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vikintor · 8 months ago

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Notes about my character design: confessions, how and why Githyanki influences my work, personal experiences, silly ideas, My games, and more I guess

If you don't follow me and just found this I have something to say first: Be welcome, hope this text doest sound pretentious, I'm Vikintor, I made some obscure games (Teocida, Tamashii and Estigma), they're available on Steam and consoles as well.

You might notice that my "original" character designs are being heavily influenced by the Githyanki these days, especially their "classic" designs from Fiend Folio to "Rise of the Githyanki" published in Polyhedron and "Knights of the lich-Queen" in Dungeon Magazine, and of course, mixed a little with what I call "modern" design (I also like how the Githzerai give me Jedi vibes, yes, Jedi from Star Wars). The less human it looks while maintaining some human proportions, the better. And that's why I love the old "classic" alienish designs the most.

Why D&D Gith's?

Confession time; I never really cared that much about Dungeons & Dragons before I discovered the Githyanki, and they're the only race in D&D that I actually care about, especially for the storytelling and roleplay possibilities based on their lore. As someone who favorite character designs ranges from D'vorah from Mortal Kombat, Undyne from Undertale, to Lilith from Diablo, liking the look of the classic Gith was easy for me, and boe they are rad.

Quick context on who they are (you can skip if you know them or don't care):

Githianky are a D&D race know as humanoid creatures (mostly gray, green and yellow skin toned) with a rigid militaristic background. Raised to serve their Lich-Queen and destined to die for her (and by her, but some don't know that part). They were slaves of an illithid empire in the past and after being led to freendom by Gith (A woman named Gith, there's no Gith races before her), their race was splited in two; The Githyanki believes they are the real children of Gith and the Githzerai believes the Githyanki still slaves, not from illithid but the queen. plus: Githianky live in cities build on the corpses of fallen deities (that's metal).

Most of the Githyanki are considered evil, as some go on raid campaigns to steal from another planes (they love precious stones and gold, and they can be seem as pirates, but instead of ships they ride red dragons thanks to a pact made with Tiamat). Their complexity creates a bunch of What-If scenarios that I'm interested in: like; did you know that religion is forbidden to the Githyanki (Only Lich-Queen Clerics are permitted), but many of them secretly worship other gods. And how crime and punishment works on their society (kinda don't works at all, so a lot of them are afraid to look for justice), and how Githyanki monks exists in their society but faces prejudice (Githaynki monks are often seem as Githzerai spies), And you have stories about the Gith rebels that believes the Githyanki and Githzerai can be unified as only "children of Gith", as the same time their leader is way too controvertial and self-centered, and how some of these rebels befriend humans (which is a taboo), or how their society hates every non-Githyanki but are polite and refined among their own kind, which is often confusing and complex as they are known for their aggressive propaganda among themselves and how they kill each other during their insane militaristic raising. They also often do parties, play and write songs and have fun, there's also half-Githyanki/half-dragons superwarriors created in a secret experiment led by the Lich-queen (those don't care about the Githyanki society and aren't friendly to them), and them you still have the Githzerai (neutral Gith monks that despise the Lich-Queen and have their own society and traditions) and the Githvy (rogue Gith's that aren't Githyanki or Githzeray, who often tries to live among other races).

Ahh?

Of course I don't know everything about them and maybe there is some misinterpretation on my part, some of the content was created over the years and unfortunately most of it was never published or translated into my idiom, so I have to translate it myself, but I'm not writing this to convince people to like them as much as I do. I'm sharing this to bring out what and how it inspired me.

So, what this have to do with me?

As someone who likes weird ambiguous characters and enjoys fantasizing with what-if scenarios; discovering that lore on D&D made me realize how much prejudice I had with D&D. If you say to me "This rpg race is totally evil or totally good" I can only answer: "Impossible. Individual characters are more complex than that, I want to explore the exceptions". If all are evil, I want some trying to discover what means to be good, and want some to fail miserable, and want some to learn something from that experience, if they're all serious, I want some to be silly and weird.

I'm far from a real writer (whatever that means), but I like fantasizing about atypical situations and writing about them, which is why I wrote neutral demon-like creatures for Tamashii and Teocida in the first place, even when I still lacked more maturity for that. I'm also interested in these exceptions in rpg lore and improving those aspects as I write about them, which is why D&D Githyanki inspired my current design.

