I’ll be out of the picture for a bit due to the holidays coming up here soon, but before that, let’s have a look at some more new demons. :D The first three feature Geminimax’s sprites, the remaining four are using my versions. (As before, this is done to bring you the previews more quickly, since we don’t do the sprites in the same order.)

 Ibong Adarna: A legendary bird spoken of in stories from the Philippines. It possesses a wide variety of magical powers: humans often seek it out for its healing abilities, but it will defend itself with lullabies and even the ability to petrify those who pursue it.

 Succubus: Demons that take the form of beautiful mortal women in order to seduce and drain the life from humans. They possess some of the most powerful Charm magic known within the Tower, but that is far from the limit of the threat they pose Summoners in the Tower’s new floors.

 Wechuge: Tales from the Athabaskan of Canada speak of the this horror, a human possessed by one of the Great Animal Spirits. Humans become vulnerable to this sort of possession if they become obsessed with the pursuit of power. Once possessed, the victim does indeed gain great strength and even some control over Ice magic, but from that moment on they are mindless killers and consumers of men, always hungry for their next meal.

 Nuckelavee: A demon of Scotland, appearing as a horse with a humanoid chest, head, and (unusually) long arms in addition to its equine attributes. Such as appearance would already mark it an oddity, but in addition to this, it possesses no skin: its muscle and sinew are its outermost covering. It is said that the horse head can breathe some sort of miasma that is harmful to the living.

 Caladrius: Perhaps the most humble-looking of the Tower’s upper floor occupants, this Roman bird is noted for its ability to heal humans by taking on their ills and dispersing them elsewhere.

 Hecate: A three-headed sorceress-goddess of Greek legend. Her domains, besides magic, included protection, prosperity, biology, and the spirit realm. Her power was such that even other gods called upon her for aid in matters that fell under her purview. Dogs were sacred to her: they would howl to herald her coming, they were often sacrificed to her, and she had a dog as familiar as well.

 Kayna: An unusually pale mortal woman. She bears an enchanted (cursed?) axe that can absorb the power of demons it slays. It is probably easy to guess what her interest in the Tower is, and her presence on some of its highest floors suggests her axe has been eating well. In addition to the axe and its power, Kayna herself is possessed of remarkable speed, not seeming to be slowed in the least by the weapon’s weight.

As mentioned above, it will probably be a bit longer than normal until the next update due to the holidays, but not too much so. Happy Holidays, and if you choose to spend some of your time in the Tower, good luck!

Hey folks. Work on the next build is moving along, so I thought I’d give you a sneak peek at some of the new demons you’ll be running into soon on the Tower’s new highest floors. The first four of these are showing Geminimax’s version of the sprites, the second four are using mine. (We don’t do sprites in the same order, so splitting them this way lets me show you more total demons. )

 Throne: As previously announced, they’re finally almost here. Thrones are the seventh highest order of angels, and the first to have completely inhuman forms. They are said to be the very wheels of God’s chariot, and as such, have the appearance of winged, eyed rings of fire.

B.E.K.: Stands for “Black Eyed Kid”, these are the cryptid for the new floors of the tower, so you won’t encounter them often. They appear as scruffy pale children with solid black eyes. When they are encountered by humans, they ask to be invited into houses or cars. Nobody knows what horrible thing would happen if someone were to agree to this, for there are no reports from anyone foolish enough to do so…

Golem: A classic monster known to many; the secret of creating these powerful guardians is closely kept in certain religious texts. Don’t expect physical attacks to get you very far against these.

Dominion: Members of the sixth highest order of angels whose chief duty is to oversee the activities of the orders below them. Much of the danger presented by Thrones will likely come from the support they will receive from Dominions.

Blue Man: Not to be confused with a certain group of mortal bards, Blue Men are water demons that live in a very specific area of Scotland. They seem similar to merman at first blush, but in addition to some fish-like features, their bodies at times flow like water. When a boat passes through their territory, they challenge the captain to complete a poem they shout the first part of. If the captain fails this test, they use their ability to conjure and control storms to wreck the ship.

Lampad: A nymph of the underworld, most often found escorting the sorceress-goddess Hecate on her nightly walks. They light her path with their unusual torches.

Yithian: A race of beings whose normal interaction with humans is to possess their minds and bodies using an odd form of time travel. For reasons unknown, they appear in the flesh within the upper reaches of the Tower and behave aggressively towards Summoners. Is it possible they learned something about Relics in their “travels” that explains this behavior from a race more noted for curiosity than hostility?

Arberg: A Summoner chosen by the Horns of the Hunt. Somewhat counter to what that might lead you to expect, he aids his demon allies with healing and other support magic rather than fighting directly himself. He knows he is close to the Tower’s apex, and like Valindra before him, is trying to make sure nobody else follows behind him.

I dread having to do non-update updates, but that’s what this is. Without going into unnecessary or boring detail, November has been quite an “interesting” month for me. This has had an impact on development of the next build, which is why I am reporting it here. Things will hopefully get back on track soon. Thank you for your patience, and in the meantime, good luck in the Tower!

Designs for 13 new demons, 1 new summoner, and 1 new hero are complete. Not much to actually show yet because I’d rather save previews for when sprites are available, but did want to drop a progress update regardless.

A quick note on what’s next: The Tower will (finally) be expanding closer to its target of 30 floors. The next build will add the 24th-26th floors. It’s been waaaayyy too long since the last push to 30.

This won’t necessarily mean nothing new for summoners who aren’t reaching the top just yet: new demons means new abilities, and some of those new abilities often end up going on modifier lists, even for modifiers found much lower in the Tower than the new demons themselves.

I’ll also be fixing some bugs that popped up towards the end of the upgrade points build cycle.

Should have some sneak peeks of the new content later this month. Cheers!

Soon, you’ll be able to reshuffle your stats around with Alter Self, a new Relic Upgrade being added in the next build.

Note that even if you consider yourself the perfect planner who never makes mistakes or changes their mind about stat builds, Alter Self still has uses for you in that it can be used to re-distribute the 10 in everything you start with, as well as move around points granted by off-spec Essences. Alter Self is relatively cheap as upgrades go, costing only 5 Upgrade points. No Relics start with it, but you can pick it up pretty quickly at that price.

As the post title implies, you’ll be able to do this soon. I plan on releasing this build next Sunday the 28th! Not too much longer now. Cheers!

One important note reviewing this: the default stable size is now *3*. So Crown still has a stable size of 8 with it’s Capacity Up V upgrade.

The biggest change is of course to Fist: it’s now an Aux Guard/Power start. Appropriately, it gets no extra demon capacity since it won’t really need that if Aux Guard/Power are being used.

The other significant change is that a couple of other Relics with Upgrades that have become more expensive now only have a starting stable size of 5 instead of 6.