Twelve Sins of Herakles - Dev diary 03: Characters spotlight

Character Spotlight

The world was murdered, and the blame lies with Herakles. His wrath, rage and recklessness have left the lands wasted, nations sundered, laws broken and twelve monsters unleashed.

The death toll was unimaginable. The sins… unforgivable. And hereditary.

Having come of age, Herakles’s children set out to find their would-be Father. They will follow the bloody path he carved, from the sunbaked savannahs of Nemea, to the shattered spine of the Erymanthian mountains, to the blood-stained sands of the distant shores of Anatolia, to the ends of the earth if they have to.

They will get answers.

They will have justice.

Or, if neither is available, they will settle for revenge!

The next chapter of Aeon Trespass begins now! Complete new game. New open-world campaigns (plural!) with new regions to explore, and a new way to play. New heroes, new villains, a new approach to Voyage, new adventures and a new character progression system, new Titans and Primordials, new Gear, of course, so much new Gear, new crafting mechanics, ICP 3.0. New everything. The same richness of gameplay, story and worldbuilding, the same passion. Fully compatible with ATO. A new epic saga of Love and Revenge.

That’s the pitch.

And here’s how the new TSoH characters and Titans will work (spoilers, it’s nothing like the Argonauts of Odyssey!).

Diodora

Characters

In Aeon Trespass: Odyssey, you’ve played as the Argonauts, freshly awoken crewmembers of the Argo who could control Titans through the power of the Triskelion Junction and Balaneion. The Argonauts were blank slates, slowly regaining their memories, which was reflected by the Mnemos cards.

In Twelve Sins of Herakles, you play as the Herakleides, the scions of the mighty demigod Herakles! You play named characters, and you don’t need a puny Balaneion to control the Titans. You transform into Titans! These changes have a dramatic impact on everything, from the Battles themselves to the epic stories we’re telling.

Let me break it down.

Character Progression

Becoming a named character is huge. You will have your own personal storyline, much more expansive than a Mnemos, in which you will deal with your unique heritage, situation and relationship with your absent father. You will be torn between your pursuit of revenge and of helping those around you, between your humanity and the simmering primal rage, between your selfish goals and the good of your new Oikos (family).

I cannot stress enough how big a narrative difference this will make! And it’s not purely narrative either!

Gone will be the Mnemos cards – you know who you are – and in are the new Ability cards. You’ll start with 3, each with several levels, unlocked individually, but later you will gain more and will be able to create a custom ‘ability loadout’ each time you go to Battle. Some of these abilities will be similar to those found in ATO, others, completely new. Things like passives, weapon proficiencies and synergies will make the deep customization even deeper.

Transforming into Titans

The Titan is literally in your blood, and you can transform into it at will. This will play a role both during Battles and the Journey Phase – as you may travel incognito or cover more ground as a towering, attention-drawing behemoth!

Your basic Titanform is that of the Herakleides Titan Type-II. This beast is much more than a tamed, subdued Dreamwalker. It’s more powerful and versatile (especially with character Innate Abilities), but more wild, prone to rage and the wills of fate (here’s where the new Trauma, Kratos and Moiros decks will come in).

Herakleides Type-II Titans are fierce

Gaining Titanforms

You’ll start with the Herakleides Type-II Titanform, but, just like in ATO, you will soon gain more. In Odyssey, you gained new unique Titans from Technological Breakthroughs, exchanging Primordial Cores for a new Argo-bred Titan.

In Twelve Sins of Herakles, you will also expend Primordial Cores… in a much more gruesome manner. You see, for your character to gain a new form, they need to eat the Primordial Core. This opens up new story and mechanical possibilities.

It will also play a strategic role during a TSoH campaign: who gets to eat the new Core? Titans are not interchangeable, like in ATO, so a character is stuck with the forms they… acquired. Will one of you hoard the forms? Will you spread them out? Remember: your body can only take so many new forms before it breaks down – or you go insane.

Stormruler Titan... that's a long way down.

Dying

Much has been said about the way the division between Argonauts and Titans mitigates ‘true’ death in battle. After all, Argonauts are spared the worst and die seldomly, at least compared to Titans. The Herakleides have no Junction to hide behind. If they die in Battle, they die.

Thankfully, it takes much more than death to stop an heir of Herakles! Thanks to the Gaiapact, when a Herakleides dies… they don’t truly die. Instead, they are reborn from the womb of Gaia, the very earth itself.

It’s not all roses and rainbows though, the Gaiapact is not eternal. For it to remain in place, you need Gaiaseeds – the equivalent of Titans from ATO – and once your Oikos burns through them all, the next death will be very real and will spell doom for the whole campaign!

A death carries other grave penalties too: you will lose the Titanform you were donning right before the unfortunate incident, and you will also lose a part of your humanity – there is always a price.

Awakening

The Awakenings in TSOH are quite… well, that’s all the time we have today, as we’ve just crossed the 2000 words mark! For info on Awakenings and much, much more, you’ll have to wait ‘til the next Update.

So… yeah. May is going to be big. Like, titanic big.