But how it inspired me:

Just like many fantasy stories were created during sessions of tabletop RPG campaigns, I became interested in Gith-exclusive games thanks to discovering content like Fiend Folio and "Rise of the Githyanki" and "Knights of the Lich-Queen" (both Gith centred games focused on Gith players, with few exceptions), which is why I became way more obsessed with them. And damm, a videogame like BG3 having Githianky as a playable race is everything I hoped for (I'm not interested in BG4 if there's not a single playable Gith race. I just want to keep creating weird Gith girl characters and make them break things and form a band named Githgang), but I'm not here to talk about BG3, sorry.

So Gith's was my first inspiration to write my own RPG races with their own language, traditions, dogma, taboos, and designs. I think about how something like this could happen in the universe I've been working on since Tamashii. But I'm not going for something complex, but rather thinking about characters that I would create for my Gith campaigns could be another type of character if I create them in another position, another world with different laws, instead of just roleplaying as Githanky forever.

As I can't write Githyanki characters without it being some sort of fanfic (my fault for not going for something more common like wizards, orcs and gnomes), I still at least being inspired by them.

After reading a bunch to roleplay as Gith characters or just to fantasize about it, their personalities, and how they react to the world still something that is organically created while I'm assuming that character and playing around, this doesn't need to be bound to a specific lore. I'm being redundant at this point, but you get the idea, that's how the brazilian character Ozob was created in the 90's (He was a character created during a Cyberpunk tabletop RPG session, and then became an original character with books and merchandize in Brazil until CD Projekt Red got the rights to put him in the Cyberpunk 2077 for real)

Therefore, I can say that part of what may come in the future is the result of my experiences and inspirations with D&D mixed with all my other inspirations, such as H.R Giger, biomechanical horror, Screaming Mad George's style body horror, esoteric/exoteric references, industrial music and atmospheric, creepypasta, etc. It might be weird, or not, maybe a little silly or edgy as always, but I don't know what to do besides accepting the results, keep moving forward, and have fun in the process.

The first character as an Avatar:

"Astral of Latanael" still a working name for the first character I made inspired by Gith. The draft for her is: She is a Mhold'eze, a zombie-like servant bonded to her preceptor, a necromancer who serves as her mentor. Mhold'ezes inherit part of their master's powers and are often used as an extension of their master's will where they cannot be present, always receiving an important task, or mission as soon as they are born (like Feucirl and Pleroma of Teocida, except that Pleroma is not a necromancer). This is the first draft of the original character that I'm using as an avatar, but I do plan to work more on this silly lady and Latanael (her Necromancer) to include them in my game, or games, or more than that. It depends of what I decided.

Ok, just a quick look on how Astral looks right now, before I made more changes.

Congrats if you read until here, I'm surprised if you really read more than 1500 words of some weird dude talking about why silly D&D "pirates" inspired him to keep creating more silly weird angry girl characters.

#gamedev #indiegame #indiedev #video games #gamemaker #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #dungeons and dragons #lowpoly #3d #game design #character design #original character #oc #oc art #githzerai #githyanki

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thegoldendoorknob · 2 years ago

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Let me just drop my opinion on every monster hunter monster I’ve fought so far here now that it’s 12am oops

Apceros/Aptonoth- Underrated as far as herbivore fodder goes, they'll almost guarantee you one raw meat when you carve them, and really that's the only reason you would attack them.

Bullfango/Bulldrome/Kestodon/Rhenopolos- Charging monsters... I only like them better when they attack monsters too. Otherwise they have that nitpick I have with predators and prey ganging up on you for no reason.

Cephalos/Cephadrome- First sandshark, I'd accept them, but Genprey do the same stun-bite and are a lot less annoying about it

Feyline- I love them in every game but 3. I have no idea what is their DAMAGE in 3...

Genprey/Gendrome- Speaking of, an ok prey

Hornetaur- My experience stems from them biting my ankles in bonepiles, I don't appreciate their 'tude

Ioprey/Iodrome- Second-most boring prey

Kelbi/Anteka- Horns horns horns. It would be cool if a proper monster of some kind used those hard to track jumpswaitaminute

Melynx- Cute cats that are pretty dodgeable unless you're mid-fight

Mosswine- I like this guy- I think he's based off a yokai or something

Velociprey/Velocidrome- THE bird wyvern. Deceptively hard with their crowding- which puts them at the top for me.

