slit a throat and never be seen is just how I envisioned it. I never really thought of them as dashing about like a rogue, but I could be wrong.

Since this is before the reveal, I'm just gunna throw my ideas in too and this message might become obsolete soon but oh well! I liked the ideas as chains as a means of grappling/movement around the field, even though Wraiths do definitely have that as a motif. But Banshees could also have a smoky/mist thing going on instead of the chains, too. It makes sense to me for a ghost-y rogue that can evade and move around the field in a confusing cloud with a scream that disorients and comes from every direction.
 
Oh, yeah. By "fast" I meant "bringing down the enemies' health fast", because that's what assassins typically do. But the Wraith could be a specter that slowly floats the battlefield, reaping their souls. Can't tell!

I definitely believe the Banshee would benefit from having mist-based powers of some kind. It not only seems fitting because she's Ethereal, that also has connections with certain myths I've read, or its cousin legends.
 
I definitely believe the Banshee would benefit from having mist-based powers of some kind.
I absolutely agree, I feel that that works with the design concepts and also the Irish influence as well... like Ireland is known for it's mists and fogs. I feel like it doesn't necessarily need to be movement either but could be a fog of war blind spell for enemies, the question is how would you work that for other players?

Like obscuring things for other players would really mess them up unless they got like red outlines from enhanced undead vision or something. Seems like a really cool power to add though.
 
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"the Irish influence as well... like Ireland is known for it's mists and fogs".

Is it?
 
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"the Irish influence as well... like Ireland is known for it's mists and fogs".

Is it?
uhm... maybe not IRL since I haven't travelled there yet, but definitely Hollywood Ireland/Scotland/Wales etc. Literally all medieval depictions I can think of have overly strong mists and fogs surrounding their castles and such.

Consider how most people think the entire state of NY is a giant city. It's not accurate, just partly (very minorly) true, it's probably kinda like that.
 
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uhm... maybe not IRL since I haven't travelled there yet, but definitely Hollywood Ireland/Scotland/Wales etc. Literally all medieval depictions I can think of have overly strong mists and fogs surrounding their castles and such.
That is mainly because Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, along with Britain just have a higher amount of rain on average than people in the states. As for mist and fog, it tends not to be any worse than anywhere else, it's just that rain leads to fog, fog leads thoughts to stuff like The Mist or otherworldly creatures leaking through. Which specifically for the isles, originated at the Witching hour for Fae folk. The mist/fog = supernatural really is just pop culture because of "Fear the unknown"