Vespoid- Stun, stun, stun...

Basarios- What a cool guy on paper, has probably fathered more monster rigs than you think. I only like fighting him with hammer tho.

Diablos- Our favorite herbivore! I like the high damage to enforce dodging their slow and telegraphed moves

Gravios- Papa Basarios, I like him less though. Them and basarios have weird... flesh feet...

Gypceros/Yian Kut-Ku- I hate them both, but Gypceros narrowly wins because it's flash bang is an extra layer

Khezu- Low-Rank flesh BULLY.

Plesioth- I'm suffering stockholm syndrome for the meme, but there is no denying just how much their hipcheck makes them stand out alone, only fighting a more fair Deviljho hipcheck for dominance. Also, the only proper fish-wyvern for a while...

Rathalos- Flagship darling. Earlier games look like hell, though I appreciate his tail always dragging on the ground no matter what iteration you're fighting.

Rathian- The fairer Rathalos. Rise seems to have put more of her moveset into grounded Rathalos, which makes sense, though I wish she had more oomph outside of variants

Original Fatalis (Generations)- GU is the only game I barely fought them in. Outside of it's lore, the fight didn't seem much to write home about. Their variants on the other hand...

Kirin- Pony bastard. Despite everyone's claims, it seems like it always had a learnable method to it's madness like any other monster. I'm willing to wager the majority of it's grief stems from the small pool of electric monsters players have to worry about in the lategames

Lao-Shan Lung (GU)- Precious mountain baby. One of the first sieges, and first DPS races. I would probably have hated him if it wasn't for the fact his Generations bombtrack is pretty fun

Azure Rathalos- Did you ever want Rathalos to fly in the air more? Of course you do.

Silver Rathalos/Gold Rathian- Heavily dependant on game. I feel like I had the most fun running IG against their world variants, though

Black Diablos (World)- MHW:IB Diablos is crazy ok. I'm fine with it just constantly comboing into burrowing, because it encourages rare item usage in 5th Gen. It's dangerous sand waterfall trick in LR is something I actually WANT it to do in MR, because it'll stop it's combo

Blango/Blangonga- My friends are so tired of hearing me bring them up, but they are straight up the 'easy rajang' the series can use to replace him

Ceanataur/Shogun- Not fun to fight. His deviant, though...

Conga/Congalala- Hell YES. Only good monke, we need more fartmonkey. His apex was unexpectedly tough

Giaprey/Giadrome- The worst drome. I just... they have nothing.

Hermitaur/Damiyo- Now this fight is fun- It's a more engaging hard-shell basarios style fight with clear openings

Popo- Hey Tigrex...

Remobra- I hate them, but do I hate them more than rhenopolos? It's a hard tiebreaker.

Rajang/Furious- MH's favorite monkey. A fight that's tricky to learn, but a consistent rhythm when you understand it, similar to Deviljho. World is definitely one of the hardest variations, but I also think it raised new hunter's expectations of future Rajang a little too much.

Chameleos- Cool little guy. Shame about the item theft

Kushala Daora- Out of the Elder Trio, I like Kushala the most. Would I like fighting it before the IG? Eeeh, probably not.

Lunastra (World)- Pretty novas and flame effects, but an annoyance to deal with in-game. Her wingbeat fire attacks are neat, but World beat that as far as the special effects department goes

Teostra- A more involved Lunastra, but prior to Gen 5 he was a lava-camping asshole. I like his little blast-clicks.

Akantor/Ukanlos (Gen)- He's a uh, big guy alright. I'm kind of surprised at how basic his fight is- though I feel as though Tetsucabra and Zamtrios probably stole some of his stuff in hindsight

Tigrex- I just can't understand this fight, I know I won't either. I've at least figured out how to make them charge less, and how to tell if they're breaking out the crazy charges

Lavasioth- Cool fish, lava camper >:(

Nargacuga- This wyvern on the other hand- I got used to them, kind of. Phases are clear, and once you understand their openings and how they combo, the fights gradually get more smooth.

Yian Garuga- The only dangerous bird wyvern. I'd respect it's crown, but fuck em. I never liked that shoebill skeleton

Baggi/Great- My boy!!! A pretty blue, a pretty pompadour, and they aren't shy of putting you to sleep.

Giggi- Does a good job at scaring 3U first-timers

Jaggi/Jaggia/Great- I'm not impressed by base jaggi, but Jaggia and Great are pretty safe and easy to learn. I appreciate it when a Jaggi helps me carve faster, but the Jaggia can be little nuiscances

Ludroth/Royal- Water Jaggia. Royal's ok in his water fight, cool glowing eyes. Gets demoted to easier shoebill status past 3 :(

Uroktor/Agnaktor- I misname Agnaktor for Akantor all the time, god help us all. Another lava camper, so... (The hints of Najarala burrowing are here, though...)

Barioth- Apparently famously replaced Nargacuga. I like him less, because his tail swipe extends far enough to catch plesioth's hip-check

Barroth- First brute wyvern!!!! I like his lore more than I like his fight.

Deviljho (Gen)- Classic pickle. There's so much more involved with his gen fight, it unfortunately blows his World fight out of the water. Despite that, I still love new interpretations of the pickle fight

Gigginox- Now here's a gross wyvern fight. Drops babies down to join the fight and better mess with you, and has counters that don't narrow down to 'fuck you, lightning'

Gobul- For the original Nibelsnarf, his fight wasn't too involved.

Lagiacrus (3)- It's fight was so much more involved in the water! It has enough switchups that it doesn't become boring, unlike its land iteration.

Qurupeco- It's gimmick is okay, but if you strip the top layer of a 2-on-1 fight off, Qurupeco is kind of boring

Uragaan- No, I don't like this crimson chin. Will lava-camp on a dime

Alatreon (GU)- I ended up fighting them because I heard all the drama about their World variant. It wasn't really a fair fight; I came into the HR with MR armor, but it was fun to see all the moves they converted later in their original form.

Alatreon (World)- Speaking of drama... If I was playing World as it updated, I would probably have hated them as much as the rest of the fandom does. However, I bought World a solid year after it's updates ended, and I knew about his fight in the distant lategame. I had the advantage of quietly preparing a gearset for them, and ultimately found them pretty fun if not stressful on that DPS race after the hornbreaks. Conceptually its pretty interesting too, you can see every elemental elder dragon that bled into Alatreon's moveset, from Velkhana's ice beam to Kirin's thunder grids, it's all there to play I-Spy with. They had a good idea- the playerbase largely never cared for elemental damage over that affinity meta I'm so tired of, but in practice it was pretty horrible. Despite this- I still wish for a bigger elemental-focused meta in the future, or at least something to combat the hyperoffensive affinity/damage builds copypasted across every weapon.

Ceadeus- A slow, Lao-shen'y dps water fight. Such a cool whale monster, though it seems everyone agrees that they shine the most once you reach the sunken city in Area 3

Wroggi/Great- Tied for my favorite bird wyvern, just an angry little tree-frog with a good armorset

Arzuros/Lagombi- Mmm, Conga did it better. I do like the bear's silly honey steal, though

Duramboros- HHHhhhhhhhhhh Banbaro did better than you

Nibelsnarf- More interesting than Gobul, tbh. You're more likely to fish them up on a stun without retries, and the barrels are also easier to place against them. Miserable without items

Volvidon- Lagombi but it doesn't put you to sleep. Being annoying is at least engaging

Zinogre/Stygian- The fight I always feel like I'm on top of until I actually fight them. It's not that I never learned their timing, or have low element resist. I just feel like I end up making more mistakes than advantages whenever I fight them.

Amatsu (GU)- Absolute bonkers fight once they enrage. There's a lot of wiggling around before that, though..

Brachydios- No

Ivory Lagiacrus- The landstranded Lagi, without the water, it's moveset is unfortunately pretty basic....

Lucent Nargacuga (R)- I feel like it's 3U fight should be more engaging- once you figure out to watch it's eyes in Rise, you notice it's pretty close to a basic Narga fight until the tail gets powered-up

Savage Deviljho (World)- The dragonblight pool attack is really cool!!! He just doesn't feel like Jho without his deadly pins is all

Kecha Wacha- So begins the interesting starting bosses in 4U. There's a lot here that got used in Bishaten later, but I feel like Kecha wins out once he moves to the vines. Goes double the speed if you let them swing circles around you

Najarala- Snake! A cool gimmick with the sonic scales, good armor, and just a really neat skeleton never to be used again. I guess my only gripe is getting your footing back if they bump into you with that coiling trap

Nerscylla- Honestly, arguably one of my favorite monsters. She's so fast, always keeps to areas where she can speed around on the webbing, and you have the added bonus of trying to cut the webshots to knock her off-balance. All of that combined with those giant punishing mandibles of hers whenever she gets a KO on you makes her a really fun fight

Seltas- The first boss of 4U. I find him more interesting than his queen, but I'll admit his attacks are pretty basic vespoid-level attacks if he's not clawing at you

Seltas Queen- I would like them more if they just didn't look like... that? I like the tail, I like that she parties up with Seltas (and even kills them if she's low on health). But I don't like anything else about her design-wise, and her fight isn't much more interesting. If I wanted to get charged at with little thought, I'd rather fight Tigrex

Tetsucabra- Tetsu is.... okay. I have armor grinding fatigue, but their new attacks are appreciated. Their MR fight sucks though, I'm tired of charge-spamming monsters

Zamtrios- Swiss-army knife shark. There's a little too much to keep up with in their fight, but I'd rather fight them than Tetsu

Gore Magala/Chaotic- Hot damn. This baby can fit so much Frenzy and lore in them. A fight that forces you to plan carefully, but fight efficiently. Is heavily punishing of small mistakes in 4U- deals a little too much damage in rage than I'm comfortable with, but overall just a pretty solid fight (Ignoring those wing hitzones in LR...)

Shagaru Magala (GU)- I felt like they were impossible when I first fought them. A true formed Magala that really puts your focus to the test. Its hind legs are its only safespot, but that won't stop it from slamming you whenever you get too comfortable. Those + shaped blasts are still an attack I mention in other hunts

Raging Brachydios (World)- A flashy fight, but that's all Brachydios ever got going for them. I already didn't like brachydios, raging just gives you more things to rage about

Seregios- Love them! Its falcon-style talon and sweeping attacks are fun to hunt around, and it's speed is something Rise was in dire need of down the road. Now if I could just fight them outside of the desert, lol

Maccao- Another interesting take on the bird wyvern fight. I like its crazy kick-charges, though the attacks outside of those I'm not too enthusiastic about

Moofah- : )

Astalos/Boltreaver- A cool Fated 4 member! Of the four I unfortunately like Astalos the least (and I'm disappointed in his Rise fight being more like his HR than his MR fight...), but it remains a valuable member of its team. More interesting takes on bugs like this, please

Gammoth/Elderfrost- A simple fight initially, I like her MR fight more for having options where her safezones used to be. I don't think there's any way you could get closer to the hunts of prehistory than the Mammoth itself

Glavenus/Hellblade- There's no avoiding my bias for my favorite all-time monster next to Bazelgeuse. There's almost no real-world connections to really be found in this dinosaur, but I think that contributes to why I like them so much. It's just interesting to me how they balance out its breath attacks with that sharp tail, even having the ai pull feints based on your positioning with some attacks. Learning the safespots on those tail swings is one of the more cooler things to pick up

Mizutsune/Soulseer- A surprisingly fast fight, I appreciate Mizu's weasel war dances, lol. Like Nargacuga in that its fight is tricky to learn, but once you pick it up, you can come up with an answer to everything. Soulseer might be easier, but that parry mechanic is just very interesting, and a fun spin on the actual fighting moves rather than reskinning its element

Malfestio- Arguably the most interesting bird wyvern, though I'm willing to bet it's stolen from Hypnocatrice's kit. I like its little head turn around as a creative way to pounce you. I think it's only real failing is the jester aesthetic kind of getting in the way of a proper owl fight

Silverwind Nargacuga- A pretty interesting deviant, I just hate its guts lol

Rustrazor Ceanataur- I don't like Shogun, but this guy's ok. Mostly because he sharpens with Glavenus's skull and borrows their attacks, lol

Nakarkos- Bone octopus!! I wasn't impressed by their fight initially, but I really warmed up to it once I started fighting their MR version with the giant lasers and more interesting skeleton head trickery

Ahtal Ka- I love this bug. They combined the body of a praying mantis with the silkweaving of a caterpillar to make a fun mech fight where for once, the bug towers over you. All of this complete with a pretty gold carapace, and a lotus themed weakspot all culminating into the symbolism of the wheel on her back at the end is all very cool.

Valstrax (GU)- Holy Shit It's Mega-Latias. Jokes aside, I love how fast he is in generations. Like Narga and Mizu, it's all a matter of learning how to maneuver around that speed, and where all his tells and openings are at. Once you master his fight, the win feels all the better at the end

CG Valstrax/Risen (Rise)- Wirebugs? No problem. Valstrax wasn't the hero Rise asked for, but he was the hero they deserved. To bring back a monster not only faster than you in GU, but continue to remain faster than you in Rise, the fastest monster hunter game to date? Is really, really impressive to me. I mostly like all of the changes made to his bullet phases- they may be dodgeable, but Valstrax will use those evade openings to change to jet, charge, zoom around and generally outmaneuver you for slipping up. And unlike GU, you can't cheese the ambush with an area change, you HAVE to master the dive if you want to survive it solo. A dive that becomes reasonably harder to time when Valstrax continues to shoot at you from the sky in Risen form. He's just a very fun and solid elder fight, easily one of my favorites

Gajalaka- Would you believe me if I said these cats were at least more consistant than the felynes in 3? As long as you put yourself between the Gajas and the monster, they usually won't come up as a problem

Girros/Great- An interesting snake-lizard boss, though World can't fool me. There's a Royal Ludroth in there, and just like old RL, he's pretty easy to juke

Jagras/Great- I love their gluttony gimmicks. I think being a little more like Zamtrios could've made them more interesting. Maybe even incorporate some Congalala in there, where the food he eats determine statuses behind his bites.

Anjanath/Fulgur- A good rex! I like the cooling fins they have for when they get too hot, that little sit that they do when resting in Rise, and that fur covering their top half to make them more interesting than the average dinosaur

Bazelgeuse/Seething (World)- The best monster, I'm sorry I don't make the rules. As a fun fact- the exploding scales work like hardened sweat, so it's like just shedding is dangerous. Another weirdly improbable but loveable monster, I think one of my favorite aspects of its fight is just how much Seething throws its weight around to tackle you

Dodogama- A friend : ) a more interesting Jagras, as it stands currently

Jyuratodus- They made Lavasioth boring. How could you make Lavasioth more boring??? At least it's similar to a lungfish, I guess.

Kulu-Ya-Ku- Bird Up is the best Kulu. Whether it be eggs, pots, flintstone, FFXIV crystals, this guy's got it covered. My only wish is for Kulu to be more of a coward in later titles. It's an egg thief, it already has no honor

Legiana/Shrieking- A stylish, iceborne Rathalos (and maybe even a hint of Seregios). The regular fight is superior in my book, Shrieking flies a little too much and loves to roleplay Qurupeco in its spare time.

Odogaron/Ebony- The first of the garons, I love them. A dedicated corpse-eater that sacrificed any fur or scales for that tough meaty hide, I think they mesh quite perfectly in the veil. I just love how much they do those curving attacks, they're fun to dodge and punish

Paolumu/Nightshade- Ugly little bald wrinkly heads. Unfortunately Pukei and even their father Khezu wins me over more. Nightshade blowing the sleeping gas around is kind of neat, though. I don't think we see much of that outside of attacks like Rise Chameleos..

Pukei-Pukei/Coral- Speaking of, the more interesting not!khezu fight. I'm glad Pukei gets buffs based on the food he eats, though Coral wins me out on its moves in general.

Radobaan- Damn, they made Uragaan actually fun, and all they had to do was make him more fragile to partbreaks. I love how he's got a diablos skull on his back

Tzitzi-Ya-Ku- Diet gypceros but boring :(

Tobi-Kadachi/Viper- I actually don't like Tobi all that much compared to Odogaron. I guess it's just the stunspam

Vaal Hazak/Blackveil- Chefs kiss just a really cool elder dragon ok. Not only is it made with clear parts taken from girros, not only does it seem to have clear relations to kushala when you break it's hide revealing the metallic skin underneath, but it can also grow a living spore colony off its hide as well. A cool elder dragon, with a slightly annoying personal status effect packed with it

Nergigante/Ruiner- Porcupine boy. I think I would like his design more if it wasn't so weirdly abdominal-heavy? I have trouble imagining how this guy walks around normally... Anyways, I like the pressure Nergi makes to break his spikes before the divebomb, it's a nice tease to the focus on the later dps-races

Zorah Magdaros- Cool snapping turtle mountain, I think it's a suitable comparison to Lao Shen in the tempered fights. It's just unfortunate the only two required fights are so story-heavy that everyone assumes you'll be spending 3 hours sitting around, when their tempered fights actually cut it pretty close even for MR gear

Xeno'jiiva- The new elders in world are just winners, as far as I'm concerned. But while Xeno looks really cool with the translucent skin and the laser beams, the kit is basically Safi's but less. Still, it's a fun fight to finish the vanillagame on before they grow up

Kulve Taroth- Who gave royal ludroth that nice coat? Joking aside, I like any phase of Kulve that isn't the first one where you have to break her shell off. The shell phase is just painful spam of that tail attack if you don't stunlock her, but afterwards she gets fun when she goes faster with the rapidfire gold attacks and novas

Beotodus- Onto iceborne, Beotodus is easily my favorite of that piscine trio. No lava camping, no boring muck, just this snow shark trying to sneak bites at you.

Banbaro- Finally, the better duramboros. What it lacks in natural aesthetic, it makes up for it by throwing an entire forest at you. My only contention is he stole Bazelgeuse's job >:(

Frostfang Barioth- Well... its more interesting than regular barioth. Definitely not by design, but I think the whole freezing your feet into the ground stuff should be considered for the future of the ice status effect. Slowness makes a lot more sense than the same stamina debuff as water

Namielle- Has one busted up face. I love its whiskers, though. I like how it manipulates both water and electric damage in its attacks, and has clear indicators when its charged up and when its uncharged over the course of the fight.

Velkhana- Ice armor also has it's own clear indicators over the fight. Unlike Namielle though, I never want to face Velkhana with anything less than an insect glaive ever again. Pretty dragon, but there's no denying exactly how much they had to steal from kushala for that skeleton. Those slippery ice pools were the most bearable part of that fight with hammer, which only makes me all the more salty they didn't transfer that to Rise

Shara Ishvalda- Just a cool fucked up big dragon. I bet that eye trick is done through layering Shara's eyes and adding a lighting effect to make it work like the seeing-eye portraits in haunted houses, giving the illusion of always following you. The fight certainly gets a bit tight in the latter half, where Shara's usually stolen half of the arena from you at that point. ...They still seem so weirdly inkwash-y that I want to believe someone on the FF team designed them.

Safi-jiiva- Big Xeno! Not a very flashy fight, but seems fun to gun through with friends. Sapphire of The Emperor is still my favorite nova in iceborne visually. I've only done their training battle, so my opinion is probably subject to change if they get too annoying

Fatalis (World)- Speaking of fights I haven't done, I'm looking through the window at this fight like a starving victorian child

Izuchi/Great- My first MH, though the sad thing is you can only fight Rise monsters for the first time, once. Great Izuchi was one of those bird wyvern fights that stood out to me, and then immediately god outclassed after I got used to the game

Rachnoid- Lamaar! Don't go nibbling those heads!

Aknosom- Secretely a Kut-ku fight, but also a kut-ku fight handled in a fun manner compared to..... the usual..

Almudron- Pass. The mudball is the only cool thing going for him

Bishaten/Orange- Alright tengu-monkey, has some of Kecha's attacks in there, but it does a fine job mixing it up with those fruit and pinecone throws

Goss Harag- Arguably, the best regular rise boss. Goss is here to show people how to do the bear fight right, and they do it by fighting like a proper ogre rather than a bear. They play consistently, and they provide enough of a challenge with the damage Goss can deal with the dual ice-blades. It's just a shame they never saw a variant...

Tetranadon- A zamtrios-type that never lost its way. While zamtrios gets mixed up between 3 forms with no real identity, Tetranadon takes the clear sumo route with its inflated attacks, making a more interesting fight overall than the ice shark. Once again, it's a shame it never got a variant

Somnacanth/Aurora- I'm not fully sure how to judge the Somna fights. It swims around a decent amount, not too much to be annoying, and jumps between different flashing and explosive shells when the time calls for it. I think it mostly suffers because they decided to put mizu in the same game, and hunting mizu is a lot more technical than hunting Somna. I do think Aurora was a step in the right direction- they fight more aggressively than regular Somna and spend less time swimming around unless going for physical blows

Rakna-Kadaki/Pyre- Nerscylla's crazy sister! While Rakna is much slower than her 4U counterpart, she weirdly makes good practice for the smaller spider. Her web-launches are much slower, but more powerful, which better encourages players to cut the line when the opportunity shows itself. The bonus fire damage when webbed was a good idea, but unfortunately you'll end up escaping before Rakna goes for the fire combo more than half the time. Pyre, thankfully, skips the middleman and just blows you up in a matter of seconds before you get time to react to some of her attacks. I like their joint efforts with the baby rachnoids- it's the first time we've seen that kind of team-up in a while

Magnamalo/Scorned- Good shit. A flagship that's not too hard, but feels too fast on a first playthrough unless you really wrapped your mind around the wirebug speed. Cool samurai tiger, cool halberd tail, when am I going to see him and Glavenus turf war, huh?

Ibushi- An elder best left to the Rampage where it felt his fight belonged. Fighting him outside of it just feels weird, since his best attacks are all integrated into Allmother Narwa anyways, he feels a bit redundant outside of his comfort zone. I remember the rampage being tight at the time- Ibushi actually won a couple of rounds while I was trying to farm his gear in my alt file.

Narwa- Still not at the real fight, Narwa's vanilla fight before the update was... okay. I wasn't really impressed by it- I actually found it too easy at the time, because all of her attacks were pretty slow and easy to react to. It's only after the update that I felt she could live up to the final boss title

Narwa The Allmother- Now we're cooking with gas. Allmother drags you into an arena where you no longer have to shift your focus on siege weaponry until she novas, so the most of the fight is just between you and her, and she thankfully has more catered attacks to this situation. Now, we have a monster that is more dangerous to engage in the air, which is a title only shared by Valstrax in Rise. All of her attacks have more oomph, and she's not shy of breaking those big attacks up with bites to reposition herself either. ...Now if only she didn't steal Ahtal Ka's dragonators p:

Espinas/Flaming- Cactus dragon is here. Ridiculously hard on the first impression, then later fights mellow out as you learn more about them. I think it's a shame that Flaming ended up easier than basic Espinas, though the regular version doesn't usually capitalize on the stun window anyways, so he's alright outside of his initial spawn

Garangolm- New monkey discovered! Strangely, I think most of it's attacks seem pretty unique to it, I'm kind of hard-pressed to find other monsters to compare it to. Despite that, Garangolm ended up kind of.... boring. Oops. I like how it just blasts around on its hands, but unfortunately there's a monster at the end of Sunbreak that just does the same thing, but better.

Lunagaron- The second puppy! I still love Ebony Odogaron's fight the most, though Lunagaron has an interesting transformation gimmick I like. I just wish that its 'werewolf' farm hit harder than a wet towel outside of the lunge attack

Malzeno- Castlevania itself is here. And.. with a good chunk of Velkhana's kit. Oops. Well, despite all the tail attacks, his ground blasts are pretty interesting, his grab is just a pretty fun attack, and I like how Malzeno zooms around the arenas once he's enraged. I don't think it would've been bad if they just ported the Malzeno from the demo, but alas he was only kind of hard compared to the elders following him.

Magma Almudron- Special shout outs for being the better monster compared to basic Almudron, and probably one of the few fun lava monster fights. Its just much more aggressive, spends much less time clowning around, and its lava attacks are just more dangerous and interesting than its old kit

Gaismagorm- Ok but- did we have to have 3 goblin shark-mouthed elder bosses in Rise??? I actually understand Gais, but if they were committing to that, I felt like they should have just given Narwa and Ibushi normal snouts instead. Anyways- Gaismagorm is that much more interesting take on Garangolm's charges I mentioned, except Gais is the size of the entire battlefield. So, when he charges you're pretty liable to get chipped. The final boss of Sunbreak really kicks in once the gems are off and he lights up. Attacks get much harder to dodge, they summon meteors, sun turrets, all of this cool stuff to stop you. Gaismagorm might have not been a difficult final boss, but he definitely earned the respect a final boss elder dragon deserves in this series

The Risen Elders- Eeeeh? To be honest- the battles don't stand out as much to me as Valstrax's did. I'm at a loss on what attacks were clearly unique and endangered me, so... that's not good for post-100 variants

#//long post

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